txhorns79 May 25, 2023 Share May 25, 2023 50 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: The mail robot, let's face it, was a bit of a famewhore who would deliver for anybody for a little screentime. I don't know why, but I do love the mail robot. 3 1 Link to comment
Zella May 25, 2023 Share May 25, 2023 As much as I love the cast, Mail Robot has a special place in my heart. Gaad's assault on Mail Robot was horrific and uncalled-for. 1 1 Link to comment
Andy73 May 28, 2023 Share May 28, 2023 On 5/24/2023 at 5:12 AM, sistermagpie said: On 5/24/2023 at 4:28 AM, txhorns79 said: They really did have a plan for everything. The finale really makes me feel for Stan. Philip was a monster to him. He even poisons Stan's relationship with Renee as Stan lets them escape. Expand I think he was the exact opposite to a monster to him there. He told him his suspicions because he didn't want him to be another Martha even if he was blowing some longterm Centre operation with Renee. Stan can check if she's an Illegal or not. It wouldn't be better if he kept quiet and eventually he found out she was a spy and he just assumed Philip was in on it. Stan's been undercover himself. He's been that monster. (Even if his character as written doesn't really support it.) I agree. I don’t think Philip was a monster with Stan there. I think he was really honest with him… as a friend! Oh yes, It's likely he didn't want another Marta. Renee drives me crazy too. Sometime I think she is a KGB agent, sometimes no. Why KGB should use an illegal on ex counter-intelligence? 3 Link to comment
Andy73 May 28, 2023 Share May 28, 2023 On 5/24/2023 at 11:48 PM, SunnyBeBe said: Anybody think a reunion special of this show is possible? A lot of the cast seems to be available. They couldn’t reunite present day without a lot of makeup, but they could do like a 10-20 years later event. Maybe a 6 episode series on Netflix? On 5/25/2023 at 2:45 AM, Zella said: I honestly love the ambiguity of the ending. I'd totally watch a reunion movie or series, but I enjoy how the show wasn't afraid to leave questions unanswered. And not in a lazy way but just in a "life is complicated and messy" intentional sort of way. On 5/25/2023 at 3:55 AM, sistermagpie said: I spent so much time worrying toward the end of the show that we'd get the montage, nailing everyone in place for years to come ending so many felt was necessary, so I was thrilled it ended in a total Chekhov way-- I feel like Keri: the ending was so perfect that any sequel would be.... I can't even imagine it! I think the final told us everything. I mean, the show is a story about a marriage... and the finale tells us that despite the thousand problems they have had (and in all marriages there are a thousand problems) they are still together! I remember a great Sistermagpie’s post: when sound was on we saw spies stuff, then the music goes away, we saw the P&E…. and then the music comes back with the spies stuff. On 5/25/2023 at 3:55 AM, sistermagpie said: just as it started, with P&E in a new country not knowing what's next. Oh yes!!!! 4 Link to comment
txhorns79 May 30, 2023 Share May 30, 2023 On 5/28/2023 at 6:30 PM, Andy73 said: I think the final told us everything. I mean, the show is a story about a marriage... and the finale tells us that despite the thousand problems they have had (and in all marriages there are a thousand problems) they are still together! I would be interested in knowing what became of Paige, Henry and their relationship with their parents. Could Henry ever forgive them? Did Paige come to realize her parents were brainwashing and lying repeatedly to her, even after she was told the "truth?" I'd also be fascinated to see Elizabeth's reaction to the USSR collapsing. I know towards the end of the series, she was questioning and defying the Center's orders, but for someone whose life had been dedicated to the cause, watching said cause collapse must have been something. 5 Link to comment
sistermagpie May 30, 2023 Share May 30, 2023 7 hours ago, txhorns79 said: I would be interested in knowing what became of Paige, Henry and their relationship with their parents. Could Henry ever forgive them? Did Paige come to realize her parents were brainwashing and lying repeatedly to her, even after she was told the "truth?" To me, that's the beauty of the ending, that these things are there to be imagined and it could go many ways. I think different things at different times, but I think there would definitely be hope for the relationships with both kids, complicated as it would be. And of course, by the end of the show it's also complicated by how they're no longer so much co-parenting as two different parents who have different relationships and histories with two different grown kids. I feel like the show even puts in some hints about that by putting in that death scene for Harvest. But a lot of other things would be coming into play too. I have a friend who was living in East Germany when the wall came down and knew true believers like Elizabeth--it was always something that made her even more interested in her character. (Though the loss was complicated and difficult for people who hated the system they were living under too.) 3 Link to comment
txhorns79 May 30, 2023 Share May 30, 2023 4 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: I think different things at different times, but I think there would definitely be hope for the relationships with both kids, complicated as it would be. I don't know. Henry would have the worst of it, as this really is the ultimate betrayal by your parents. He's still a minor. Maybe if he's lucky, Stan would be his guardian. I'm not sure what would happen with the Jenning's assets, but probably the government would seize a lot of them, leaving Paige and Henry in dire straits. Heck, Paige might end up in jail herself if it becomes known that she participated in her parent's schemes. 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie May 31, 2023 Share May 31, 2023 3 hours ago, txhorns79 said: I don't know. Henry would have the worst of it, as this really is the ultimate betrayal by your parents. He's still a minor. Maybe if he's lucky, Stan would be his guardian. I'm not sure what would happen with the Jenning's assets, but probably the government would seize a lot of them, leaving Paige and Henry in dire straits. Heck, Paige might end up in jail herself if it becomes known that she participated in her parent's schemes. I think the main point of Henry's storyline in S6 was always that yes, he's a minor, but his situation has already been taken care of until he comes of age and goes to college. He has a support system at school, where he will live until the summer, at which point he's got a good job lined up that includes housing and will pay for his next year of school, after which he'll no doubt get a scholarship to college after working that job for another summer. That's why Philip knew he couldn't even consider taking him. Henry's independent already, including financially. When he got to the age Paige was where he started to notice something hinky going on, he removed himself from it and built a great protection for himself. (Henry did what Pastor Tim should have been encouraging Paige to do, but instead he gave her the exact opposite advice, imo for his own reasons.) His parents were no doubt also similarly on their own at his age. Of course, it's still a huge blow to learn what Henry does about his parents. No psychological preparation is going to be enough to fully deal with it. But he's done some. I tend to picture it coming out in certain unhealthy ways, but that's just me conjecturing in my own head. And he could potentially deal with it with them, since they're not dead. Paige has committed serious crimes with Elizabeth and can't claim ignorance of what she was doing, even if she tried to stay in denial of some of it. But the writers seem to have said they didn't see her going off to jail, as unlikely as that seems given the facts. Regardless, she's a 20-year-old who decided to stick it out on her own (at least technically--she really still seems to be a child even when I think she's meant to have matured) and Stan would probably help her. Seems to me like she'd need his financial support and he'd give it if neither of them get caught out, which we can imagine happening given how the last ep leaves it imo. 2 Link to comment
txhorns79 May 31, 2023 Share May 31, 2023 53 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: I think the main point of Henry's storyline in S6 was always that yes, he's a minor, but his situation has already been taken care of until he comes of age and goes to college. He has a support system at school, where he will live until the summer, at which point he's got a good job lined up that includes housing and will pay for his next year of school, after which he'll no doubt get a scholarship to college after working that job for another summer. I think Henry's life as he knew it is over. The notoriety of his parents, and the scrutiny that will come from the revelation of what happened, will poison everything. I doubt his prep school will keep him as a student. It will be interesting to see if he keeps the job he thought he was getting. If anything, he's going to spend a lot of time for the next year under legal scrutiny, even with Stan (i.e. the FBI agent whose best friend was a Soviet spy) vouching for him. 2 Link to comment
Kel Varnsen May 31, 2023 Share May 31, 2023 6 minutes ago, txhorns79 said: anything, he's going to spend a lot of time for the next year under legal scrutiny, even with Stan (i.e. the FBI agent whose best friend was a Soviet spy) vouching for him. Yea even if Henry doesn't face any kind of legal trouble what with being a minor I can see him having to go through a ton of FBI interviews where he basically has to describe every trip as far back as he can remember, every time one or both of his parents traveled, every friend they had and any other weird stuff. Also I wonder if Stan would be able to become his guardian? I know it's tv and that kind of crap happens, but in reality aren't there all kind of steps someone has to jump through before being a foster parent? 2 Link to comment
sistermagpie May 31, 2023 Share May 31, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, txhorns79 said: I think Henry's life as he knew it is over. The notoriety of his parents, and the scrutiny that will come from the revelation of what happened, will poison everything. I doubt his prep school will keep him as a student. It will be interesting to see if he keeps the job he thought he was getting. If anything, he's going to spend a lot of time for the next year under legal scrutiny, even with Stan (i.e. the FBI agent whose best friend was a Soviet spy) vouching for him. This contradicts what we've seen on the show. Jared Connors' parents were Illegals. The FBI found out about it. Jared continued going to the same high school and moved in with the neighbors who liked him. William was an Illegal as well, and his capture and death was never publicized either. Nor was Harvest's. Henry becoming notorious, shunned from the prep school where he's a star student as well as a tanning factory goes against what we've seen on the show thus far. All of this is happening in the shadows. More importantly, it goes against his whole story in S6 and the whole point of leaving him behind. If his life is ruined if he stays, they wouldn't leave him so as to not ruin his life. It's very explicitly laid out as that. 1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said: Yea even if Henry doesn't face any kind of legal trouble what with being a minor I can see him having to go through a ton of FBI interviews where he basically has to describe every trip as far back as he can remember, every time one or both of his parents traveled, every friend they had and any other weird stuff. Also I wonder if Stan would be able to become his guardian? I know it's tv and that kind of crap happens, but in reality aren't there all kind of steps someone has to jump through before being a foster parent? Henry going through those kinds of interviews is something that the show does say might happen, (but it certainly didn't happen to Jared Connors, so maybe not) but it also suggests that since he doesn't know anything, he can come out of them okay. Since, again, Jared Connors is able to just move in with the friendly neighbors when he's in his last year in high school, I don't see why Henry couldn't continue on at his school, whether or not Stan can officially name himself a guardian. Stan's probably far from the only influencial connection Henry has at this point. Edited May 31, 2023 by sistermagpie 3 Link to comment
txhorns79 May 31, 2023 Share May 31, 2023 37 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: This contradicts what we've seen on the show. Jared Connors' parents were Illegals. The FBI found out about it. Jared continued going to the same high school and moved in with the neighbors who liked him. William was an Illegal as well, and his capture and death was never publicized either. Nor was Harvest's. Henry becoming notorious, shunned from the prep school where he's a star student as well as a tanning factory goes against what we've seen on the show thus far. All of this is happening in the shadows. There was a large, very public FBI presence at Elizabeth and Phillip's house after they were discovered. Presumably, their business would also have been searched and all their employees past and present questioned. Their pictures have also been shared across state, local and federal police forces as part of the manhunt for them. The idea that this story is not going to get out seems unlikely. 3 Link to comment
sistermagpie May 31, 2023 Share May 31, 2023 (edited) 13 hours ago, txhorns79 said: There was a large, very public FBI presence at Elizabeth and Phillip's house after they were discovered. Presumably, their business would also have been searched and all their employees past and present questioned. Their pictures have also been shared across state, local and federal police forces as part of the manhunt for them. The idea that this story is not going to get out seems unlikely. This scenario is always presented as if it's the only likely one, yet it's contradicted both on the show and in reality. And nobody has a problem when that happens--like the fact that Jared gets exactly one visit from an FBI agent after his parents are outed as illegals and he's treated so gently that he's not even told his parents were spies. (The FBI is already letting Stan gently break the news to Henry in private.) The most famous real life kids in a situation like this were the ones that semi-inspired the show, and while they had problems with immigration (neither were American citizens), neither became notorious in the press, especially not the one who wasn't suspected of knowing the truth. And those are the most famous ones. There are plenty of other kids who have found themselves in the same situation where it was reported in the press and they weren't immediately automatically kicked out of school etc. The story got out without making that big of an impression. And that's in a world where it's being reported in the press. On the show, it's been demonstrated over and over that people who worked for the KGB being stopped, even when something happens that is known to the public and various local police are heavily involved, does not translate into them becoming famous spies--and these include cases where the ending was far more dramatic than what happened at the end of the show. The only people who know about that part is the FBI, who don't go public with it. In fact, I remember this discussion happening after the show ended and the arguments for why the FBI would suddenly go public with the Jennings when they didn't with anyone else proved just how much the FBI *wouldn't* do that. More importantly, since this is fiction, this contradicts everything the narrative's doing and telling us about Henry and his story. It just seems like the idea that Henry's about to be ruined is more based on seeing Philip and Elizabeth as the stars and/or not deserving for their kids to be not as damaged as possible by them in every possible way. But at every opportunity the show tells us that while Henry didn't get a happy ending, he got a hopeful one based around protecting and preserving the life he'd built for himself. Edited May 31, 2023 by sistermagpie 4 Link to comment
Athena May 31, 2023 Share May 31, 2023 21 hours ago, sistermagpie said: I have a friend who was living in East Germany when the wall came down and knew true believers like Elizabeth--it was always something that made her even more interested in her character. (Though the loss was complicated and difficult for people who hated the system they were living under too.) A good movie which explored this was Goodbye Lenin which starred a young Daniel Brühl (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Inglorious Basterds). They explore the difficulty for people living it in after the fall and how they have to navigate for those who are true believers. As for what happened to Paige and Henry, there are real life examples which is detailed in this article: Quote The couple moved to Montclair, New Jersey and had two daughters, Kate and Lisa (who were 11 and 9, respectively, at the time of their parents’ arrests). The children were reunited with their parents in Russia following the prisoner swap, but as US citizens, they are entitled to return and live in America if they choose. Federal privacy laws make it difficult to discern what became of them, or any of the other children who were minors at the time of the arrests. Quote The Foley children were the subject of an in-depth feature in the Guardian last year, which detailed their lives since their parents’ arrest. In December 2010, they were given Russian passports, and officially named Timofei and Alexander Vavilov—though neither identifies with being Russian. Alex goes to school in Europe and Tim works in finance in Asia. According to the Guardian, the brothers have been fighting to win back their Canadian citizenship, revoked following their parents’ arrests. Alex has also been rejected for visas from France and Britain... “I lived for 20 years believing that I was Canadian and I still believe I am Canadian, nothing can change that,” Tim wrote in a court affidavit to win back his Canadian citizenship, cited by the Guardian. “I do not have any attachment to Russia, I do not speak the language, I do not know many friends there, I have not lived there for any extended periods of time and I do not want to live there.” Perhaps Canada has been resistant to giving Tim and Alex their citizenship back because of a Wall Street Journal story from 2012, which cites US officials claiming that Tim had been recruited by his parents to become a spy (a process that was underway in last season of The Americans with the Jennings’ daughter, Paige): As a minor with an FBI agent as a friend / guardian, he probably had help to get him in anonymity. Paige would be more limited in terms of travel. 2 1 1 Link to comment
txhorns79 June 2, 2023 Share June 2, 2023 On 5/31/2023 at 1:53 PM, sistermagpie said: Jared gets exactly one visit from an FBI agent after his parents are outed as illegals and he's treated so gently that he's not even told his parents were spies. (The FBI is already letting Stan gently break the news to Henry in private.) Jared's parents and sister were murdered. As far as the FBI knows, he's the deeply traumatized child who found the blood soaked bodies of his family in a hotel room while on a family vacation. Of course he's going to be treated gently, and they are going to watch what they say. On 5/31/2023 at 1:53 PM, sistermagpie said: It just seems like the idea that Henry's about to be ruined is more based on seeing Philip and Elizabeth as the stars and/or not deserving for their kids to be not as damaged as possible by them in every possible way. My thought is that Henry is about to have his world turned upside down. He no longer has parents. He no longer has a home. It's possible his sister may go to prison. I view Elizabeth and Phillip's idea that he'll be okay as naive, and the kind of thing one tells oneself when they want to absolve themselves of the guilt and responsibility for what they've done. On 5/31/2023 at 3:15 PM, Athena said: the brothers have been fighting to win back their Canadian citizenship, revoked following their parents’ arrests. That is fascinating. I didn't realize there was a chance the kids could have their citizenship revoked, despite being born in Canada. 2 Link to comment
sistermagpie June 2, 2023 Share June 2, 2023 18 hours ago, txhorns79 said: Jared's parents and sister were murdered. As far as the FBI knows, he's the deeply traumatized child who found the blood soaked bodies of his family in a hotel room while on a family vacation. Of course he's going to be treated gently, and they are going to watch what they say. And his parents are Ilegals. The FBI doesn't just let people alone if they're that important, and Jared's got the same importance as Henry as far as the FBI knows. (We know he's far more so.) From the little we see, the FBI is treating Henry just as compassionately, letting Stan talk to him alone. 18 hours ago, txhorns79 said: My thought is that Henry is about to have his world turned upside down. He no longer has parents. He no longer has a home. It's possible his sister may go to prison. I view Elizabeth and Phillip's idea that he'll be okay as naive, and the kind of thing one tells oneself when they want to absolve themselves of the guilt and responsibility for what they've done. I agree his world has been turned upside down and he won't just be okay (even Philip in that one moment was just talking about him being innocent wrt their crimes). This is going to be devestating. I'm disagreeing that his devestation will include being expelled from school and not allowed to work in his friends' dad's factory over the summer and rejected by everyone. There's just too many ways it goes against what we've seen and what the show's about. The internal suffering is always worse than external punishment on this show. 1 1 Link to comment
SunnyBeBe June 5, 2023 Share June 5, 2023 He wasn’t covered on the show, but this story reminded me of it. He wasn’t portrayed was he? Robert Hannsen. Spoiler Robert Hanssen dies at 79. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12162107/Former-FBI-Agent-Russian-spy-Robert-Hanssen-dead.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-hanssen-dies-convicted-spying-for-russia-dead-age-79/ 2 Link to comment
Zella June 5, 2023 Share June 5, 2023 Just now, SunnyBeBe said: He wasn’t covered on the show, but this story reminded me of it. He wasn’t portrayed was he? Robert Hannsen. Hide contents Robert Hanssen dies at 79. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12162107/Former-FBI-Agent-Russian-spy-Robert-Hanssen-dead.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-hanssen-dies-convicted-spying-for-russia-dead-age-79/ I don't believe so, but I thought about him a lot while watching! Thanks for posting! 3 Link to comment
txhorns79 June 6, 2023 Share June 6, 2023 15 hours ago, Zella said: He wasn’t covered on the show, but this story reminded me of it. He wasn’t portrayed was he? Robert Hannsen. He was not portrayed. Probably the closest we got was the storyline where the rezidentura tried to use Nina to turn Stan. 1 1 Link to comment
Roseanna June 11, 2023 Share June 11, 2023 On 5/16/2023 at 7:55 PM, aghst said: They may have learned English well enough to explain to their kids that the USSR has their own perspectives on justice, duty, freedom and other lofty concepts but likely they internalized the Soviet propaganda and probably were scared to defy their superiors or run away. They chose not to defect, to go into hiding. Instead they were willing to deceive and kill until almost the end. They knew a lot of the propaganda was false, they witnessed how different things were in America compared to what they've been told and what they knew their fellow Russians were still being told. They hand-waved the prosperity and the better standard of living. Toward the end of the show, they showed the empty shelves at Moscow supermarkets and how they reserved some stores for the elites when food was scarce. Yet to the end they were loyal to mother Russia, which they had to have known was corrupt and lacking in any of the moral authority it claimed. That's why I was somewhat disappointed that the show didn't go all the way to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Would Philip and Elizabeth still be loyal to the end or were they going to go through cognitive dissonance? The Communists didn't make a comparision between the US and the USSR as it was in the present but in the imaginary future, even in the whole world. In the so called "thaw" after Stalin's death there were still optimism as the Soviet GDP rose more rapidly than in the West and the people's standard of living rose. The USSR was never good in producing consumables as it would have demanded competition, the Communists stressed on other things based in their elemental value, equality: full employment, cheap basic foodstuffs and rent, education and healthcare for all. But in the 1980ies there was no more talk about Communism in our lifetime. The economic growth that had based on the exploitation of nature and people and copying the West had slowed down and the USSR was to compete in the new territory, electronic data processon. The only product that non-socialist countries wanted to buy large amounts was oil and when its prize fell, they were in deep trouble as they were forced to buy grain. I just read a novel by an author who lived as a child in East Berlin because his dad was there a correspondent for a Communist paper. In the interviews she had said that still thinks that there was much good in East Germany: thanks to public day care women could work and doctors made even home visits for free. Both are of course good things but she completely ignores that the East Germany was economically in the bankrupt and because critique wasn't allowed, the system could not be reformed but it collapsed when it couldn't be backed by force. Her novel, however, is more diverse: f.ex. the correspondent's son gets sick because of air pollution the existence of which his dad refuses to admit because of his ideology. As for defecting, there are people who think "ubi bene, ibi patria", "where there is good, there is the fatherland" but there are also people who can criticize circumstances and even the political system, but still be loyal to their native country - especially when they believe that it is in danger. 1 1 4 Link to comment
txhorns79 June 11, 2023 Share June 11, 2023 7 hours ago, Roseanna said: But in the 1980ies there was no more talk about Communism in our lifetime. The economic growth that had based on the exploitation of nature and people and copying the West had slowed down and the USSR was to compete in the new territory, electronic data processon. Yes, I think they did a good job showing just how bad things were in the USSR in the 80s. Just think of those dank, depressing grocery stores where you couldn't get what you wanted. Heck, you could even see it with Oleg's parents apartment. They had a very high standard of living for the USSR, and the kitchen in that place looked 25 years behind the US. 2 Link to comment
aghst June 11, 2023 Share June 11, 2023 When the Ukraine war started, almost all American and European companies left Russia. McDonalds left, for instance. Elizabeth would probably say good riddance but even crappy Western fast food is probably better than the Russian option. But it's mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where they have some amount of the population able to access Western goods and services. Funny thing is that obesity is growing in the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia because fast food chains have went in big in those countries. They sell us oil and we sell them processed food. Probably similar in Russia as well. Link to comment
sistermagpie June 11, 2023 Share June 11, 2023 (edited) 6 hours ago, aghst said: But it's mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where they have some amount of the population able to access Western goods and services. I was talking to someone in Moscow who mentioned that McDonalds basically reopened (sans fries under a title that basically means "Tasty, period." And he mentioned people paying to watch some Russian documentary for 10 minutes...and then getting to watch the new Avatar "for free." LOL. Quote He was not portrayed. Probably the closest we got was the storyline where the rezidentura tried to use Nina to turn Stan. Not very close, though. Hanssen just sold anything for money, didn't he? Edited June 11, 2023 by sistermagpie 1 2 Link to comment
Zella June 12, 2023 Share June 12, 2023 48 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: Hanssen just sold anything for money, didn't he? Yeah I think the biggest parallel is he was in Soviet counterintelligence, like Stan was. But he approached them and never had any qualms about the information he gave them (even when it led to the deaths of people), and I don't believe the Soviets ever even knew his real identity. 1 2 Link to comment
Andy73 June 12, 2023 Share June 12, 2023 18 hours ago, sistermagpie said: I was talking to someone in Moscow who mentioned that McDonalds basically reopened (sans fries under a title that basically means "Tasty, period." And he mentioned people paying to watch some Russian documentary for 10 minutes...and then getting to watch the new Avatar "for free." LOL. Quote I can’t believe that!!! Lol 1 Link to comment
Roseanna June 13, 2023 Share June 13, 2023 On 6/11/2023 at 6:30 PM, txhorns79 said: Yes, I think they did a good job showing just how bad things were in the USSR in the 80s. Just think of those dank, depressing grocery stores where you couldn't get what you wanted. To me the scenes in Moscow seemed false - it was obvious that the screenwriters had very inadequate knowledge about the USSR. It wasn't likely that Martha would buy food in an ordinary shop but would get access to the shop reserved to the elite. As for ordinary people, the way to get things they wanted to have relations. If you happened to see something that was seldom in shops, it was wise to buy it because if you didn't need it oneself, some relative, friend, neighbour or colleague certaily needed and would then do the same to you. Therefore Soviet women always had a mesh bag with them. There was also a kolkhoz market where kolkhoz workers sold what they had grown on their own piece of land although the prizes were higher. And of course many had their own datcha, too. 2 Link to comment
Roseanna June 13, 2023 Share June 13, 2023 On 6/11/2023 at 7:29 PM, aghst said: Elizabeth would probably say good riddance but even crappy Western fast food is probably better than the Russian option. Have you ever eat borscht? I think that most stupid thing Philip said was that it would be great to have Pizza Hut in Moscow. It's the same mistake that many Westerners made when they believed that if the Russians only got same goods and services, free market and democracy, all would be fine. The problem was that they didn't undestand the market system and so oligarchs groped the former state property for themselves and they had never had a civil society as a counter force to the state. 3 Link to comment
aghst June 13, 2023 Share June 13, 2023 Never had borscht. Never been to Russia either but it seems like American fast food had a certain amount of popularity there. Not surprising, even in countries like France and Italy which have great cuisines, McDonalds and other American fast food brands are fairly popular. So why wouldn't they be in Russia? The show itself depicted how life in the USSR had become difficult, with lack of reliable quality food. Not that they were starving but they showed all those empty shelves in markets. I don't recall if they showed the bread queues but that was probably a real thing. Certain number of Russians, especially men in their 20s to 40s who could be drafted, had good university education and marketable skills in fields like engineering. Those were among the first to flee Russia, because they knew the Ukraine war was BS and they didn't want to be conscripted to be cannon fodder. For these people, who could probably find jobs in other countries, including those more affluent than Russia, I believe Western goods and services would be a big draw to them, because they earn higher incomes so what are they going to spend money on? Elizabeth casually dismissed things like reliable electricity and modern conveniences while Philip said things worked better in the US and life could be more enjoyable. But they were both loyal soldiers, with memories of the sacrifices their countrymen, including their relatives, made during WWII so they were always going to choose their homeland. But it was a bad choice for their children, who'd only known life in the US. The boy for instance was showing aptitude with computers and they were at the dawn of the PC revolution closely to be followed by the web. He would have thrived in American universities. It's strange, I grew up in a family of modest means, obviously nothing like how Philip and Elizabeth grew up. I would never volunteer to trade for a lower standard of living. If I ran out of money, there would be no choice but the Jennings could have thrived here, though in a decade or so, they'd have to find another business than owning a travel agency. But Henry would probably be out of college by the turn of the century and who knows, he might have put their agency online. Not that it would have beat out Expedia but it might have been big enough to get acquired by Expedia or Travelocity for millions. Some Americans do move to countries with lower cost of living. They live well but not with the same comforts as in the US. Obviously if they moved to these places due to cost, they don't have as much as others. Link to comment
txhorns79 June 13, 2023 Share June 13, 2023 1 hour ago, Roseanna said: As for ordinary people, the way to get things they wanted to have relations. If you happened to see something that was seldom in shops, it was wise to buy it because if you didn't need it oneself, some relative, friend, neighbour or colleague certaily needed and would then do the same to you. Therefore Soviet women always had a mesh bag with them. But doesn't that kind of show the problem with the system? You can't base your diet or your family's diet around relatives happening to be at the grocery store when a particular needed item was in. Link to comment
sistermagpie June 13, 2023 Share June 13, 2023 (edited) On 6/13/2023 at 1:37 PM, Roseanna said: I think that most stupid thing Philip said was that it would be great to have Pizza Hut in Moscow. It's the same mistake that many Westerners made when they believed that if the Russians only got same goods and services, free market and democracy, all would be fine. The problem was that they didn't undestand the market system and so oligarchs groped the former state property for themselves and they had never had a civil society as a counter force to the state. I don't know that he was even thinking of it in the sense of a free market or democracy. He just wanted the two countries to have friendly relations. Remember, he wasn't pushing for the fall of the USSR anymore than Oleg was. He just wanted to improve the system as he understood it and didn't see having a McDonalds etc. as a threat to that. In the last season he seemed to confirm his original values over capitalism. Not that he might not have still been openly optimistic about it when it did happen, and might have been just as dismayed and surprised at what happened. I remember Masha Gessin, I think (the translator on the show) saying she thought Philip and Elizabeth would do great in Russia post-Communism. They'd have a ton of valuable skills that would not only be marketable but would put them ahead of ordinary people who only knew the Soviet system. Edited June 15, 2023 by sistermagpie 1 Link to comment
Roseanna June 14, 2023 Share June 14, 2023 (edited) On 1/27/2023 at 4:17 AM, sistermagpie said: She also brushes off Philip’s question about why the USSR can’t grow its own wheat with another breezy “Everybody has problems.” But the lack of grain was the problem the Soviet leaders had caused by themselves. In the Czar's time Russia was a great exporter of grain, but Stalin's forced collectivation with deportation "kulaks" (more prosperous and industrious peasants who had servants or owned f.ex. a mill) which caused a famine where millions died especially in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The kolkhoz workers didn't have an internal passport, so they were unable to move. In the 1960ies Khrushchev got an idea to grow corn in the are that wasn't suitable for it. He also thought that the kolkhoz workers should live in apartment buildings just like factory workers and just In 1980ies - well, even the Soviet leaders had to think about their popularity and one thing that was politically necessary was to hold the prize of bread low with of state subventions. But also kolkhozes were paid for grain so little that it was often feeded to domestic animals. A lot of grain was also wasted during harvesting. Instead, it was far more profitable for kolkhoz workers to grow f.ex. vegetables on their little individual lots and sell them in the kolkhoz market. So long the oil prizes were high, the USSR managed to hobble forward and the country also got loans fron Western banks. But in 1991 the USSR could no more pay the rents for their Western bank loans and therefore not get new loans and Gorbatschow begged the Western states to give food and medicines for free. Many Russians blame only on Gorbatschow without understanding that he inherited the problems of the earlier Soviet periods. But he also lacked understanding of economy - which is no wonder because even the members of Politbüro had no access to the Soviet budget! Edited June 15, 2023 by Roseanna correcting a name 1 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie June 15, 2023 Share June 15, 2023 13 hours ago, Roseanna said: But the lack of grain was the problem the Soviet leaders had caused by themselves. Exactly--that's what I mean. Philip's asking a very reasonable question: why can't the USSR feed their own people with their own wheat when they obviously have the raw materials to produce a ton of wheat? Elizabeth brushes it off as if it's nothing, but it's a really serious quesiton. Elizabeth never wants to acknowledge questions that could be coming from their own leaders or system--but she's more than happy to do that for other countries. 3 Link to comment
Roseanna June 15, 2023 Share June 15, 2023 (edited) On 6/15/2023 at 6:02 AM, sistermagpie said: Elizabeth brushes it off as if it's nothing, but it's a really serious quesiton. Elizabeth never wants to acknowledge questions that could be coming from their own leaders or system--but she's more than happy to do that for other countries. Even generally, people aren't very keen to change their views, although they meet facts that contradict them. It's called cognitive dissonance. Sometimes a schocking event made Western intellectuals who had admired the Soviet Union and believed in its propaganda to wake, such as Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement in August 1939. But the "true believers" followed the party line even if it turned overnight into the opposite ("Fascism is the enemy" to "Imperialist Britain and France are enemies"). Elizabeth's Communism is a good example of a "secular religion" that possess the whole person. She has sacrificed her whole life for a cause - if she gave up it, what has she left? (Well, Philip of course, but she needs also something else.) Edited June 16, 2023 by Roseanna changing a word 2 Link to comment
aghst June 15, 2023 Share June 15, 2023 Do you mean cognitive dissonance or is configurative dissonance something else? Link to comment
Roseanna June 16, 2023 Share June 16, 2023 20 hours ago, aghst said: Do you mean cognitive dissonance or is configurative dissonance something else? You are right. I shall make a correction. Link to comment
sistermagpie August 9, 2023 Share August 9, 2023 Just watched Lotus 1-2-3 A lot of season 5 eps blend together for me with the plot, such as it is, advancing in tiny steps. Even the title feels like they cast around for something somebody said and picked Lotus 1-2-3 because it was 80s. I can see them setting things up for the last season, but it still feels like something’s missing while they do that. Like it’s all set up for next season. I guess the Morozovs are supposed to be the main thing, but they somehow don’t feel like it. OLEG Oleg’s family ambushing him with potential wives is pretty funny, especially in contrast to his investigations into corruption. I feel like we’ve got the point already without so many low level people just doing what everyone does and getting threatened for it. Oleg’s wife is never really going to come across as a real character so it almost does feel like he just picked the best of the three at dinner. STAN Renee’s conversations with Stan continue to raise the possibility that she’s a spy, but without me feeling like there’s anything really at stake. They have a conversation about it being easy to not see what you don’t want to see, and it’s odd that when she asks Stan if Sandra knew he was having an affair he has to think about it when she told him, outright, she damn well did. Still, it would be smart for her to be lying about being cheated on, to make him feel guilty while encouraging him to open up to her. And yet…she still doesn’t feel very important to the guy, maybe because she’s so perfect and pleasant, like a Stepford wife. MISCHA Mischa remains the one story I’m really invested in this time. His scene with Gabriel is just so effective. I buy Mischa’s longing for Philip. The actor’s great, and I especially love his expressions when he’s waiting for Philip at their meeting spot. It does seem like Mischa understands that his father doesn’t know he’s in the US. Like he gets that Gabriel has intercepted his message rather than thinking Gabriel has been sent by Philip. On first run I remember that before this ep there was a whole conversation about the likelihood of Mischa being able to speak English. I thought that he’d have to speak just enough to have whatever conversations in English he needed to have, since that always happens on TV (and none of the main actors speak Russian). That’s what happens, but they used his language so much better than I expected. The conversation never breaks down, but you can see Gabriel speaking slowly and Mischa concentrating furiously to try to understand, and I feel his frustration at having to try to express himself only in English. I also like the touch of Gabriel trying to get him someplace private and Mischa attracting unwanted attention by refusing, so they stay. On rewatch I can’t help but notice that Gabriel’s order to Mischa to “forget all this” if he really loves Philip is what Philip tells himself about Henry when they leave the US. If he really loves him, he’ll let him go for his own good. Maybe they’ll meet again, but not this way. In both cases it’s framed as putting the person you love before yourself. HENRY Speaking of Henry, this is the ep where it’s revealed that he’s suddenly good at math. Suddenly good—he wasn’t before, so his parents weren’t missing anything. And they both show up to meet with his math teacher, even if Philip has to come straight from the airport. These aren’t flakey parents who don’t know about their kids. They also have a little exchange about whether Henry’s Chris is a girl or a boy. They are interested in his personal life too. I like the little parallel to Oleg’s family there, in fact. The way both sets of parents are nosy about their kids’ life (which I heard at least one Russian person say is very standard). Of course, Philip and Elizabeth aren’t setting Henry up with potential girlfriends, but he’s 13. They are probably wise to not question him about it if he’s not sharing the info himself, but it’s funny watching them try to spy their way around it. They already suspect what’s going on without his telling them. PAIGE As for our other kid, Paige is glumly moving towards breaking up with Matthew. The first we hear of her, she’s begged off going to a movie with Stan, Renee and Matthew, and that leads into Matthew confronting her about her obvious lack of interest in him. Earlier she’s told Philip that she had a crush on Matthew before, so thought going out with him would make her life better, but it’s only worse, so maybe she’s just meant to be alone. I think her scene with Matthew is supposed to work the way so many of Philip and Elizabeth’s scenes do, where on the top level you see how they’re handling a source, but underneath you see how they’re expressing what’s really going on. Because I think this scene is supposed to be really important. It may be where Paige realizes she has to break up with him—and so be alone forever. (In part because of her unique situation of not being able to talk to him about what’s really going on with her, but also maybe the more mundane discovery that having a relationship doesn’t fix your problems.) That’s going to lead her to abandon her true self and follow Elizabeth. But it just plays like another time where things are hard for her and she’s confused instead of her making decisions and taking clear actions and hitting a wall. It’s more long pauses and slowly choosing words and puzzling out feelings. Sometimes I can’t stop myself from wondering how the scene could play differently. Like a version where it was clearer when she was choosing a fake deflection, or trying to give him some truth before giving up and going back to a dismissive lie. Her last lines are that she’s distant because she just doesn’t know how to act with a boyfriend, to which Matthew replies that yes, she does. That’s the line I think is supposed to hit hard, with Paige of course knowing she isn’t behaving right, that none of this feels right. Because at heart this is central to Paige. She desperately wants emotionally intimate relationships and doesn’t believe they can happen without truth. She does know, despite never having a boyfriend, what she should be doing, and she’s not and she can’t. I did find myself asking if it was realistic that Matthew would so want to continue going out with someone when all their time together seems to be either about either doing homework or listening to her struggle to explain why she’s distracted today, but I actually do believe he’d still be into it. Maybe not if they were older, but here, yeah. ELIZABETH Elizabeth learns that they’ve been wrong all this time about the bug plot, though she’s not bothered by it. I like how her habit of focusing on only the immediate mission and the far-off goal, which always seems to make her better suited to the job, is an easily exploited weakness in S6. She learns this fact from the guy she spends the most time with in this ep, Ben the bug guy. OMG, he is so tedious. Objectively he’s a good guy doing good work, and the stuff he talks about would be interesting in itself in conversation, but I can’t stand him. Maybe because I know every time he appears in a scene there’s going to be lots of dialogue about irrelevant stuff. I found myself asking why he’s dating Brenda Neil the clothing buyer given all his interests and I feel like it’s because dating, for Ben Stobert, is largely about impressing interchangeable women with all his knowledge and experience and stuff. PHILIP Although it’s not immediately apparent, I think Philip’s the most central to this ep, even if he himself isn’t doing anything that memorable. Claudia and Gabriel have a conversation about whether or not to let him meet Mischa that references his file that we now know is going to be important next season. Only the way Arkady reads his file is very different from the way Claudia does. She thinks he’s “shaky.” Arkady thinks the opposite. What really makes Philip central here is parenting. He doesn’t exactly fail all three of his kids in this ep, but he doesn’t succeed with them either. I already talked about Mischa letting him go if he loves him, and how that’s like Henry, and that still means that because of his choices and his job, he’s prevented from giving this kid what he needs. (Btw, it’s again funny how people sometimes claim Henry’s just going to forget about Philip once he’s gone cause Stan’s got toaster pizza when Mischa’s never even met his father and he’s risking his life to travel around the world to talk to him once.) Philip's thinking of his own father here too, flashing back to his childhood hovel and dinners of moldy black sawdust bread while having sex with Deirdre. I don’t know why they leave his brother out of this scene, btw. Philip (Mischa, then) is the only one sleeping at the table when Dad comes home with three bread rations. It made a lot of us wonder if the brother from the first scene had died. They all live in one room—where is he? Is the third ration for him? I think there’s echoes here of Renee’s lines about it being easy not to see things you don’t want to see. Philip was only 6 when his father died, but he also probably didn’t want to question what he’d been told about him or focus on his memories, which is basically the way Henry is about his parents. Oh, and another maybe unintentional parallel is Ben impressing Brenda/Elizabeth by making S’mores in his apartment fireplace like Philip’s mother heats up the hard, stale bread in the flames of their 19th century wood stove. Philip missteps with Henry in awkwardly trying to talk to him about his unexpected promotion into math class. (Elizabeth affectionately rolls her eyes when Philip says he’s good at math, but we’ll learn he really was singled out as a brilliant student—they are alike and walking very similar paths, Henry just doesn’t know it.) Henry winds up accusing him of thinking (and saying) Paige is the only kid he has who does anything good and Philip isn’t sure how to correct him. Then there’s the scene with Paige where she tells him how hopeless she feels about relationships and he doesn’t know what to say to her either. I remember at the time some criticized him for not cheering her up by taking her to the mall or something but I can’t see how that would work. He does seem to genuinely want to be as honest as he can with the kids, and while Elizabeth usually believes whatever easy answer she’s giving while she’s giving it, if Philip is taking Paige seriously here, which I think he is, he knows there is no easy answer. Back in S1 Elizabeth was the one who was often unsure about dealing with the kids. Nowadays she’s gotten a lot more confident—a little too confident, imo—and Philip’s the one questioning himself—because he wants to be better. It literally drives him to a teenager parenting class at EST. The guy is trying. As always, it’s kind of hard to make sense of the EST gobbledygook, but it seems like the point is that the most important thing about parenting is the love that is there, and to not let that get obscured by old ideas about who they are or you are or something like that. As ever, it’s hard to really pin down, but it does seem like this is very central to how Philip is going to consciously try to parent, and that means just trying to make them feel loved and not project his own expectations or desires or issues onto them. Not that this is the simple answer either—he’s eventually going to have to assert authority he’s earned again. 4 1 Link to comment
Andy73 August 19, 2023 Share August 19, 2023 On 8/9/2023 at 5:28 AM, sistermagpie said: Just watched Lotus 1-2-3 Thank you! Amazing as usual! 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie October 24, 2023 Share October 24, 2023 Just watched Crossbreed, and am trying to tease out the developments of everybody here. STAN AND OLEG Stan and Oleg are mostly just doing their jobs in this episode. We know Sofia, the Russian lady Stan and Adderholt are approaching in this ep, will eventually be important for Stan’s story, but at this point she’s just another person on his list. Oleg doesn’t seem to be particularly enjoying sending someone to prison because the guy is too afraid to give them the names of bigger fish. Stan’s threats to the CIA about confessing to killing Vlad at least seem to have worked, since Oleg’s meeting with the CIA agents in Moscow doesn’t happen, though he has no reason to think Stan really stuck his neck out for him, since it’s Stan’s tape that’s gotten him into trouble. Oleg and Stan will remain consistently different, though. Despite his fear here, Oleg will risk everything again next season when it seems important while Stan’s priority remains wanting to feel like a good guy on a personal level. For Stan, that’s more important than anything the CIA might get from Oleg, and it’s probably always been important to Stan’s character to be this way, because it’s always leading to him letting the Jennings go. Also, I notice we’re seeing Philip and Elizabeth both figuring some things out here that they’ll repress in S6. Like Elizabeth, now, obviously sees that her marriage is important to her, but she’ll go back to putting the Centre above everything. And Philip says something here about how he used to have so little and now has so much, but when he’s “retired” and has nothing but the agency to occupy his time, he’ll start chasing more stuff. GABRIEL Gabriel’s made the decision to leave after lying to Philip about Mischa—or at least keeping him a secret. Claudia, of course, not only thinks he’d did the right thing but considers Philip to have lied to him first, so he’s the real problem. I do love Gabriel saying Mischa looked like Philip when he’s worried about something, and when he says Philip’s not happy these days Claudia asks if he ever is. Claudia and Philip often snipe at the other from afar. People sometimes say they don’t buy that Philip would love Elizabeth, but mostly the times he’s happy, it’s because of her. BEN STOBERT Elizabeth’s source is still tiresome to me, though not to her. I ask myself why this guy who’s so into all these different interesting things wants to be with the woman Elizabeth is pretending to be, a marketer who works in fashion. It’s not really a mystery. The answer is that he isn’t really into her. It seems like he’s almost got a file of just exotic info to use with women. Every time he starts talking, I hear Joey Tribbiani from Friends: “Years ago, when I was backpacking through western Europe, I was just outside Barcelona hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibidabo…” I almost wonder what he’s like when he’s with men, since he’s probably not asking them to stick out their tongue like ancient Chinese medicine says to do, or jumping up to do Tai Chi with them. Elizabeth just has to laugh and follow along when she’s with him. He talks just enough about her to be flattering, but doesn’t really need her to talk about herself. If Philip got seriously into Tai Chi, she’d be rolling her eyes big time. It does always amuse me how Elizabeth so often gets paired with sources who have something cool they want to teach her. HENRY Henry confirms that yes, he’s into this Chris person that his parents already know he’s into, though she’s not his girlfriend yet. Again, people always seemed to stick with this impression that Henry’s still always with Stan when this scene reminds us that Henry is over that phase now, even if he still likes Stan. And Stan actually isn’t more up to date on Henry’s life than his parents are. He complains about his parents assuming he’d screwed up again when his teacher called to Stan—because it’s his parents’ opinion gets under his skin. Stan assures him he was always smart and just never worked at it before, but of course, that’s exactly what his parents were saying to begin with. Of course, even when talking to Stan Henry gets asked about Paige. Henry’s the Jan Brady of the family and Paige is Marcia. I still don’t think it’s a coincidence that Henry’s big love story is yet again with a girl he’ll never actually go out with afawk. His model for romantic relationships is his mother, poor thing. PAIGE I don’t know if Paige’s scene with the Mary Kay lady was supposed to hint at her vulnerability to manipulation, but she seems to genuinely consider Elizabeth’s firm “No thank you” to the saleslady to be “not very nice” when I’d think a girl her age would be more aware about not having to indulge a salesperson. I originally wondered if Elizabeth’s telling her that it’s nicer to just not waste the woman’s time if they’re not going to buy anything was going to lead to Paige breaking up with Matthew, but that’s not in this ep. However, Paige does start sending up serious signals in this ep about wanting to be recruited. She seems to already understand that Elizabeth is the recruiter. If she wants a rosy view of what they’re doing, she goes to Elizabeth because Philip’s not offering a rosy anything—nor is he ever taking any bait she lays down to bring her into their world. Philip represents the harder work of finding her own way alone. Elizabeth finds her reading the Marx essays that Pastor Tim gave her. Paige says she agrees with a lot of what Marx says, but notes that he doesn’t like religion. As usual, when Paige talks about religion, it doesn’t seem like she believes in God at all. When asked what she thinks about religion being a drug that keeps people in chains, she doesn’t talk about God being real, or suggest, as many Christians would, that on the contrary, God makes her free. She doesn’t talk about God at all. She just as she’s deciding between two clubs. The day she got baptized was the happiest she’s ever been…but maybe Elizabeth’s club can give her the same sense of belonging. That’s one thing Paige imagines she’ll get with Elizabeth: not being alone. Paige very rarely asks about life in Russia, but here she asks what it’s like there, if the Soviet Union has indeed solved all the problems of inequality. Elizabeth admits that they also have “problems,” but that they’re “all in it together.” This is exactly what Paige wants to hear and maybe Elizabeth gets that. Paige hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid quite yet, because she points out that Elizabeth hasn’t been there for years, just like Philip says. It’s not a coincidence that when she’s being truer to herself, Paige sounds more like Philip—not because she’s like him, but because he wants her to be herself and question things. Whenever she’s in a recruiting scene, Elizabeth still takes on this certain affect with Paige where she sounds like Pastor Tim. She affects the same performative interest in Paige’s opinions, asking her questions as if she really cares about Paige’s answers when really, she’s pushing her towards the answer she wants. She even responds to Paige’s challenges with a sort of exaggerated bon amie. Paige isn’t yet ready to completely jump from Pastor Tim to Elizabeth, but both speak to her like a child. It’s just an interesting pattern with Paige that she really does seem to be vulnerable to this kind of manipulation, and I think we’re maybe meant to see her as regressing when she’s drawn to this sort of thing. PHILIP The real meat of the episodes is with Philip and Elizabeth, with a therapy theme running through. The two of them have completely different responses to it. When Elizabeth returns from her fake therapy session in Topeka, Philip asks if the doctor asked about her dreams because he’s heard they do that. It’s one of those little moments where the show reminds us that as much as people often want Philip to be American, he’s just as Russian as Elizabeth and sometimes is going to view aspects of US life with ignorance and suspicion. He’s already in quasi-therapy, basically, in EST, but he doesn’t know it. Despite that, he seems to be sort of trying to create a therapy session with Elizabeth, telling her how he keeps remembering these men who glared at him and his brother. (Oh, did he mention he had a brother? Because he does and that’s apparently not a shock.) Elizabeth first tries to draw some practical conclusion, asking if the boys that beat Philip up were the sons of the guys who glared at him, but Philip doesn’t seem to make any connection there. (Honestly, if they were they probably would have said something about his father at some point and why would they need to be?) Elizabeth suggests he see Gabriel about this, since he’s read Philip’s file and won’t be there much longer. That’s how Philip finally learns that his father was a guard at a prison camp. Just as Elizabeth tried to find an easy answer to connect the boys that beat Philip up with the men he remembers, Philip seems to also want to find some easy answer here: did the Centre come for him because his father worked for them too? It an odd conclusion. A prison guard wasn’t some glamorous job. Connecting the two seems like thinking that one’s father being a janitor at Princeton explains why someone got into Princeton as a student. Philip putting them together seems more about his own issues, wondering if he’s genetically a killer. But there again, Gabriel can’t help. His father being a prison guard doesn’t really say anything about either him or Philip except that he took the job for whatever reason. Philip asks why Gabriel didn’t tell him this, but it seems like the obvious reason is why would Gabriel think he needed to tell him? Shouldn’t Philip know that himself? Whatever he says about his mother never telling him, I’m not so sure this fact was as hidden from him as it seems to him now. Everything Philip is saying here should be considered a preview of what Henry’s going to be thinking post-series. Hopefully to his own very good therapist. What Philip ultimately draws from this is that it’s sad that he didn’t know his parents. I’ve heard him saying that, btw, used as proof that Philip didn’t care about his family, that they were strangers in the sense that he didn’t give a damn about them, but he’s obviously talking about his parents the way Henry someday will. Far from not caring about them, he thinks it’s sad that he never knew them as people instead of just parents. And that leads him to bring Paige to meet Gabriel. I feel like this moment is one of those times where Philip accidentally makes Paige a more likely recruit. He probably feels more comfortable bringing her to meet Gabriel because he’s leaving the country, but Claudia will no doubt use Paige’s impression of a handler as family to make herself seem more trustworthy, despite not being like family at all. ELIZABETH Elizabeth starts the ep in conversation with Gabriel about how the wheat plot was a lie. It’s really just funny listening to them insist to each other that they feel terrible about the mistake in order to talk about Philip, because they both know he’s the only one who actually feels bad about it. Elizabeth goes to see a therapist to plan on breaking into his office. She makes up a story about being mugged that seems based on Paige’s experience, including the self-defense classes. But she’s totally resistant to the doctor’s thoughts on it, rejecting the word “trauma” to describe what happened and rolling her eyes on her way out after he tells her that she can’t just go back to the way things were. That part, I think, is about Elizabeth and Timoshev rather than Paige. She dealt with her rape by learning to defend herself physically, dealing with the threat outside of herself. She doesn’t want to believe that the trauma changed who she was, or that she should deal with it head on. This is exactly the solution she’s trying to offer Paige, forgetting any development she’s made during the show with Philip. In fact, even Stobert carries this theme by telling her that she’s hiding emotional turmoil inside even when—maybe especially when—she’s in a softer emotional state. This is coming up in a number of ways, too, like when she asks Gabriel if something is wrong with her for not wanting to continue seeing Stobert. As far as she’s concerned, there’s feelings and there’s work, and if the former interferes with her enthusiasm for the latter, it means she’s doing wrong. One of the advantages to her theory that the guys who attacked Philip as a kid were the sons of men with something against his father is it avoids the fact that post-war USSR was a dog-eat-dog world. Citizens might have felt like they were all in it together during the war, but afterwards, from everything I’ve ever heard, it was a brutal place where you had to learn to defend yourself. Philip was attacked because he was small and vulnerable and had something bigger kids wanted, and he dealt with it by killing them. Naturally, Elizabeth has nothing to say about the prison camps that Philip’s now thinking about—that he probably has been thinking about since Alexei brought all this up for him. She and Gabriel similarly act as if they’ve discovered some wonderful key to ending the food shortages in the USSR through their work with Stobert, ignoring the fact that Stobert’s work protects against drought and bugs, not the supply chain issues that are the root of the actual problem. It’s subtle, but I think these moments are well chosen to show how automatically Elizabeth ignores anything like an internal problem in the USSR, be it supply issues or the GULAG. She knows the camps existed. That’s all she’ll say, even after just telling Paige that they’re all in it together in the USSR. That conversation with Paige happens after several interactions with sources in the same ep. Stobert picks up on Elizabeth being “softer” with him now because she no longer thinks he’s trying to starve the USSR. That’s how close to the surface her feelings are. Then she clearly enjoys following his Tai Chi moves. Back home, she gets a painful reminder of where this sort of things can lead when the Mary Kay rep shows up at the door, and she makes a clandestine visit to Young-Hee’s house. Another family lives there now, which is obviously a bad sign. Back in the day, many thought Young-Hee would be the story that would start to turn Elizabeth away from the Centre. Instead, we see she’s determined to not let it do that. Right after she stares at the home of the family she probably destroyed and the friend she betrayed, she comes home and works on recruiting Paige. If Paige is with her, she seems to think, she’s solved the problem. Her solution to everything is usually the same—do what she’s been taught is right and don’t look too hard at anything that might be wrong. 3 Link to comment
Zella October 24, 2023 Share October 24, 2023 3 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: BEN STOBERT Elizabeth’s source is still tiresome to me, though not to her. I ask myself why this guy who’s so into all these different interesting things wants to be with the woman Elizabeth is pretending to be, a marketer who works in fashion. It’s not really a mystery. The answer is that he isn’t really into her. It seems like he’s almost got a file of just exotic info to use with women. Every time he starts talking, I hear Joey Tribbiani from Friends: “Years ago, when I was backpacking through western Europe, I was just outside Barcelona hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibidabo…” I almost wonder what he’s like when he’s with men, since he’s probably not asking them to stick out their tongue like ancient Chinese medicine says to do, or jumping up to do Tai Chi with them. Elizabeth just has to laugh and follow along when she’s with him. He talks just enough about her to be flattering, but doesn’t really need her to talk about herself. If Philip got seriously into Tai Chi, she’d be rolling her eyes big time. It does always amuse me how Elizabeth so often gets paired with sources who have something cool they want to teach her. He reminds me of very annoying men I met in grad school. 😂😂😂 They're not necessarily bad people but nowhere near as deep or interesting as they think they are. 2 Link to comment
sistermagpie October 24, 2023 Share October 24, 2023 35 minutes ago, Zella said: He reminds me of very annoying men I met in grad school. 😂😂😂 They're not necessarily bad people but nowhere near as deep or interesting as they think they are. Right???! Exactly! He knows a little bit about many things but talks like he knows everything about everything. So many women have heard these same things! He's not doing anything bad on the show, but I'm always thinking oh god, I know this guy. And yet it's somehow fitting for Elizabeth's character that despite all her experience, I don't think she gets him. He's not a type she usually deals with (and I think she might naturally be drawn to guys speaking with authority or something.) 2 1 Link to comment
Zella October 24, 2023 Share October 24, 2023 1 hour ago, sistermagpie said: Right???! Exactly! He knows a little bit about many things but talks like he knows everything about everything. So many women have heard these same things! He's not doing anything bad on the show, but I'm always thinking oh god, I know this guy. And yet it's somehow fitting for Elizabeth's character that despite all her experience, I don't think she gets him. He's not a type she usually deals with (and I think she might naturally be drawn to guys speaking with authority or something.) Yes that sums up perfectly! After I posted, I remembered what really always got me with them too. It was like they cultivated these interests because it was the thing to be interested in rather than because they had any actual passion for it. Their hobbies and interests aren't the problem. It's the way they go about it that is. I'd rather talk to someone who genuinely likes what they like, even if it is something I care nothing about, rather than listen to someone be performative about something even if that subject genuinely interests me. And yeah I can see how he's not someone Elizabeth has encountered before. Join a humanities department for a year, comrade, and you'll see right through him because you'll see so many of him. 😂 1 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie October 24, 2023 Share October 24, 2023 (edited) 14 hours ago, Zella said: Yes that sums up perfectly! After I posted, I remembered what really always got me with them too. It was like they cultivated these interests because it was the thing to be interested in rather than because they had any actual passion for it. Their hobbies and interests aren't the problem. It's the way they go about it that is. I'd rather talk to someone who genuinely likes what they like, even if it is something I care nothing about, rather than listen to someone be performative about something even if that subject genuinely interests me. Exactly! When he first starts out I think oh, this is something I'd usually like that he's just really into this stuff. But then I realize...is he really into this stuff? Or does he just have really polished stories that he knows exactly when to use. That fact that he never gets too carried away or drones on is actually a drawback. When he asks "Am I boring you?" it's more a brag than an apology. Edited October 24, 2023 by sistermagpie 1 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie February 18 Share February 18 (edited) Just watched The Committee on Human Rights… THE SOURCES Philip notes that Deidre only has one set of plates, as if she wants to make it clear that she doesn’t want guests for dinner. Ever. I remember some people thought this moment was about Philip trying but not being able to turn her into another Martha. But I really don’t think he wants another Martha, and he doesn’t need her to be one. I really think it’s supposed to be him just making an observation about this woman he thinks is unnecessarily standoffish, and part of Deidre being Elizabeth without being Elizabeth. She’s beyond independent. They go to Mississippi to follow Stobert and spot him making out with some other woman. In keeping with him being Philip without Philip, Elizabeth somehow thought this guy wasn’t a player, which points to some pretty big blind spots in Elizabeth’s understanding. She actually has very little experience with relationships, ironically. And what is Stobert doing with this other woman besides making out with her? He’s taking her to a jazz club. Could he be more of a cliché. LOL! Fucking Stobert. RENEE This is the ep where Renee makes her damning mistake of mis-naming the University of Indiana (so I’ve been told). Naturally, that’s a detail she didn’t need to even include. Where most people would just say, “You know, I went skinny dipping once in that quarry” and only give details if the person asked, Renee has to go into irrelevant details right away about her friend’s name, where they were going, what their route was and why they went swimming. Does Stan ever meet this friend? We don’t know, so we don’t know if it’s sus. Back in S3 Stan said the key to fooling people was to tell them what they want to hear. Renee’s method is burying them in so much irrelevant detail they stop listening to you, I guess. STAN Politics works in Stan’s favor again, when his boss refuses to fire him for sabotaging the CIA’s plans to turn a KGB agent. He talks about it with Renee, who doesn’t really give him any advice, but Stan thanks her as if he thinks she did. I wonder if this is again supposed to mirror the way he is with Philip. Adderholt feels like Stan’s sabotaging their work too by giving Sophia a more realistic view about how safe she’ll be with the FBI. Stan says his honesty will make her trust them more. Does he really think that, or is he just not wanting another Nina? Since it’s Stan, seems like the latter. GABRIEL In one of my favorite movies, a character says, “Am I the dumping ground for everybody’s fear?” I feel like Philip sometimes gets stuck being that dumping ground for the rest of the Illegals. For example, Gabriel meets with both Jennings to say goodbye. To Elizabeth he’s all supportive about Paige—they’ve done a great job, it’s great she doesn’t expect happiness. When Elizabeth fishes for a more reassurance, saying she sometimes thinks they’ve put too much on Paige (ya think?) he says she’s fine. But when Philip’s leaving, Gabriel tells him that he was right, they never should have dragged Paige into this. Maybe there’s something comforting in somebody telling Philip that at least he’s not nuts to feel this way, but it seems like an easy way for Gabriel to feel like he did something to help before dashing off when he just gave Philip more reason to worry about something he can’t do anything about. Telling Elizabeth might have had more effect. We learn that Gabriel gave Paige a stuffed tiger she used to carry around. This sounds sweet until Philip adds that Gabriel wanted her to grow up strong like a tiger, which just made me roll my eyes. Like, could you not turn it off long enough to just give the kid a plushie? ELIZABETH Elizabeth really is genuinely disturbed by Stobert being exactly who he obviously is. She denies that her issue was that she liked him, trying to claim it was more about her instincts in thinking there was something about him that meant he wouldn’t sleep around even though that’s what their whole relationship mostly is. Like, it’s hard to even think he needs to be faithful to “Brenda.” Elizabeth is shamelessly pleased at Paige breaking up with Matthew and, more importantly, Paige’s coming to understand that hard as it is to believe, America really is trying to starve the USSR, even though she knows they aren’t. I doubt she really feels like she’s lying, because hey, it’s something the US and only the US would do! PHILIP Just as Elizabeth’s reactions to Paige here (approving of every step she takes towards them and away from everything else) foreshadow what she’s offering her for the future, Philip offers sympathy after she breaks up with Matthew and advises her not to give up on finding happiness for herself. He knows she feels like she’s different from everyone else—something Paige admits (to no one’s surprise) that she felt even before she learned about her parents. But that’s the thing, it’s a common adolescent way to feel. Giving into this kind of narcissistic despair might be satisfying in the short term, but she’s not hurting anybody but herself with it. I seem to remember this was another one of those scenes where Philip’s offering Paige sympathy and love and it just got him judged as a terrible father again. Not just because his own actions are causing her problems, which they obviously are, but because a good father would have had her laughing and carefree by the end of this scene. Once again he fails to get her to the mall. Of course, he still backs Elizabeth up by not telling Paige that the wheat plot is bullshit. Guess the best that could be said is that he at least looks uncomfortable by giving her vague responses about how it’s going. Elizabeth might be more open about it, and feel more entitled, but both of them crave the kids’ acceptance. PAIGE In retrospect, this episode is another one that’s really about Paige. She’s making important moves in it, but it still feels like nothing is happening since she spends almost every scene looking awkward and glumly distracted. There are some important foundations laid for her future here. She meets Gabriel and thinks he’s like family, suggesting that being a spy is like having a spy family. She talks with her parents and realizes that if this wheat plot is reality, their spying is justified. She tells Pastor Tim she’s come to realize there’s more important things in the world than her, which he compares to Jesus. When he asks if she prays, she hesitates before saying “sometimes.” So it seems like she’s no longer trying to believe in God—which I don’t think is hard for her. All this leads her to actually take important action in breaking up with Matthew, then coming home and staring at her Marx books. I had forgotten how very heavy-handed this ep is about that, but it still doesn’t really feel like it matters. Even in retrospect, it’s hard to see how she’s reacting to any of this specifically. Is it meant to be disturbing that her parents agree she seems to be getting better when they mean she’s giving up? If so, that’s still not interesting to watch. It’s like she’s just asking for audience sympathy all the time. It seems like she’s just passively puzzling over everything everybody else is saying instead of trying to grab onto a perspective that makes her feel good. Of course, there is one scene that’s active, where she breaks up with Matthew. I wound up thinking a lot about that scene because there’s a lot of stuff in it we’ll see again later. Like the moment where she starts to leave, and Matthew tries to stop her using the exact same move as the guy in the bar in S6, and she shoves him violently away. Iow, she’s overreacting and lashing out. It shows that Elizabeth’s self-defensive course isn’t giving her control and security, just a way of letting out her fear and general PTSD. Matthew’s shocked reaction shows how much attention this kind of behavior gets, yet in S6 she dismisses it. When she starts breaking up with him, she seems to be trying to be somewhat honest in saying that Matthew doesn’t know her, that all they do is make out. This is something that seemed to never quite come through the way it was meant to—that Paige doesn’t like sex without emotional intimacy. It’s not that she’s a big prude, but that she craves the emotional closeness her parents have and isn’t satisfied with just physical stuff. As a kid she maybe thought it was the same thing, but with experience she sees it isn’t. It’s not surprising that betraying someone by using that desire is one of the worst things she can imagine. But you don’t really get that here. In fact, I realized watching this scene and this ep that while most characters in the show always manage to look like what they’re saying or doing is coming out of something they are inside despite it all coming from a script, Paige’s emotions always seem to just be following the script, it’s very surface. Like it’s just the script telling her what emotion she should have based on what she’s saying. In a show where all the other actors are doing more, it just stands out. Plus, it makes it impossible to really get what’s going on with her. In this scene, she starts out trying to be tearfully honest about Matthew not knowing her. She ends the scene tearfully saying she just can’t be his girlfriend anymore, violently shoving him, trying to get more tearful, apologizing and leaving. In the middle of this, though, there’s this one moment in the script. After Paige says she doesn’t want to just make out anymore, they have this exchange: Matthew: Okay, we won’t make out anymore. Paige: That’s it? You’re not even going to argue with me? Matthew: Do you want me to argue with you? Paige: No! Matthew: Look, what do you want me to say? Paige: I don’t know! Something! It sounds a bit like a cliché comedy scene where the person doing the dumping suddenly gets offended when the other person doesn’t make it difficult, because it’s a blow to their ego. But this isn’t that kind of scene. I would almost have expected her to respond to Matthew saying they won’t make out anymore by saying that wasn’t the point. So I tried to figure out what it could mean. It could be a moment where she’s actually expressing stuff that she really doesn’t like about Matthew—maybe it is kind of annoying to her that he just goes along with anything. In fact, I just remembered that Sandra once told Stan that he always agreed with her to avoid conflict, which would be ironic given that Matthew claims he’s *not* his dad here, and if he did something wrong, he’ll fix it. Since this breakup is about Paige’s situation I feel like dramatically it makes more sense for that line to be there to suggest that on some level Paige hopes that Matthew will save her here. Give her some reason not to break up with him. I mean, what else could she want him to say even if she doesn’t realize it? It just made me wonder if somebody could have done something with all of this stuff that would be different. Not just that moment with Matthew but all the scenes. MATTHEW Poor Matthew, btw. As much as I mentioned him being like Stan here, he’s also Sandra trying to just stick with this relationship with a person who’s clearly not in it with him. Even worse when you remember that Paige is supposed to be the person who is there to see him when he’s in Falls Church, since Stan not really there with him either. Really, for all people love to say Philip and Elizabeth are the worst parents even without the whole spy thing, Matthew’s got it rough with his. Edited February 18 by sistermagpie 3 Link to comment
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