Season one group rewatch: the pilot

[jae]

This is the discussion post for the pilot episode in the group rewatch of season one. When you rewatched the episode, was there anything you noticed that you didn't notice the first time (and any subsequent times) you saw it? What things about it did you perhaps view differently after having seen the later episodes?

You can expect spoilers for the entire first season in the comments.

Comments

Just one little thing

[jae]

When Gregory says Robert wasn't really Philip's friend I thought it was a situation where Philip thought they were friends and might be hurt (or might not be) that Robert hadn't told him about his wife.

I'll have more to say about the rest of your comment once I gather my thoughts better, but I just wanted to jump in and say that the actual lines from "Gregory" are:

Philip: Robert was a friend of mine. And I trusted him.
Gregory: Well, he had a secret wife and a baby in Philly. So I'm not entirely sure he trusted you.

It's a nitpicky distinction, but I think an important one--because even Gregory isn't denying that he and Robert were friends, he's just kind of throwing in Philip's face that the friendship might not have been as deep as he thought it was (and if you think about the context of what else is going on in that episode for both Philip and Gregory, that had a double meaning--and just imagine what kind of additional slap that must have been on top of everything else!).

Anyway, my read is that Philip actually did care about Robert, so "failed connection" doesn't quite work for me. But it wouldn't have been--couldn't have been--the kind of friendship Philip-the-extrovert was really craving. And you're absolutely right that meeting Stan right around when he lost Robert meant that Philip would have been looking for another connection.

-J

Re: Just one little thing

[sistermagpie]

Thanks for those lines! I think in my head I was taking Gregory's meaning and translating it into something else--you're right, what Gregory is saying is slightly different and far more relevant to his situation with Elizabeth. Iow, if Philip was saying Elizabeth was his wife and he trusts her, Gregory's pointing out that Elizabeth certainly doesn't trust him the same way, because she's hiding a big part of herself from him, just as Robert was.

But still, maybe failed connection is the wrong word. It's just that in my memory I saw Philip and Robert as having hung out a lot and their conversation in the Pilot actually suggests people who haven't hung out a lot. Philip would still have good reason to call him a friend and say he trusted him, but I think Gregory's right to call him on getting carried away in that moment because he's trying to challenge Gregory.