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]

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.