Deadly

Just rewatched. Rene is a spy. Full stop.

Evidence:

1. She comes on waaaaay too strong

2. She encourages Stan to stay in his dept at FBI when he wants to leave so she can get intel on what said dept is up to

3. She smiles too much

Come at me

This is the scene when Philip confesses that the business is going under and he's heading to join Elizabeth in Houston over Thanksgiving for one last mission.

Philip's eyes are saturated with despair. God, the weight of it.

I underestimate how much love Stan has for Philip, enough to let him be exfiltrated.

And Philip saying that heartbreaking line in the garage: "you were my only friend, in my whole shitty life. for all these years, my life was the joke, not yours."

Philip deserved friends. He was so charming, so full of love to give, so good--

At the end of the fight scene with Paige after he releases her from his endless and unbreakable grip.

Was he trying to end the encounter -- necessary but probably traumatic to both of them -- on a warm note? And mumbling that was all he could muster.

He looked broken. 

Or was he being sardonic to drill in the lesson as far as it could go--

If not, when do you think she figured it out?

And this includes knowing it subconsciously but repressing it.

Always was viscerally put off by the scenes of them together. He has all the power and abuses it by taking advantage of her sexually.

Have to skip over their intimate scenes together, as well as the scenes of Nina in jail. Too sad. Nina deserved so much more than what the world gave her.

I don't think it is possible to give consent when the person you are fucking is threatening your safety and your life.

Either she subconsciously made herself believe she loved him to mask the insane amount of fear instilled and dominance he enjoyed, or she knew that it was an act the entire time and was intentionally using her body to regain power / do the triple agent thing -- like with the old guy she was sleeping with at the beginning.

I like Stan and I don't feel guilty about it because all the main characters are antiheroes we support, people who do violent things. And trick others into having sex with them (using false pretenses to rob them of their ability to consent as well).

I like P & E but it's hard to tell who is more violent: Stan with Nina, or Philip with Martha.

Probably Stan because at least Philip is fighting for something good in the larger sense.

Wowza. Not a word spoken, but the looks on everybody’s faces is so telling. Fantastic acting all around.

It’s one of the best moments of the entire series in my opinion.

This is a rewatch of the series for me and I love it even more the second time around.

Just sharing because I got a kick out of it...

I think someone posted about the remake a while ago but I saw a video of an interview with Matthew Rhys recently and he was asked about it... he said his first words to FX were "so who do we play?" Referring to his IRL wife Keri Russell/Elizabeth Jennings 😂 including Instagram link for the interview clip below

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZ85GfiTg2D/?igsh=bDYzazFudnpsOTl6

ETA- Curious as to whether the series will be filmed in Korean and then maybe dubbed English or just subtitles?

S4E13 Persona Non Grata
If I’m ever dying of Lassa Fever, I’d like Agent Aderholt at my side for comic relief. This moment kills me.

During the ensuing conversation, he mentions going with his friend, Harry. Transportation comes up, and it is revealed that Mrs. Peters will be giving them a ride.

His friend is named Harry Peters.

Come on, writers room.

Just started a rewatch of the show for the first time since I watched it during peak COVID, and I was wondering if the Phillip and Elizabeth were registered with a political party in the U.S.? They clearly don't like Reagan, which is obvious since they're undercover KGB case officers, but I'm wondering if throughout the show, they show any political leaning whatsoever for the sake of their cover, like did they vote for Carter or do they pretend to be Republicans?

So cute/playful. Faintest hint of a smile playing on his lips

No.

You should stop watching immediately.

Not because it doesn't get better—it absolutely does—but because if you watched an entire season of arguably one of the greatest television dramas ever made and your reaction was, "Meh...", this relationship just isn't going to work.

Season 1 is the audition. If you made it through an entire season of Paige asking "What's going on?" every five minutes and your only takeaway was, "Does it get better?", then you've already answered your own question.

It's like eating at a three-Michelin-star restaurant and asking, "Do they eventually start serving chicken nuggets?"

Meanwhile, the rest of us will be over here debating Philip's wigs, feeling terrible for Martha, arguing about whether Renee is KGB, and wondering if "raised by Soviet spies" counts as a campaign liability.

Wish he used some of these.

Pics 1 & 2 - age 24 (Welsh TV interview)

Pic 3 - age 22 (young Clark vibes)

Pics 4 & 5 - where do I begin

Post-script: just found out that when he was 36 he played the main role in the 2011 West End production of The Graduate. If anybody somehow has access to this content, I will owe you a permanently redeemable and non-negotiable favor

Hi everyone. This is not a "will this show get better?" post, as I'm enjoying the story. We've just finished S01E09. My husband is not liking this show at all. Says it's too porny, male centered and sexist. I agree with some of his points, like how they're always displaying naked women for the male viewer entertainment. Will these factors change or get more subtle? I don't know if we should just stop watching, but I really love the lead actors.

It’s wild how lucid and subjugating the Centre’s orders were afforded given how much leeway P & E had in finding creative ways to fulfill them.

Surely a lot of their technique was drilled in training, I mean we felt its viscerality -- the way it violated your body so that you'd never forget it -- in the montage of Philip's sex training. 

Haptic as fuck / secondhand smoke of trauma.

And God I love how they waited until later seasons to give us that part of his backstory. It's the most heart-wrenching minute of the show and maybe any show I've seen. 

Elizabeth minimizes what sex is to Paige finally at the final season's end, but Philip's eyes during the training scenes belied the trauma of it, the sacrifice. 

Bread & wine. 

--

I wonder if that specific history was part of Philip's backstory from the beginning , or whether it was written later on.

Have a feeling it was the former and they were waiting for the precisely right moment to drop the mic on us for maximum effect.

Kind of like how we are made to wait until Season 6 of Breaking Bad for Walter to reveal to Jesse / us that his breaking bad was motivated by leaving a billion-dollar company he founded over a trivial dispute.

--

But it wasn't training that made them the Centre’s best illegals.

That fire from lost fathers, food scraps and bricks of bread, seeing your parents sacrifice themselves for you.

What is borne from those things can’t be taught--

I think about this scene and how it makes you wonder, is there ever a line you won't cross?

Kerri Russel’s character reveals to be Elizabeth by the end of ep 2, right? Please….

I just noticed that Dylan Baker (William Crandall) played the head of the CDC’s Infectious Disease Unit (Dr. David Broda) in an episode of House. What an incredible career he has had. He played a Russian spy who smuggled infectious disease samples but also a CDC leader, a US Senator who leaked CIA mission info to the Russians (Homeland), the Attorney General (West Wing) and also the FBI director in Blindspot.

Would you travel to Russia to meet P&E eventually?

Do you think FBI keep tabs on him? He being a descendant of KGB spies. 🤔