Season one group rewatch: "The Colonel"

[jae]

This is the discussion post for "The Colonel" (episode #13, the season finale) 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. Feel free to join in even if you didn't get a chance to watch the episodes that preceded it!

Comments

[jae]

I want to draw little fangirl hearts around this entire comment!

Now Elizabeth's getting reported on as a danger, even if it’s not the same type as Philip.

Claudia's not wrong about that, though. I wouldn't take it so far as to say that they're "losing her"--she is still putting herself in mortal danger for her job and her government, after all--but the second thoughts that she's sensing are absolutely there. And of course, as you point out, what a horrible--and horribly foreign--position for Elizabeth to find herself in!

This seems like a mixture of 2 somewhat conflicting things: 1) That they're both admitting the kids are their shared priority and 2) That Elizabeth is tacitly admitting that Philip's just as trustworthy as an agent as she is.

*nods* I think she still doesn't entirely understand Philip's way of doing things, but she knows it works, and over the course of the first season, she came to not just trust it (which she kind of always had to), but recognize that it's actually just as "good" as the way she works.

Not to get to film studenty-y but it feels more open, like as if communication b/w them is more open.

I think I speak for everyone when I say: "please, get all film-student-y as often as you want in these discussions!" :D

"I won't fight you" is Philip practically telling her flat-out he's going to be sneaky and do it his way!

I think that's what she's thinking when she gets his note later: "God, I so should have seen this coming. What is wrong with me?"

Do they have it rigged to make it easier to move that washing machine? It must be pretty loud to pull it out!

Is it the washing machine or the dryer?

Love Grannie's dog pin. Maybe she really does have a dog.

Totally missed this! I still love the idea of her with a dog, though.

First time I saw this I didn’t know if Nina was going to take the deal from Stan, or if she was feeling like she blew it by confessing to the KGB.

Same here! I don't know when I came around to thinking that Nina really was back on "the right side" and even feeling kind of relieved about that, but that's definitely what I think now.

I love the reveal of Claudia's real feelings with Arkady.

Meeee toooo. That one little scene completely changed the way I saw Claudia during the rewatch.

And Arkady being on her side, seeing the Jennings as stabbing her in the back. Everybody sees things from their own perspective.

Which is totally realistic. From what I've read, it's clear that "regular" spies had a weird relationship with the illegals: they admired them (illegals were basically rock stars in the Soviet Union) but they were really suspicious of them at the same time.

Arkady is also so awesome in this ep.

Agreed. I really didn't have a sense of his character until this episode, but I found looking back at the other episodes that it was actually consistent all along (which was very gratifying!). I look forward to learning more about him in the second season.

I’m so glad he took over for Nicolai, even if Nicolai got shafted. I wonder if his name is cleared and, if so, if it was posthumously. How would the KGB deal with having made such a mistake?

Good question! Not very well, I suspect.

I like the colonel.

Me too! I love how you get a really strong sense of him: how his horror at the way his government has been constructing this phantom for years just to make the Soviets freak out must have grown and grown, making him more and more isolated and desperate to put a stop to it any way he could.

I wonder how long “a very long time” is that Elizabeth has to stay away from the kids.

I'm actually kind of concerned that we might never find this out. :/

The song stays stopped for the scene where Elizabeth wakes up, stressing that this scene isn’t part of the Games Without Frontiers/Spy Games.

YES! This is such a great touch!

-J

[sistermagpie]

I want to draw little fangirl hearts around this entire comment!

Heh--the whole comment's basically a fangirl heart to begin with!

Claudia's not wrong about that, though.

Yup, she is. But it goes to show how hard it is to live up the standard that Elizabeth herself tried to set. And Claudia's motivations are probably more compassionate than Elizabeth's original doubts about Philip. (Not to mention Claudia's current doubts about him. Though I wonder if she changes her mind a bit at the end of this ep--I doubt she believed in his love for Elizabeth before.)

In fact, that just makes me think how one of the thing I love about the show is it can have people make those big "I know you so well" speeches and have them be completely wrong and based on projection. But they're not always wrong. It depends on a lot of things, often the character's way of dealing with other people in general. For instance, Philip doesn't often make sweeping generalizations about people. He holds back and waits for more info or only makes limited judgments based on experience. It's really pretty consistent if you think back on things like that he's said throughout the season vs. Elizabeth's grander accusations to Claudia, for instance. Or Philip himself.

Is it the washing machine or the dryer?

Maybe the dryer would be easier to move?

Meeee toooo. That one little scene completely changed the way I saw Claudia during the rewatch.

This is another thing I love about the show--so often in spy movies they have the actors telegraph their "real" feelings when they're supposed to be being spies. In this show you're genuinely unsure about everyone until some speech where they seem objectively likely to be being truthful. Then you can watch again and it still makes sense.