I could have sworn I saw the mark still there when they got home. But it’s possible I was mistaken (due to having started thinking that ‘AIDS’ was going to be part of the plot).
I get that just a couple of white people shouldn’t seem to connect to anything in particular, but remember that Stan has known for a long time that a lot of the shit that kept him busy at his counterintelligence job was because of two illegals who pose as a couple, a white man and woman. When he learns there was such a couple in Chicago, he already has in the back of his mind that Philip and Elizabeth had left town for something very important. And whatever it is, he suspects Philip is lying about it. Add that he was once suspicious about their car being used in the kidnapping of a defector and he remembers that Elizabeth conveniently went to visit a sick great aunt the day Stan shot an unknown female illegal, and well, maybe it’s all of that that caused the look on his face.
What bugs me just a little bit about the whole situation (and I think this is a minor black mark against a generally excellent show) is that there’s no way Stan could completely forget that he was suspicious enough of P&E to illegally break into their house, which is a pretty serious thing for him to have done. I chalk it up to wanting to make a really exciting pilot episode, and if they had to do it all over again, they probably wouldn’t have.
Stranger, good post (#378).
Emmerich mentioned the car thing in the latest podcast, which I had forgotten. But why on earth were they using their own car? Was this a pilot thing, where they later shifted to having them use dummy vehicles stored in secret garages?
ETA:
I’m willing to criticize this show (I thought the Jared plot was horrendous), but I don’t agree here. His expression after seeing the trunk looked just fine was like “okay, I’ve been undercover too long–I’m a paranoid idiot”. I think it’s realistic that he suspected something was fishy enough to break in and look at the trunk, but also realistic that he felt sheepish and threw the idea away once he saw the trunk.
I would definitely agree that the breaking into the garage seems to have been more for dramatic effect of a pilot hoping to get sold than for establishing a narrative.
I can’t remember if there was ever an explanation, so yeah I would chalk it up to pilot-itis. Just like how a defector in their garage lasts 3 days longer than the zharkoye in their kitchen.
(Sidenote, maybe now that Stan is getting the full picture, we understand how dangerous a little zharkoye can be.)
I doubt it’d even occur to the Jennings to do something like that. If it did it’d be something they did every time one of them “went on a business trip”. By this point they’ve gotten (with some justification) pretty complacent with Stan.
And Stan himself hasn’t really given P+E any real usable intel since the Reagan assassination attempt. (Or has he and I’m just not remembering?)
Its been 6 years since Stan the G man showed up next to the Jennings. He has had roughly 377 opportunities to be suspicious of the Jenning since then. He has never been, except in the pilot.
Unfortunately, I think the creators have been locked on its “Stan who finds out Philip and Elizabeth”, and now cannot adjust, despite the narrative demanding it.
What kind of dwelling should illegals choose to avoid having neighbors notice their odd hours? I agree that a suburban cul-de-sac is not ideal. But a place in the country means you’re the only one on the road late at night. So maybe a house with no close neighbors, but situated right on a busy rural highway?
Or could a big apartment building with no doorman work?
Here I return to the fact that the early seasons were more “realistic”, as to the actual work of illegals. In it they stated outright that as long as they did their jobs the Center did not care a hoot as to their domestic arrangements. I suspect the choice of housing was based more on the fact that they had two young children then their errrr day job.
As for excuses about staying out late, Travel Agents is a pretty good cover especially if they have lots of clients travelling overseas.
The showrunners have said they felt the first season was too unrealistic, and that they shifted course to emphasize realism after that. I can’t remember it well enough to judge, but apparently that doesn’t jibe with your sense of the show?
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this then, which is fine while debating a TV show!
Being a travel agent has been their business since the start of the show. Both P&E are employed there, and that is their sole income. Both the kids are in college or private schools. When that goes under they are in debt without any income. Frankly I’d be surprised if he wasn’t stressed out given the circumstances, but Stan apparently doesn’t think that is a good enough reason. I could see where them rushing out to Houston to stroke a client is exactly the type of overreaction that they would do if their business was collapsing. And Henry is sufficiently grown up where Stan respects him, and yet he finds it a major clue that Phillip confided in him that the agency is in financial straights?
It’s not proof of anything but a read two reviews of the last episode this morning, (the New York Times and one other) and they all felt as I do that the epiphany of Stan’s was rushed, but to each their own.
I just find that these scenarios in movies/books/TV work better when they are discovered over time, in a way that the character would be open to discovering them. They’ve had 6 seasons for Stan to break the code. They didn’t have to do it in one or two episodes.
All I can say is that is a very boring show you seem to be asking for. Why do you want the writers to telegraph exactly how everything will come to be resolved like a rote 1970s detective show? You would get bored, frustrated and angered in very short order. And it would make the story arc just one straight progression from Stan finds Clue A, Clue B, Clue C, he adds them up, Philip and Elizabeth go to jail. Yawn. Not to mention, you risk turning Stan into Bewtiched’s Gladys Kravitz.
Instead, Stan has known for 6 seasons, he just hasn’t know he’s known. That has allowed them to all go on with their lives, and in the process made the show about much more than just how will Stan catch the Jennings. If you and the NY Times boil Stan down to those “one or two episodes,” you’ve all missed out on 6 wonderful seasons of tension, suspense and drama.
Brian Grubb said the same thing on the latest TV Avalanche podcast, but Alan Sepinwall countered with the point that Stan would have kept Philip at arm’s length as a friendly acquaintance rather than a close friend, even encouraging their kids to date, had he felt that way even deep down. He convinced me, and seemed to ultimately win Brian over as well.
I agree. Stan has grown close to Philip and both kids, if not Elizabeth, over six year. There has been no suspicion.
Now, having said that, an FIB agent probably never is 100 percent sure of anyone. I know a federal investigator (not FBI), and he is suspicious of everyone and never really let’s his guard down completely. So, it wouldn’t take a lot to reignite Stan`s wariness.
You know what would have been funny? If, while searching the Jennings house, Stan had found the picture of his (ex)wife that young Henry had used for whacking material.
If Stan felt that way, there wouldn’t even be a show. Or at least it would be a lousy show. Either way, that doesn’t seem like a counterpoint, it seems like it confirms what I said — Stan not knowing he knows has allowed Philip to be a close friend, leading to tension, suspense, drama yadda yadda yadda. All because he doesn’t realize the picture on the jigsaw puzzle box is of Philip and Elizabeth.
Or what am I missing about that counterpoint?
I guess it comes down to definitions of “knowing” and what you believe about human psychology.
We’ll you can’t have it both ways. He either had suspicions and he didn’t show them (to the viewers) and let he and his family become increasing intertwined with Russians spies, or he didn’t know that he was in the hip pocket of Russian spies for 6 years, and then put it all together over a Thanksgiving weekend.
I don’t know why it had to be boring for him to figure it out over a 3-4 episodes in a thoughtful, believable way, but it’s exciting for him to be clueless for the entire show (save for the pilot) and then figure it all out because there was a man and woman in a van in Chicago and Phillip’s business is going under.