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Dr.Caligari posted:The other thing is, I am sure they were pretty deep into the facility. Once they left the room he could have easily notified someone and had them apprehended, then took the picture of his son back. I read the scene as that guy was a barely-paid milquetoast who knew she was, if not a literal Russian spy, SOME kind of bad news, and he just didn't want to be any part of it. It's not even the physical menacing that she did, it was just the possibility of getting involved in poo poo that's far above his pay grade. Or is this another goon thing like "heh, if it were me I would have totally kicked her rear end  "? In the early 80s atmosphere, it's pretty drat believable that some schmuck in a warehouse just wanted it to be over with. You have to keep in mind how paranoid everyone was at the time, due to all the propaganda about the Cold War.
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Mar 14, 2014 02:43
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I really, really hope this show doesn't follow down the path of Homeland and have a huge focus on the daughter. As mentioned above, to me, the Paige story-line is poorly acted and uninteresting.
Hughmoris fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 04:00
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precision posted:I read the scene as that guy was a barely-paid milquetoast who knew she was, if not a literal Russian spy, SOME kind of bad news, and he just didn't want to be any part of it. It's not even the physical menacing that she did, it was just the possibility of getting involved in poo poo that's far above his pay grade. No it was just a dumb scene. I mean they are supposed to be in secure facility. You're telling me he couldn't have yelled for help or at least run when she slowly went for the crowbar. He obviously knew something was up. Basically I would have believed it more if she had a gun because he could be dead in a flash rather than have some outs.
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Mar 14, 2014 10:57
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Yeah I'll have to go ahead and side with the people complaining about the Paige storyline. It was my biggest fear after the Finale and well for good reasons. I also thought the second episode really wasn't that good. I thought the guy screaming about Reagan was way too hamfisted, I don't care for the scenes with both Stan and the double(who will eventually be a triple)-agent even though I like them both on their own and I found the idea of her holding a crowbar and scaring this man the way she did to be ridiculous. Sure we know she probably could kill him five different ways using that crowbar, but he wouldn't know that or have any reason to doubt this middle-aged woman with a weird haircut would be able to, either. It's only two episodes in so it's a bit early to say this season is terrible, I imagine they just have had to do some major realignments since they lost a major character to a terrible terrible network comedy. (Seriously, The Millers is painfully bad)
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Mar 14, 2014 15:55
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Paige is great. I like the idea that as the kids grow up there is going to be a real problem in keeping them in the dark about the family business. I think it's been pretty believable that she has questions and that mixed with some teenage rebellion make the storyline both very believable and interesting. I'm honestly really fascinated in the family life on the show though. And Paige is a really believable and likable kid. Henry too. I want time spent with them and not just all super awesome spy action. Also if you think these episodes have been "terrible" than I you are just too drat hard to please or should probably watch another show.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:09
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BlackJosh posted:Paige is great. I like the idea that as the kids grow up there is going to be a real problem in keeping them in the dark about the family business. I think it's been pretty believable that she has questions and that mixed with some teenage rebellion make the storyline both very believable and interesting. I'm honestly really fascinated in the family life on the show though. And Paige is a really believable and likable kid. Henry too. I want time spent with them and not just all super awesome spy action. I think the Paige storyline is completely unrealistic. Their parents have done nothing that could arouse her suspicion, especially not to that level. It all started what, when she couldn't sleep and wanted to talk to her mother but she wasn't in her room and then saw her coming from the basement. Then she said 'Oh I was just folding some laundry' and when Paige looked in the basement later, lo and behold there was folded laundry in there! It's not like it's some kind of huge scooby-doo mystery. The writers have not given us a single reason why Paige should be in any way as suspicious as it is and it makes it look like the writers trying to throw a wrench in the whole thing rather than an organic story line that grows out of the interactions between the parents and children. Also I went out of my way to say that it's way too early to call it terrible, so.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:18
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Twee as gently caress posted:I think the Paige storyline is completely unrealistic. Their parents have done nothing that could arouse her suspicion, especially not to that level. It all started what, when she couldn't sleep and wanted to talk to her mother but she wasn't in her room and then saw her coming from the basement. I think it started before that. Paige told the girl on the bus that her suspicion was initially that one of her parents was having an affair, which kind of makes sense given what happened last season with Philip moving out etc. and I think it's reasonable that she still has some vague sense of suspicion but can't put her finger on it. It's especially a bit strange that, as far as she knows, they have no living relatives except for the mysterious "Aunt Helen" she's never been allowed to meet before, even though she lives just a couple hours away. The fact that her mother disappeared for weeks or months to help this "Aunt" who until then had never been a part of their lives seems pretty suspicious. Don't the kids wonder about where their family comes from? They must have been told something but other than Philip's vague "I lost my father at 6" the show hasn't explained.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:24
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Elizabeth came across as weirdly defensive about the whole "doing laundry" thing, in fairness. Couple that with her parents having some weird rear end schedules and a fairly recent parental separation period and I can completely buy Paige being suspicious. I just loved watching Philip laying down the law with her. He's the "nice" parent and that just made it all the more striking when he sat her down. It also helped that you couldn't tell how much of the anger was because she was snooping around their spy cover and how much was genuine parental disapproval at her lying and thinking she was smart enough to get away with it.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:51
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Tortolia posted:I just loved watching Philip laying down the law with her. He's the "nice" parent and that just made it all the more striking when he sat her down. It also helped that you couldn't tell how much of the anger was because she was snooping around their spy cover and how much was genuine parental disapproval at her lying and thinking she was smart enough to get away with it. Well he was probably also pissed because he's very worried about the kids being in danger, and Paige left her younger brother alone in the house for several hours when she was supposed to be watching him.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:55
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Earwicker posted:I think it started before that. Paige told the girl on the bus that her suspicion was initially that one of her parents was having an affair, which kind of makes sense given what happened last season with Philip moving out etc. and I think it's reasonable that she still has some vague sense of suspicion but can't put her finger on it. I don't think so, remember toward the end of '66 they weren't even trying to get pregnant, and then they had Paige. Like at best they had this girl who's maybe like 14 at most. Even if she had a vague suspicion about how one of her parents were having an affair, there's no reason for her to go ahead and just be that suspicious and do the things she does. 'She's acting crazy and irrational because she's a teenager' only makes sense when it fits in with the rest of the character. We're supposed to believe that this 14 year old girl who doesn't even get out of bed at night to bother her parents because they forbid her to would then take the train for so long to go see a relative she never met before? I mean if she just needed to verify that there is someone called Aunt Helen who lives there, why not just give her a call? 'Oh hey I heard about your accident and wanted to know how you were doing' or whatever. How would her going there do anything good in the first place? How could she expect not getting busted pulling a stunt like that? Why wouldn't she just say to her parents 'I want to meet her' and constantly bug them about it instead like any normal teenager? I don't know, that little trip and her general suspicion just makes no sense to me at all. My dislike of that plotline might be coloring the way I see it though, I'll admit. I just never finished a scene with either Page or Henry and thought 'Man I wish we'd get more of them on the screen'. Tortolia posted:Elizabeth came across as weirdly defensive about the whole "doing laundry" thing, in fairness. Couple that with her parents having some weird rear end schedules and a fairly recent parental separation period and I can completely buy Paige being suspicious. Well yeah she was acting a bit weird, but when Paige saw that there was in fact a folded load of laundry on top of the machine the next morning, it should have ended there. I know her parents are spies and do all sorts of shady poo poo but she's insulated from that life and should have no reason to start snooping like that all of a sudden quote:I just loved watching Philip laying down the law with her. He's the "nice" parent and that just made it all the more striking when he sat her down. It also helped that you couldn't tell how much of the anger was because she was snooping around their spy cover and how much was genuine parental disapproval at her lying and thinking she was smart enough to get away with it. Oh yeah that was hands down my favorite part of the last episode
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Mar 14, 2014 16:56
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Yeah she is a pretty boring character because there's no indication of her having any kind of life or interests outside of her being suspicious of her parents. I thought last season they were working towards some kind of situation where she and Stan's son had some kind of romance, which could have been pretty awful, but they seem to have all but gotten rid of that dude.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:59
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Earwicker posted:Yeah she is a pretty boring character because there's no indication of her having any kind of life or interests outside of her being suspicious of her parents. I thought last season they were working towards some kind of situation where she and Stan's son had some kind of romance, which could have been pretty awful, but they seem to have all but gotten rid of that dude. If she was a fully fleshed-out character instead of clearly just acting as the writers' plot device I probably would enjoy this plotline more I suppose. Have we even seen Stan's son? They seem to have moved away completely from any plotline related to his family for now. That scene where he was playing bass(?) and she was sitting there and the other girl came in etc... was probably the one time I thought Paige had some interesting and realistic material to work with. Well that and the time she brained that poor fella who only wanted to tell them to live nice lives and be nicer to their parents and not to put themselves at risk uselessly because we only live once but alas his speech was cut short 
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Mar 14, 2014 17:03
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No he hasn't been seen this season at all, but he was briefly mentioned in the last episode in a scene that seemed to serve little other purpose than remind us that he exists and that Stan is horribly awkward with his wife.
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Mar 14, 2014 17:06
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DivisionPost posted:But lately even network's been beating the drum for DVR; they know the future's coming and the live audiences are just going to shrink as new ways to catch up on TV become more prevalent. Now, whether they've found a way to monetize those numbers, or they've convinced advertisers that it's worth paying attention to them, that's for a smarter man than me to answer. If you use Comcast's OnDemand feature to watch shows you've missed they've got it so that you can't fast forward through commercials. They could probably do the same thing wit the DVR software, except then people would probably start buying Tivos again.
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Mar 14, 2014 17:10
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Considering how wrapped up you guys have been about the warehouse scene, (Seriously, he was a loving janitor, I doubt he was willing to risk dying to protect a milling machine) I'm surprised that there hasn't been a bigger discussion regarding the Aunt scene. It was just so strange that I feel like the showrunners were hoping you wouldn't think about it too much. What exactly does that woman do the rest of the time? Is that photo of Elizabeth always hanging there, or did someone tip her off in advance? It was such a huge stretch that it pulled me out of the episode.
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Mar 14, 2014 17:11
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JohnSherman posted:Considering how wrapped up you guys have been about the warehouse scene, (Seriously, he was a loving janitor, I doubt he was willing to risk dying to protect a milling machine) I'm surprised that there hasn't been a bigger discussion regarding the Aunt scene. It was just so strange that I feel like the showrunners were hoping you wouldn't think about it too much. What exactly does that woman do the rest of the time? Is that photo of Elizabeth always hanging there, or did someone tip her off in advance? It was such a huge stretch that it pulled me out of the episode. Presumably she's just a KGB sympathiser/operative who actually lives there. When Elizabeth needed the "aunt" cover story they got a picture or two of the Jennings to put up to reinforce the story. Nothing weird about it in my mind.
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Mar 14, 2014 17:15
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Tortolia posted:Presumably she's just a KGB sympathiser/operative who actually lives there. When Elizabeth needed the "aunt" cover story they got a picture or two of the Jennings to put up to reinforce the story. Nothing weird about it in my mind. Plus, as Phillip said, the kids had agents watching them the whole time they were gone (again, I think the girl on the bus was one of them). Surely someone called "Aunt Helen" before Paige actually got there, it was a long bus ride. JohnSherman posted:Considering how wrapped up you guys have been about the warehouse scene, (Seriously, he was a loving janitor, I doubt he was willing to risk dying to protect a milling machine) Exactly this, how hard is it to figure out that the guy was a nobody who wanted nothing to do with any potentially illegal or sketchy poo poo. Even if he had ran for it and got help and got Elizabeth caught, it's not at all weird to think that his thought process included "she's not working alone, someone sent her" and that those "someones" might have something to say or do to a guy who gets one of their agents caught. Don't make me turn this thread around! 
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Mar 14, 2014 18:07
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:She should've had a gun. I mean there was nothing stopping that guy from just walking out of the room when she just first picked it up and he was asking her questions. Yes, there was something stopping him: a woman who clearly imposed her confidence and seriousness to a weak-minded, scared man. Elizabeth didn't even have to be the badass fighter we know her to be. The point of that wasn't the fact that Elizabeth can kick his rear end left and right, it's the fact that the guy is prone to folding at the sign of first pushback. BlackJosh posted:Paige is great. Pretty every TV show that's tried to incorporate kids into the main story has mostly been unsuccessful. Most of the time, the kid-storyline is lovely and really unnecessary. I don't think the episode was terrible, but I really don't care for Paige because I know her story is relatively weak compared to the main plot. Hand of the King fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 18:08
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The guy is a factory worker in the middle of the day faced with a woman he has at least 6 inches and 100 pounds on her. Not only that, but he's working somewhere where he needs to have a security clearance so it's not like he's a guy on his milk run not thinking about the possibility of danger. Just seeing her hold that crowbar shouldn't have been enough for him to collapse and give away everything right away. I mean were we supposed to think he was the only guy left with top secret material in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere? It was a poorly scripted scene but it's ok, it's still a really good show.
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Mar 14, 2014 19:30
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I don't know why a woman holding a crowbar is outside of the realm of intimidating. And, why should this guy get into a physical confrontation with a person with a weapon? What does he owe to this job that he should feel compelled to risk his safety? Can I ask what you would do if you were the man?
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Mar 14, 2014 19:40
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A 12 year old girl holding a crowbar could be intimidating. Anyone who holds a tool they can then use to make you feel pain is going to be at least slighlty intimidating. That's not in question here. The point is that a man who was much taller, much fatter and most likely stronger in a warehouse that's probably filled with guards and other workers wouldn't immediately become a blubbering mess begging for his life if he walked in a situation like that. He could have screamed for help, ran away, or even try to take the crowbar from her. All actions that are a lot more plausible than immediately begging for his life and leading them to classified poo poo.
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Mar 14, 2014 19:49
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The worker was just a terrible actor, and that scene seemed like it was out of a high school play. The Paige storyline has to be there, since the central source of drama to this show is how/when the kids and Stan find out about Philip and Elizabeth.
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Mar 14, 2014 20:36
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Welp, I guess everyone has different tastes. I completely agree that the factory worker just didn't want to get involved with someone else's problem. Unless you're an idiot, you don't look at someone and go "I could probably take them" and then test that theory unless you have a drat good reason to.
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Mar 14, 2014 22:55
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Twee as gently caress posted:The guy is a factory worker in the middle of the day faced with a woman he has at least 6 inches and 100 pounds on her. Not only that, but he's working somewhere where he needs to have a security clearance so it's not like he's a guy on his milk run not thinking about the possibility of danger. Are you intentionally ignoring the subtext that he was worried about his family even before she threatened them, and that he is in America in the early 80s and has every right to be worried that if he didn't cooperate whoever sent Elizabeth would track him down and murder his whole family? It's like you're not even watching the show!
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Mar 14, 2014 23:31
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Exactly I don't think he was thinking about Elizabeth as just one person, she represented a whole world of poo poo that he just didn't want to be involved in regardless of how many pounds he has on her.
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Mar 14, 2014 23:49
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For me, it still would've been a dumb scene even if it was Phillip with the crowbar. I mean they are in a secure warehouse / facility. You get the impression that one wrong move or mistake and they would be locked up for the rest of their lives. But I guess the guy was terrified for his family. Still a bad scene.
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Mar 15, 2014 10:01
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Earwicker posted:Well he was probably also pissed because he's very worried about the kids being in danger, and Paige left her younger brother alone in the house for several hours when she was supposed to be watching him. *And* the more Paige snoops around, the more likely it is that not only might the parents be caught and imprisoned. They might also not be entirely convinced the near-liquidation of the other family wasn't an inside job. The guy *did* need Philip to do the grab because he worried he was (or would be) compromised. And yes, the crowbar scene was a stretch for me. It seemed like an 'add-in' to prove to everyone that even after recovering from an extremely serious gunshot wound that Elizabeth's still 'dangerous.' It could've been handled much better.
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Mar 15, 2014 11:29
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I really liked the warehouse scene, the writers trusted the audience to get what was happening without it being explicitly stated. No menacing with the crowbar, no "if you tell anyone" type speech or the like.
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Mar 15, 2014 15:51
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"Why didn't the fat warehouse schlub have the physical confidence to overpower/evade the KGB agent if she was only armed for close combat": sincere TVIV tactical realism complaint
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Mar 15, 2014 18:17
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GimpChimp posted:"Why didn't the fat warehouse schlub have the physical confidence to overpower/evade the KGB agent if she was only armed for close combat": sincere TVIV tactical realism complaint he clearly should have called her fat and then bunny-hopped away.
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Mar 15, 2014 18:41
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GimpChimp posted:"Why didn't the fat warehouse schlub have the physical confidence to overpower/evade the KGB agent if she was only armed for close combat": sincere TVIV tactical realism complaint Look, the Dana Brody issue is getting everybody skittish, we're starting to jump at plot shadows.
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Mar 16, 2014 08:28
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Twee as gently caress posted:A 12 year old girl holding a crowbar could be intimidating. Anyone who holds a tool they can then use to make you feel pain is going to be at least slighlty intimidating. That's not in question here. The point is that a man who was much taller, much fatter and most likely stronger in a warehouse that's probably filled with guards and other workers wouldn't immediately become a blubbering mess begging for his life if he walked in a situation like that. He could have screamed for help, ran away, or even try to take the crowbar from her. These are the absolute worst criticisms right here. When people somehow twist completely reasonable things (like a dude being scared of being all alone with some shady person with a weapon in a military storage facility) just because it doesn't "jive" with whatever they think they would do in this situation. I mean seriously.
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Mar 16, 2014 10:17
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GimpChimp posted:"Why didn't the fat warehouse schlub have the physical confidence to overpower/evade the KGB agent if she was only armed for close combat": sincere TVIV tactical realism complaint I love this. I also am not at all disliking the Paige scenes, and I'm not sure why people are getting hung up on them. Maybe it's because we don't see MORE Paige scenes where she's at school telling her friends "My mom said to me 'Why would you open a closed door, Paige?' You mean your parents open doors all the time?" or talking about how her parents would disappear all the time when she was young and could barely remember. But I don't think that would be good for the show, either. I think we just have to accept the fact that Paige has long harbored suspicions about her parents and she's growing up enough that she wants to check on them. And honestly, I think you should have known there would be a kids-finding-out storyline coming in -- this show was always going to be about the challenges of Russian spies living as a nuclear family with children.
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Mar 16, 2014 14:16
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Phenotype posted:I love this. I think the problem with Paige is that she doesn't have much of a personality beyond being suspicious of her parents and just being kind of annoying in general. She doesn't seem to have any interests or passions or hobbies or anything. I mean teenagers are often obsessed with some band or with their social situation at school or with some idea of what they want to be later in life, and we don't see any of that side of her, she's just someone who worries and who they worry about. Henry has just as little of a personality but he's also less present as a character so it's less bothersome, but really the kids exist more as symbols of what Elizabeth and Philipp are afraid of than actual fleshed out characters, which makes scenes that revolve around them a bit grating. Even Martha has more of a personality than either of them.
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Mar 16, 2014 16:00
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It's a combination of that and how up until this past episode they hadn't really made clear just what, exactly, started making her suspicious all of a sudden. All they needed was something like this past episode, where she said out loud that she thought one of her parents might've been having an affair, and there, okay, fine, she's checking to see if she was right about that. I realize the show isn't in the business of always underlining explicitly what people mean by things but in this case just a tiny hint would've helped with (in my case) her appearing to start checking things based on the world's flimsiest reason (Mom was in the laundry room at night!)
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Mar 16, 2014 18:10
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Mo0 posted:It's a combination of that and how up until this past episode they hadn't really made clear just what, exactly, started making her suspicious all of a sudden. All they needed was something like this past episode, where she said out loud that she thought one of her parents might've been having an affair, and there, okay, fine, she's checking to see if she was right about that. I realize the show isn't in the business of always underlining explicitly what people mean by things but in this case just a tiny hint would've helped with (in my case) her appearing to start checking things based on the world's flimsiest reason (Mom was in the laundry room at night!) No I think she started being suspicious when it seemed like the marriage was falling apart and Philipp moved out, which is pretty understandable.
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Mar 16, 2014 18:15
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Which is true, I guess it felt like you didn't really see her do anything drastic until the laundry scene, and so it felt like she'd decided THAT'S THE LAST STRAW, which... what? It's not the worst plot ever, or anything, it just suffers a bit from being a bit *too* reliant on reading between the lines to figure it out so far. To me, anyway. The bigger problem still remains how neither her nor Henry have really been fleshed out as characters, as mentioned before. Unless the intent is for Henry to be the world's most average child, all he really exists to serve as is a reminder to one or both parents of what normal is/what they're defending, which is fine until you start hanging a plot on Paige like that, and then she just starts to feel like a walking plot device. Celery Jello fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Mar 16, 2014 |
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Mar 16, 2014 18:17
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Mo0 posted:Which is true, I guess it felt like you didn't really see her do anything drastic until the laundry scene, and so it felt like she'd decided THAT'S THE LAST STRAW, which... what? I think the laundry thing just gave her specific place to look because that seemed odd to her, but she was already suspicious before that. quote:The bigger problem still remains how neither her nor Henry have really been fleshed out as characters, as mentioned before. Unless the intent is for Henry to be the world's most average child, all he really exists to serve as is a reminder to one or both parents of what normal is/what they're defending, which is fine until you start hanging a plot on Paige like that, and then she just starts to feel like a walking plot device. Exactly, they just aren't really characters so scenes that focus on them can be annoying to watch. They are just symbols of "the children" rather than people with their own thoughts or needs that are unrelated to Philipp and Elizabeth. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Mar 16, 2014 |
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Mar 16, 2014 18:20
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Yeah, I think my problem was that her scenes up until then with regard to her parents' issues read less as suspicious and more as just standard teenage confusion as to why her parents would be breaking up. Her going into her parents' bedroom and seeing them 69ing was a much more believable "check up" scenario to me for that reason.
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Mar 16, 2014 18:22
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GimpChimp posted:"Why didn't the fat warehouse schlub have the physical confidence to overpower/evade the KGB agent if she was only armed for close combat": sincere TVIV tactical realism complaint Also re Paige, it's true she doesn't have much of a personality or anything, and her suspicion definitely has the potential to become really grating if they keep going to that well without balancing her out somehow. It doesn't help that we're all effectively watching the show from Philip and Elizabeth's POV, and her understandable concern that her parents might be keeping secrets from each other looks more like she's trying to sabotage everything they've built since we know what's actually going on with them.
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Mar 16, 2014 18:54
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