Question of the week #49

[treonb]

At the end of the season finale, Stan saw Nina taken away, to be returned to the USSR. What do you think will be his next step?

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

[treonb]

There's what I think he'll do and what I wish he'd do. He's probably going to go home and be miserable. But I wish he'd try and rescue her.

[quantumreality]

I don't see how he could. She's going to be locked up and under heavy guard in what at the time was one of the more advanced police states (excepting possibly East Germany) which waxed and waned with scrutiny of entrants to the USSR*, but almost certainly would red-flag him if he tried to enter the country as a "tourist".

* There was a time in the 1950s when they didn't bother inspecting tourist carry-on luggage. Presumably at the time, Khrushchev and his Politburo colleagues were anxious to promote the USSR's image and decided to go softly.

[treonb]

Of course. I'm not saying it's easy, but I meant a rescue attempt before she left the US. I did expect him to at least follow her to see where she was being taken.

[sistermagpie]

I think he does know to an extant--she's being taken to the airport to go to Moscow, presumably.

[treonb]

I expected more from a guy who claims he loves her.

I can understand Oleg not having a choice about it, but he at least left his desk, which was already dangerous for him, to see her off as far as he could.

[sistermagpie]

I think he made the choice to do nothing once he refused to give Arkady the plans for Echo. At that moment he knew that he was choosing his country over any love he had for Nina and leaving her to her fate in the USSR. I think he knew that any gestures he made after that would have been ineffectual, weak posturing, in a way.

[apolla_savre]

When I went in 2010, they didn't inspect anything when we got off the plane. We were all prepared to have a long wait and the guys just looked at us and were like, "Have anything to declare?" We said no, and they waved us on through.

They inspected our baggage when we flew out, though, but that was for security. You're not supposed to take rubles out of the country, but I left with about $50 of rubles. Those were a pain to exchange back to dollars, but I didn't even think about finding an exchange in Russia because we left at about 5 in the morning.

But there's no way Stan could get in as a tourist. There's just no way. The procedure would take too long and he'd have to submit info about his job with his application and they'd see "FBI" and go, "Oh, hell no." And who knows where they'd take Nina? She might go to Moscow for trial, but her guilt's already established. She confessed. Stan would have to have an itinerary clearly established and there's no way he could break that to go running around Siberia (which is huge, he'd never find her on his own.) Plus, his Russian is terrible. He'd be recognized as a foreigner immediately and the locals would either avoid him like the plague or turn him in.

[quantumreality]

Am actually surprised Russia enforces exchange controls even now, but I imagine they could be concerned about offshore rubles screwing up the exchange rate (Malaysia did something like this in 1998; when they slammed down controls over capital flows, they effectively demonetized all offshore ringgit, which meant that the fixed exchange rate to the US dollar became easier to defend).

[jae]

Well, she's going to be rescued--there's just no way this show is going to get rid of Nina like that (if they actually wanted to get rid of her, they'd kill her). The question is by whom.

I personally don't think it's going to be Stan--I think he's made up his mind about how he's going to handle it. But it could be Oleg, or (a newly upped-to-series-regular) Arkady, or some combination of the two. Or something that's not occurring to me.

-J

[treonb]

Hm... I didn't think she'd be rescued. I thought she'd somehow save herself.

[sistermagpie]

I assumed she's going to be because we know she's on next season. I think she'll have a hand in it, too. She'll need somebody to pull strings, either her allies like Oleg and Arkady or people she meets/knows back home, but I'm sure she'll find a way to survive. She's just gone to a place where Stan has no power. I'm sure power jockeying on the Russian side will come into play too.

[jae]

The problem with her saving herself (by successfully running away or something) is that where does she go from there? If Stan rescues her, she's under FBI protection. If Arkady or Oleg manages to convince The Powers That Be that she should be let go, she's got her career back. If she saves herself, there's no next step.

-J

[treonb]

I think we're all talking about the same thing. I meant she'll convince the KGB she's far more useful alive and in Washington. Arkady and Oleg might help, though I thought Arkady already tried? If he didn't, why wait till Nina's back home? Oleg might have the connections needed - which actually would be interesting because she put down Oleg for doing that.

Stan - I don't see helping at all. Definitely not after she leaves the US, where he has no power at all. However, I did expect him to at least show that he's trying to do something before it's too late. Not just stand there and feel sorry for himself.

[quantumreality]

It might end up being Arkady will have to (much to personal distate) ask Oleg to use his connections to help save Nina. But he's convinced, and with good reason, that people like Oleg who haven't experienced the privations and hardships that came with growing up after the war are the kind of people who'll happily help the Soviet Union go to hell in a handbasket if it means more for them.

(He's not wrong, either, in retrospect, but from a 1980s perspective Arkady's one minor concession to asking Oleg could be seen as a step to condoning the kind of things Oleg does to get extra pull for himself, which I think he would not like to have to deal with.)

[sistermagpie]

This is one of those questions where I have no idea what move he will make. I think he probably sees Nina herself as a lost cause, and himself as having already given up the moment he didn't hand over the Echo plans. He knew he was condemning her to being punished. He'd have little chance of getting info on what was going on with her once she got to the USSR. Though he'd certainly be interested--I wonder if he'd try to make contacts at the CIA in the hopes he'd here something. Or I wonder if he'd start studying life in the USSR more to figure out what might be happening.

In general, though, I would think his next move is going to focus on the Rezidentura. In his eyes Oleg must seem like a real villain here, since he thinks he was the one who knew about Nina and just used the info to try to make Stan betray his country. So we've got this interesting situation of both Nina's suitors left behind, each one considering himself the more true to her (I think Oleg wins that one)--But as usual Oleg knows far more than Stan.

So where Stan felt he had to get back at the Russians for Amador, now he might want to do something to make them pay for Nina. But he's also gotten a hit to his self esteem--he can't see himself as the hero since he didn't see her, he's ruined a lot of his reputation in Gaad's eyes. Maybe he'll next turn his eye to the thing he's really good at, which is being a cop. What's Martha doing with those files anyway?

[apolla_savre]

Well, were I writing the show, I'd have Stan target Oleg.

He's in kind of a pickle because he did a some of what Oleg asked for - enough that if exposed, Stan's credibility could be ruined and his position in the FBI either terminated or demoted. So, Stan's going to have to find a way to discredit Oleg and prove himself a trustworthy citizen before Oleg can out him. (I'm not saying that Oleg would, just that from Stan's POV, Oleg's stacking the deck and if he doesn't watch him closely, shit could get real.)

So maybe Stan will start trailing Oleg and putting pressure on him, at which point Oleg will return the favor and eventually they'll have to meet.

Then after a bit of trash talking, Stan will realize that Oleg's not the one in charge, that Nina and the Rezidentura were both playing him a bit.

Then he'll probably be mad and sulk.

Part of me thinks Oleg and Stan would bond/have a sort of frenemies situation. But I also think Oleg thinks Stan's a tool and Stan thinks Oleg's a power hungry twerp.

[cadma]

He'll be even more isolated than he was before with both Sandra and Nina gone. It's probably too late to mend the relationship with Sandra, so I wonder if he'll try and get closer to Philip? He couldn't tell him much about the Nina situation, but perhaps he could open up a bit about his backstory.
I agree that he'll want to go after Oleg and maybe also Arkady.