Question of the week #50

[treonb]

At the end of the Season 3 finale Philip started saying something, but Elizabeth (and Reagan) interrupted him.  What do you think Philip intended to say?

You can expect spoilers for the entire first three 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]

At first watch I was sure Philip was about to say he's done with it all. But on rewatch now, I'm not sure anymore. He's not talking about giving it up at all, but I think he's looking for a better reason to do what he's doing.

[sistermagpie]

I admit I was eagerly watching this hoping somebody else would explain it because he just was not communicating very well! I haven't watched it in a while, but the line that I remember really sticking with me is he said something like he needed to know when he was doing better...or just something about doing better. I wondered...does he mean doing better than something else? Or just "doing better" in a general sense? So confusing?

I think the first part was clear, that it was hard for him killing this person that was, to him, a real, innocent person who deserved to live and was probably bringing something good into the world. But maybe he himself after that had a hard time saying what he needed to make himself okay with that. He was definitely trying to work it out as he talked.

I feel like a central conflict of being Philip, which is different than Elizabeth, is that he seems to see the cause as trying to help the little guy but how many little guys are getting hurt here? But he's maybe not sure what that would feel like. You'd think the apartheid struggle would have been better for him, but then the guy had to go and necklace someone.

Anyway, it sure sets him apart from silver-tongued Ronald Reagan making an incredibly calculated speech perfectly tailored to manipulate his specific audience.

[treonb]

Here's what he says:

Philip: I almost feel like... when I do this stuff... if I don't-- I just feel like... from now on, I need to be able... to know... what I'm doing better s-so I...

Elizabeth: What do you mean?

Philip: I guess I just feel like...

Elizabeth: Hold on. W-we should listen to this.

So maybe this is the writers just throwing in enough stuff so they can take this from here wherever?

Wasn't the guy who was necklaced about to engineer a terrorist attack? Besides fighting apartheid, they prevented a lot of people dying.

[sistermagpie]

He was going to engineer a terrorist attack--but necklacing is so cruel and barbaric it probably made it hard to concentrate on that part once he was on fire!

So it's "what I'm doing better..." that still puzzles me. The whole non-speech is completely incomprehensible except that it seems like he probably is saying that he needs some actual feeling that what he's doing will lead to some positive conclusion down the line.

Though in this case the positive outcome was probably more obvious--he's keeping Martha from getting caught. I do think they were just throwing things out there to go in whatever direction they wanted--and also that Philip really can't articulate his feelings yet. He has no problem expressing himself about how he feels about Paige being in the KGB, for instance, or how he feels about Gabriel pushing for it. It's his own feelings about himself that make him more confused--which is why he's attracted to EST and still not able to communicate it, imo.

[jae]

I've thought and thought about this, but I don't have a specific answer. I guess I think the specifics aren't really the point in this case, though, just what he was trying to do in general, which is be completely open with the one person he feels knows him (like he said to Sandra at est).

The tragic part of the situation, of course, is that not only is he not able to actually be open when he tries to do so (in that he can't actually put his feelings into words), she's also not able to hear him anyway because she's too busy worrying about Reagan and the weight of the world on their shoulders.

-J

[sistermagpie]

Yeah, I thought the same thing, that the real point is that he's trying to take EST's advice and get in touch with how he feels and communicate it to Elizabeth. But it's not that easy since not only does she have other concerns but he's still a stranger to himself.

There seem to be a lot of people who feel that this will lead to Philip using *Sandra* as his confidante, but to me it seems like he's very much aware that he can't be honest with someone who doesn't know who he really is. That's just a non-starter.

[jae]

Yeah, I actually think he quite clearly rejected the idea of confiding in Sandra.

If he can't bring himself to confide in Elizabeth, though--whether it's because of interruptions or because of all the ways he doesn't understand himself in the first place--then he's kind of screwed. That's so sad.

-J

[sistermagpie]

That's so sad.

That's so Philip!

[saraqael]

I have a hard time imaging that Philip could or would use Sandra as his confidante. It was apparent to me that both of them were there at the EST seminar because they're seeking some sort of insight into how to live more truthful and authentic lives, but that doesn't mean that Philip is going to suddenly start confiding his deepest, most intimate (and as we've seen, incoherent) personal thoughts to her. She's essentially a stranger. The two women he did try to reveal himself to there at the end of the season were his two wives: Martha and Elizabeth. He could have just killed Martha. Instead, he's taken off his disguise to show his real face to her. That was an insanely risky thing to do. At the same time, he tries to voice feelings and thoughts to Elizabeth that are still so half formed in his own mind that he can't even find the words to express himself. Revealing any doubts or mental cracks to Elizabeth is as risky as taking off his disguise in front of Martha. I just can't imagine that Philip would take this sort of risk with an outsider, no matter how sympathetic she may be.

[sistermagpie]

Yes, if he even tried to confide something abstractly to Sandra he'd have to figure out some cover story for it to make it fake. And how can he explain his problems without explaining that he's living a lie and killing people etc. It's pointless without that.

I hadn't thought about the risk in talking to Elizabeth but yeah, it really does say something that he's trying to tell her how feels like shit all the time--that does show an amazing amount of trust in her. She's certainly not the first person I'd think of to talk through my doubts about what I was doing. It's especially risky since he doesn't even really know what he's trying to say--who knows what could come out of his mouth?

[saraqael]

It struck me that Elizabeth, like Gabriel, sensed that something was wrong with Philip, but Elizabeth rationalized it as Philip having confused emotional feelings for Martha. That's something she could easily understand and forgive. If Philip were suddenly reveal to her that he no longer knows how to believe in their mission, I doubt that Elizabeth would support him. She is 100% heart, mind and soul about the mission. She can't even tolerate the fact that Philip admits to liking the comforts of the Western lifestyle.

Philip told Sandra that Elizabeth was the person he could be authentic with, but that's not entirely true. He can't entirely trust her because she values the mission more than she values him. He needs it to be true though, or he will continue to crack apart. I think that they do love each other, but Elizabeth loves the mission more than she loves him.

He's in a terrible place right now. The one person he is closest to and relies on the most would very likely turn on him if he was able to articulate that he's lost his faith in their joint mission. In a strange way, I think he's actually safer confiding his thoughts and emotions with Martha right now. It would help convince her that he does love her. It would give him an outlet to talk about his doubts and desires, and she could still be dispatched if necessary so his secrets would be safe.

If Elizabeth could even just be equally devoted to him and to the mission, I think that Philip would eventually be okay. Sadly, unless Elizabeth undergoes some amazing emotional growth next season, I don't see that happening.

[soupytwist]

This is pretty much what I took from it - that he's trying to be the best and most honest person he can be right now, but what actually happened when he tried to express himself fully was basically incoherent, jagged-edged longing. I don't even think he necessarily knows what for, exactly (and especially not, like, coherently and explicitly - if he had the words, he'd have used them then). I think it's more amorphous than that, more just this overwhelming wanting for things to be different. To be less painful.

I keep changing my mind over how much I think Elizabeth would understand if she'd not been distracted, though. :)

[treonb]

I keep changing my mind over how much I think Elizabeth would understand if she'd not been distracted, though. :)

That's a good question. Well, first of all, she herself says she doesn't understand what he's saying. And the fact that she's distracted also shows she's not realizing this is VERY IMPORTANT.

With all due respect to Reagan and the fact that this was pre-dvr and pre-internet. She could have gotten his speech later.

[saraqael]

If/when Philip is able to coherently express the thoughts and feelings that he's experiencing, I suspect that Elizabeth would only be sympathetic to a point, but she'd expect him to pull himself together and carry on. Otherwise, he'd be a liability to the cause. IMO, Elizabeth is still duty first, personal life second. She doesn't suffer from the same doubts and questions that Philip does. So long as she firmly believes in the justness of her mission, she'll be fine. Elizabeth also seems to me to be highly intolerant of weakness or failure. Philip can't even pretend to say with conviction that the awful things he does is saving innocent Russian lives anymore because he just feels too terrible inside.

I actually got the impression that Gabriel was more in tune to Philip's mental distress than Elizabeth is. At one point, Gabriel flat out asked Philip if he was falling apart. I'm sure it's part of Gabriel's job to intervene somehow if one of his undercover agents started to crack up. He could probably have Philip pulled off field duty and sent back to Russia if he thought that Philip was in danger of cracking.

[sistermagpie]

I don't even think he necessarily knows what for, exactly (and especially not, like, coherently and explicitly - if he had the words, he'd have used them then). I think it's more amorphous than that, more just this overwhelming wanting for things to be different. To be less painful.

It's like the showrunners once said when asked what Philip wanted. They said he just wanted his soul to hurt less.

[soupytwist]

What interview's that from? I feel like I'd remember it if I'd seen it! That's great - and heartbreaking!

[sistermagpie]

Hmm...can't remember. But it was I think after the season 2 finale and I believe it was a podcast. Maybe on Slate they did one?

Interestingly, I just read an interview that just dropped where they specifically asked about Philip's speech here and they said, as we assumed, that the whole point of it is just that he doesn't know what to say. They said they talked to MR about some of the things that might be motivating him if he could say it, but mostly it's about how he has no idea what to say so the question isn't even if he'll be able to finish but if he'll figure out what he wants to say.

Which I think is kind of important because it's easy to watch the scene and just see Elizabeth tuning him out, but part of the sadness is that even if Reagan hadn't broken in Philip would probably never have been able to communicate anything while Paige is across the hall knowing exactly what she wants to say to Pastor Tim. But in some ways the reason she knows what she wants to say is because she's young and more self-centered. She just knows that she's repulsed at seeing her parents as liars and resents them wanting to make her like them. She's not thinking beyond that. Philip's the opposite. Where Paige can only focus on how she feels and can't move beyond to her parents' pov Philip spends so much time thinking about other peoples' povs that his own is a mystery to him.

[jae]

Ha! I came over here to link to that interview, and you'd already mentioned it. Here it is in full, and this is the relevant bit:

the whole point of that scene was that he can't express himself. We never wrote past that, although we did have a long conversation with Matthew Rhys in which we shared some of the details that might be on the other side of it if Phillip could articulate it. Essentially, talk to him about what would be in his semi-conscious mind that he couldn't find the words for.

[sistermagpie]

Thinking about this question just made me realize that both here and the finale of S2 have a scene where Philip starts to talk about himself--which he doesn't do often. And both times he gets interrupted. Here he's not really knowing what he's saying, but Reagan breaks in. In S2 he starts to tell the story of going home with the milk and the police radio breaks in and he doesn't finish the story.

Of course both those scenes also come after Elizabeth has been able to put across much more info to Philip, to herself, the audience. Not just in terms of her getting to tell the story of taking care of her mother in S2, but just in general.

[saraqael]

IMO, Philip was lost his faith in his mission. He doesn't really seem to believe that he's truly contributing to the greater good any more, so where does that leave him? Doing awful things over and over for no real purpose and with no end goal in sight. It's hard to know what he was trying to say. As the showrunners say in the article Jae linked to, Philip doesn't even know what he's trying to say.

My guess is that Philip was trying to say that he needs to know that what he's doing is actually making things better. Philip seems genuinely motivated by wanting to improve and protect the lives of his people but this season especially has been showing that what he and Elizabeth are doing is just brutal, awful, and evil. If he can't find his way back to thinking what he's doing matters, then he becomes a liability to the KGB. All the EST sessions he attended stressed the point that people should live authentic, truthful lives, but Philip's life is just lies layered upon more lies. He's even lost his favorite, most cherished lie: his own identity as Philip Jennings. Paige demanded that he and Elizabeth reveal their true names and speak Russian to her. Now in some fundamental way, he doesn't even really have that comfortable shell to hide behind in his own home because angry Paige is there to constantly remind him that 'Philip Jennings' is a lie. He sacrificed his real identity to go live a sham identity because he believed that he was acting for the greater good. But now he's either in danger of losing that belief or else he's already lost it entirely and he's left floundering.

[sistermagpie]

It's funny, I'm not even sure how I imagine Philip sees things as different with Paige knowing. Because if Elizabeth has a blindspot about how negative Paige can feel about all this stuff it seems like Philip should have just as large a blindspot in a slightly different place. I mean, this is a guy who was surprised when Elizabeth ratted on him to the KGB. He's also the one who said they had to give Paige her space after she found out and that they had to trust her sometime.

So I wonder why Philip himself is so trusting of Paige. If he is. I mean, he and Elizabet both went over to Pastor Tim's that night saying they should both go since they didn't know what they were walking into and I figured that ought to mean they were considering that she told. He's just been much calmer about things than Elizabeth and seems often better at speaking to her actual anxieties. But in the finale Paige had no intention of giving him that chance.

[saraqael]

I think you're right that both Philip and Elizabeth had big blindspots about Paige's reaction to being told the truth. Philip counted on the idea that Paige's love for them would carry her through the shock of learning who they really are. I think that's one reason why he's been more calm with Paige than Elizabeth. Plus, Philip in general is more emotionally effusive and in tune with his kids than Elizabeth is. Maybe he counted on Paige's love too much, and failed to understand how fundamentally deceived Paige was going to feel. So far as she's concerned, everything in her entire life has been a lie, including the love they supposedly have for her.