Question of the week #58

[treonb]

Philip seems to be progressively less and less able to cope with the life that he chose, and more and more unstable as a result. It's both apparent to the viewer and commented on once in a while on the show. What are the things that have happened that have made him feel that strain in a way he hadn't before--and why those things, at those times?

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

[lovingboth]

Doing very morally dubious things for very little to show for it... Having the Centre try to get the kids involved - something that's out of the question for him - isn't helping.

The kidnap at the start of S1 and the kidnap and forcible extradition more recently shows the difference.

[jae]

In either episode 2 or episode 4 of season one (or possibly both, at separate times?), Philip and Elizabeth talk explicitly about how now that the Cold War is ramping up, they're being asked to do harder and darker things. This suggests that while they were certainly carrying out various spy duties prior to where we first see them in season one, those duties didn't require nearly as much killing. So I think that's the first thing that changed--the job itself changed.

Once that got set in motion, I think it still took a while for the sheer amount of killing to catch up with him. It's pretty clear that the soldier he killed in "Martial Eagle" was a turning point for him, though. He hasn't been quite the same since.

-J

[lovingboth]

Wasn't it the truck driver's death in ME that was the big one for him? The soldiers were in uniform, actively training enemies of the cause, whereas the driver was an 'innocent' who he tried not to kill.

[sistermagpie]

I think the army cook was bad for him, the one whose cries led to the soldiers. He seemed a little shell shocked after killing all 3, not even noticing he was covered in blood. But the truck driver really put him over the edge. Even when he tried not to kill he killed.

[jae]

I honestly think it was both. But if you look at his reaction to slitting the soldier's throat, you can tell that this is the point where he really starts to unravel. By the time he discovers the truck driver frozen dead where they left him, he's actually already more numb.

-J

[sistermagpie]

I think on one hand it's the killing, and specifically his looking for and not finding a clear good result from it. He's still trying, and I think he still thinks that there must be one, but he doesn't like feeling like he's killing people for a bunch of one's and zero's--as opposed to getting rid of, say, a guy who's killing Russian soldiers. He's had to take out people that are difficult for him--like if he had a whole series of Bettys. His usual mo seems to be to find ways to make his manipulations as painless an even nice as possible.

This season it seems like that's kicked up a notch so that he's wondering about how to treat other people even beyond that. Like it's one thing for him to sacrifice in pursuit of a higher goal, but springing on him that his reward for that is to see his children cursed the same way is a problem.

the things he's been able to articulate tend to center around these kinds of questions. He's getting more personally defensive of the innocent (Paige, Martha, Kimmie) and making more demands about how their own are treated (Elizabeth should get to see her mother, Gabriel should be protective of them).

I remember reading a comment somewhere where someone pointed out that while Gabriel asks if Philip is falling apart in fact, in their view, he was more on the ball than ever. He seems to see Elizabeth as manipulated in ways he didn't as much before, if only in subtle ways. I don't think he always saw her that way.

The focus on children, in fact, I think has some different levels to it. Paige, Kimmie and Elizabeth have all been in positions where he seems to want to protect them from adult manipulation (Elizabeth's relationship with her mother is pretty much still that of the 16 year old she was). Martha, too, brought children into the equation when she wanted to adopt a kid and make them happy. Then there was the one time Philip remembered himself as a kid, perhaps triggered by having to run out of Kimmie's house "like a teenager," when he was going through sex training. He didn't seem to be aware of himself as a victim there, but the audience was I think supposed to make that connection.

Think of Elizabeth and Paige's different reactions to Elizabeth's mother's actions. Elizabeth passionately defends her mother's unblinking order to live this life. Paige asks "Would you do that to me?" in an accusatory way, as if this is a betrayal. Philip...says nothing.

[theplatonicnonyeah]

Apart from all the things everyone has already mentioned, I would like to also bring up the EST session that Philip at first reluctantly attended with Stan - but towards the end of season 3 was attending on his own accord, presumably without telling Elizabeth.

I don't think they were solely responsible for starting a thought process in him about his existence and why he does what he does. It was probably a combination of a lot of "meaningless" killing and missions with dubious moral reasons together with these confessional moments (not from him, but powerful enough to affect him). But I do think they woke something in him that he has repressed or that was repressed during his training.

I am really curious to see what the conversation between him and Sandra eventually will mean for his character's development.