Question of the week #57

[treonb]

What does Martha really think about Philip?  How far would she be willing to go to protect herself, from both Philip and the FBI?

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

[sistermagpie]

This is such a complex question--she's like another unexpected black hole of character motivations.

I feel like the scary thing about Clark for Martha is that it's not like she didn't *think* she knew this guy. There are certain things about him she believes to be true in terms of personality that are not true, and these are things that Philip is presumably still playing up for her--but who knows if those things will change.

Like I said above that she probably saw the toupee as something that was a soothing thing because it was a key to his personality: this was an uptight guy who always wanted to follow the rules, and that's why it's exciting that he's married her against the rules. The toupee says that even though this guy is a big nerd who doesn't really dress well, he's apparently embarrassed about losing his hair. That combination of things is something Martha would have thought about when thinking about her boyfriend/potential boyfriend.

I feel like it's stuff like that that's got to be scariest for her. Things that she thought were vulnerabilities are not. That's part of what makes the reveal scene so scary is she thinks this guy's probably older and trying to appear younger (or at least more virile) with his toupee and it turns out he's younger trying to appear older. And little does she know it but there's more where that comes from--the aggression she thinks she's bringing out in him in bed is actually a performance--yet he's hidden his real aggression from her completely.

So who does she think he really is? That's hard to say. She might not try to think about it much. She would probably make the connection that if Clark doesn't really look like that, neither does Jennifer, and they're probably not brother and sister. But I have a hard time believing that she's gone all the way to Russian Illegal if only because *everyone* has trouble going there. It's just really hard to know someone who presents as a local and then try to imagine them as a total foreigner. Guaranteed if the Jennings got caught they'd have neighbors who never believed it. That's why Paige asking her parents to speak Russian is important--she wants to see them speaking in tongues like the aliens they are. See the lizard faces!

As for how far she'd be willing to go, that's almost a separate issue that she doesn't know herself. And I think it'll be a step by step thing just like it's been up until now. She knew all along, whether she wanted to admit it, that she was doing something serious in bugging the office. I think she's going to allow Clark to convince her to go along with killing the IT guy. In fact, it was Martha who brought him up to Clark so underneath she's already protecting herself--but she's trying to distance herself from it by not saying it outright.

Since it seems like she didn't run away to her parents after Philip revealed himself, it seems like she's still very much motivated by wanting Clark. I mean, why stay just because you know what he looks like? That whole scene with Martha waiting to tell him in person she's leaving and saying "it's not enough" was kind of a demand for more intimacy. I think her bad boy attraction is very much at work here. She's not just the lonely spinster. She's somebody with genuine impulses for guys on the dark side and that's a big part of why she's sticking around. I think she'll even get to like it more.