I am not making this post as a reply to any individual post above becuase it seems to me that more than one person referred to Stalin’s “racism”.
But I had some difficulty understanding just who it was that accused Stalin of being racist.
More importantly, can anyone help me to find just when and where it was said that Stalin was racist and to whom did he direct any racist attitudes? I would very much appreciate to know just when and where Stalin exhibited racist attitutes. Most importantly, I would very much like to know, to whom were the racist attitudes directed?
My guess is that they were directed towards the Jewish people or towards people of African descent. But I would really appreciate knowing when and where Stalin made these kinds of remarks. If anyone can help me with a citation, I surely would be most appreciative.
I have read several stories of his crazy behavior that would indicate he was most definitely somewhat “crazy” but I have never seen just when and where these kinds of attitudes were expressed. I would definitely be most appreciative to anyone who could post some of those remarks and I would thank you very much if you could tell me just when he said such things and to whom they were directed.
I know that I often joke around about this subject matter. However, I am being completely serious about this subject. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
I had the exact same reaction: the whole situation (of KGB characters assuming Haig would take over, and their emotions when that didn’t happen) was riveting. As you say, it wouldn’t be easy to find another historical event that would make the point so clearly–but no one can say that the showrunners/writers didn’t take full advantage of this one.
And the Jennings aren’t just regular Soviet citizens, nomenklatura, or even KGB agents. They’ve been very heavily trained and selected for their loyalty and strict adherence to the Party line including the militant atheism. They’re the most devout of the most devout. So there’s that, plus the fact that Paige (who’s unimaginably spoiled compared to how they grew up) is rebelling against them in favour of the church. If it hadn’t been for her not so little donation they’d probably just kept biting their lips; at least until she wanted to go to summer camp.
I have to retract the above statement because it appeared as if I was talking about the actress and criticizing the actress. But that was not my intention whatsoever.
I was criticizing the character within the story. I did not intend to say the writers did a bad job. I meant the character herself did a bad job in her role as a KGB handler and within the confines of that role, she should be replaced with another handler. But the actor is fine and I have no reason to see her replaced or to see her lose her job. I just want to see this actor take on a different role or maybe to become a double agent or something else.
When Stan Beeman asked Jared if his parents had any friends, Jared said, “Yes”. But Stan never followed up on that. At least we were never shown any follow up.
Why didn’t Stan ever follow up on that?
I’m asking because when Stan later asked if Jared recognized the hand drawn images of P&E, Jared didn’t seem to acknowledge that. But if he did recognize them and he never answered the question, then maybe he decided that P&E did, in fact, kill his parents. In which case, maybe he is considering killing P&E to even the score?
Wow! I just finished watching the latest episode S2E11. It was the best episode yet and since this show keeps getting better and better, that must mean it was the best episode ever! I am just blown away. I’m beginning to think this could be the very best show on TV.
As for the rest of this season, things are really gonna bust wide open now. Larrick has killed both the Post Office guy (sorry I forgot his name) and he killed Kate.
It gave me no pleasure to be right about Kate. Nina was certainly correct about the difference between spies and cops. Spies are much smarter than cops (although she never said that). What she said was that cops just want to catch someone and throw them in jail. But spies want to catch them and keep them forever - wherever they are and keep them working for the spies forever. Spies want to catch someone and then bleed them forever. So much smarter than cops. The cop catches someone and throws them away. But the spy catches someone and then makes them give something to the spy forever more. The spy is so much smarter than the cop.
Anyway, I’m just shaking in my boots. This episode was so powerful, it just rocked me to my core. What a fabulous show!
I am fairly certain that he did kill Kate because of the very loud “SNAPPING” sound when he twisted her neck. It sounded to me very much like he broke her neck.
I suppose that you could be correct and he may not have actually killed her. But I’d be very surprised if that were true.
Here is an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal’s blog that reaps Season 2 Episode 11. It states that Larrick did break Kate’s neck.
But that does not mean he killed her. He may have broken her neck without killing her.
In addition, the WSJ is not the last word when it comes to deciding whether Larrick did or did not kill her.
But there were some other interesting comments in this recap from viewers. These comments carry no real weight. But here is an interesting one:
To Don: Larrick knew there were time constraints;someone would come looking for her, so he couldn’t spend any time torturing her.
I would ask you to consider the comments about “time constraints”. Larrick knew he had to get out of there quickly because someone would be bound to be coming along looking for Kate. Therefore, when we see P&E in the home later on, I think it is pretty clear that Kate is dead because Larrick would not have been waiting around. He would have killed her and gotten out of there quickly.
However, bottom line? You may well be correct. Kate may not be dead. But I would have to guess the odds are astronomical that she is dead.
Alas, they’d never be answered, because Kate comes home to a weird feeling. She stows away in the bathroom for a few minutes and exits with her gun in order to get into a scuffle with Larrick. He trusses her up, hanging her by her wrists from the sturdiest ceiling fan known to man. Swinging her around like a tetherball, Larrick calmly asks for the whereabouts of Philip and Elizabeth. She responds with spit to the eye. Realizing this is a dead end, Larrick breaks her neck.
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool;17353613…He then went into that basement. There he found the room-with-lots-of-phones-KGB-switchboard, and the guy who passes messages around. That guy saw him, and pressed a button intended to fry some of his sensitive equipment. Larrick shot him. Larrick them worked on reconstructing the fried equipment, and was able to make a phone call to Phillip and Elizabeth’s new contact lady. So he now presumably knows her “real” phone number.[/QUOTE]
Sorry, I am one episode behind, but I wanted to comment on this scene.
I’m not sure if it is just bad writing or lack of technical knowledge, but what Larrick did does not make sense. After the “operator” fried the panel, Larrick digs around, finds a dial tone, then uses the service handset to make a call. He **dialed **the number. Where did he get the number? There’s no magic phone circuit that connects to Kate’s phone. If he had the number, he could have dialed from any phone (remember, no caller ID). (Bonus complaint: it sounded like he entered the numbers, then the handset rapid-fire dialed. Service handset didn’t work that way-it’s just a phone with clipleads and a rugged case.)
What would frying the panel do? There’s no computer in there, no advanced circuitry. The whole setup is just a bunch of phone lines. The important part of the switchboard operation is the phone numbers and the calling protocols. A notebook with all that info is what is valuable.
Well, if you want to discuss some bizarre events, please consider this one:
When P&E return home from Kate’s place, they have that toilet paper roll with the message that kate wrote. We get to see the message. It is a sequence of numbers. We also get to see how P translated those numbers into the message, “Get Jared Out”.
P used a code book that contained a sequence of (what looked like) 5 digit random numbers. He also used a pad of yellow paper on which he drew a grid and translated numbers into letters and words. From the looks of his work, it must have taken him at least 10 or 15 minutes.
Now, here is the problem with that.
We saw Kate go into her bathroom and grab that roll of toilet paper. She did not have any code book (that we could see) and she did not have any pad of paper or writing materials (that we could see). Most importantly, she did not have 10 or 15 minutes to encode the message into a sequence of numbers. If she would have taken that long, surely Larrick would have gotten suspicious (I would have thought she was making a phone call out asking for help and I would have forced the door open).
So, can anyone tell me, am I correct that this was indeed an error in the way the episode was constructed? I would just like to know if I’m correct about there being a problem with this sequence.
While I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s episode, I don’t think it makes ANY sense for P&E to go investigate Kate’s house. If Kate has really “gone silent”, far and away the most likely explanation is that she has been caught by the FBI or something of that sort. If so, then going to her house is just 100% walking into a trap. Clearly the KGB will want to investigate, but sending your most valuable deep-cover secret assets in in person seems suicidal, and is one of those things that only makes sense in a TV show.
A very strong point! Really very strong! That makes a huge amount of sense.
Unfortunately, lately, I seem to come down on one side of an argument only to find out later there is a good case to be made on the other side. I hope that won’t happen here.
It’s very hard to imagine how you could be wrong. I mean, I have to agree the odds are that Kate has been caught by the FBI and if she was, it would be a huge mistake to send in your most valued agents when they could probably find some other much less risky way to do this. For example, they could park a mile away from her house and watch her front door and then do something like order some food to that address or call a taxi to that address and watch and see what happens. That surely would be a better move than just sticking your own nose into a beehive. It would have to be a better approach!
I think the message was already encoded on the toilet paper roll. She pulled all the paper off of it to signal that there was a message there. Jared’s going to work out to be a big deal.
I agree that she pulled the paper off to signal the presence of a message. (Putting the toilet seat up did the same thing.) I also agree that Jared is going to be a big part of the plot, going forward.
I’m not so sure about the message already being encoded on the toilet paper roll. As has been pointed out, it would take a good ten or fifteen minutes to encode the message before writing it there. She wouldn’t have had that time on returning home and feeling suspicious that someone had entered the place, so she would have to have done it earlier. But why would she have suspected that a hostile person would enter her place (and thus that she’d have to leave a message about Jared)? And why would she assume that Soviet agents would then come in to find that message?
As has been said, perhaps it will all make sense later.
He must be a very big deal indeed if Kate keeps coded messages about him hidden in her toilet paper just in case she gets kidnapped or murdered. :dubious:
Side question. The actor who played the cancer guy. This is the second thing I’ve seen him in recently where he plays a guy with cancer. Is the real guy OK?
I didn’t know anything about the world of espionage before watching this show.
I may still not know much after it’s finished. But it’s been a tremendous amount of fun thinking about some of these puzzles. I’m having a really great time.
If we absolutely must abide by the conservation of characters law, then my guess for who killed the family in the hotel room is Claudia. (The previous handler played by Margo Martindale.)
I know she was all gung-ho about finding the “real” killer, but I’m thinking that could have been an act to get Philip & Elizaebth to take out that guy she fingered. That guy has certainly proved to be dangerous to their cause this episode, that’s for sure, so it’s no stretch to guess why she wanted him gone.
Jared has never met, or even heard about, Philip and Elizabeth. This was made clear by the interactions at the fair, but even without that, we know he’s never seen them before because Elizabeth talks to him face to face as a person who isn’t Elizabeth.
