To be honest, I'd seen this episode enough times that I wasn't sure I'd have anything at all new to observe on this rewatch, but I still ended up with a whole slew of notes, somehow! That's the mark of a good episode, if it can still have me thinking new things after I've seen it a bunch of times.
I'm finding it kind of daunting to try to sort my thoughts into anything coherent, so I'm going to go for point form, I think. First, some general observations:
- A local friend of mine who's a huge Fleetwood Mac fan told me that the version of "Tusk" used in the Timoshev chase scene at the beginning had been remixed for the episode, emphasizing the drums. I listened hard for that this time, and managed to catch what she was talking about.
- Somehow I'd managed to forget that Robert died already in the pilot! I'd somehow gotten it stuck in my head that he went to the hospital in the pilot but didn't actually die until episode two. Of course it logically couldn't have been that way because there was so much else going on in episode two, but that's how I remembered it. Bizarre.
- I was very struck this time around by how calculating Timoshev was. There he is, captured and in mortal danger, but everything he says is well thought through and his words chosen for their maximum effect, both in the car and every time Philip takes the gag off. Of course he would have been trained for this very sort of situation, but that speaks to what sort of brain he has. Also interesting: when he's alone with Elizabeth, he doesn't make the same sort of promises to her that he makes when he's alone with Philip. He says nothing. He knows better.
- I thought a lot about how furious it must have made Elizabeth that Timoshev had turned traitor on top of everything else. After all the strength he displayed when she was his charge, it was him who was weak to the west's charms while she stayed firm and loyal even after fifteen years.
- This is something I caught the first time around but had forgotten: the way Philip is jealous at hearing Elizabeth having sex with her 'asset' on the tape, but that jealousy slides into feelings of pride when he hears the way she ultimately gets the job done.
- I noticed this time around the way that Philip actually brings up defecting twice before he really brings it up, which is terribly clever of him. The first time it sounds like a deliberate joke, and the second it could have been read either way. He's testing the waters to see how she will react.
- During Philip's running scene, they actually play the theme song (the remixed version that they sometimes have in the background of scenes in later episodes), despite the fact that this episode doesn't have any opening credits!
- "Tusk" gets replayed in the very final scene where Stan is going through the trunk and Philip is standing in the shadows with the gun, to hearken back to the Timochev chase scene at the beginning and remind us that there's a whole new kind of chase now. Which is fairly genius. :)
- And finally, this is something I actually did notice on earlier viewings, but I'll sneak it in anyway: wouldn't Stan have smelled the cleanup when he broke into the trunk and become more suspicious? Maybe the KGB have special cleaning fluid that has no scent and dries extra-fast? :)
There were also a few things that sadly no longer worked as well for me after reading the stuff I read about the KGB and the illegals programme as research for the fan story I wrote. Here's what they were:
- The way they react to the lights and the air conditioner when they first get inserted together into the U.S. makes it clear that this is their first time in a western country, and that's not how the illegals training programme worked in real life. (I have an explanation for this in my head that makes it work, but it still irritates me.)
- There is no way, just NO WAY IN HELL that General Zhukov would have been in the U.S. under any circumstances. And I think most of you know that I'm pretty good at coming up with scenarios in my head that can explain away some of the smaller goofs on this show, but there is just no explanation in the world for this one. I can't believe I never noticed it before, in fact, it's just so ridiculous. Especially since they're so careful in "Covert War" to have all meetings between him and Elizabeth taking place in various third countries.
- This one's much more nitpicky, but it still went through my mind as I was rewatching, so I'll still mention it here: real-life illegals were trained completely separately from other kinds of KGB officers, and in fact they learned little to nothing about the KGB as an insitution (one of the books I read said something about how this was because they then couldn't be pressured to reveal information about something they didn't know anything about) and as a result, didn't experience the KGB as the KGB in the way that people like Nina and Arkady and even Claudia would have. There were so many things in the pilot that contradict this (the way Nadezhda's training was clearly military, the way that Elizabeth refers to herself as a "KGB officer" rather than a "Directorate S illegal" or suchlike, a couple of other things), and it's certainly all internally consistent, so it's no huge deal or anything. But it's definitely another way in which the show's KGB is somewhat different from the real-life one.
no subject
I'm finding it kind of daunting to try to sort my thoughts into anything coherent, so I'm going to go for point form, I think. First, some general observations:
- A local friend of mine who's a huge Fleetwood Mac fan told me that the version of "Tusk" used in the Timoshev chase scene at the beginning had been remixed for the episode, emphasizing the drums. I listened hard for that this time, and managed to catch what she was talking about.
- Somehow I'd managed to forget that Robert died already in the pilot! I'd somehow gotten it stuck in my head that he went to the hospital in the pilot but didn't actually die until episode two. Of course it logically couldn't have been that way because there was so much else going on in episode two, but that's how I remembered it. Bizarre.
- I was very struck this time around by how calculating Timoshev was. There he is, captured and in mortal danger, but everything he says is well thought through and his words chosen for their maximum effect, both in the car and every time Philip takes the gag off. Of course he would have been trained for this very sort of situation, but that speaks to what sort of brain he has. Also interesting: when he's alone with Elizabeth, he doesn't make the same sort of promises to her that he makes when he's alone with Philip. He says nothing. He knows better.
- I thought a lot about how furious it must have made Elizabeth that Timoshev had turned traitor on top of everything else. After all the strength he displayed when she was his charge, it was him who was weak to the west's charms while she stayed firm and loyal even after fifteen years.
- This is something I caught the first time around but had forgotten: the way Philip is jealous at hearing Elizabeth having sex with her 'asset' on the tape, but that jealousy slides into feelings of pride when he hears the way she ultimately gets the job done.
- I noticed this time around the way that Philip actually brings up defecting twice before he really brings it up, which is terribly clever of him. The first time it sounds like a deliberate joke, and the second it could have been read either way. He's testing the waters to see how she will react.
- During Philip's running scene, they actually play the theme song (the remixed version that they sometimes have in the background of scenes in later episodes), despite the fact that this episode doesn't have any opening credits!
- "Tusk" gets replayed in the very final scene where Stan is going through the trunk and Philip is standing in the shadows with the gun, to hearken back to the Timochev chase scene at the beginning and remind us that there's a whole new kind of chase now. Which is fairly genius. :)
- And finally, this is something I actually did notice on earlier viewings, but I'll sneak it in anyway: wouldn't Stan have smelled the cleanup when he broke into the trunk and become more suspicious? Maybe the KGB have special cleaning fluid that has no scent and dries extra-fast? :)
There were also a few things that sadly no longer worked as well for me after reading the stuff I read about the KGB and the illegals programme as research for the fan story I wrote. Here's what they were:
- The way they react to the lights and the air conditioner when they first get inserted together into the U.S. makes it clear that this is their first time in a western country, and that's not how the illegals training programme worked in real life. (I have an explanation for this in my head that makes it work, but it still irritates me.)
- There is no way, just NO WAY IN HELL that General Zhukov would have been in the U.S. under any circumstances. And I think most of you know that I'm pretty good at coming up with scenarios in my head that can explain away some of the smaller goofs on this show, but there is just no explanation in the world for this one. I can't believe I never noticed it before, in fact, it's just so ridiculous. Especially since they're so careful in "Covert War" to have all meetings between him and Elizabeth taking place in various third countries.
- This one's much more nitpicky, but it still went through my mind as I was rewatching, so I'll still mention it here: real-life illegals were trained completely separately from other kinds of KGB officers, and in fact they learned little to nothing about the KGB as an insitution (one of the books I read said something about how this was because they then couldn't be pressured to reveal information about something they didn't know anything about) and as a result, didn't experience the KGB as the KGB in the way that people like Nina and Arkady and even Claudia would have. There were so many things in the pilot that contradict this (the way Nadezhda's training was clearly military, the way that Elizabeth refers to herself as a "KGB officer" rather than a "Directorate S illegal" or suchlike, a couple of other things), and it's certainly all internally consistent, so it's no huge deal or anything. But it's definitely another way in which the show's KGB is somewhat different from the real-life one.
-J