Hollywood is pretty liberal and leftist. I think they tried to show some balance in this show, but on the whole it is sympathetic to the Soviet spies and liberal politics in general. A priest is supposed to keep everything secret I believe. I am not Catholic and I am not sure, but I think that if someone says they are going to commit murder or suicide they may break that rule. But Protestant ministers are not bound by that kind of oath. I think it is sort of up to them if they keep things secret or not. And frequently they don't. They can rationalize that they need to share information so others can pray for the person. A lot of gossip happens in churches that way. If I had some personal issue I wanted to be counseled about, something I didn't want anyone else to know about, I would never speak to a minister, especially not if I attended his church. Anyway, my impression was that Pastor Tim was of a Protestant church. He had a wife after all. But he was fairly liberal in his political views, so I guess it would be easy to convince him that "hey, yeah we are Soviet spies, but everything is cool, cause we are the peaceful kind. Plus, we are liberals just like you!" Any time a political ideology runs on a philosophy that says the good of the state or the people as a whole trumps the good of the individual there will be injustice -like what was done to the wife of the guy who died in hospital. Individual rights and liberties are privileges in such a system, if they exist at all. Such a system doesn't recognize natural rights, and certainly not God given rights. Western nations like ours generally recognize, or they used to, that governments are created to help secure and protect those rights, especially against infringement by the government itself.

Boyd is a strange one. He is an individual, that's for sure. Have you seen Dewey Crowe yet? It is hard to imagine someone as stupid as Dewey. I've seen people that stupid when they were drunk, or very stoned on marijuana or some heavy drug, but Dewey is stupid when he is sober. I take that back, I have known some really stupid people and seen them do some dumb things, so it's not so incredible. But it still boggles the mind to watch the dumb things he does. Dewey was part of Boyd's gang when Boyd was a white supremacist (this is alluded to as part of the past, we never see that phase) and later was part of Boyd's "flock". He is an idiot. I think is season 5 or around there some other members of the Crowe family come to town. They are a crazy, violent group of people, for the most part. Dewey isn't really violent, but most of the Crowe boys are. I don't know why, but I enjoy Justified. It has 6 seasons and I wish it had more. But I guess every show has a shelf life, the actors maybe get tired of doing it after a while, or the ratings start to fall, whatever. I wish this show had gone on longer though. I will be finished with this series soon. I remember how the show ended when it was on television. I wasn't disappointed with the ending, though I was a bit surprised at it. Timothy Oliphant was also in Deadwood, which ran three seasons. I like him in the things I've seen him in. The most recent thing though is a comedy, something new for him.

I've been working on finishing up that tree in the front yard. The stump burned almost completely, but there was a small section along one side which was green, not dead like the rest. It has resisted burning. But this evening I put some charcoals on it, and piled wood around it. I had already taken the chain saw and put several cuts in it down to ground level. It is burning now and I believe I should get it finished tonight. I bought a new chain for my saw also, one with a more aggressive cutting angle. I also ordered a top of the line blade sharpener for the chain. I should have bought one when I first got the saw. It makes the work so much easier when it is sharp. I still have a lot of cutting to get it all into firewood. But I have gotten almost all of the big pieces out of the front yard. That tree was 4 feet across at it's widest point. The bar is only 18 inches across, so I had to get creative to cut it up. I have steel wedges and a small sledge hammer also, which helps. So that job is almost done.

That was some big tree !! You will have firewood enough for through this winter and a couple more probably !! I haven't had a fire for thirty years - we used to have a coal fire which would burn wooden logs as well. It was lovely to sit in front of on a cold night - but the work the next morning scraping out all that ash and putting it in the metal rubbish bins was so time-consuming and dirty. Hardly anybody has coal fires any more - we have gas central heating nowadays. I remember when this was a council house - before we bought it - and the council repair team who are notorious for their incompetence - came in to unblock our chimney (coal fire) they ended up bringing down a massive amount of soot that blackened the entire room from floor to ceiling. At the time we were very naïve and didn't make them pay for it to be cleaned and redecorated - they wouldn't get away with that today!! In "The Americans" I don't understand Elizabeth's logic - she has an affair with that black chap Gregory - when she was pregnant with Paige - she didn't tell Philip - if it was just "the job" and they had no alliance to each other - why not tell him? She asks Philip if he slept with Irina - why - if their "marriage" is just a job - she has no right to ask - it doesn't stop her chucking him out and immediately going to Gregory to have sex with him. Just a tiny hint of hypocrisy and double standards here. Also she beats up Claudia - a much older woman and her superior - for what? There was a mole - Claudia was tasked with finding that mole - she was doing her job. Where does golden boy Stan get off disobeying a direct order and killing an innocent man in the middle of a cold war - surely that qualifies him as a rogue agent? He should have been fired. Paige - the daughter from hell - has been snooping in the utility room and will soon go to visit "Aunt Helen" on which visit she will meet the girl on the bus and the whole po-faced sorry saga of Pastor Tim - head of the church of effeminate haircuts - will begin. Thank goodness for the ff button. Oh - Philip is now "married" to Martha and the black female cleaner has told the FBI about the clock - apparently she is not bothered about her son's life any more - God will protect them - just like He did the first time around huh? I am not any religion - I believe that goodness and evil (God and the Devil) reside within us all and it is up to us how we act and live our lives - not some mythical being. I take accountability for my actions. With regard to "Justified" I like Raylan - if he is not in it much then I probably wont watch it much. It always annoys me when a different character takes over the featured character/s. I got infuriated with Stargate-SG1 for that - one minute it was Richard Dean Anderson and the TEAM - the next minute it was the Michael Shanks show. I will persevere - but if there is a lot of fighting I will just turn it off - twenty minute fight scenes do not a plot replace for me.

Church of the effeminate haircuts! hahaha. Good one. Yeah, Elizabeth had a long, ongoing affair with Gregory, but when Philip slept with Irina one time (after he found out about Elizabeth and Gregory) and Elizabeth found out he lied about it, she wanted him out of the house. She kept her affair a secret for years apparently, and that was something she felt Philip should understand. But he lied once about a one night stand and it was 'throw him out of the house time'. The thing with Stan-I think his boss had decided to kill the Resident on his own, that is, it wasn't authorized by his superiors. It was something that office was doing illegally in retaliation for the death of Stan's partner. So if Stan killed that guy without authorization from his boss, he wasn't doing anything his boss had not tried to do. If Stan's boss had arrested Stan for that murder, then his attempted kidnapping of the Resident would have been exposed. They looked at it as war, cold war but war. The Soviets killed an FBI agent on American soil, so they were getting even. That was how they looked at it. Nobody who knew about it was inclined to punish Stan. They all wanted payback. I still think Martha was pretty stupid not to get a little suspicious when Philip said she couldn't tell her parents that she was getting married. She objected and said they could keep a secret, so he allowed them to come to the wedding. But Philip had lots of relatives come. I guess only his relatives know how to keep their mouths shut. Why didn't Martha ever get curious about the department Philip works for? She works for the FBI so I am sure she could have managed to get hold of a personnel file or something. Somehow she could have checked him out, and I think she would have. A guy she is in love with? She would want to find out all about him, I would think. Yes, Raylan is the main character throughout the show. The fight scenes are generally pretty brief in this show. Usually they are over quickly, sometimes with one or two gunshots. And fisticuffs are likewise brief. The only extended fight scene I can recall at the moment involved Boyd and Eva (I think) running from a couple of men sent to shoot them, and it wasn't long. There was another scene with Raylan and Art shooting it out with a hitman, but Raylan snuck around behind him and shot him, so that was over pretty quickly as well. I don't know which episode you're up to so I won't comment on other stuff.

That tree was quite dead, even rotten in some sections. The wood had some fungus growing on it and in it in some places, so it isn't as dense as normal wood. It is fairly dry though, so I don't need to wait for it to cure at least. It tends to dull the chainsaw fairly quickly though.

I started watching 24 but grew tired of it quickly. I notice how formulaic it is, how contrived the crises all seem. I may check some of the later seasons to see how they play, but I suspect they won't be much different.

Philip is now back at home after saving Elizabeth from capture by the FBI - I was amazed at those scenes - a woman walks down the road towards a car - a man drives beside her and tells her to get in - BAM - about ten FBI agents appear from nowhere and start shooting at them in the middle of the street !! The proof of engagement - it was a man and a woman!! What if it had just been a guy picking his wife up to go to work? And Paige using the excuse of "her crazy life" for all of her deceptions and slyness and snooping. What crazy life? Ok so she doesn't have any extended family and her parents work a lot - she has loving parents - a brother - food on the table - clothes on her back - she goes to school and has friends there. How does that equate to crazy? Now she's given $600 to Pastor Timbo and Philip confronted him. I have to say as a Brit we don't have the same focus on cash in churches as you do in America. Most of the time there is a collection plate that is passed around and people give what they can afford from a few pence to a few pounds - occasionally they will have a drive if the church needs a new roof or something - but that's it. I have read that some churches or should I say ministries in America are worth millions - they are businesses. I think there was a documentary about one such ministry that encouraged people to pay them to pray for them!! That is obscene to me. It amuses me that you can become a minister on-line - no studying required. I also find it amusing how a minister can reap sexual mayhem - cheat and lie - rob his flock - and if he is found out all he has to do is cry loudly and say the Devil led him astray but God has saved him and the flock weep buckets and forgive him !! How can people be so gullible? Henry has been caught in a neighbours house - I didn't see the point of that - he's a good kid - I can't see him doing it. Nina is now sleeping with Oleg as well as Stan - I feel sorry for her - she didn't really do anything to be victimized in that fashion. Oh and that organisation ES or whatever it is called is coming into focus - I hated that - I will ff through those bits as well !!. You need to be careful with tree stumps - they attract what is called honey fungus I believe - and this fungus will run riot through the garden and infect everything in it. You can probably buy a solution you can drench the stump with to kill it off. I watched the first series of "24" I enjoyed it - but when it came to the next series I had kind of lost interest. I don't know why - maybe because it was just more of the same.

Interesting thing about the stump- I told you the tree was dead. Well it has been dying for a while, one limb, then another and so on. When it was cut down I found out it had some rot in one section where a limb had broken off in a storm a few years ago and rain had collected and soaked in there. I think some kind of fungus must have gotten into the tree. Most of it is much less dense than normal wood. The whole tree wasn't like that, but most of the trunk was like that. And the wood in the less dense sections was very dry. So I decided to build a fire on top of the stump and see if I could burn it out. I was amazed at how well that worked. The little fire burned out in an hour or so, but the stump below it was charred looking, but it was burning. It was slowly burning. It burned for a week. It burned down underground about a foot and a half deep, and it burned down the roots. The only part left was a small live section on the edge of one side. For that I took a chainsaw and put several cuts in it, then put charcoal and lighter fluid on it and around it and burned it overnight and got that last section gone. I think any mold in that stump is done for.

Americans: Yeah, that shooting was Hollywood all the way. No law enforcement agent would shoot knowing only what those guys knew. The man and woman were suspects. They presented no immediate threat, and their identities were unknown, as you pointed out. The agents would have given chase, but they would not have fired weapons at that point. Police even have to justify high speed chases, or anything else which poses a threat to the public or to unknown suspects. But it makes for good television, or so the Hollywood crowd believes. ....Paige makes us sick because she acts like a victim, like so many young people today. It is the curse of our current culture. Teenage angst is one thing, but she postures as a victim and it turns my stomach. And that is bad enough. But what I really hate is when 'television parents' validate the teenager's claims of victim-hood. I keep waiting for them to call the teenager on his or her bullshit, but nearly every time the little brat cries about how terrible their life is, and how injured, offended, and outraged they are, the parents listen sheepishly and apologize and promise to try to make it up to them. TV is programming kids to expect to be rewarded for acting like victims. ...There are some churches which are awful. They are run like businesses, as you said. There are also some very large churches which seat thousands of church members, and their services are televised and they make money that way as well. They usually have some minister who is very well liked, deservedly or not. I can think of a couple of those whose preachers seem good to me. But there are also many whose preachers seem more like flim flam con men who learned how to preach. I don't attend church anymore. I suppose I might go sometime if someone invited me or something, but I quit going to church years ago. I have my beliefs which I don't generally share with others. It seems like a bad idea to talk about religion or even spiritual matters most of the time. I recall some advice I heard before traveling overseas: Don't talk about politics or religion. That seems like a good idea for a general rule. I have had some experiences which settled some questions or doubts I used to have, and now I know what I know. But since it isn't something one can offer hard scientific proof about, it seems best to keep it to myself. Organized religion is a mixed bag, and most of the time I don't want anything to do with it. I still defend a person's right to worship as they choose, providing their religion doesn't call for dominating the world, killing non-believers, and so on. But I am no longer inclined to attend an established church of any kind.

I liked Nina and felt sorry for her. She was canon fodder in the cold war. She was naive and vulnerable, but a good person at heart. Stan tricked her and she got caught in something she couldn't find a way out from. She had a crisis of conscience when that young Soviet man was killed and turned herself in to face her punishment. If she had reported her contact with Stan from the beginning she could have come through it just fine, but she was naive. She seemed sweet, and she was good looking. That combination always gets to me. lol

That ES thing is strange, like a psychology religion or something like that. I have nothing against people finding a way to feel good and be happy. But when that happiness seems to be from a hypnotic suggestion, and when people must follow some leader who spouts esoteric knowledge to be happy, I don't like it or want anything to do with it. Anything like that seems to attract cult leaders.

Sweet and good looking and a lovely figure - what man could resist ?!!! I have just finished Series 2 and Stan has just chucked Nina under the bus. He is shocked because his wife has moved out and gone to live with her lover - sauce and goose is my reaction. I was somewhat sceptical of the Jarod plotline. The Center approached Jarod without his parents knowledge or consent but he was still amenable to the idea - so why would they freak out when he told them he was going off with his handler and why would he kill them and his sister - why not just leave - and what was his handler thinking of at her age - or was it all in his mind? They didn't really make that clear. (They should have given him Claudia !!) His mother had left him a letter explaining who they were and what they did - that would suggest that she would not mind if he followed the same path. And where were Elizabeth and Philip's instincts when that guy followed Elizabeth and Jarod for miles in his car behind them. I love the way they were so indignant about the fake submarine propeller plans - how dare you leave fake plans for us to steal and kill our own guys. My next door neighbour stole wood from our garden for years for firewood - until one day we decided to tidy up the garden and do a big clearance - including the wood - she stomped up and down her garden in a rage throwing us looks like poison darts over the hedge!! That ES thing gets on my nerves - it's so bugger everybody as long as I get to say and do what I want. It's unworkable in society. For Philip - in his circumstances - to go there is just silly. I don't know much about it now because whenever I see that room or Pastor Timbo I ff. If my daughter had spoken to me the way Paige speaks to her parents at the age of fourteen I would not have let her get away with it. She would have been mopping the floor for a fortnight if not more and cleaning the toilet with a toothbrush !! The character is hateful. Sweetness and Light to the Pastor and Hell on Earth to her parents. And Anneliese is now seducing some Pakistani chap - first she says he is handsome - then she goes to bed with him and evidently enjoys the experience and then she goes to Philip's room and starts screaming and chucking ashtrays at him and calling him a pimp before collapsing in tears on his shoulder - pardon me - was that you just gasping in ecstasy or was the dog vomiting? You are right about religion and politics - they are inflammatory subjects - best to steer clear of them. So the tree stump is no more? You worked really hard on that!! How odd the way the trunk broke down in different stages. Still - you can have a bit of a rest now !!

Paige: when she is sitting at the dinner table she prays in an ostentatious manner, almost like it is for shock value, like she knows how it will affect her mother. And later when she asks for someone to pass the chicken she is smiling like she took industrial strength Prozac. "Look how happy I am" I also hated it when Elizabeth freaked out saying "She was PRAYING! What are we going to do about it?!" Then she and Philip go off to kidnap someone and assault two other people. "They get them when they're children and they indoctrinate them with friendship and songs." Wow. That sounds so evil, right? Much worse than indoctrinating them with communist doctrines of subjugating the world by force. Yeah, Paige praying is the big problem, not all the murders and other felonies Elizabeth commits. But hey, they are liberals. Also, how is it that Elizabeth can always beat the crap out of big strong men, some of them spec ops and intelligence agents? She kicked some Mossad agent's ass. So we are supposed to believe that Soviet trained operatives are the best in the world, that their small women can whip big strong men of the west? The Nicaraguan Sandanista girl Lucia Chena posed as a graduate student and hooked up with a congressman's aide to gain access to his office and allow Elizabeth to secretly enter. Lucia and the aide had sex on the congressman's desk. Elizabeth was in the next room listening to them go at it. Elizabeth's face was white as she listened, as though the aide were raping a virgin instead of Lucia seducing the young man in order to distract him. Does Elizabeth have morals now? How many guys does she sleep with as part of her job in this show?

Getting married to Martha seems like a big mistake to me. Didn't Philip see the problems coming? Now Martha is expecting him to be there more, to call her everyday, etc. I just watched the scene where she is leaving her umpteenth message on his answering machine "I have called you several times today. You have not called, This is your WIFE. Where are you? Call me when you get this" and so on. Philip should have known she would go all harpy on him once they tied the knot. Not very good spycraft.

I couldn't understand how Stan could let himself get taken in by his Soviet counterpart, Oleg Burov, when he threatened to expose Nina if Stan didn't give him something, and then he recorded his conversation with Stan agreeing to give him information to protect Nina. Stan should have been too smart for that. He should have known he would be recorded because he knows how he would work the other side. He should have reported his first contact with Burov and then he might have gotten clearance to give away useless information, or false information. It could have been played in a smart way. I cannot stand watching someone make a decision like that, and making mistakes like that. But Stan fell hard for Nina. His boss realized this I think. He suggested to Stan that he was the one in way over his head, not Nina. Stan committed treason, but later finds a way to keep it hidden and turn the tables, as I recall. I am not up to that point yet.

The actor who played Andrew Larrick was a poor choice I thought. He just doesn't seem like a Navy Seal. He isn't strong enough, isn't muscular enough. He doesn't seem like the best person to play this role.

I agree with you about the propeller. It was unbelievable to watch their outrage over the phony propeller plans they stole. When Philip told Elizabeth about the submarine and the fake plans they stole, she looked with hatred at Ronald Reagan speaking on the television and fumed "Look at him. He'll do anything. He doesn't care." Of course, she murders people, kidnaps people, etc. but she is an angel, right? This is one of the biggest things about this show I hate; the leftist rant against America and the apologetic and sympathetic treatment of "the ends justify the means" communism. Also, don't the Russians have some sort of testing program to make sure that equipment changes on submarines are functioning correctly before they deploy them? This show makes them out as idiots; they stole some plans and built according to the plans, but didn't adequately test to make sure it would work?

I'm watching the season 2 finale now. Elizabeth, with her hands cuffed behind her back, kicks Andrew Larrick's butt. He was shot in the shoulder, but he had one good arm and her hands were cuffed behind her. Again we see super Soviet woman kicking butt. And the actor playing Larrick was no Navy Seal.

Also, I had to take Paige's side in something; she complained about being woken up in the middle of the night and taken to a seedy motel in the middle of nowhere. She said she couldn't wait until she could go away to college and be with normal people. I had to agree with her there. Her parents lie to her all the time. Kids can pick up on it when they are being lied to. They may not say anything because they cannot prove it, and the parents can shut them down easily simply using their authority. But still, they know.
Jarod in his dying speech complained that his parents lied to him his whole life. So the Jennings will now debate whether to tell Paige the truth, and they eventually do, of course. But that still doesn't make them normal, or good.

I wish Andrew Larrick had killed both Philip and Elizabeth. Screw them. They are Soviet spies who murder innocent civilians and justify it saying they are at war. So I would have liked it if they had been killed.

You didn't want to see the last four series then !! lol. I agree with everything you say about how the audience are being manipulated into feeling some kind of sympathy for Elizabeth and Philip. I suppose it's because we can believe that they are fervent patriots doing what they believe in. One thing they do get across is the Russian sense of paranoia which is still true today. I am not very well versed in Russian history so I don't know where this "everybody is out to get us" mindset comes from. I suppose they expect us to think well - if it was us - we would do the same things in defence of our own country - so there is a sort of understanding of why they do the things they do. Paige - oh God - that girl - just looking at that whinging poor me face makes me want to slap her. If I were Elizabeth I would ask Pastor Timbo to adopt her - just think - she could smile her saintly smile at him all day every day on her way to teenage sainthood and she would be safe from the Centre's reach. Poor Timbo - that would make him tear his hair out!!. Jarod's dying speech - didn't that take a longggg time with a bullet in the throat. OK so his parents lied to him - so what? Like he NEVER lied to his parents? Why do children think they have the right to know everything and be involved in everything their parents do - but they tell their parents nothing about their own lives and lie if they are asked about it. Double standards in spades of course. I take your point that children can sense when they are being lied to - but Paige's behaviour in response to it was unforgiveable - she snoops about the basement - she visits Helen - she lies about being in school - she puts Henry's life in danger and tells him to lie about it - she gives all of her money to Pastor Timbo without telling her parents - she listens in to their conversation on the phone - she makes "a nightmare" her excuse to enter her parents room on one occasion and simply opens the door on them in another - and Philip seems to shrug it all off with "It's Paige - she does what she wants" Oh really - not on my watch she wouldn't. Yes - Andrew Larrick did not have the physical look of a SEAL - he could have pulled off being a hitman - a sniper or something. I am still puzzling the Jarod situation - when Elizabeth was watching him and saw his handler meet him (I can't remember her name now!) she told Philip that she wasn't wearing any disguise - that would suggest that what Jarod said was true - that they intended to be together - they didn't really follow up on that - no further reference was made to it. It seemed like an excuse to me to set the whole plot line up. Maybe as they were both dead it didn't matter. Claudia said that the Centre wanted second generation illegals because they would be born in America and have a paper trail of birth certificates - schooling etc. She said that the paper trails of first illegals would not stand up to a deep investigation - that seems a bit lax to me. I also don't understand why Philip and Elizabeth are not already married - they could have married in Russia before coming to America. Stan - I am not very sympathetic to Stan. He deliberately targeted a woman to do something he knew would put her in extreme danger - he cold-bloodedly killed a young man for no real reason - and then he lied through his teeth about it - he then sleeps with Nina and has the cheek to be upset when his wife does the same thing with another guy - he ultimately throws Nina to the wolves. That business with Oleg - how would Stan not expect to be taped with any conversation with a Russian agent ? It's a part of his own job for goodness sake -and - as you say he committed treason (how easy was that?) and got away with it. And Martha - poor Martha - so blinded by love she can't see the wood for the trees. I think Philip only came up with the idea of marriage because she would then trust him absolutely and would do anything he asked - which she did. I find it hard to believe though that she would accept his very frequent absences from home - his excuses for those are pretty weak. And his absolute refusal to have children. Surely she should have discussed this with him before marriage - she's no spring chicken - it would have been very relevant and time sensitive. I think they only tell Paige the truth eventually because of Elizabeth's mad patriotism - Philip didn't want to - and he was right. I felt sorry for Philip - I don't think he was naturally violent like Elizabeth - he only responded with violence when it was necessary and he was never happy about it - apart from when he killed the guy who raped Elizabeth. He loved America and had to hide it - had to live with a woman who didn't love him for years - had to accept her hard-line attitudes and abide by what she wanted. She was the dominant force in their relationship.

Pastor Tim would take Paige to the doctor, show him her smile, and ask "Doc, isn't there something you can give to depress her?" Paige's smile doesn't really say she is happy; it's more like she is psycho-happy, and passive-aggressive happy, rolled into one. Someone who smiles like that, you don't want them handling kitchen utensils. Jarod had a gushing neck wound, the kind you get when the carotid artery is cut. Pressure or no, that wound quickly forces blood out and drops the BP causing unconsciousness which soon becomes permanent. (Even if you managed to apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding you would also stop blood to the brain on one side of the head, likely causing unconsciousness as well.) But we saw Jarod was still losing blood, so he should have lost consciousness within seconds, definitely less than a minute. In fact, he would have been out before Elizabeth and Philip got to him. And I am sure they wished he had gone unconscious before he started his dramatic, extended death scene speech. I had to ff through it. I stopped the ff and hit play, but he was still speaking "what we do is important!..." We? He just found out about his parents, he was raised as an American, and now suddenly he counts himself as a Soviet agent? On and on he went, like one of those Academy Award winners in Hollywood who runs far past the time allotted for their acceptance speech. "And I would like to also thank my third grade teacher..."etc. Philip was probably thinking (OK, die. Just die.) The viewers were probably thinking (Jarod. We get it, you hated your parents, your life sucked, the red haired KGB agent was the first girl you ever kissed, and you didn't have that many scenes or lines in the show. But this is embarrassing. Shut up and die already).

I thought the second generation illegal scheme for putting spies within the FBI and CIA sounded far too risky. Sure, their background checks would work, but they also check your family and friends. They got through your life. They know things about you that you have forgotten ever happened to you. So the parents would be back checked as part of the background check. I suppose you might slip through if someone had confirmation bias, i.e. they checked the second generation and liked what they saw, so they didn't dig too deep on the parents, or perhaps wrote off something which might otherwise have raised a red flag. That isn't supposed to happen of course, but it's human nature for people to see what they already believe.

Stan is definitely a flawed character in the show. But I didn't fault him for trying to recruit Nina the way he did. Though it is distasteful in many ways, that is what intelligence agencies do. The Soviet agents in the US certainly did that. They look at everything in your life, just like a background check except the focus is on weak points, like things they can use to blackmail you, as Stan did with Nina, or financial difficulties, or other issues. Once you do anything at all for them, no matter how trivial, they can blackmail you to continue working for them. Look at Andrew Larrick. They discovered he liked to have sex with submissive men and blackmailed him over that. Concerning Nina, the fault lies with the Soviets because they didn't train Nina how to react to the kind of approach Stan made. If Nina had gone back and said "an FBI agent saw me buying something in the market, something I was going to send to my mother, against regulations, and he tried to blackmail me into betraying my country" she would probably have been fine. If the Soviets send people to this country, it is up to them to train them so they know what to do. The plot lacked verisimilitude when Stan, an experienced FBI agent trained in counterintelligence, made the stupid decisions he made. Stan cheating on his wife? Believable. Stan being duped and recorded by Burov? Hard to believe. These stupid decisions which writers use to contrive problems for characters bug me. I guess that's why I have to come to this site and sound off about them.

By the way, I try to check what I am writing as I write it, but sometimes I mess up, as when I decide to change the wording. I rush the job and fail to correct tenses of verbs and other items. Also some of my keys stick sometimes. The letter a doesn't always work. And for some reason I have found that I unconsciously hit the wrong key now for certain letters, or add letters, sometimes. Like, I might type "and" when I meant to type "an". I add the d without thinking or noticing it. Or I forget to change a singular to a plural, or vice versa, when I re-word a sentence. You have probably noticed some of these mistakes.

Yeah, I was kind of hoping Philip might decide to stay in America. Of course, once they were blown and on the run he sort of had to go. I believe you've already seen the ending to the show before so I am not spoiling anything. Maybe he had really planned on staying in America, but once he saw that Paige didn't get on the train and was staying here, he thought ("whoops, change of plans, this is my chance to get away from her for good; I am going back to the USSR").

Philip liked America. He realized the people were decent, friendly, and didn't want war with the USSR. He liked having grocery stores which were stocked with food, he liked the higher standard of living generally. And he knew that Henry was a full blooded American, not some leftist, cry baby, loud mouthed, radical, like Paige. Henry was the good child, the easy one to like. Once you strip away the brain-washing, the dogma and catch phrases of leftist ideology, you see that freedom and liberty for individuals is the best system. The old canard about the needs of the state trumping the rights of individuals, however that idea is packaged, phrased, and sold, is really a justification for totalitarianism. Leftists like to sell the idea as "democracy", but leftist governments are closer to dictatorships. Anyway, a pure democracy, where the majority has all the power, is nothing more than mob rule, where the rights of the minority are mere privileges which can be voted away. Someone said a democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Having a vote isn't much of a consolation in such a system, if you're the sheep.

Our constitution was created with the idea that everyone has natural, or God-given, rights, whichever way you prefer to state that. And that governments should be created to secure those rights so that everyone may enjoy the freedom and liberty those rights provide. Since the rights naturally exist, as opposed to being privileges granted by a government, no government has the authority to revoke them or infringe upon them. Thus, minorities' rights are protected. Even though our constitution has been subverted in many ways, we still enjoy more freedom than any communist country. I think Philip could probably have come to that conclusion.

I violated my no politics rule, but I felt the subject was germane to our discussion. Besides, you and I can talk about things without either of us throwing a fit if we see things differently. That rule is mostly for strangers.

OK - I am fairly easy going - I am quite happy for people to have viewpoints that differ from my own - I sort of get that impression from you also - so we can dip into religion and politics when they raise their ugly heads !! Don't worry about typo's - I can perfectly understand what you write regardless. I love your opening line about Paige and Timbo - it is so - bang on !! The same with Jarod - on and on and on - I expected Philip to start yawning any minute. That scene was so totally implausible. Elizabeth is really annoying me now - with her insistence that "Paige has a right to know who she is" - what she really means is that Elizabeth wants to convert her to who Elizabeth is. The girl was born in and grown up in America - surely Elizabeth cannot imagine that she will be happy to leave a freedom loving country with a varied and plentiful food supply - where Paige can actually go on protest marches - in favour of a repressive regime where you are likely to be arrested and flung into prison for no good reason - merely disagree with the State - where your every action is monitored and there is never much more than cabbage soup and beetroot for dinner. For an intelligent woman I don't think she is thinking straight - but she is the poster girl for fanaticism - she can only see her own point of view. Now Philip is rebelling against seducing a sixteen year old girl - again he is showing some kind of principles where Elizabeth has none visible to the naked eye. I was surprised she didn't kill that innocent young sailor who got Larricks's files for her. Martha has been frightened because the pen she planted has been discovered in the most unbelievable way - she has demanded to visit Clark's apartment - so the wheels of suspicion are starting to grind. Elizabeth has taken Paige on the "when we were young civil activists tour" and told her about Gregory - but Elizabeth is somewhat selective with the truth and has not mentioned that she was having an affair with Gregory for goodness knows how long. That smile that Paige has reminds me of the smile of a woman who "forgave" her pregnant sister and husbands killer - she even went to visit him in prison with that sickly saintly smile pasted on her face. It enraged me - how dare she aspire to forgive him - the only people who can forgive (in my opinion) are the victims. But that smile - the Jesus and me are mates smile - I could have slapped it off her face. Paige reminds me of her. Before I forget - have you ever seen a series called "Boardwalk Empire" with Steve Buscemi ? If you ever come across it - it is well worth watching.

It's on Prime and I added it to the watchlist.

When Paige asked her parents if she could go with the church to a military installation to protest against nuclear weapons Elizabeth immediately said 'fine, you can go'. She didn't consult with Philip on that one. Later she told Philip that she just realized that she and Paige are "the same": they both care about people and want to make the world a better place. LOL I have been sick of Elizabeth for quite a while now. She actually bugs me more than Paige does. Paige is a teenager at the age where she feels like she is an adult, but isn't. Elizabeth is an adult, yet she still blame shifts like a teenager. I keep thinking of that example you mentioned, when they stole the fake propeller plans and their submarine sank with 106 sailors. They failed to adequately test the design and redlined the sub, according to Burov, the science guy. But Elizabeth grew hateful as she looked at Reagan on TV. She said he would kill children, 106 kids sank on that sub she said. Kids? Right. They were military men made casualties by their own country. But Elizabeth paints the picture as Reagan murdering Russian children. Of course, when Elizabeth kills innocent civilians, well, that is war. Elizabeth is hateful. Elizabeth acted like she has a right to steal classified documents, and the United States had a moral duty to provide real plans. It gets so old watching and listening to her acting shocked and outraged and morally superior. She talks about how she grew up not having enough to eat as though that was better than raising children with enough food. It is admirable when someone is able to thrive and succeed despite growing up hungry, without enough fuel to heat the home. But it sounds like she is angry at those who were more fortunate than she. She sounds so petulant when she assumes a posture of moral superiority because she grew up poor. It is almost funny, especially when Philip seems to appreciate the benefits of capitalism.

I remember the episodes you're watching now. I fell behind because I was finishing up Justified. But I will catch up with you.

another comment: I am watching one of those EST scenes. Some women is screaming get away from me of I'll kill you. I take it it is supposed to be some sort of cathartic exercise where the participants are encouraged to scream out whatever they are feeling, with no filters. Stan just told the guy it was bullshit. I don't like it. Being honest is good but I don't like the encouragement to yell and scream. You can be honest and still behave.

Stan was right !! Just another fake psychiatry fad. Why would anyone want to tell the world and his wife their innermost feelings and experiences - self absorbed narcissists on full throttle. It makes you wonder what makes some people tick. Paige has now emotionally blackmailed her parents into telling her the truth. She has a bit of a tantrum but is otherwise OK - she goes to Russia with Elizabeth to visit her dying grandma - still OK - comes back still OK - goes to bed - starts snivelling and then gets on the phone to Pastor Timbo and she says....get this..."They are Russians - they are LIARS and they are trying to make me one too" WOT - trying to make Paige a LIAR - good grief - how is that possible !! It's now Oleg's turn to be an idiot - and Stan has taped him admitting the female defector is not defecting at all. Honestly - what spy school do these people go to? It makes you wonder how Elizabeth believes that Russia wants to make the world a better place - I don't notice her offering any explanations of how they have ever done that. Doesn't she notice the millions of starving peasants eking out a living whilst the Elite live luxurious lives - doesn't she notice the prisons and the labour camps and the constant fear of arrest - the repression - the constant monitoring - the secrecy - the way people disappear and are never seen again? We have seen them murder people by the use of polonium and novichok in Britain in recent years with total disregard for the lives of innocents and I doubt this was the first time. How could she betray her parents like that knowing it could imprison them for life and make Henry a virtual orphan. She is beyond contempt. If I feel no sympathy for Elizabeth in particular and Philip to a lesser degree - Henry is an innocent child and to do that to him is beyond the pale.

I remember learning about the assassination of some defector who was living in London. The Soviets used an umbrella which was modified to fire a small pellet upon contact. Someone faked an accident whereby they hit the defector with their umbrella. They apologized profusely. No problem, I'm OK, accidents happen. But the pellet was fired under his skin. It was a sphere impregnated with ricin, a deadly poison with no antidote. The death is pretty bad. I think this happened in the 70s. Polonium is another terrible poison, a radioactive substance which, when ingested, has no antidote. The idea of finding out you had been poisoned with polonium is just awful to imagine. It is like receiving a death sentence, with no chance of a pardon. You would have weeks to live and you would anticipate your certain death. Communism only has it's slogans and hyped theory with which to sell itself. The track record of collectivism is terrible. No sane person could choose it based on it's record, unless they were one of the elites who control all the wealth of the nation. Those few always live quite well, as you said. The common people, most of whom are not very well educated or all that bright, can be brainwashed to believe it will work "if it is done correctly, not like in the past". The key is to condition the people to feel jealous of the very rich and believe that they have enough money to go around. But the people don't realize that they themselves are the rich people, and money will be taken from them, not given to them. These people are what the communists call useful idiots. Once they take over a nation, they get rid of the true believers, the ones who supported the communist takeover. Because these people will howl the loudest when things don't go the way they were told they would. Also, the supporters of communism are not usually the producers, they are usually those who expect to receive goods and services from the rich. People like Elizabeth are fanatics who don't, or won't look at the facts, at the track record. They always blame capitalism for the failure of communism. It's the rich people's fault!. They run on jealousy and hatred, and contribute next to nothing themselves.

I blame Elizabeth for the problem with Paige. Paige was raised as an American, and now she has been going to church and been hearing teachings (presumably) which support being honest and upright. What the hell did Elizabeth expect Paige to do with this bombshell that her parents are Soviet spies? Paige would naturally want to protect her parents, or at least her dad, since her mom is such a bitch. But she would be torn up inside. thinking my parents are traitors working against my country. What am I supposed to do? Paige is still naive enough to believe she can tell someone she trusts and that they would keep her secret. What is it with some people? They are told a secret, and it is burning a hole in their mind and they want to talk to someone about it. So they figure they will tell someone else, as long as that person can keep a secret. By that process, soon everyone has heard about it. But it turns out Pastor Tim is a big liberal leftist anyway, chaining himself to a military base gate at a protest, so hearing that the jennings are Soviet spies doesn't ruffle his feathers too much. Plus, the Jennings tell him "oh we're the nice and peaceful type of spies, Elizabeth and I would Never kill innocent people by shooting them, dropping cars on them, breaking their necks, stabbing them, poisoning them, and so on. We're just interested in learning about farming methods, and seeking peace, and protesting nukes. See? We're just like you, except without Jesus." And Pastor Tim, like everyone else, likes to hear that he is right. "Oh you protest nukes? Gee, well I can keep your secret then."

I just watched that scene. You're right. Paige emotionally blackmailed them. It was sickening to watch it. But I hated their reactions to her. Paige said "if you love me, if you truly love me, then you will tell me the truth." then they looked at each other solemnly and Philip nodded his head. It was like they were thinking "OMG, if we don't tell her, then we don't truly love her! Oh no, we have no choice but to capitulate to her transparent manipulation". What a mistake. They chose to share the biggest secret they have with an emotionally unstable, wound up, erratic little girl.

They have a strange attitude to Paige - I am mother to a daughter - I have been through the teen years - shared the emotional up and downs of a normal female teenager - and I feel that I know her and what her reactions to most things will be. Yet - Elizabeth has absolutely no clue how Paige will react to the most devastating of news - that her parents are spies. She seems to think that Paige will immediately understand and accept their "cause" because she goes on protest marches and wants to dedicate her life to doing good. Philip - oddly - seems to have far deeper insight into his daughter. In his own words -"It will destroy her" and he was right. Because Philip is not a fanatic - he can see other people's opinions whereas Elizabeth is blind to anything other than the cause. Maybe she can be excused a bit because her mother was the same and instilled it into her. But as a mother Elizabeth should have been in no doubt that Paige is not emotionally amenable to that revelation. They could have fobbed her off and manipulated her right back - told her that they were working for the American government on secret projects and Paige would have been proud of them. Instead they risk their lives and those of their associates by telling a silly impressionable emotionally immature manipulative child the truth. I found that a major flaw in the series. And as you say the reaction of Pastor Timbo is hard to believe - we are in 1980's Washington - at the height of the Cold War - there are constant newscasts about the dangers of communism in general and Russia in particular - and yet here he is presented with two Russians who admit to being spies - but "good" spies and he believes them? I find it hard to take that a mature intelligent man can be so naïve. And to add to his momentous retardation - he tells his wife whom he knows to be a gossip !! Paige knew he would tell her and knew that she was a gossip so that is another black blot on her copybook. I am getting tired of the Nina in Captivity story line - it is boring quite honestly - it is very apparent that she is never going to get out so just get it over with already!! I don't know what Stan was thinking - that she could be exchanged for a female defector - Nina - a low level operative with no classified knowledge to offer - she had no chance and he should have realised that. Philip continues to go to ES and talk to Sandra Beeman there - she wants them to "tell each other everything" a no longer next door neighbour wants to know your innermost secrets and feelings? Really - what is Philip thinking of? I can't figure out why they have put him there. He has "tooken" off his toupee and revealed his true physical identity to Martha. I don't think she knows he is a Russian spy yet though. Anneliese is no more - in all honesty I fell asleep during her demise and I can't recall what happened to her exactly. I shall have to rewatch it unless you have just watched it and can update me. Stan - has managed to retain his job against Gaad's wishes - because he is the one who got closest to Rezidentura officers. Never mind the disobedience - the rogue operations - the treason - Stan did good.! By the way - the partner of the woman fatally poisoned by novichok is to sue the Russian authorities - good luck with that. If you are interested in the case google novichok Salisbury or similar. So many people were affected including police officers.