Granny Claudia was the one who first mentioned the new program of recruiting the children of agents, so she would be the perfect one for this role - being grandma, with the skills and desire to turn Paige. Would Henry be allowed to meet Grandma, too, or will he be kept in the dark?
I’m not understanding how a visit from “Granny” is supposed to be pivotal in turning Paige.
Whether it’s Elizabeth’s actual mother or the Margo Martindale character pretending to be Elizabeth’s mother, it’s still just a Russian woman whom Paige has never before met. If that woman (either one) tells Paige some variation on “our cause is just and you would be doing great good for the world if you join us”…why would Paige be expected to find that particularly convincing?
It would be nothing more than some woman Paige doesn’t know asserting something without proof. Why would that be a deal-closer for Paige?
(Maybe I’m missing something, here…?)
I agree with you. And the Fake Granny thing makes no sense at all. Phillip is trying to get Elizabeth to see her actual mother.
What might turn Paige would be for her to visit the actual Soviet Union and fall in love with the place and become convinced how much better the ideology works in reality. Then she will have a reason to fight.
In turning Paige, no.
That would be a long way down the road. Atm, she doesn’t even trust these people (allegedly her parents).
The challenge right now is to get her to invest in her own family, or what she is told is her family.
Yes. So far as I can see, this storyline is about demonstrating both Philip’s love for Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s comparatively-cold ideological fervor (which admittedly has been showing some cracks in recent episodes).
From Paige’s point of view the tussle over whether or not Elizabeth can see her mother might reveal the level of dedication required of agents. So the “seeing Granny” storyline isn’t completely unrelated to Paige’s storyline…but it’s not central, surely.
I think you’re right, but it would have to be a very carefully stage-managed visit. The 1980s USSR was about as far from being an actual Workers’ Paradise as one could get, by most accounts.
Stage Managed for Elizabeth as well. She might change her view if she had a taste of reality.
It may be true that Claudia may have more knowledge and a better strategy than anyone else for turning Paige because she was the first to suggest it.
But Claudia is extremely refined. Do you think she is a competent actress? Could she adopt a completely different way of talking and an entirely different set of mannerisms?
If not, trying to pass her off as Paige’s real GM - together with what E has told Paige about GM could very easily blow up.
Why? Consider a Russian woman born very close to the peasant class. I think E said that she performed some very menial tasks to make ends meet? Do I remember correctly that at one time E said she took in washing to help make ends meet?
Then Claudia appears with the kind of language and mannerisms akin to a college graduate. Those two images are extremely different. And forgive me for saying this but, unless I’m wrong (which I may well be), Paige would have to be just downright stupid if she would believe that this refined lady is her Russian GM.
After all, considering what E has said about her mother, she is Russian born and lived alone for most of her life and she never got any advanced schooling. So how could she have become so refined and even “elegant”?
If Claudia has experienced acting skills and she is capable of assuming a Russian peasant-like woman and Paige doesn’t know any better, then it could work.
But, I would have to guess the odds are very much against it working. Claudia would have to do one heck of a lot of work in a very short time to fool Paige.
But, then again, I could easily be wrong. Most of the time, whenever I make any predictions about this show, I usually am wrong.
Very good point about Henry. That would take a lot of thought. Henry always seems to be just full of questions.
Another good episode. I enjoyed the symbolism of the camping story…Paige protecting Henry from a bear. The choice of animal cannot be a coincidence…wondering if that was foreshadowing of some kind.
Another brilliant final scene as well…could this be the end of Martha?
Finally, Stan shouldn’t be so PO’d about the new guy being suspicious. That’s what you get when you compromise yourself by having a fling with someone who’s working with the enemy.
Why would Phillip take off his disguise? Showing her the truth before he kills her? Showing her the truth to gain her back? I think he has to kill her. If she gets caught, she can more accurately describe him now. I think that he knows that she’s cracking up and she is of no more use. Do they interview her mom when she disappears or is found dead? It’ll be an interesting final episode.
[QUOTE=Sherred]
…I think you’re right, but it would have to be a very carefully stage-managed visit. The 1980s USSR was about as far from being an actual Workers’ Paradise as one could get, by most accounts.
[/QUOTE]
So it looks like there’s going to be an off-screen mother-daughter trip to the USSR; the Centre must truly be desperate for a 2nd Generation Illegal :eek:. I wonder if Phillip & Elizabeth will craft some elaborate cover story, or just pass the whole thing off as Elizabeth taking her daughter on a business trip to an Intourist convention.
I’m getting tired of the Martha subplot; just kill her off already. Speaking of people getting killed; Maurice just signed his own death warrant. 
It’s hilarious how clueless he is regarding who he’s dealing with.
I just finished watching this episode and feel I need to watch it again and also need a lot more time to think about it.
Twuest, good for you! What a wonderful catch. I completely missed that and after reading your post, it now seems half comic and half serious. It portends something serious coming.
Henry needs Paige to protect him against the bear. Henry asked Paige not to tell their parents. But Paige goes ahead and tells her father. Isn’t Phillip clearly so much better at dealing with Paige than Elizabeth?
As far as Phillip/Clark removing his wig, I am mystified. The most likely reason is that he wants to “come clean” with her in order to try for a big happy reunion. But Phillip/Clark is far too clever to try something like that. I think Hajario is definitely correct. She is on the verge of cracking up and asking her to give some more of herself at this time seems like a terrible mistake. When Martha picked up the phone to call her parents, I seriously thought she was calling Agent Beeman and was going to tell him everything. Pushing Martha or asking her to go the distance now seems to me like it would just push her over the edge.
As Phillip/Clark removed his wig, I kept thinking about that gun in the drawer under which he placed his wig. Did he take it off to reduce the amount of blood splatter? Then again, why didn’t Martha just leave? Why was she waiting around? Maybe she is the one who plans to use the gun. She isn’t planning on killing herself. There would be no reason for her to pack any bags if she was going to do that. So, if the gun is going to get used, it will be Martha who pulls it out. Then she clearly won’t kill Phillip/Clark. But she could shoot him and only wound him - much like E was wounded in a previous season.
One of the most likely scenarios is that she may pull out the gun but not immediately shoot Phillip/Clark. That is one of the biggest mistakes anyone can make with a gun. It’s a big mistake - maybe even a fatal mistake to pull a gun without using it. That would be my pick for what is about to happen. Either that, or the gun will turn out to be a red herring and we will never hear of it again.
The drama is just so powerful, my brain is just not big enough to handle it.
But Maurice is clearly poking a bee’s nest while remaining blindfolded and he is just asking for trouble. He’s almost even demanding that P&E deal with him. And no one does that and gets out of things alive. I really dislike Maurice. He thinks he has everything under control and that he’s smarter and better than everyone else. I want to see him “pay the piper” more than ever. I’m not sure why I feel this way. But I feel he clearly deserves a real big smackdown.
That looked really complicated to me.
They’re going rogue, right? P and Paige are travelling independently of Gabs or the Center.
P can’t let Martha go home (anymore than Paige can stay with Tim). Martha finally saw the wig wasn’t for vanity but a real, professional disguise.
v. interesting that Stan and Dennis the Menace conversed within range of the mail robot bug. It has to come up in the transcription room: If Ollie reads it first, and we know its about Nina …
Any ideas on Vienna, not even a proper montage…?
That should say E and Paige are travelling independently …
I don’t think so.
Did anyone notice that there was an advert for the MAS*H series finale on TV as Henry watched?
All the threads are starting to converge. Phillip almost going to Martha’s while Stan was there. Claudia back. Elizabeth talking about taking Paige to Russia. Northrop lady taking the pics that the scientist needs.
I’m now in the “Pastor Tim is a creep” camp. I figured that they could have gone in that direction from the beginning but after the aborted sleepover it’s a little more likely.
@up the junction. There really isn’t much that Stan could say about Nina that Oleg doesn’t already know.
We didn’t see Nina or the “Defector” last night.
I suspect they are.
Yep, a 2 1/2 hour end of season MASH special. How long is ours?
I don’t know if I’m wanting to see Maurice get killed, but seeing Elizabeth give him a good kick to the face wouldn’t ruin my day. (Ten to one he comes on to her.)
It was actually the MAS*H series finale. To this day the highest rated TV show–by percentage of households watching—in US history. It was indeed, as UTJ says, 2 1/2 hrs (of forgettable TV if you ask me). Aired on 2.28.83, so we now have an approximation of where we are time-wise in the series.
I can see a plot going forward in which Maurice pressures Elizabeth for more jobs and eventually has to be taken care of, but there’s zero reason to kill him so far.
I’m very curious to see how just about everything else plays out, hard to see how they can wrap up all the ongoing threads in next week’s finale.
I don’t know if I’m wanting to see Maurice get killed. I may have intimated that at one time and if I did, it was clearly wrong. I apologize for that. But even if I don’t like the man, there is no excuse for me to falsely accuse him of something which may well be a trap waiting to be sprung on people who preach one thing but then practice something different.
Anyway, I fear that I may be given a hard time because of that. Please allow me to say that if Maurice ever was to put his hands anywhere near E or acted in an inappropriate manner in any way towards her or Lisa, I certainly would not object if E give him a good swift kick in the teeth. That would not ruin my day in one tiny little bit and I’d like to tell you why.
Take a look at S3E11 around the 9:40 mark. This is a scene where E is sitting in Lisa’s living room together with Lisa & Maurice. Lisa explains that Maurice just happened to drop by around that time “to see the kids”, but it turns out that Lisa had sent the kids away (and I wondered if she did that in order to protect them for one reason or another). Lisa then gives Maurice a sideways glance that suggests to me she may be seriously afraid of him. Remember the small discussioni someone had upthread about “subtext”? I just felt at that moment the subtext was so thick you could cut it with anything. However, no show runnners are giving us any clue as to whether Maurice has ever been abusive to Lisa or not. It may well be reasonable to assume that since Maurice has been out of work for a very long time and since he has had some problems with alcohol coupled together with the fact that he seems naturally hostile towards other people in general, I get the feeling he may well have put his hands on Lisa in the past and maybe even on the kids as well. It is a terrible thing to suggest that some man may have been abusive towards women or children. I could try to wriggle out of taking any criticism by saying these are only characters in a TV show. But that would not excuse my making false allegations about a very serious subject. So, to be serious, it would just be downright wrong of me to make any such kind of allegations and so, I’m just going to try like Hell not to do that.
However, for some reason, which I do not understand, I seem to harbor a strong negative feeling towards Maurice and if he should ever decide to put his hands on Elizabeth thinking he is on top of that situation because she is just a little tiny lady, I would seriously like to see what all might happen next. And, if it turns out that he should suffer for doing that, I just can’t see the wrong in my enjoying the consequences. Can you?
I have a feeling the result would be something that we might all remember as one of the highlights of this season. Anyway, it is wrong for me to suggest it would be good to have someone harm this man and so I apologize for that and I do try to take back those remarks even though I haven’t really made any bad remarks. But you know what? One way or anothre, I sense this may mean trouble for me. If I close my eyes, I can imagine a new thread in The Pit which may well be titled, "Charlie Wayne is a Racist, Sexist Asshole and should be banned from this forum. Please belive me. I do not want to see that happen. I like this forum very much. Regardless of the fact that many people here have given me a hard time, I feel that at the time, they had a valid reason for doing that.
So, believe it or not, I have tried to reduce any and all bad remarks in this post as much as possible. However, I’m sorry because I sense that I have still said some unfortunate things.
On the other hand, I have a feeling that it just may be possible that Maurice will be facing some retribution. Even if it is just for something as tiny as when … (Remember that scene in S3E11 around the 9:40 mark?), E comes into the living room and looks at Maurice and says words to the effect, “Nice to see you Maurice”. Then, Maurice answers, “Is it really?” I swear there was some other example of Maurice acting in a hostile manner towards others. But even if this was the only example, at least there is some reason why I may not like him. Some reason why I might want to see him getting his due. He also seems to have deceived E. I never saw him tell her that he would come and make the exchange instead of Lisa. But E was clearly surprised when Maurice showed up at that exchange.
Oh dear. I just woke up and feel like my mind is not working as well as it should. I should just “go away and shut-up”. I think it’s just plain wrong for any man to put their hands on women or children - especially if they are big, strong men and they beat on much smaller women or children. I just can’t help it. I really want to see E give this guy one good swift kick in his teeth because of several presumed wrongs he has done.