Season 4 Preview

[sistermagpie]

Okay, full description of scary as hell preview for S4 within.

Philip by a car alone.

Pastor Tim at his home (I assume) saying "Do you think that you could get ask them to tell you more about what they do?

Flash of what looks like Philip in disguise he used to kill Gene.

Pastor Tim saying "If people are getting hurt we have a responsibility."

Pastor Tim rubbing Paige's shoulders, like standing face to face, like he's getting her reassuring her about what they're going to do.

Anderman (is that his name?) on the phone at the FBI looking suspicious.

Gabriel at night meeting with Claudia. He says "We have to get them out."

She says "It's not over."

Elizabeth says, "If we move fast (we also see Clark for a second--Philip looks very unshaved through all of this)...we might be okay."

Gaad asks Anderman and Stan "What do you have?"

Shot of Philip FBI sketch.

Philip asks Elizabeth "Do you want to run?" Can't tell where they are--maybe Gabriel's building?

Arkady says "We may need to extract someone."

Stan throws Philip up against the wall and yells, "Don' lie to me!"

Philip says, "I'm not!" (But we don't see him say that, just hear it.)

Martha cries and looks horrified, but the light looks very different so I think that's from a different scene.

Philip at a window with something...viewfinder?

Paige saying, "I'm so sorry, Mom," on the phone. It doesn't look like their kitchen. Maybe this is at Pastor Tim's or the church or someplace. Looks like a wooden wall, like panelling.

Elizabeth in a phone booth as Jennifer hanging up the phone--but again, Paige's scene looked like indoors and night and Elizabeth's in the day so might not be matching scenes.

Clark driving his car looking out window nervously at I think people walking on the street, like maybe he's assuming FBI agents at Martha's?

FBI agents searching a room...should I know this bedroom? Can't tell. Maybe it's Clark's for all I know.

Philip (hee-totally didn't recognize him for a second at all) on a bus with a bag. Seems to be walking toward a guy in a uniform at the back of the bus.

Maybe Philip attacking bus driver? Or somebody on what looks like the bus? He's in a blonde wig in these scenes. Lots of fast cuts, y'all!

Martha looking upset and crying on the street.

I think Philip maybe finishing someone off?

What looks like maybe Philip (wedding ring, dark hair, but can't see anything else) standing over Gabriel who's lying on the floor. Philip's looking at his (Philip's) hand, which has blood on it, like he tried to touch him and his hand came away bloody.

P&E in the car. E's head on P's shoulder and his arm's around her. Elizabeth says, "We're in trouble."

He says, "I know."

So the stuff here would be from the earlier eps of the season but it looks practically like a finale with everything falling apart! Seems almost impossible that this will then get into Elizabeth running a longer mission and anybody watching David Copperfield or the Day After or worrying about biological weapons, so I'm thinking the cliffhanger's going to be dealt with immediately and in a way that shakes everybody involves...but obviously P&E are going to stay at work so...



Short version: Shit's going down!!!!

I was totally shaking after this preview. It was like somebody suddenly jumped out of the TV and yelled boo at me!

Comments

[theplatonicnonyeah]

Eeeeeeek!
But...knowing how they've cut and pasted things before, this is all deliberately misleading. Like you said, scenes mixed up that aren't linked. Red herrings everywhere!

From the bts photos I've seen the Jennifer disguise doesn't appear until later in the season, unless of course, that's the "long operation" Elizabeth is supposed to be running.

Oh, but how delicious it sounds with Stand and Philip getting all hands on. *evil, dirty thoughts*

[jae]

Yeah, all we can take for granted is that these bits were filmed--we can't assume the implied context has anything to do with what will really happen. But that just makes it all the more delicious to speculate. :)

-J

[theplatonicnonyeah]

Also! Also! We know that sometimes they use a different take in the final product, which was especially evident in that famous Scrabble scene with Gabriel and Philip last season.

Oh, I am so excited for March to come!

[sistermagpie]

I would guess that the longer operation might be (might) the Patty character they showed a picture of on twitter.

[treonb]

Thanks for the breakdown!

[shapinglight]

Thanks for the breakdown. Aargh! Can't believe I'm going to miss all this.

Best guess re the Stan roughing up Philip scene - Stan thinks Philip is having an affair with Sandra.

[theplatonicnonyeah]

Oh, that is a good deduction!

[shapinglight]

Sadly for me it'll be a long time before I find out if that's true or not. I'm going to miss the first five episodes. ;)

And it all sounds so good!

[sistermagpie]

That was exactly my guess. Because it's the obvious fake-out that Philip would be peeing his pants thinking he's caught and instead it's Stan haring off on something so completely not true Philip didn't even think about it.

Also it's almost punishment for Philip trying to be honest by going to EST.

[jae]

Wow. Some of that is almost certainly deliberately misleading (I'd bet the Stan-hitting-Philip, for example, is about something else entirely, and possibly Paige's "I'm sorry, Mom"), but just the fact that they're talking about running raises the stakes. The extraction may or may not be P&E, of course, but still.

Also, clearly I have to spend more time watching FX shows.

-J

[sistermagpie]

Yes, like I said above, I was sure the Stan scene is a fake out and he's mad about something like--like thinking Philip and Sandra are having an affair or something.

It would be hard for Paige's "I'm so sorry, Mom" to be about something not very serious given her tone, but then even that's hard to tell out of context. But Paige very rarely if ever has given a really serious apology (she's given eye-rolling ones or forced ones but like Elizabeth she usually thinks she's right) so it's hard to imagine this is about something not serious. Especially when we know what she's done. It kind of crosses the line from "fake out" to "what's the point?"

Of course, it's also hard to tell from the previews if it's Martha or Paige who has put them in danger, but again, it seems like making it Martha is a cop-out. It just makes perfect sense psychologically in the story to have Paige's actions have real consequences. People had always said Pastor Tim would just be killed, but they usually imagined it as just P&E taking him out and Paige then having reason to resent them for it. But it's more dramatic for her to actually see them on the defensive and in danger/afraid.

Also I meant to say that the clip of Pastor Tim rubbing Paige's shoulders totally reminded me of the end of The Godfather when Kay's watching Michael in his office. She's not kissing his ring, but that possessive touching really telegraphs, as always, Tim claiming her as part of the church family and separating her from her parents.

Clip here

[treonb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsxh9p40gsU

Re: Clip here

[sistermagpie]

Nice! See, the write-up can't really capture it.

Re: Clip here

[treonb]

I posted before I got a chance to view it. It's nice to see the real thing, but your breakdown is really helpful. It all flies by so fast.

Re: Clip here

[sistermagpie]

There's another shot of Paige on the phone in a dark room tucked in there too!

Re: Clip here

[theplatonicnonyeah]

I always try to hit the pause button when these teasers are released, to try and see better what is going on. o_0

Re: Clip here

[treonb]

Me too, but even with that, I can't pick everything up and I can't always figure out what they're saying.

[sistermagpie]

Also this shorter preview with Stan:

https://youtu.be/GFpb93Dvpq8

You Never Know

[jae]

That one is also very interesting, but nowhere near as "AAAAAAAAH!"

-J

[sistermagpie]

Yeah, I'm especially interested to see if Stan's Maverick-ness backs up on him.

[treonb]

I wasn't able to view that link. Here's another one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAzWQpdzjQo

[(Anonymous)]

Woww that's a lot of information (?) in thirty seconds. It has me going: wait, what? But is she.. And are they really..?

Sure, a lot of it is teasing and hinting at things that aren't there.. I'm so excited to find out all about it in due time. This really got me in the 'countdown mode'.

-Emma

[soupytwist]

I need to rewatch this about fifty seven billion times, because like everyone else, I am pretty sure this is going to seem very different when we see the actual show!

[katiac]

Thank you so much for posting the description!

[saraqael]

In the shot of the Philip (Clark?) FBI sketch, there is also a document in the lower right hand corner of the screen that is partially cut off, It says
'Commonwealth of ...' [cut off]
Certificate of [cut off]

Would be wild if it is Martha and Clark's marriage certificate from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Every single frame of this preview makes me incredibly anxious.

[sistermagpie]

Oh man. I'm almost shocked they'd have filed it. Unless they have a copy some other way!!!

Last season Stan saw Shogun at Martha's and was suspicious. I wonder if he asks the neighbors if there's a guy who often comes to her apartment and that's how they get a description. Since Martha knows what he actually looks like...

[saraqael]

We know that Stan is suspicious of her. I wonder if he'll see through Gene's fake suicide note and continue to go after Martha? Stan has good instincts. The FBI has been thwarted a lot in the first 3 seasons. They need to start catching up. Isn't one of the S4 scripts named Clark's Apartment? I wouldn't be surprised if the Clark cover identity gets blown this season. And you're right that Martha knows what he really looks like, which makes her a serious liability. I was afraid that she wasn't going to make it through the end of S3. I absolutely fear for her life in S4.

[theplatonicnonyeah]

Heavens, I've had my heart in my throat for so long on behalf of Martha! She is so relatable and you just want to save her from this mess that she didn't cause on her own. She truly is a pawn in someone else's game.

[saraqael]

She's a pawn, but as of late in S3, she's a willing pawn, both because she doesn't want to lose Clark, but also - I suspect - because she fears the consequences of being caught. As of the end of S3 she only thinks that Clark is a spy. As of S4, when she realizes that he killed Gene to cover for her, she'll have to face the fact that Clark is also a murderer. What will she do with that knowledge?

I think that Philip does have genuine good feelings for her, but at the end of the day she is just an asset for him. If she becomes too much of a liability, she has to go. Killing Gene might distract attention away from her briefly, but her position and usefulness has been horribly compromised. Will she kill herself? Will Philip (or one of the others) murder her? Will she confess to Gaad and Stan and be jailed for the rest of her life? There are no good outcomes for her, poor thing.

[sistermagpie]

Technically, he doesn't have to say he killed Clark himself. He could just say that Gene was killed by whoever he works for--but he might be honest since he actually did kill Gene to protect her.

I suspect a lot of the irony of Philip's position this season is that many of the people putting him in danger are people he's been trying so hard to protect, like Martha and Paige (who Pastor Tim is encouraging to jump into the spy game--albeit on the other side, with him as her handler). Elizabeth will probably be coming from the opposite direction, realizing that she needs to pay more attention to this sort of thing instead of just putting her mission first.

Wow, that goes right back to not just the pilot but the cold open of the pilot. Robert's hurt, Philip wants to take him to the hospital. Elizabeth says "the mission comes first." The upshot is that Robert dies anyway and they miss the boat with Timoshev...but that in turn leads to good developments in their personal life.

[sistermagpie]

Yup, I would imagine Stan would totally continue to suspect Martha despite Gene's suicide. And now he's got the freedom to go after her. I think the episode was called "Clark's Place" - I wondered if maybe that wasn't even the place the FBI was searching. But the fact that the picture is definitely Clark means either Martha's not the one who described him or she lied about her description.

It looks in some scenes like Philip looks much rougher than Elizabeth, which makes me think Clark is vulnerable here. It could be that Elizabeth just didn't look as obviously bad because she doesn't grow a beard, but it seems like Philip was crumbling on his own.

[saraqael]

I was thinking today that it's possible that the FBI drawing might not be Clark, but of another one of Philip's cover identities that is similar to Clark. The clips in the season previews often end up playing out differently than we expect.

If it isn't a sketch of Clark, the show could drag out the suspense of will they/won't they realize that Martha is the real liability in the FBI office well on into S4. In the meantime, if Martha saw the sketch she'd recognize it as Clark right away.

Philip was already crumbling on his own as of the end of S3. I think it was clear that he was coming apart all through S3. The combination of all of the brutal things he did or witnessed, combined with the EST sessions urging him to be true to himself and express his desires clearly, combined with his ongoing inherent desire to protect his family at all costs...I think this is all too much for him. When we left him at the end of S3, he was incoherently trying to express himself to Elizabeth but she shut him down to watch Reagan's speech. That is a huge divide between the two of them that is still unresolved.

[sistermagpie]

Oh, I agree. But it seemed like in the scenes that Philip was unshaven and seemed like he hadn't slept--which I took to not just to be a sign that he couldn't sleep and was having a breakdown but that he'd been on the run and unable to be at home shaving and combing his hair as well as not sleeping! It's possible she also had big dark circles under her eyes and was bedraggled but I didn't notice that as clearly. (He looked, lol, a bit more like Matthew Rhys except for the hollow-eyes and paleness!)

[saraqael]

Oh, I definitely agree. I think that something must have gone awry and he's at risk. Maybe the Clark cover is blown. Maybe a different cover on a S4 mission gets blown and something happens to him. Elizabeth does not look physically bedraggled or hurt in any of the clips that I noticed. I just think that Philip is entering S4 in a far more emotionally vulnerable state than Elizabeth is. Elizabeth has the strength of her convictions to see her through any problems, and she also has Philip (and the spy network) to protect her physically as much as possible. Elizabeth seems stronger than him (IMO) because she doesn't let her emotions interfere with her work. In S3 Gabriel asked Philip if he was falling apart. If Gabriel thinks that Philip isn't making good decisions any more, Gabriel could have him and possibly the whole family extracted and sent back to Russia. The fact that Philip is in this unsettled state of mind makes the dangers they face even more dire.