I love your theory. But there is a huge flaw in it. They don’t need Phillip to take the huge risks he has with Martha, Gaad’s administrative assistant, if Gaad could just tell them the info. The risk that they would expose each other accidentally is enormous. I do think that, in support of your theory, Gad has let Martha go a couple of times when he caught her copying stuff. If they had Gaad, there would be no Martha effort, and Phillip would not waste whole weekends with Stan at est. Hint to Stan: you were right about your neighbors in ep one.
Well, remember, she sees the world from a very different perspective. To us, and to Phillip, and to any reasonable neutral observer, Paige is going to be much happier living the rest of her life as an American, going to college, getting married, etc. To Elizabeth, a life like that would be a lie, and Paige will be TRULY happy if she learns the truth, etc. She could easily believe that what’s actually best for Paige is to learn the truth. And to a certain extent she HAS to believe that in order to remain sane. If Paige would be happier living her life as an American, then Elizabeth would also be happier either defecting or just moving to another state and assuming a new American identity.
What would happen if someone caught her and used Paige’s life as leverage to get her to tell her secrets? I don’t think we honestly know, but I don’t think we’ve seen anything to indicate that she’s some sort of unfeeling sociopath.
Tommy Schlamme also directed episode 3.
Hmmm, this makes me think the Theory of Gaad as a double has even more creedance. If he’s the boss in the office he can’t appear as the worker bee, he’s pulling the strings, but it’s interesting at times he does wade in to do the wet work.
Maybe Gadd’s just one of those bosses who likes to get his hands dirty once in a while. Not to mention that taking credit for the capture of a Soviet agent operating on US soil isn’t something he wants to leave for the underlings.
The key word in Max’s post is reasonable, which goes to my point. Elizabeth is not reasonable. Any reason she may possess has been overtaken by her blind dedication to the Cause. Consider the following:
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At the slightest indication of seeing him waver, E rats out P. Cause leads 1-0.
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Given the choice of watching a fellow op die at the hands of Larrick or compromising the mission, E decides its more important to trade the life for the good of the mission.
2-0 in favor of The Cause. The fact that she stood there and watched and didn’t blink an eye speaks volumes. -
IIRC, E promises Jared’s mother she will explain the truth about their family to him. When the moment of truth comes, E burns the letter. Now we have a 3-0 lead for Mother Russia.
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E and P vow to not involve their children in the spy racket. Given instructions from The Centre, E tosses out that vow at the drop of a hat. It’s a 4-0 shutout in favor of The Motherland.
Whether she is a sociopath, I cannot say. All I know is that to Elizabeth Jennings, the only thing that truly matters is Communism. All else is expendable.
Thank you, Amarinth.
But can you tell us where you found that out?
Maybe, but if you’re the commanding officer of record, regardless if you get your hands dirty you’re front and centre when it comes to captures. I’m not totally convinced that John Boy is a double agent, but it would be delicious for the producers to play with the double entendre with the audience
Gaad is a Buddhist. This is very frickin weird for an FBI agent at the beginning of the 1980s, as he would have worked for them about 20 years, and Hoover kept a close eye on every special agent that was hired, and Hoover was a first rate bigot. Hard to imagine a Buddhist getting hired in the 60s when Hoover was the director, and he was in charge until his death in 1972 (about then) so Gaad would have had to convert and advance during the remaining years.
Here is Alan Sepinwall’s review of last week’s episode from HitFix. The reviewer actually saw part of that being filmed and names the director in the review.
He’s also published interviews with the producers and the actors that play Philip, Elizabeth, and Paige
She thinks owning her own business and living in suburbia is “different, not better” than standing in line for potatoes in Smolensk. She definitely has a screw loose somewhere.
And how about the “creep factor” of Philip putting moves on the, what, 16 year-old daughter of the target de jour? Think the guy who beat the crap out of the pedophile in the first episode will go through with it?
The Second Stone, guess I flunk counter-espionage. I did not even consider the Martha angle.
It just seemed so clear that the writers were setting up Gaad as a Richard Hanssen type traitor. If Gaad is working for the Soviets it is without the knowledge of Elizabeth and Phillip, since they never mention a resource within the higher levels of the FBI.
Such a resource would be hugely valuable for the KGB. And E and P are in constant danger of being caught. So it would make since for their superiors not to share the info with them. In that case is it an unlikely coincidence that Philip recruited Martha out from under Gaad, or has Gaad been pulling strings on Martha all along?
Another possibility is that Gaad the spy is being managed by a different faction within the KGB or by the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence). But internal Soviet factionalism has not been a theme in this series.
Stan would not recognize a spy if E and P stood his on front lawn with hammer-and-sickle armbands and sang the Soviet Anthem.
I think most White Americans in 1980 who were Buddhists would have been converts.
I just watched Episode 4 again and I’m very confused. Or maybe “confused” isn’t the right answer. Maybe it would be more correct to say that I’d like to understand what is going on but I just don’t hae any answers.
One thing that seems very striking to me is the conversation that P&E had in their bedroom when P said that most parents would like: 1) a good college 2) a good marriage 3) good job. Then E seems to snort in derision and says, “Oh. That’s quite a list”.
Throughout that conversation, I got a strong sense they were both talking about something different. But I’m not sure what it was. When E said something like, “It’s happening with or without you”, I couldn’t tell if she was talking about Paige becoming a 2nd generation KGB agent or about mother and daughter becoming closer or something else.
Would anyone else have any ideas that might help me understand?
I understood Elizabeth to be telling Phillip that she would be participating in trying to recruit Paige with or without him. She is working Paige and Phillip and doesn’t truly love either, or for that matter, anyone, including herself. She can see the bad in other people, organizations and countries, but she and her country can do no wrong. For her, after a short struggle with her poorly formed conscience, she considers the challenge of recruiting Paige to be absolutely exhilarating, a vindication of the sacrifices she has made to her humanity. Yes, she has affection for Phillip and Paige and Henry, but she hasn’t examined that affection.
This is, in my opinion, an allegory. We are all “The Americans” in our divided loyalties between our families and our success outside our families. If Elizabeth succeeds with Paige, it will be to teach Paige that the love of family is less important than success, and to me it looks like Paige is going in that direction.
I don’t get the angst over the baptism thing. As a believer, I think it is just a ceremony. These two atheists, Elizabeth and Phillip, are dreading it as though a real transformation takes place.
I couldn’t agree more. When one of them says that Paige is just trying to bug them and the other one says, “It is working.”, I can’t understand that. I would just let it go over my head and my attitude would be … “Baptism or No Baptism … Who cares?” She wants to participate in that ceremony? So what? Let her do it and just pretend to go along with it.
However, it certainly is a sign to me that it’s gong to be very difficult … if not impossible to get Paige to go along with all the Communist attitudes and especially to go along with joining the KGB and spying on Americans. I can’t see her ever doing that. Just as I can’t see her ever joining the CIA and spying on Russians.
It seems to me that no matter how the show runners have set her up, Paige is her own person. She will make her own decisions and come to her own conclusions.
Nobody in this world will be able to convince her to go along with their way of thinking … with one notable exception.
If Paige should meet a handsome teenage boy and if she should believe that she has fallen in love with that boy, she will be a sucker to go along with most anything that he believes.
I have seen many cases of extremely bright teenage girls (approaching the age of 20 … say 17, 18 or 19) who fall for a boy like a ton of bricks and go along with most any kind of loopy philosophy or cult thinking that he does, it just is mind boggling how such an intelligent person could come to believe in such crazy crap. But they do. Over and over again, they do.
So, one possible plot line for this season is that Paige meets a boy in the church and falls for him and they both go off to become Christian missionaries. Or, the boy joins some cult and then within a few days, Paige joins that cult too and they both go off somewhere and almost disappear. Phillip would have a wonderful time thinking to himself, “Oh, Elizabeth, I told you so. I told you so.” Elizabeth, in turn might come right out and tell Phillip, “This is all your fault!”
The truth is that I have no idea what will happen. It is entirely up to the show runners, after all. But it could make for a very interesting season - albeit a very implausible one.
For many, baptism is not just a ceremony, it’s a very emotional restart to a life, yes, a transformation. It’s a defining act of Christianity that sets its believers apart. It’s the “setting apart” of those who are baptized that E & P are worried about.
This is especially true in Russian culture, regardless of whether someone is a believer.
You don’t suppose they will go in that direction with the young man that Elizabeth has been training, do you?