Question of the week #37

[treonb]

Do you think Stan can salvage his marriage?

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

[jae]

I'm with you, too. I think Sandra would take him back tomorrow if he came to her, repentant, and agreed to stop seeing Nina, to stop lying about things he didn't have to lie about, and to actually communicate openly with her. I just don't think he's going to do that (and, as wendelah1 points out, he may not currently be psychologically able to).

-J

[sistermagpie]

I was thinking in reading this thread how towards the end of the season he slips in another level of deceit about his home life when Philip asks him if Sandra is home and he says something about her being out or something. Totally understandable that he doesn't want to admit that his wife left him, but it's just another one of those times when the show reminds us how people lie all the time in every day life because sometimes it's just easier. But sometimes that has consequences.

Stan's been more open with Philip than many other people on the show, but he's not ready to open up to him yet to talk about this. Sadly he's far less ready to talk to Sandra about any of it.

Of course, poor Stan has once again chosen unwisely in important ways, choosing to confide exclusively in Russian spies.

[jae]

Hmm, interesting. I had been assuming Stan only kept that from Philip because he's not yet willing to admit it to himself, but you're right that it's another level of deception.

-J

[sistermagpie]

Oh, I think that's true as well. Saying it out loud makes it true. But he did tell it to Nina, didn't he?

So I sort of saw it as Stan on multiple levels just not wanting to deal with that for himself in that moment, so of course he'd just say she's out. But in the context of the show he just put up another little compartment in his life about something he's keeping from somebody in his life--and in a way it's a funny mirror of the premise where Stan's kind of pretending he's married when he's actually not (in a way that Philip might relate to even more than Elizabeth).

Interestingly he also continues to follow the pattern of that season in that iirc he says that in the scene where Philip is telling him Henry wants to interview him. And it's Henry to whom he ends up confiding something. No big secret or anything, but I did get the impression that he answered Henry's questions about why he wanted to be in the FBI truthfully and that it meant something to him and was clarifying. So it was like an echo of all the scenes where P&E speak in disguises to other people while working through things they're not saying out loud to each other, if that makes sense. Sometimes those scenes lead to some clarity (Elizabeth seems to come out of her convos with Brad and the AA woman with some direction) and sometimes not (a lot of Philip's convos with Martha seem to be no help at all).

It's also interesting with Stan, who knows that he chose Philip, alone, to confess his affair to, yet in this moment he's certainly not eager to talk about his wife's affair (to himself or to Philip). I think he definitely will talk about it with Philip next season, though. It just seems like a no-brainer. Which might be really juicy because given their current conflict Philip might have some of his own things he would want to say that he could totally work into a conversation about marriage in general to Stan.

[soupytwist]

That is fascinating that you think that, because I totally read it the other way - there's a big part of Sandra who would want that, but that her faith that he'd be able to follow through even if he DID come to her like that has gone. Does that make sense?

[jae]

You may well be right! Either could be true, I suppose. And I suspect we'll never get a chance to find out for sure one way or the other, because Stan wouldn't put in the work at the moment anyway.

-J