Question of the week #34

[treonb]

What's your favorite season 2 episode?

You can expect spoilers for the entire first two seasons in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

Comments

The Deal

[sistermagpie]

At first I felt like I should say Martial Eagle because that ep was so intense, but I really really loved The Deal. Part of my love for it comes from it being what I would consider the very first Philip-centric episode, since last season Duty & Honor seemed like it was going to be, but then left me feeling like I knew no more about him than I knew before. This one, despite revealing even less about his past than D&H seemed to really get into his head.

This ep also featured Elizabeth scene with Brad--and the one with Paige where Paige tries to explain her interest in the church and she doesn't get it. Now that we can put it in context of the season I can see that as part of Elizabeth's dawning understanding of the similarities between the two of them that she just didn't get when Paige put it in terms of self-actualization and feeling, because Elizabeth doesn't think that way. Stuff that seems obvious to me as a viewer just goes right by her--and still does, because I still don't think Elizabeth thinks of herself as having any sort of need that's fulfilled by the cause--I mean, she knows she has a need to do good in the world, but doesn't see it in terms of it providing anything more personal to her.

Also now that we have that one little scene in Echo where P&E talk about their pasts we now know that there were probably several times during the season when Paige was acting out and Elizabeth was remembering how she spent her 14th year. Not that Elizabeth would have constantly been thinking about her mother all the time, but when Paige tries to explain herself in that scene I can see Elizabeth thinking "Your life is crazy?" and comparing it to her own--yet she doesn't actually tell the story until the very last episode, when she shares it with Philip. Much like how Philip goes this whole ep without saying anything about any memories Yossi might dredge up until he shares that one little thing with Elizabeth at the end. So I feel like on rewatch there will be times when she must be thinking about that time, even if she dismissed it asap.

Plus I also like the caper at the Rezidentura with Arkady being at his best--you can even see why he'd get along with Claudia, both of them sometimes being seen and treated as if they're most hostile to the Illegals than they actually are personally. Not to mention Oleg makes himself a big damn player in Stan's story here.

So yeah, I just loved this episode.

Re: The Deal

[jae]

"The Deal" is not my favourite episode of the season, but it's the one I think was objectively the best. There is not a thing I would change about it.

-J

Re: The Deal

[katiac]

Yeah The Deal just had so many reasons about it that were going to make it a top contender. It's easy to forget about some of the Elizabeth ones since so much of the episode was focused on Philip but it was strong there too.

Red Door, of course

[lovingboth]

It could have been the finale if they had done it right :)

A Little Night Music

[jae]

I've been thinking about this question ever since we decided to ask it (yes, I get a heads-up *g*), and I think I finally have an answer. But first, a long intro! :)

Over on Tumblr, one of that crew listed the top five episodes as follows:

01. "Martial Eagle" (2.09)
02. "A Little Night Music" (2.04)
03. "New Car" (2.08)
04. "The Deal" (2.05)
05. "Behind the Red Door" (2.06)

...and my response was that those were the best five as far as I was concerned, too, but I'd put them in a different order. So let me get that off my chest first. Here's what I think are the best five episodes of season two, in the following order:

01. "The Deal" (2.05)
02. "Behind the Red Door" (2.06)
03. "A Little Night Music" (2.04)
04. "Martial Eagle" (2.09)
05. "New Car" (2.08)

Of course, "best" isn't necessarily the same as "favourite." So my top-five list for "favourite" would be the same episodes in yet a different order:

01. "A Little Night Music" (2.04)
02. "Behind the Red Door" (2.06)
03. "The Deal" (2.05)
04. "Martial Eagle" (2.09)
05. "New Car" (2.08)

Which was a rather roundabout way of answering the question with "A Little Night Music." :) I loved "Behind the Red Door" almost as much, and I actually do think it was a better episode, but "A Little Night Music" took the show's ever-pervasive theme of blurring the lines between real lives and fake ones (to the point, in some cases, where the people living those lives can't tell the difference), and put it front and centre. And that more than anything is my own personal crack with this show, really.

-J

Re: A Little Night Music

[sistermagpie]

It's weird that I have so much trouble remembering A Little Night Music beyond the Elizabeth/Brad scenes.

Re: A Little Night Music

[jae]

Heresy! Although luckily, there's an easy solution to that problem. :)

-J

Re: A Little Night Music

[sistermagpie]

Yes! But since I don't have the TV in front of me, what else happens in it?! Wait, it's also the ep where Clark and Martha fight, right? (I remember that from the convo about the lazy morning and Clark having to get out of it to do something else...) But what else??

Re: A Little Night Music

[jae]

I know I'm responding to this too late to be useful, but you can always refer back to our discussions on the episodes, you know. :)

-J

Re: A Little Night Music

[katiac]

I knew I would end up inadvertently leaving out something I really liked. I did love New Car. Through and through. Little Night Music was interesting for me because there were parts that were just amazing (Elizabeth and Brad) but a lot of Martha and some of her parts felt slow. It was one of those like Yousef for me where I fell in love with more individual places than the whole.

Re: A Little Night Music

[sistermagpie]

That's vaguely my recollection of it as well.

Re: A Little Night Music

[jae]

See, to me, the Brad stuff and the stuff you found slow felt like variations on the same theme that I mentioned: of blurring the lines between real lives and fake ones to the point, in some cases, where the people living those lives can't tell the difference. I thought it was incredibly well crafted and very effective (well, it worked on me, at least *g*).

-J

The Walk-In

[treonb]

I really need to rewatch to make up my mind ;-) But I'm going with the walk-in. Stan was smart and active, and Arkady showed he was willing to lose some pieces on his board in order to win the game. Paige turned active in checking up on her parents, and I love where that could go (though I'm afraid of the consequences), and though Kelli is not (apparently!) a KGB agent, I just loved the possibilities there.

As a second favorite, I'm going with The Deal. Because of the Israeli angle, and also I think this helped me see Martha in a new light.

[katiac]

Hard to pick just one so I'll name a few and my favorite things about each...

1. Very favorite had to be Behind the Red Door simply because I love when they dig in and examine the messy and complicated parts of the P/E relationship and that episode was chock full of it.

2. The Deal was great for me for all the Philip scenes, for all the great emotional questions it raised, but mostly for the sweet icicles scene at the end. They really get me any time the two of them connect over Russia.

3. and 4. are probably a tie for me between The Walk in and Martial Eagle. Loved the emotional stuff it brought up for all the characters and especially thought it worked well how it tied in with the kids too.

As for a fifth I'm not sure... will have to see what others wrote... maybe Yousef. There really wasn't another entire ep that jumped to mind as wholly complete although I loved small parts.