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

[katiac]

Driving like crazy to make the hand-off was really stupid. They were really lucky not to have been caught, because any passing patrol car could have ruined the op.

What I can't understand is why they would ever have used the family car. I mean, from a plotting standpoint, I get it, they needed a reason for Stan to get suspicious, but given how easily they seem to have cars the rest of the series, this makes as little sense as Zhukov coming to the US to ask a question that could've been sent through their handler. I'll have to square it in my mind that every other car in the area was in use that night, but...

The defection idea - I didn't remember Elizabeth getting so upset about telling the kids. It seems like it's one of her greatest fears, even worse than betraying the Motherland.

This is absolutely one of my favorite Elizabeth moments because I think you're exactly onto it, that she carries a lot of fears about the kids, despite one part of her telling herself for years that they aren't supposed to matter, that it's just for cover. Clearly, there's some major conflict there for her and it bubbles up here and there.

Elizabeth says she'll die before she betrays her country, and Philip repeats that when they're tortured by the KGB. I don't really understand how he flipped from wanting to defect to not saying a word while being tortured to death.

My take on that was that in the moment they were going to trade in Timoshev, he actually had some bargaining power. Like it would buy his kids' safety and he was coming from a position of power. In "Trust Me" they kidnapped him, tied him up and started beating the crud out of him. They didn't offer to make a deal, and he really had nothing to gain by talking.

And Philip seems awfully dense in understanding what happened.

I give him a little slack for that one because he's known this woman for almost twenty years and she's very secretive, and even lies outright. So poor old Phil has probably been kept guessing a lot of the time, and the revelation that your wife was raped and kept that secret for 20 years is a huge shock to take in.

[treonb]

What I can't understand is why they would ever have used the family car.

Didn't even think of that! Yes.. lots of stuff in the pilot seems to have been there to drive the story. or maybe they only thought later of them having this entire fleet at their disposal.

Also, good points about the defection and the rape. Maybe I was too harsh on Philip, poor thing.