Aha! Thank you ever so much. I was planning to watch all the episodes from the latest episode backwards.
I would have watched ten episodes and you have saved me all that time.
Thanks again.
Twuest has it right. The dream sequence is about 20 minutes in. Stan sees Martha and behind his back she puts some document into her purse. Then he sees Vlad doing his wife. Same dream scene I was thinking about but I missed the Martha aspect.
nm
One thought I had from your post is that deciding to be “Travel Agents” was not very compatible with raising kids to teenagers. We can’t know who decided they would be travel agents, but it was not a good decision.
Surely there are other kinds of professions they could have chosen that would be far more compatible with receiving phone calls at any time of the day or night and then needing to rush out for any length of time. I can’t think of any offhand. Perhaps some kind of “counsellors”? Maybe psychological counsellors where patients in distress can call them and they need to go running out to prevent them from harming themselves?
There must be other better choices. But if it was the center who decided on travel agents, they weren’t thinking at that time of “second generation spies” because they should have guessed that when the kids became older, P&E’s lifestyle would never be compatible with travel agents.
UTJ - I did have some feedback for you but I thought it was best sent to you in a PM.
MsJinx and others (SlackerInc, UTJ, chaika, AK84)
There was a fire in my neighborhood yesterday and the power was off until now.
I just read your posts and I feel stymied trying to understand them. It seems to me as if they were written by people at a genius level.
I’m serious. I think they are quite brilliant - way above my head. I just hope that I will be able to understand them better if I watch the epi again.
But IMHO, they are amazing posts and I applaud you all.
I’m sorry if I’m posting so much that some of you think I’m monopolizing this thread. I don’t post in any other threads except Better Call Saul and there is so much happening in this show, I just feel like I have a lot to say. But I’ll try to organize my thoughts and only post a few times per day from now on (although that will be pretty difficult for me).
In the following text, I’m presenting some of the conversations as I remember them. I don’t promise the quoted text is exactly what people said.
Regarding P’s son in Afghanistan - Someone said that E is thinking like a spy while P is thinking like a parent. I think there are a few examples of this. P’s son is a one example. Why did E go to Gabriel and ask for him to get P’s son out of there without telling P? Isn’t that incredibly strange for a married couple? Strange that one of them would do something like that and keep it a secret?
We saw the conversation between P and Gabe about the mail robot. G says, "now that we have weekly updates, it will be much easier to keep track (or something like that). P reacts in a startled way. He says, “Weekly updates? The situation in the field will not support that at this time”. He doesn’t want Martha to get caught. Gabe replies, “Our boys in Afghanistan …” (hoping to make P feel guilty so many of their boys are getting killed and maybe Gabe hopes that P will do what he wants because his own son is in danger. No such luck. P replies, “I know what is going on in Afghanistan”. P doesn’t want to put Martha in danger and he is not afraid his son will get hurt because he is not getting Gabriel weekly updates from the mail robot. That is a pretty stupid way for Gabriel to try and bend P to his will. There is hardly any connection there.
But, E must realize that having P’s son in Afghanista causes a conflict in him about his duties and a problem between P and Gabe and E wants to remove that problem and get P back on track acting like a spy and not a parent.
Paige is another example, of course. But other people have addressed that her far better than I could.
But switching to Pastor Tim. I have to agree with twuest. I don’t think he is very creepy. I think he is more befuddled than creepy. The first example is when Paige phones him and announces herself as, “Hi. This is Paige Jennings.” Why would she use both her first and last name? Surely Tim would know who it is without her announcing her last name. Even if she didn’t announce any name at all. I’ve already explained why I think that is. But Paige must believe Tim doesn’t have any special interest in her (especially not a sexual interest) or she wouldn’t have to use any names. Now, remember when Tim and P are sitting down in the agency and Tim tries to convince P for him and E to come along with Paige to the trip to Africa? If he had any sexual interest in Paige, he’d try to get her to Africa without her parents there. Therefore it seems very clear to me that he is not interested in any kind of sex with Paige. He’s more befuddled than creepy.
Here is another example. Suppose you meet someone who tells you they own a travel agency and you briefly discuss your need for an agent to arrange a trip in the summer. How do you follow up? Do you just drop into the agency unannounced? Or do you have the courtesy to phone first and set up an appointment? Of course not. They could be busy with other clients. They could be out dealing with other matters. You first phone and set up an appontment. So why did Tim just drop by? Maybe he wanted to size up P & E by seeing their workplace? But I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to interested in looking around. I think he is just “befuddled” or in a more common parlance, he is just a “douchebag”. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.
Well, I’ll just say that if you click the post count of a thread in the forum display, you get a list of all participants in the thread and how many posts they’ve made. You can judge for yourself if your post count here is disproportionate to everyone else.
According to a different message board, it was from a General Hospital plot that ended up involving Russian spies. Which is a nice in joke for people who watched General Hospital in the 80s.
Martha has no honorable out. The tape that Clark gave her of them gossiping about her in the office made her think they hate her. In fact, they don’t even think of her at all. She knows she has been played for a complete fool. She has given up on a child. The only way to end the investigation into her as a suspect and retain some sort of dignity for her distant parents is to just end it. Leave a note asking Clark to clean up as best he can. She must be horrified at herself, the only thing keeping her going would be that she thinks the office men hate her and Clark loves her. But she knows that Clark doesn’t love her.
I don’t find Pastor Tim creepy at all. He reminds me somewhat of my own youth pastor in the 80s, a bit more earnest and a bit more political, but not all that far off. With my pastor, the other kids in the youth group knew him, we knew his wife, we babysat for his kids. I know that people went to him just to talk about problems with their parents and families and schools. Which seems to be what Pastor Tim has done with Paige.
From what I saw, Tim’s advice to Paige was that she wasn’t crazy for thinking her parents were acting weird and that if she wanted to know what was up, she needed to ask them. That doesn’t seem sinister to me, more common sense. He was a little over the line with Philip, but not ridiculously so and not at a level that seems unusual for a pastor.
Agreed with un-creepy on the Pastor - I think the character is probably a clever depiction of how things were before we all got more wary and cynical (i.e. before the Internet). I guess we’re applying our 21st century sensibilities to a very different time.
Having said that, we now know what a lot of priests and other ‘men of the cloth’ did get up to back in the day. I guess it’s easier to understand how that happened when you see how much more trusting was the relationship between religious fgures and young family members.
On Martha: I quite like the idea she’s dead by her own hand - maybe with that gun she keeps. But I think there’s probably still mileage in the arc and, besides, the actress has retweeted me so she’s still engaged with the show! 
The showrunners insist that this is the wrong read (though one they hear all the time), that he is just what he appears to be. Who knows, they might give in to popular opinion and end up making him some kind of secret _______, but I doubt it.
I think all of this is smart, except that I think your explanation of his affair with Nina is overdetermined. Nina is super hot. There are few straight men, I think, who would pass up the chance for an affair with her. (A lot of men who think of themselves as “not the cheating type” have not been tested with an offer from someone that desirable.)
I think this is all very plausible and well thought out–except for your last sentence. I don’t know that she knows that, or even that it’s true. But she might well take her own life anyway.
Interesting thought about Clark “cleaning up as best he can”. We know that if necessary, Philip can clean up very well indeed. But if this happened, I have got to think that his cleanup would be of the note, and any trace of his fingerprints (DNA not being an issue then), while leaving Martha’s body in place. The FBI would discover that her parents knew of a secret marriage, but I doubt they’d be able to give the investigators very much in the way of a description (of him or his “sister” or “mother”) that would be useful. And that would also happen if she just disappeared.
Took forever to get there but I finally twigged the significance of the hotel meeting - it was hiding in stupidly plan sight: Stingers!
The meeting is literally to change the course of history. I updated the blog with a whole section (inc. vid) but it’s basically in the same area as Charlie Wilson’s War.
I do think Pastor Tim is creepy. There has been no indication that he has an inappropriate sexual interest in Paige, but creepiness doesn’t need to be sexual in nature. There is certainly a clear parallel between Pastor Tim/Paige and Philip/Kimmy: older men who are doing their utmost to win over the hearts and minds of young, vulnerable girls. Both men have ulterior motives for their interest in these girls: saving souls for God vs. making the world safe for Soviet socialism. 
The series is far too subtle to reduce this parallel to a simple positive vs. negative dichotomy. There is more to it than that. While Pastor Tim’s proposed mission trip to Kenya might sound at first blush like an unequivocally Good Thing (who could object to building a school?), it inevitably recalls the dark side of the history of Christian missionaries in Africa. Targeting vulnerable people by means of an attractive ideology is not limited to the world of espionage.
I think I mentioned somewhere in this thread that it would be interesting if Pastor Tim’s church became involved in the sanctuary movement. It would be historically accurate and could tie in the Central America storyline from the previous season. If Tim turned out to be a CIA agent all along, as some people have suggested, that could also be a fun direction to take the story. Though I suppose that might strain credibility to the breaking point.
I think this view doesn’t give men very much credit. I’m sure there are men who are as superficial as you suggest, but I don’t agree that only a small minority would pass up the opportunity of an affair with Nina. A lot of men (and women) take fidelity seriously and wouldn’t dream of cheating, no matter who the potential partner may be. Stan is just a sleazy guy who cheats on his wife. (His wife cheats on him too, so neither one is exactly in the running for the Spouse of the Year award.) Stan also takes advantage of Nina’s precarious situation. Of course, she later turns the tables on him and uses him as well.
I have to chime in and say that Pastor Tim doesn’t necessarily come off as creepy in the sense that I believe most are using that word. He strikes me as pretty representative of youth ministers, most of whom are uber-sincere in a) striking up and maintaining relationships with teens; b) proselytizing and spreading the word of God to said teens in a very earnest and sincere manner; c) encouraging teens to improve the world by building schools and churches in other parts of the world; and d) inviting parents to join in all of the above, as much as their time and interests allow. I live in an area where lots and lots of teens are in church youth groups with very enthusiastic youth ministers, and both teens and adults go to all corners of the globe on mission trips. Pastor Tim shows a lot of interest in Paige, but if he does moreso than other teens in his flock, it’s probably because she shows real concern for her family life and is in that questioning phase about lots of things, and is seeking out adult and spiritual guidance.
He could turn out to be a creep, certainly, but like I said, I don’t see any real danger signs yet. For those who watch The Middle, think of Reverend Tim Tom. Sincere, wants the parents involved, wants teens to connect to the church and God, etc.
I don’t find Pastor Tim sexually creepy. I think he is a creepy guy. And I hung out with a church group and youth pastors when I was Paige’s age in the 70s. There is something off about him. When he and Phillip first met, with Phillip really mad and with the gloves on, he was fearless of a beatdown (not knowing the Phillip was a killer) and he is smarmy and smooth. That he let Paige pull that dinner baptism stunt was a bit off. Yes, he can be completely on the up and up, but there is something about him. When Elizabeth was trying to pretend to be a civil rights activist for Paige, that might be Pastor Tim’s real deal, but he’s odd. That he scouted the travel agency by surprise (as did Paige) is a bit weird in feeling. If the interviews with the producers/creators say that nothing is up with him, then it’s just a good level of paranoia in a spy show.
I think this is naive.
I don’t find the fact that Pastor Tim stopped by the travel agency without calling first unusual at all. I recall doing that several times in the pre -Internet era. The baptism stunt was unusual, but I would have to watch it again to see the minister’s expression and whether he knew it was an ambush. I don’t recall whether he apologized to Elizabeth and Phil for surprising them like that about the baptism.
I don’t.
I just watched the latest episode last night. The reveal to Paige blew me away - I was fully expecting they’d have some backup story, but I guess not.
This would be REALLY cool, though I think Paige will probably take on the cause. The episodes have shown Phillip being put under increasingly more difficult circumstances - first Martha, then Kimmy, then converting Paige - and I could imagine him breaking and going rogue if Paige pleaded with him. Elizabeth would be so pissed. 
Personally, I just want to give the writers a handshake. I feel like the Paige reveal is bringing together multiple storylines elegantly and subtly. Her religion is going to be a barrier to becoming a spy; Phillip is getting fed up with his boss, leading him to sympathize with Paige more; Elizabeth, OTOH, seems to have no doubts about Gabriel. The whole thing is just perfectly primed for some really interesting plot twists.
My one issue with the series is Martha. This was a few episodes back, but I think it was unrealistic how well she handled the FBI questioning, as well as her willingness to be a pawn in Phillip’s game. Hopefully she’ll be killed soon, as it’s getting annoying.
Oh, and Pastor Tim is my least favorite character in the series. Talk about creepy . . .