I really feel that some people are watching a much simpler, plot driven show than the writers intended.
It’s hard to really read people’s tone over the internet, and I don’t want to come off as attacking you, but I have to say I’m puzzled by your choice of term here. “Sick fuck”? That’s a term that describes, I dunno, people who install cameras in their toilets so they can look at people’s butts while they poop, not people who write or create or appreciate stories where ethically complicated people make ethically complicated choices in difficult situations. So the showrunners wrote a storyline in which one of the show’s protagonists strikes up a quasi-romantic friendship with a high-school-aged girl, for entirely plausible in-story reasons. Does that make them sick fucks? I dunno, did they go home and masturbate after writing it? Was it clearly written in as salacious a manner as possible? If not, it just sounds like storytelling to me.
Plot was important in Seasons 1-4. If you missed one episode, you wouldn’t understand what was going on.
But Season 5 has been so plodding that you can easily skip an episode without losing track of the story. And there have been so many repetitive scenes: Morozov whining, Mischa traveling, and Oleg walking through the streets of Moscow. Had these scenes been removed, nothing would be lost from the story.
An interesting example indeed!
When Mackey murderd someone in the pilot episode, I quit watching. I prefer my anti-heroes as outsiders, not officials supposed to uphold the law. Many would say I missed a good show, and they may be right. But I drew my line in the TV sand, so to speak.
For example, I can stand Burn Notice’s Michael Westen, as an outsider doing good (and he only kills people who deserve it. 
), but if Pete Malloy started giving suspects “tune ups” he’d lose me. I admit the discontinuity in my values. Mackey seemed on the wrong side, but it was also different because of the medium - in a TV show, I expect my protagonists to be the “good guys”, at least, nominally. In movies, I can stand an anti-hero to actually be bad.
To clarify, Westen uses illegal means of questionable morality, but he is using it to a “good” purpose, and he was careful to limit colleratal damage*, so I can root for him. Mackey seemed to be using illegal means of questionable morality for his own aggrandizement, so I could not.
Shows like Major Crimes, which got my carryover pass because of its source (The Closer) are on the border. I don’t know if it is laziness, a change of writers, or a deliberate choice, but the cops are acting a lot more like thugs these years than they did on The Closer. It’s getting hard for me to like my show “heroes” who routinely violate suspects civil rights as much as the MC squad does. There’s no “greater good” that is served by trashing the constitution. And the show’s tone seems to indicate that what they do is good.
*most of the time. I always wondered what random citizens thought when they’d come out and find their car destroyed by a C4 blast.
Well I thought it was beautifully crafted. Never seen that depicted before in any kind of drama. Totally original. Possibly the most uncomfortable I think I’ve ever been with a story arc.
What was brilliant was a character we can sympathise with exploited a vulnerable schoolgirl, and also allowed/encouraged her to develop sexual expectations. Those bathrobe scenes were excruciating, but could you take your eyes off …
Iirc, they never kissed, and I definitely remember Elizabeth checking with Philip things were not drifting off course, in questions and in looks. Philip stuck with emotional manipulation and exploitation in the same way he did with the aging spinster Martha, but without the sex act. Or maybe that’s even ambiguous.
In a sense it was the essence of the dilemma many viewers face; how can we sympathise with these fuckers given the lengths they go to. I thought it was interesting to see her again a couple of episodes ago, now more mature and self-possessed - like ‘look, Philip didn’t damage her!’.
As another who is also one of the apparent minority here rooting against P and E, the post that I quoted above from Just Asking Questions is right on the money.
I am an American who was growing up during the time period of this show. My family has numerous military members who have served and protected my country. Looking at it from that prism means there are absolutely no circumstances under which I can view P and E as anything positive. If the show’s aim was to make them sympathetic, then personally I can’t see where they have succeeded in any way.
The best I am hoping for is that at they die, get caught, or somehow one of them defects.
If you think that’s viewing the show in a “wrong” way, well…I can’t help you. If the end therefore is (to some of us) disappointing, and P and E get away with what they’ve done…so be it. It’s a TV show, and I won’t lose any sleep either way. Just don’t tell me I’m looking at the show in a “wrong” way. That’s not for anyone except the individual viewer to decide.
You realize that you just made my point?
What? And miss:
Paige being sullen and swallowing saliva. Phillip trying to be understanding and swallowing saliva. Elizabeth being bewildered and conflicted and swallowing her emotions. Stan twitching.
I saw a FB post where Stan Beeman was suggested as new Director of the FBI. I wasn’t sure if they meant that as, Stan is an good agent who isn’t a trump croney, or they mean that he’d fit right in with the other incompetent Washington crowd. I figure the latter - he has Soviet agents living next door, and had a mole working right under his nose.
Are P+E the “good guys”. No, basically what they are is soldiers on a somewhat more ambiguous battlefield. Compare them with, as I’m sure we’re intended to, Stan. Phillip recruited Martha sexually, Stan basically recruited Nina with extortion, and moved to the sex later. Stan ultimately let Nina get killed, Phillip and Elizabeth worked to extract Martha, at some risk to themselves. Phillip has no problem killing when the job demands it, but feels bad when there’s “collateral damage”. Elizabeth, being more of a “Party” person, doesn’t. Phillip’s guilt is part of what drove him to EST.
Don’t forget everyone’s a hero in their own story and for zealots rationalization goes with the territory.
Well at least Tuan is showing initiative. And he’s probably right about Evgheniya returning home whether Pascha lives or dies; though things could get really awkward if he survives & tells his parents who thought him to cut his wrists. Also Elizabeth nay be utterly delusional if she thinks either child is going to adapt well to living in the USSR, but it was funny watching her & Philip musing on that their names would be.
I was thinking the same thing watching that scene. I’m sure some might think it would go perfectly, but having been a normal American kid living a normal American life during the same time period as the setting of this show—the same life these kids have been living—I think it’s ridiculous to even consider the idea. Shoot, Martha doesn’t seem to be adjusting too well, and she’s an adult…how do you think a couple of teenagers are going to feel about being forcibly yanked from the only life they’ve known and being carted off to The Motherland?
Paige MIGHT go for it. She’s gullible enough to possibly go along. Henry…no way.
Russia- the country where all light goes through a blue lens.
Boy, Oleg was doing some pretty fancy tap-dancing during his interrogation, wasn’t he. I got pulled away from the tv just as P, E and the kid were walking toward Pasha’s house. Anything happen after that?
I’m getting very worried for Oleg. I like him as a character and don’t want to see him end up with a bullet in the back of his head like Nina.
In an earlier post, I expressed that I like Tuan. I think I changed my mind now. Man, that is one stone cold evil move, dude. (Of course, Philip & Elizabeth have done just as many evil things as that and I still like them, so maybe I’m fickle.)
Tuan is brutal.
It may say something about me, but when I heard his plan, after being horrified, I did think that it could have worked without the actual wrist slashing - a carefully mislaid suicide note and a “hidden” bottle of pills for Alexei & Evghenia to find may have been enough without going that extra step and risking accidentally killing a teenager.
I also kept worrying that someone (Stan? Henry? Matthew?) was going to walk in and find Paige training - but she has gotten much better.
Poor Oleg - he really is a good man and a patriot. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to make it. (That said, their list of things connections was pretty weak as far as evidence goes. Even though we know better, that he slept someone who had an operation go badly is probably par for the course for rezidentura employees).
Also, I wonder what the stakes are for this mission (and whether Tuan’s operators told him something different than the Centre told P&E)?
Is it “we really want Alexei to un-defect? It’s a PR nightmare. See what you can do.” or “we need to find out what Alexei is telling the US.” or “Alexei is critical to the future of food production in the USSR. 20% of the population will starve without his specific expertise. He needs to return as soon as is humanly possible and we can’t grab him in the middle of the night to make that happen because he’s being watched.” Because among the many things wrong with what Tuan did, based on what we know, it seems disproportionate to the need for a successful operation.
Yep, it’s over for Ollie now - both he and his father understand. He’s not going to make it to Perestroika and Glasnost. He is very quickly becoming the tragic Shakespearean character.
So much in this epi. Loved it.
All of this moral evaluation of the characters and judging other viewers on their opinions of the characters is kind of stupid. Where’s Charlie Wayne when you need him?
The Jennings are anti-heroes. This isn’t a new literary device. From Huck Finn, Tom Ripley, Tony Soprano, Cool Hand Luke, Al Bundy, to Walter White. You love 'em and you hate 'em, but you love 'em more, because they are so damn entertaining.
Sure, well while we aren’t morally evaluating the characters let me say I don’t think I can agree; imo, they are heroes or villains. Or heroes and villains. Which is the beauty of the complex storytelling.