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

[katiac]

"They're in danger of losing you." "You've been in the field too long." So are we to take it that Claudia thinks Elizabeth should be pulled out of the field? What has changed in Elizabeth to make Claudia believe that? Is it her growing attachment to Philip? Her feelings for her children? Her loss of control?

I can see why she would. Elizabeth has proven a good agent, but in the past few months she's become a loose cannon. She beat up Claudia for merely following orders, which is unthinkable from the purist KGB perspective. She's getting cozy with her assigned partner. She had a failed mission with the assassin (from their POV.) She showed completely flawed judgment and no perspective with the Gregory situation and then directly defied orders. She was out of control with the Patterson situation and again defied orders. Elizabeth would have to majorly be on their radar at that point, and because of her, probably Philip too.

Martha Hanson. How could she be so blind? She's got to figure out that that bug she planted is giving information to the enemy. This is just speculation obviously but I think she's toast next season. Philip will kill her if he thinks she's getting suspicious.

I know, right? It's such a great demonstration of watching Philip slowly work her that he's now got her planting bugs and thinking everything is just grand for their future. I suspect/hope she gets killed in the end too, both because the character doesn't do much for me and also because I find it fascinating to watch the details of how they actually carry out these things from start to finish, and the effect it will have on Philip if he has to kill her. Like you have to assume they've had lots of "Marthas" in the past, so how does he typically extricate himself?