Manhattan - General Discussion

[ganesh]

More interesting than last week. I figured we'd eventually get to the point where Charlie and Frank were working together.

 

Will those two collaborate to come up with a new idea? Or will they help each other make their respective projects work?

 

Charlie knows the Thin Man won't work. There's only one way you're going to make a plutonium bomb, and that's with implosion. They did a good job explaining too. 

 

Apparently he thinks Frank hates him for all the right reasons lol.

 

Frank isn't doubtful of Charlie's abilities. He thinks it's bush league to plagarize. So, yes. 

 

I don't see Frank as religious either. 

 

I'd rather watch an episode like this than last week. We know how it ends essentially, so I want to see that unfold. 

[Primetimer]

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[Izeinwinter]

The thing is that Frank is being a moron about *everything*. Including the working hours. Is the project going to run to completion in the next four weeks? No? Then death-marches don't work. No amount of motivation is going to to overcome the toll of over-work, and you will get less done than the guy keeping bankers hours. He just flat out isn't suited to lead. Well, anything. 

[Izeinwinter]

Erhh.. The show was dropping hints on that front from the start. Very intense reactions to seeing her neighbour in deshabile, her repsonse to Franks high-as-a-kite daughter calling her a goddess, It would be a better story if the affair was with Helen, and it wouldn't have been hard to set up, either. Just have her actually meet her while nosying around. - The neighbor isn't really tied into any of the other plots, but Helen ? Helen is a true potential rival, to Charlie as a scientist, and in his wife's affections, because she's got a claim to having even more brains than he does, and is far more socially adept. 

[Emily Thrace]

I think the chip on Frank's shoulder is due to professional setbacks and slights, not religion. After all, he's on the Los Alamos B team (if it's even that), getting little respect and no support.

 

I think Frank is probably an atheist.

I think there a bit of a chicken and the egg thing with the chip on Frank's shoulder. Frank's been on the professional outside well before he moved ot New Mexico, and I think and his general attitude is a big part of that. I feel like Charlie, Frank comes from a lower class background and felt left out in the Ivy league. I think the chip is the result of Frank letting his insecurities about his background define him and keep him an outsider throughout his career.

 

Frank is probably an atheist now but I suspect he may be a lapsed Catholic.He also probably has a token religous observance since in that time even among physicists being atheist = communist. He's  also invoked the saints more than once and he made a crack about Aikley's "Protestant work ethic" that doesn't make sense if he was also protestant. Plus his "confessions" to the maid came across rather Catholic at least to me.

[Crewman Number 6]

Radioactive babies!  And, it turns out, shrooms do not enhance one's talent in physics.  Another late-in-life dream banished.

 

Also, way to be a stand-up husband, Charlie.  

[Floriane001]

All right, so why are the babies radioactive? Isn't the presence of uranium on the site very recent? (Btw, I LOVE this show.)

[dubbel zout]

Also, way to be a stand-up husband, Charlie.

Wasn't he an asshole about that? Even if he had no intention of saying anything, he could have told Abby he would.

 

I'm completely bored with Abby's Sapphic adventures. In some ways, I wish the family lives of the scientists were ignored completely. Liza is the only wife I find interesting.

 

Do we think Paloma was set up to seduce Frank, or did the security guys learn of the affair and decide to leverage her?

 

I don't understand why Helen had to take another lie-detector test in order to work in Charlie's group. It's not as if she's suddenly learning that she's working on an atomic bomb. Or is it just the general atmosphere of paranoia?

[Kory]

I'm not sure if Abby's girlfriend is a red herring to be a spy, the way she only speaks of lying/secrets, how everyone keeps mentioning that she's french and not american etc, it is too obvious surely.

 

That said I don't know why anyone would target the wife of a scientist when she should keep her head down (assuming the real target would be Elodie's husband) or risk losing her phone job/worse. But the show needs a way to not lose Abby (for Charlie's homelife), and a breakdown in marriage or her getting imprisoned would make that much harder.

[MyLisa]

With the back to back to back airings, I still often miss the start of the show and feel like I've missed plot points--what was the significance of the letter the other team leader burned?  Also, can I just say -- Peter Stormare!

[dubbel zout]

The letter was addressed to Oppenheimer, but I don't remember seeing Akley write the letter in the first place.

[Rhetorica]

The letter was addressed to Oppenheimer, but I don't remember seeing Akley write the letter in the first place.

Thank you, that was a question of mine too, what was the letter to Oppenheimer about that he burned? Also, how did that match work that Charlie's boss used? That intrigued me. I'm tired of some of the private stories. Just move the main storyline along. Please...

[MyLisa]

 

The letter was addressed to Oppenheimer, but I don't remember seeing Akley write the letter in the first place.

 

Yes, thanks.  My rudimentary Spanish can get me by during the subtitled scenes but my tired, middle-aged eyes can't read the screen when I'm watching from bed...

[jelley]

I wondered if the letter was from Charlie to Oppenheimer, letting him know the plan.  It could have been his third demand.  But then I remembered that his third demand was for Helen to be his Number Two.

 

So, basically, I don't actually know who it was from either.  But I'm still thinking Charlie.

[OnceSane]

 

The Hill receives an unexpected visitor.

 

[MyLisa]

So I followed up on a hunch and rewatched episode 7.  The envelope the black scientist passed to Helen was addressed to Frank so it's not the same one Akley burned.  But they were both addressed by the same person--very distinctive handwriting.  Interesting...

[dubbel zout]

Or just a lazy props department.

[shapeshifter]

And, it turns out, shrooms do not enhance one's talent in physics. Another late-in-life dream banished.

I'm disappointed that at least the initial 'shrooms epiphany (what was it? some sort of rates?) wasn't helpful. Not surprised; just disappointed. Forty years ago I did mushrooms once. I painted one of the few paintings I've sold, and ever since have used shades of purple in the shadows.

...Also, way to be a stand-up husband, Charlie.

When I was a young woman I would have resented (and did resent) men who would not defend my honor. Recently my daughter complained about a similar incident in a bar; she wound up dumping the boyfriend who didn't want to confront the drunken sleaze balls who were bugging her. But I now see things as Charlie did. Pick your battles. And when people hang out with drunks, they shouldn't be surprised if the company is disgusting. I realize Elodie's husband wasn't drunk, but still, Abby was flirting with his wife, so, even if she was surprised and horrified, I don't think she should expect Charlie to go punch the guy or whatever. Of course, Abby has no idea of the mental and emotional burdens that Charlie is bearing, and she's probably only about 21 or so. Did she get married out of high school (probably "finishing school") or did she go to college?

Anyway, even though Charlie was right in my mind to tell her to stay away from him, he could have maybe given her a comforting hug or something.

I love the show too, Floriane001.

Edited September 23, 2014 by shapeshifter

[kay1864]

Okay, this relates to a previous episode, but this was bugging me.

 

Even with it being wartime, and the value of money in 1943...why are the WACs charging only $2.50?  That equates to $33 in 2014, WAY too low for a roll in the hay.  

 

My guess is that $8 (equivalent to $106 today), or even the nice round $10 ($133) was the going rate for call girls in 1943.

 

Plus the fact that the Los Alamos WACs have a much more captive audience than in say NYC, and thus could probably charge $12 and still have plenty of takers.  But $8 at a minimum.

 

Why so low?  

Edited September 24, 2014 by kay1864

[kay1864]

But I now see things as Charlie did. Pick your battles. 

 

I think it's also that Charlie can't say anything about the husband "waiting for Charlie to slip up" (my recollection), without revealing a bit about his work--something he has been very careful ("Mr and Mrs Donaldson) not to do.

 

Plus I wouldn't be surprised if Charlie (in his new role) finds a way to get rid of/humiliate the husband--who's been a thorn in Charlie's side from day 1.

[dubbel zout]

I think it's also that Charlie can't say anything about the husband "waiting for Charlie to slip up" (my recollection), without revealing a bit about his work--something he has been very careful ("Mr and Mrs Donaldson) not to do.

 

That was for outsiders, though; Charlie and the groper both work at Los Alamos. Are the two groups not allowed to discuss their work with each other? They all know the eventual goal is an atomic bomb, so it seems ridiculous to me that they can't discuss with one another what they're doing.

Edited September 24, 2014 by dubbel zout

[kay1864]

That was for outsiders, though; Charlie and the groper both work at Los Alamos. Are the two groups not allowed to discuss their work with each other? They all know the eventual goal is an atomic bomb, so it seems ridiculous to me that they can't discuss with one another what they're doing.

Sorry, I wasn't clear.  I meant that Charlie can't reply to his wife about the husband's threat to her.  So he stays mum.  

[shapeshifter]

...Plus I wouldn't be surprised if Charlie (in his new role) finds a way to get rid of/humiliate the husband--who's been a thorn in Charlie's side from day 1.

Even though I think Charlie was smart not to go all Neanderthal on the groper, I would still love to see this happen.

...why are the WACs charging only $2.50?  That equates to $33 in 2014, WAY too low for a roll in the hay....

Why so low?

Good question. I don't have an historically accurate answer, but maybe it indicates that the WACs didn't see this as prostitution. An analogy might be driving a roommate home for Thanksgiving break in exchange for gas money versus offering to drive strangers for a price that includes more than half the gas money, and even more than all the gas money.

[dubbel zout]

I meant that Charlie can't reply to his wife about the husband's threat to her.

 

Why not? Abby knows the groper is one of Charlie's colleagues. If Charlie doesn't want to cause trouble, he could tell Abby that: "If I say anything, he'll just make things worse for me/us."

 

Charlie was a jerk, IMO. As I wrote earlier, even if he wasn't planning on doing anything, he could at least have been more sympathetic to Abby.

Edited September 24, 2014 by dubbel zout

[ganesh]

Charlie came off way too aloof and dickish.

 

Do we think Paloma was set up to seduce Frank, or did the security guys learn of the affair and decide to leverage her?

 

I think it's the latter. I think the show would have tipped us off otherwise. 

 

I'm not sure if Abby's girlfriend is a red herring to be a spy, the way she only speaks of lying/secrets, how everyone keeps mentioning that she's french and not american etc, it is too obvious surely.

 

We know there were actual spies there. So she could be. I guess she could pass information from what she hears on the phone. 

 

I'm not really buying the radioactive babies. There just wouldn't be a high enough concentration of the right radioisotopes in order to produce a huge reading like that.

[janeta]

Sooooo.... Mrs Winter was hallucinating the rad detector readings..?

[MyLisa]

Poor Liza. 

[NorthstarATL]

Sooooo.... Mrs Winter was hallucinating the rad detector readings..?

OR the Government swept the place while Frank was chatting with her in the backyard! I'm still unsure about how I feel about the episode. I like Liza and want her to be one of the POV characters, so don't want to have to question whether her scenes are actually as depicted. OTOH, ii IS a way of demonstrating her skewed perceptions, if that's what the show is going for.

  I enjoyed most of the episode, the usual balance of science vs the general paranoia of the military setting, but wish they'd limit the Abby storline. No new ground broken there, and it was just tedious.

[Orwell1984]

How I tend to read the situation is that Liza's discovery of the radiation has sparked an "episode" for lack of better word without knowing her condition.  I don't think the gov't would have been suspicious of her yet to sweep her house and remove everything radioactive from the premises.  It would take too much time and she hadn't yet confessed her discoveries to anyone.  Instead, I think the discovery of the lack of safety controls has sparked an "episode" which led to her finding radiation everywhere. One thing I was wondering after seeing syd's widow is why did Frank bring his family with him to New Mexico?  Of all the scientists, he knew the danger/restrictions of the program along with his wife's history of mental illness.  Why did he think it would be good to bring them along with his wife having to give up her career and be put in a high stress situation.  Wouldn't it be easier to reunite after the war?  

[bentley]

So much happened this episode. I loved it.

 

Frank may have thought that leaving his wife alone for a long period of time could in itself become a stressful situation. I don't know how long they've been in New Mexico, but apparently her last breakdown was a year ago. She may have been too fragile at the time to leave behind. Could anyone read the name of her medication? The sad thing is she's probably going to be right about the massive radioactivity at some point, but won't be believed due to her history.

 

I would watch a show of just Frank, Charlie and the Peter Stormare character hanging around doing "scientific stuff". I hope P.S. sticks around. I loved that Frank's praise, however small, meant so much to Charlie, and in return I loved how much Charlie was in awe that Frank figured out the missing link. That the idea came from Charlie's paper just makes it all the sweeter. Those two minds are great together, and I hope circumstances won't tear them apart.

 

I also fear the ghost of Henry is going to dog Frank for the remainder of the show. Once the secret is out, he'll probably lose the hearts, if not the minds,of his crew. I hope the price of his success is not that he becomes a complete pariah. I  really hate the Richard Schiff character and how he was so mean to Henry's wife, and how he seems to have latched on to Frank to persecute. Hate. him.

 

And finally, I loved how stunned (and interested) Charlie was in Helen's careless kiss, and she was oblivious.Or was she? You never know with Helen. This show is not a good advertisement for marriage, that's for sure.

[Lawgiver]

The writers need to stop the Abby/Elodie story line. It's boring and adds nothing to the drama at all. At least they addressed her son - it was like they had forgotten she's supposed to be a mother, going out at all hours. And clearly she didn't do everything she was supposed to do, because she married Charlie, who's brilliant, but penniless. She had a privileged background. I'm sure her parents didn't truly approve.

 

Now Liza's storyline is great. Was the baby really radioactive? What were the soldiers exposed to? It could have been something poisonous, but not radioactive. How long is her episode going to last? Is it going to cause problems for Frank if she tries to investigate it when she's not supposed to know anything about the research?

[mjc570]

I hate to admit it, but perhaps the army was right when they said Liza was too "unstable" to work.   That was so sad. 

 

Unless the Abbie/Elodie SL ends in Abbie becoming a nihilist and burning down the camp, I am totally uninterested.

 

Loved the Frank/Charlie/Lazar stuff, hate the thought that Meeks will on purpose/inadvertently betray Frank.

 

I was somewhat concerned about the Private Dunleavy/Callie SL - I hope he wasn't smirking when he read Callie's message, That wouldn't really have ocurred to me until that other soldier mentioned the other girlfriends.

 

I really like the way they are showing the ramifications of the Sid situation, and how it continues to have an effect.

[shapeshifter]

There are way too many characters in this show whose actions are driven by anxiety for this to be my kind of show

--and yet, it's my current favorite show.

And to prove it, Liza's pills were 150 mg. of Methylphenobarbital, which, based on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenobarbital

--I would assume she was prescribed for anxiety and as a sedative.

ETA:

The message Callie sent Dunlevy in the bible:

I like you because you listen to me

--followed by his smile, wove their relationship into something more lovely than any other I can recall on TV at this time.

He clearly regrets shooting Sid--perhaps didn't even intend to shoot him.

I keep waiting for Richard Schiff's character to crack and show a human side--but will he?

Edited September 30, 2014 by shapeshifter

[buckboard]

It was great seeing Lucia Micarelli as Sid's widow.  It was a bit hard to recognize her (violinist Anne on Treme).  I hope she does more acting, as well as continuing her musical career. 

[Emily Thrace]

This was awesome Liza broke my heart, it was really beautifully played by both the actress and the show.

 

It actually  explains a lot about her and Frank's marriage and why they seem so distant. Not to mention why they really don't seem to care about their daughter going seriously of the rails especially for 1943.. They're worried she doing it because she's like her mother.

 

Abby's french connection is predicatable although it looks like Charlie hasn't forgotten what Abby told him. it could get interesting next week. I think that's where the show is going wrong with her everyone else is tied into the main story but Abby's off on her own and it very obvious its all just going to blow up in everyone face (no pun intended). That and Elodie is completely cliche and has very little

 

I do like that they remebered Charlie and Abby's kid exists, especially since I think that will probably have a big impact on things going forward. I think given Charlie's comment's about his own father he might walk away from Abby but walking from Joey would be an entirely different matter.

 

Lucia Micarelli was amazing something I loved was how dignified and very Chinese (a mean feat for an actress who is Italian and Korean)  she came across I almost hope we see her again on the show. 

 

Something that just occured to me about this show is how very tight the timeline is realistically we're only going to spend a few years with these characters.

 

The science bro's scene with Charlie and Frank was awesome. Its not often you say this about two straight dudes but the chemistry between those two is truly great. (Although I giggled at Charlie calling Frank a "dinosaur" considering the actor was shooting them on Terra Nove last year.)

[shapeshifter]

...I giggled at Charlie calling Frank a "dinosaur" considering the actor was shooting them on Terra Nove last year.)

I had not noticed that. And now I see that John Benjamin Hickey plays the occasionally recurring character of Neil Gross on The Good Wife--totally different character.

I've not had any Hey It's That Guy! moments while watching this show. Sure, the actors can take credit for inhabiting their roles here, but since I usually drive my family nuts looking up "where have I seen him/her before," and haven't been doing that with this show, I'm guessing either the director or the writers (or both) should get the lion's share of credit for making the characters seem like real people.

[dubbel zout]

nd clearly she didn't do everything she was supposed to do, because she married Charlie, who's brilliant, but penniless. She had a privileged background. I'm sure her parents didn't truly approve.

 

Meh. If Abby had really wanted to rebel, she'd have married a goy.

 

Even if Abby ends up in a threesome (or foursome) with that couple from the bar (and Elodie), I. don't. care. I'm not watching this for The Awakening of Abby Isaacs.

 

He clearly regrets shooting Sid--perhaps didn't even intend to shoot him.

 

He regrets shooting Sid, but I do think he intended to. I don't think he meant to kill Sid, though. There was a longish buildup to the shooting, showing how frustrated Dunleavy was with being a just guard at the camp. He wanted to be more involved in the war effort. When Sid was at the gate and acting squirrely, that was all Dunleavy needed to go gung-ho. I thought that was a really effective way to show how horribly inevitable the shooting was. If it hadn't been Sid, it would have been someone else. (But it needed to be Sid for the larger story, obviously.)

 

The science bro's scene with Charlie and Frank was awesome. Its not often you say this about two straight dudes but the chemistry between those two is truly great.

 

I really like them, too. While their initial hostility isn't forgotten, it isn't interfering with them working together and knowing that they're doing the right thing by working together.

 

Peter Stormare is a hoot. As long as you bring him a nice present, he'll cooperate.

Edited September 30, 2014 by dubbel zout

[bentley]

 

The science bro's scene with Charlie and Frank was awesome. Its not often you say this about two straight dudes but the chemistry between those two is truly great.

 

Best double meaning ever. ;)

 

 

Liza's pills were 150 mg. of Methylphenobarbital, which, based on:

http://en.wikipedia....ylphenobarbital

 

I don't know what meds were available back then, but I was expecting an anti-psychotic or something.

[shapeshifter]

Liza's pills were 150 mg. of Methylphenobarbital, which, based on:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenobarbital

--I would assume she was prescribed for anxiety and as a sedative.

I don't know what meds were available back then, but I was expecting an anti-psychotic or something.

Yeah, it sounds like Methylphenobarbital was a lot like the anti-psychotic risperdal, but without the 20 lb. weight gain, but also easy to overdose on.

According to http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipsychotic, antipsychotics weren't discovered until 1952, and before that lobotomies were common.

I hope that poor Liza doesn't wind up lobotomized. (=>(

[dohe]

This is the best episode of the show yet as several of it's characters find at least a respite from their feelings of alienation and growing disaffection of their world.  The strength is how these stories are told in such a manner that they give weight to each other.  Even something such as Frank and Charlie connecting over their beliefs in implosion creates organic dilemmas.  Both men demonstrate a brilliance that is only rivaled by their obliviousness to those they love.  So that while they are fascinating characters, it is possibly the conflicted Dunlavy who, among the male characters, creates the greatest empathy.  The insult hurled at Callie is misplaced self-loathing but Callie, whose desire to escape her home life is becoming more and more understandable, provides a message which emphasizes his worth, something much needed as his fellow soldiers ignorantly think the labeling of "spy killer" is complimenting the devout, emotionally scarred man. 

 

As Liza lies in her bed overcome it is evident the confined world of the Manhattan Project is hardly the right place for her with it's constant state of deceit and distrust.  Meanwhile Abby continues to search for how to exist in an absurdist world, one where her husband insults her and disregards a sexual assault upon her due to his work goal.  She is a restless spirit even more so than Callie.  For in Callie there is a likelihood that restlessness may not be of permanence.  The same cannot necessarily be said for Abby.  In a show of strong performances, Rachel Brosnahan is in another league and her sequences are easily the strongest (and arguably most crucial) aspect of a very fine show.   

Edited October 1, 2014 by dohe

[shapeshifter]

...wish they'd limit the Abby storline. No new ground broken there, and it was just tedious.

...I'm not watching this for The Awakening of Abby Isaacs...

I think they could have spent a little less time on it this episode, but not really much less for the story they are telling. Abby tells Elodie how her mother said a woman must always wear lipstick in public as she applies the bright red, and then shortly after that she stops wearing it. By the end of the episode, Abby choses to own her physical relationship with Elodie. It is not a story that stands on its own, but I don't think it is trying to. Elodie knows about the bomb. That can't be a coincidence. I agree with whomever upthread(s) speculated that Elodie might be a spy--maybe because I recently caught the 1970 Rock Hudson and Julie Andrews movie, Darling Lili, in which she was a spy. I also appreciate that the show doesn't go all HBO/ShowTime with the gratuitous sex scenes. We see all we need to and nothing more, because they do have a real story to tell.

[ganesh]

I'm not watching this for The Awakening of Abby Isaacs.

 

Me neither. This is too much screen time. The plot is fine, but cut it back. Although, it was hilarious: I'm going to bed. Would you like to join us? If I *ever* get to use that for real, I will have won life. I thought it was pretty racy that they went with the implied oral sex! Outside! 

 

I'm far more interested in the implosion problem, which they're doing a pretty good job of. I thought something was way off with all the radiation and Liza because it doesn't work that way. So I'm glad it was a deliberate plot. Although she is right that they're just letting the contaminated water just flow outside. That needs to go into a dedicated tank. 

[dohe]

Abby does not receive screentime that is out of proportion to the other primary characters.  By other primary characters, I would say that is Frank, Charlie and Liza.  Of course with Abby, the show is very much dealing with the desire for agency.  How does that differ from Liza or Callie who, themselves, are seeking agency?  Or for that matter the several male characters seeking agency?  Well Liza still retains a strong, devoted love for Frank.  As for Callie, she is shown as falling for a man and not committing infidelity.  Abby, on the other hand, is cheating on her husband and doing so with a woman.   

 

While I do enjoy the sequences where characters discuss their scientific epiphanies, the epiphanies of the other characters are of no less interest to me when it comes to the show.  After all the Manhattan Project is the backdrop but this is a program very much about the changes occurring in America and foreshadowing the cultural battles after WWII that were already stirring.  While Liza questions the environment, she does not purposefully undermine Frank or Glen.  While Callie questions her environment, she is, when it comes down to it, supportive of Dunlavy, a man who needs reassurance of his own humanity.  Abby's questioning, however, includes not just gender and sexual roles and her husband but now the goal of the project.   

 

Near the beginning of this episode, Abby is shown in a pastoral setting.  It is one of the few moments where the show does not depict a dusty, glum living environment.  She has just had cunnilingus performed on her but her reaction is to discount the notion of an affair happening when it clearly is.  Yet as the episode continues, Abby, as she has done through out the series, questions what her status in the world is.  It is not a coincidence that she reads Camus and then goes to Elodie's to have sex.  That the sex is with a woman seems more about showing how Abby is finding out more about herself in this isolated yet reactionary environment which inhibits others such as Liza (that is the saddest thing - that such environments can open someone to themselves while robbing others of their agency) than just being a standard coming out story.  She recognizes the absurdity of the surroundings and, instead of giving in to them, is recognizing that there is much more to life than fitting roles. The pastoral setting reinforced how Abby is gaining control over her setting while noticeably bringing up the requirements that are expected of her (noticeably for the 2nd episode in a row someone else watching her child comes up - something which she would be questioned on and yet something the same people doing the questioning would never bring up with Charlie) and the expectations she still has (her comments of how Charlie would react to the sexual assault being more intriguing as we know Charlie's reaction was horrific).  Abby, after all, was the person who lied to escape the environment.  In doing so, Abby went to her parents.  This move carried with it a bit of regression, as if Abby, unable to look inside of herself, wanted to go back to what is safest.  Instead this meeting with her parents served as an awakening of how dangerous and demented the world is.  It served as an awakening for Abby to question everything including herself.  And in doing so, she may be more awake than anyone else is.  When she brings up Charlie's creation of something that could end the world, she touches on something more honest than Charlie has ever approached. 

Edited October 4, 2014 by dohe

[shapeshifter]

A very thoughtful post about Abby, dohe, but had I written this line:

...Liza still retains a strong, devoted love for Frank....

it would have ended:

Liza still retains a strong, devoted love for science.

[dohe]

A very thoughtful post about Abby, dohe, but had I written this line:it would have ended:

Liza still retains a strong, devoted love for science.

She sure does.  And sadly there is the irony.  A scientist goes to a location designed for scientific discovery and it ends up a massively stifling atmosphere in terms of her own work in science. 

[shapeshifter]

A development overseas invigorates the hunt for a spy on The Hill.

I guess the 2-hour Homeland premier drew viewers away from Manhattan, but this was the Sunday night show I chose to watch when I got home from work after 10pm CDT.

Wow. I guess they really didn't know back then that "compartmentalization" is not good for science. Heck, we still hadn't learned it vis a vis the govt. spy alphabet agencies when 9/11 happened. So I guess Abby seeing the family with the little boy walking by made her snap back to her former self?

I keep meaning to say how much I love the title sequence graphics for this show. The footprints are dance steps, right? Is it the box step, or...?

[bentley]

Wow. Things went to hell rather quickly, didn't they?  Of all the ways I imagined Frank and Charlie might be brought down, I didn't think it would be the British guy out of spite and spurned love. I really liked him too.

 

I am praying that the Richard Schiff character is revealed as the spy at some point, and that the season ends with his being locked in a little room with someone just like him interrogating him. Can someone remind me again why he has zeroed in on Frank as the obvious leak?

 

I hate that Charlie asked Abby to plant evidence, and I hate that she did it for him. Charlie's original sin of collaborating with Frank was not that bad and for the good of the overall project, but his coverup is inexcusable, even if that guy is a complete jerk. As long as our bomb was ready to go before the enemy could make one, would the army really care how it got made?

[dohe]

Shapeshifter, I don't think she snapped back to her former self as much as she recognized the repercussions of what would occur if she did what she desired.  When she saw the two parents with their boy and girl walking it, she recognized what the path she wanted to take meant.  It meant probably losing her child, losing her Mom and Dad, leaving Charlie's career wrecked, etc.  So she betrayed her being.  Elodie has just asked who she was and Abby had kissed her as deeply and passionately as she could.  That is who she is deep down.  Then they had made love again.  However ultimately she allowed her actions to be dictated by everything but what she desired the most and which required the most courage.  What is fascinating here is that in this time period her romance with Elodie would be seen as immoral (of course plenty of people still see it that way) and that is a major part of why she took the action she did.  Yet what she did to Elodie and her husband is the truly immoral thing.  When she looked out the window she knew she had betrayed herself.  What Charlie did was also immoral.  To involve Abby in that action and put that pressure on her but to also destroy not just the lowlife (wrong no matter how big a lowlife he was) but the lowlife's wife.  So did Frank by talking Charlie into this action and coaxing him with the word "rapist".  Frank did not do that out of disgust towards the lowlife.  He did it to protect himself.  This was not a fun episode as we watched people betray their humanity out of fear or to make their life easier.   

 

It is hard to see how Frank, Charlie and Abby can redeem themselves.  Will Frank or even Charlie be affected by their actions.  It will be interesting to see and I think Charlie may have some major regret.  But Abby is going to be torn.  She just destroyed the life of the person she wanted due to her cowardice.  However, in a time when being queer could mean a loss of custody, it is one difficult dilemma.  Heck even today people still carry expectations regarding roles.  I notice people on twitter going has Abby forgotten her child while not saying anything about Charlie.  If such double standards are applied even today, ones in which woman are defined by some as mother above all while the man is viewed in many ways, one can imagine Abby's fear.  One can imagine Charlie and Frank's fears too concerning their work.  But Abby, Charlie and Frank were all bigtime wrong and hopefully all three will regret their terrible actions and find redemption

 

As for Paul, his actions are being done for the wrong reason.  While he certainly must feel heavy duty rejection, Helen is not obligated to be with him.  In a way, his want to get married so quick may be a way to make up for his abandonment in the UK.  But Helen is right not to say yes just to say yes.  To her, going on a public date was a big step.  He leaped from A to Z.   Then the anger towards Frank.  I feel for Paul but his behavior too is selfish. 

   

I love these characters and that they are so flawed.  But I do hope there are repercussions from their terrible behavior. 

 

So is Aikley's wife the mole?

Edited October 6, 2014 by dohe

[shapeshifter]

...Charlie's original sin of collaborating with Frank was not that bad and for the good of the overall project, but his coverup is inexcusable, even if that guy is a complete jerk. As long as our bomb was ready to go before the enemy could make one, would the army really care how it got made?

Elodie's jerk of a husband threatened to have Charlie sent up the river, so to speak. So Charlie didn't have much choice.

High five, bentley, that we both began with "Wow," heh.

Well said, dohe, about Abby's motivations. It's pretty much what I was thinking.

I hadn't considered Aikley's wife as the mole, but I guess we can be pretty sure now that Elodie wasn't. I'm not sure there is a mole on site; it's possible that it's just drunken gossip being passed around until it leaks out. I mean, we know the indigenous population come and go. None of them seemed to be making any money on the side, but, again, it might just be loose lips that sink ships and cause heads to roll.

BTW, did the Nazis ever send heads to people? That doesn't seem to be their style.

[seamusk]

My guess is that $8 (equivalent to $106 today), or even the nice round $10 ($133) was the going rate for call girls in 1943.

I was party to a discussion of someone's sociological work on prostitution and $100 is a bit high, depending on what the service is.  And in this case, I imagine that wages and cost of living are very fixed on the base. I don't know if rates would actually, therefore, correlate.

 

I think it's also that Charlie can't say anything about the husband "waiting for Charlie to slip up" (my recollection), without revealing a bit about his work--something he has been very careful ("Mr and Mrs Donaldson) not to do.

I took that whole thing as that guy's way of threatening Charlie.  Basically, he used his wife to send him a message that he knows what he is up to with the calculations.