You’re in all kinds of trouble with this show if you can’t think clearly: the debt she and her mother feel they owe is to the system and society that forgave their family.
I bet P&E only have sex if it somehow is good for Mother Russia, or the mission. Faking sex to hide the fact they were on a mission? Check. Having sex to have kids? Check. Having sex just for fun? I doubt it. I wonder if Elizabeth even likes Phillip?
Eh? Have you watched the previous couple of seasons? We’ve seen them have sex for fun ( Paige catches them once ). Elizabeth may have had a distant relationship with Philip for years, but that started to change after season 1, episode 1.
The one I’m thinking of Paige catching them was what I mentioned - they were having sex only so Paige wouldn’t wonder where they were (on a mission). Where they are 69ing and you get to see E’s buttinski.
Why would they have sex in their own bedroom as a cover for a mission?? They’ve had plenty of sex for fun. Didn’t you watch the pilot? Elizabeth initiated sex with Philip in the car, and it certainly wasn’t part of the mission.
I enjoyed episode one, and trust the showrunners will deal with the Paige situation adequately over the coming episodes. I agree that the pastor is not merely there as a background figure. Surely it’s not accidental that the actor (and the way his hair is dressed) is so close in appearance to Philip…? They could easily have cast someone with an entirely different look.
I was glad, too, to see that Martha will have a continuing role to play (instead of getting summarily bumped off).
You’re in all kinds of trouble with this show if you can’t think clearly
Uhhhhh, I am thinking clearly. The concept of honor isn’t selective…you don’t get to have honor in one situation and then use it as an excuse to do something dishonorable in another.
Forcing that woman to die was not an honorable deed, plain and simple. As such any claim to “honor” that Elizabeth makes falls flat.
Speaking of dishonor, Martha is approaching Elizabeth in that category, not to mention being one of the most gullible and/or stupid characters in television history. Either that or she is irretrievably desperate. She’s OK with being married to a guy whom she knows is a liar and now, she knows he’s killed an innocent person. What does she do? She decides to continue to commit espionage for Phillip.
Nice decision making, Martha.
Finally, Stan’s detective skills—or lack thereof—never cease to amaze. After hearing one second hand comment, he inaccurately concludes Phillip is sleeping with his wife. No wonder he hasn’t figured out he’s really a Soviet spy…
I have no idea what point you are making. Elizabeth (and Phillip) are both ruthless evil people who have killed large numbers of innocent people. They are also people who have made the difficult choice to continue to live an extremely stressful and dangerous life rather than just using their skills to vanish basically entirely. And they made that decision basically due to loyalty to what they believe to be a good, larger, cause. They’re complex characters. That’s why the show is good.
I wish her motivation was made more clear… but there’s a combination of two things:
(a) she loves Clarke, and Phillip has convinced her that he truly loves her. People do stupid things for love
(b) she might well (somewhat correctly) think that at this point she’s in too deep to get away
Yes, she has obviously made terrible decisions. But that doesn’t make the show bad unless they were out of character for her.
S4E1 : Literally the whole cast showed up which suggests the writers are keen to get going. One new game in espionage corner plus E’s almost unnoticed surveillance of Paige’s church.
Great beardy disguise for Philip, loving - LOVONG - the slow morphing of Philip and Clark and the growing bond with Martha and what … Nina has a husband!!1! The scientist is definitely playing Nina at her own game, imo …
Liked the low key way psycho Stan almost wiped out DC when holding P against the wall.
All good, broad-based ambitious set ups, and we are roaring!
Will write it up for the blog, if anyone remembers where that is 
Max…
I was responding to a point made by another poster, who seemed to be crediting Elizabeth for having a sense of honor, not to mention that they appeared to be stating their approach to watching the show was superior to mine…IE the phrase “not thinking clearly,” which I don’t think was necessary.
My point was that she has forfeited any claim to being an honorable person when she forced a woman to commit “suicide” because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. IIRC, a number of people thought that death was pointless, except perhaps to tug at the emotions of the audience. Regardless, it was a dishonorable—and probably an evil—act. You said yourself, they are both ruthless, evil people. End of story. Any linking of Elizabeth to the concept of honor is misplaced, at least that’s the way I see it.
Similarly, Stan isn’t turning out to be a paragon of virtue, either. He had a long extra-marital affair, yet he bristles at the mere thought that Phillip might be sleeping with his wife. Way to be consistent, Stan. I like him less and less with each passing episode.
I agree that Martha possibly thinks she’s in too deep and has no way out. The only hope she might have is to confess, and turn in Phillip/Clark, and hope they go easy on her. Given her decision making abilities , it is doubtful she will make that choice.
She’s so devoted to her bizarre relationship that I would suspect she will eventually be persuaded to turn. It’s either that, jail, or death.
Happy St. Patties Day, Martha!
Obviously there’s no rigorous definition of “honor”, but I think you’re using it in a way that I would use “virtuousness” or something like that. If you honestly believed that you were struggling for a cause that will ultimately be for the good of humankind, and that’s presumably what Elizabeth believes she is doing, can it be sometimes correct to make a choice which causes misery at the micro level? Certainly, we would view it very differently if it was a story about Americans going undercover in Nazi Germany to try to liberate a concentration camp, and they were forced to kill an innocent German citizen to accomplish their mission. We’d want them to feel guilty about it and not take it lightly, but should they just say “well, sorry, innocent person here, that’s crossing a line, mission’s off, lads”?
I don’t claim to have all the answers, just that looking at the characters as evil-and-nothing-else probably makes the show less interesting and less entertaining.
Good point. Martha may not have realized this yet, but her continuing to be a source intelligence is the only way Philip can justify not killing her to the Centre.
And let’s not forget that the reason Stan thinks Philip’s having an affair with his ex-wife is because the woman who’s currently sleeping with saw them getting a bite to eat together.
It’s unlikely you’ve ever faced a situation as deeply conflicted as hers. It’s easy to say that you’d do one thing when you’re of a clear mind and don’t actually have to pay the consequences, but when actually subjected to such a situation, it might not be so easy.
She’s in love with Clark. They’ve been living a married life for years. She’s deeply committed to him. For her to accept that it was all an act would be deeply troubling and extremely difficult to accept. So instead he could easily sell her the story of “I had to do this because of what I am, but I fell in love with you along the way, and we can make it out of this together” - she would be much more motivated to believe such a thing than to think she’s being dipassionately manipulated the entire time.
Plus, coming forward would have grave consequences for her. Even if she co-operates fully, she’s likely to end up in jail for a long time. If she comes forward now, then they’ll know that the other guy was killed to cover for her, and she’ll look culpable in that. And if she tries to lead them to Clark/Philip, she may fail - she doesn’t know anything about his real life, and he may be savvy enough to avoid being caught if she tries to lay a trap. So if she fails, she probably doesn’t get any sort of break on her prison sentence. But if she succeeds, she ends up having someone she actually loves and has very confusing feelings for executed.
Sure, there are some people who would do the right thing in this case when faced with this situation. But it’s not nearly so clear cut and easy as you think it is.
I should add that if you’re not a terribly strong-willed person, you have a persuasive person who you love telling you he’ll do everything he can to make things better, and to protect you, and to keep you out of further trouble. That’s much more appealing than turning yourself in to authorities which will view you with anger, betrayal, scrutiny, resentment, and try to ruin your life. The easier route in this case would be to trust the person who’s being kind to you and trying their best to keep you out of further trouble than to turn yourself into people who will get you in much, much deeper trouble and completely ruin your life.
Actually, I think it is quite clear cut.
Martha should have said no from the start. If she had done that she would have avoided the entire situation. Clark/Phillip used her weakness and her desire for a long lasting relationship to get her to plant the bug and also to pass along classified information.
If someone–regardless of their relationship with you—asks you to commit a serious crime (particularly one along the lines of espionage) you say “No, I can’t do that.”
That’s what most would do.
Martha is weak, and she is solely responsible for the predicament she finds herself in.
Martha was identified and groomed for years because she fitted the profile of someone who might be turned. That’s the whole point.
The profile is a lonely woman unlucky in love perhaps a single child close to the end of her reproductive years, etc.
She is very emotionally vulnerable. The words Clark always uses are ‘we’re together’. Safe’.
But that is now augmented by genuine affection, like when he shared the action characters observation and muses out loud that something happened in his childhood and whether that’s why, etc (stuff Philip would never share with Elizabeth, by the way).
Martha, in all her mixed up madness, does see genuine affection from whoever this guy is.
I don’t buy it. She’s not as unlucky at love as people may think. Her previous relationship with the late Chris Amador (hope I spelled that right) was referenced in the first season. I think she was targeted because of her job at the FBI.
Martha works in a very sensitive position. She has access to government secrets. If she were as forlorn as people are saying, I doubt she would have passed a background check in the first place. She would have been flagged as vulnerable to recruitment by the Soviets.
In the final analysis, whatever her personal situation, she had a duty to say no to P/C at the get-go. He roped her into committing espionage, and now she’s in too deep.
Tough luck, Martha. If you’re going to stick with a person you know has killed an innocent person, and if you continue to spy for them, than you deserve whatever fate awaits you.
The scenes from future season 4 episodes that were shown at the end of this episode seem to point to this being the final season. Anybody else get that feeling?
I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that Martha has made many foolish choices… so I’m not quite sure what your point is.
Bear in mind, by the way, that Clarke initially presented himself to her as a security inspector of some sort on the American side. And we know that Philip is really really good at what he does, so it was probably done in an very very plausible fashion. Still something that she “should” not have fallen for presumably, but she didn’t immediately go from nothing to “well, I know I’m betraying my country, but damn, I enjoy the sex, so…”
Phillip presented himself originally to Martha as being from the FBI equivalent of Internal Affairs. The ostensible reason their “marriage” had to remain secret was that such a relationship would constitute a conflict of interest for a person in that position. All very plausible, right up until the moment that the actual FBI IA guy showed up.