I think I'm just going to stream my impressions during the commercials.
Anyone else watching it now?
OMG this teen agent posing as Phillip and Elizabeth's kid. He is HARDCORE
"you should have put a bullet in his head"
wow. is he really like a 25 yr old who can pass as a teen?
I hope we see more of him!
If these were my parents I would have turned them in a long time ago.
shareHow much time (in the show) has elapsed since the end of season 4?
It must be at least a couple of months? because this operation with the vietnamese kid was not going on before, and it seems to be something well established now.
So I literally just watched 15 minutes of people digging.
WHY would they bury William instead of cremating him?? How fucking stupid.
I thought he's be more liquefied.
And is a chunk of rib flesh really the best sample to get the virus? How odd. Why not blood or some other body fluid.
When that poor sucker fell and cut his glove, I knew they were going to shoot him.
I liked the contrast of how Mischa's grandfather lives and how Oleg's parents live.
Does Mischa not know that his father is a spy?
If ever in the past I found a scene of people digging a hole in any way tense or interesting, last night's epic dig-a-thon cured me. Wasn't the best season opener for this series, and that endless burrowing didn't help.
share1. I am not sure why cremation is problematic, but they did address the issue as the plastic bag covering William's body had a large sticker on the front: "DANGER - Do Not Burn".
2. Regarding the digging. One of the really unusual aspects of this series is that they show what they do very realistically (I can still remember the stuffing of a body into a suitcase by breaking the arm and leg bones, from an earlier season). As they explained in Six Feet Under, this is how deep you have to bury a body and no other series has ever shown what this kind of work entails. Yes, it was tiring to watch but thru out the seasons we I gained a grudging respect for how tough theses two really are, from these kinds of details.
William was way deeper than 6 feet under, probably because of the contagion risk. He seemed like 10-12 feet deep.
shareMY OBSERVATIONS SO FAR:
• Why or how is a Vietnamese kid who speaks perfect English a Soviet spy? Was he born in the U.S. or Russia or Vietnam... or what? Don't give me he is really a Vietnamese Russian with perfect American English at his age.
• How is Phillip going to communicate with Mischa? They not only have no Russian accent but hardly ever spoke Russian. I don't think Rhys's Russian will be as good as his American accent. To be honest, their lack of even a word of Russian all this time (even in private) was always made it a bit less believable).
• How did Gabriel know where William's body was buried? Where'd they get a map to pinpoint the spot and why would it be so easy to get? William doesn't work there so they have no inside contact anymore.
• When's the last time you saw a scene with no dialogue (and repetitive, time-lapses action) take up so much damn screen time?!?
• Poor Hans! He was so loyal. That killing reminded me of how they killed Nina -- and that Elizabeth truly is cold as ice.
That Vietnamese kid, I assume was like a Vietnam war orphan and was adopted and trained by the commies from a young age. I think he might be older than high school age, he might be one of those baby face 20 somethings who can pass for younger. Phillip and Elizabeth talk to him like a fellow adult. he's a really intriguing character and I hope we get his backstory.
I think that Phillip and Elizabeth can still speak Russian even though they never show it. Elizabeth spoke it to her mom when they visited, didn't she? I'm sure it will not be the perfect fluent Russian that we hear from the residentura staff and the storyline back in Russia. Rhys will probably learn it phonetically.
I wondered about that too, how did they know where the body was buried. The exact spot. Also I think wouldn't the ground be easier to dig if that grave had just been dug a short time before? less compacted.
I am still not sure how much time has elapsed since the end of season 4. It seems like not a long time if William was still fresh enough to have live virus in his rib meat. But long enough for this whole new operation to start with the Vietnamese kid and Pasha.
That digging scene was pretty gripping for a no dialog scene. It went on SO LONG though. That was an interesting choice, I guess trying to build up tension but also showing how hard working the agents are how they just kind of worked as a well oiled military machine and didn't need to discuss anything.
I feel like Elizabeth killing Hans wasn't that cold- she was saving him from a terrible slow death. He was already a dead man as soon as he got infected. Elizabeth knew what that virus will do, William described it to them. They had no way to treat him or save Hans, his only choices would be slow painful death or quick death. If I ever got a disease like that, I would beg for a bullet in the head.
Timeline
season 4 ep 8 involves the David Copperfield magic act making the statue of liberty disappear which happened on April 8, 1983
season 4 ep 9 involves the Tv special 'The Day After'.
which first aired on November 20, 1983,
This leaves a 7 month gap between ep 8 and 9.
I am not sure when the finale of season 4 takes place, but it does look like winter time.
Season 5 ep 1 mentions watching the Olympics, so it must be 1984.
Both the winter and summer games were held that year, they had not started staggering them yet.
the winter Olympics were held in February 8-19 1984 in Yugoslavia
the summer Olympics were held in July-August 1984, in Los Angeles. USSR boycotted those,, so I think Phil and Liz would not want to watch them.
Episode 1 also mentions Konstantin Chernenko succeeding Yuri Andropov in the USSR. He took office on February 13, 1984.
So I am guessing that is was the winter Olympics they were going to watch which sets this episode in February 1984. Between Feb 13-19.
This means the gap between season 4 and 5 is no more than 2 months, and possibly less.
I pondered, too, whether the Olympics they were going to watch was the summer or the winter games. They make a point of mentioning them twice during the show: once when Phillip and Elizabeth say theyre going to watch, and also when Yuri is back home and they show the magazine with the Olympic symbol.
What makes agree that they are referrring to the winter games is that school appears to be in session for everyone (during the meeting of the Vietnamese spy and the Russian kid), so February would be a better guess since the high school looked to be at full attendance, which wouldn't be the case if it was summer school (July or August for the summer games).
Yes - good point about the school.
and since USSR boycotted the summer games that year, they probably wouldn't have been on the magazine cover in Russia.