Dinner for Seven

An Elizabeth-centric episode, her “Patty” plan is brought to its final stages. The Center denies her request to find another path to get the codes from Don’s office so she has to go through with it.

I thought the plan was going to be a straightforward blackmail attempt. Elizabeth would threaten to go to Young about them “sleeping” together to get the codes they need to get to the level the bio-weapons are kept. They went with a much more intense route. Elizabeth visits Don at home just after Young takes the kids to school and tells him she’s pregnant. He asks her to get an abortion and she leaves. Then the other half went into effect. Philip goes with Gabriel and another woman to Don’s office and poses as Elizabeth’s family. They tell him that “Patty” killed herself after their discussion and demand that he pay for her funeral back in CA. They sideswipe this poor something fierce with this story. He goes with Philip to the bank to get the cash leaving the “parents” in the office. They sweep the place looking for the code and copy all of his computer data.

After the mission, Elizabeth is told that no codes were found but they have yet to check the data they copied. She goes to a pay phone to check her “Patty” message and hears a distraught Young asking where she went. Her marriage is strained and she can’t figure out, she wants to talk to her best friend, but she won’t return her messages. Elizabeth hangs up in shame and regret before the message ends. The end of a rough one for Elizabeth (she can never be seen by that family again) it’s going to take some series repression for Elizabeth to move on from this.

After last weeks’ Alice freak out Pastor Tim comes by to apologize to Elizabeth and Philip. They graciously accept but no attempt to get the tape back is made (or offered).

Elizabeth works on Pastor Tim a few times, talking to him privately each time. What starts as a rather clear (by the viewer’s perspective) attempt to manipulate sympathy, she changes after the “Patty” mission is done. Pastor Tim has no clue about it, but Elizabeth gets into talking about guilt with him. He tells her he prays in times like that and they have an interesting discussion about faith.

Stan makes two appearances in the Jennings household this week. First talking to Philip about stuff where he lets it slip that his ex-boss was killed in Thailand. Stunned, Philip relays the info to Elizabeth and recalls that he put Gaad’s vacation into his report. He might have made an unintentional connect the dot for Stan to find. Second, he pops into a dinner party where Pastor Tim and his wife are guests. Wow, what a scene. Two worlds collide and as they sit down the dinner you just wait until the small talk turns to work. Stan says he works for the FBI and it’s the crazy anticipation to see how Pastor Tim and Alice handle it. Will their facial expressions tip off Stan in any way? Will they let anything slip? The dinner goes off without a problem. Stan also sets up a meeting to see Oleg Burov. Stan looks terrible and tells Oleg that this will be the last time they meet. Oleg has become a kind of friend to him and he’s sick of people close to him getting used and killed.

Last but not least, Paige continues to give her parents information. The finals scene, she’s walking back to the car with her mother at night. Paige tells her about the conversation she had with Stan’s son, about Stan and his partner talking to the father of a spy who disappeared. Elizabeth knows exactly who she’s talking about, but doesn’t let on. While chewing on that bit of news, they are confronted by two shady men in the parking lot. Elizabeth tries to diffuse the situation by handing over her wallet right away, but one of the guys tries to put his hands on Paige. Elizabeth snaps into action and kills one of the guys. This scene was simply amazing. A scenario I never considered or saw coming. A physical threat to Paige in front of one of her parents. Elizabeth is a dangerous woman and blindsides everyone with her skill, speed, and ferocity. She doesn’t hesitate for a second and blows Paige’s mind in the process. She’s now seen her mother in action. No talk, which she’s more accustomed to but physical prowess. Paige can barely function and Elizabeth has to pull her away and force her to run. Cut to credits.

Paige has been struggling with just the basics of what her parents do. She’s not astute enough to really notice them indoctrinating her (another sign it’s working: talking strategy with her mom before the fight). Seeing training is something else. She’s going to be a blithering mess in the next episode.

Overall, a much better season over last year. They covered a lot of ground, both literally and figurativly. The last three or four episodes in particular really ramped things up. Most of the subplots were good and worked out well with everyone getting a chance to take the spotlight. Grimm is a really creative show. The cases they come up with to deviate from the main story arc are interesting and make the Scooby Doo teamwork aspect of the show work well. The main cast is a really tight crew of characters (shades of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Juliette was made interesting and she didn’t dominate the season which I think was a smart decision (she gets the most character arcs than anyone). Trusty Hank got a love interest for awhile and got ride shotgun with Nick in just about every major event. I really liked the trip Nick and Monroe took to some treasure hunting. A lot of fun to watch and that whole segment brought one

Trusty Hank got a love interest for awhile and got ride shotgun with Nick in just about every major event. Wu remains another great sidekick and they put him through some hard stuff. I liked what they did with him, but he looks terrible when he’s transformed. One of the worst SFX on the show.

I really liked the trip Nick and Monroe took to some treasure hunting. A lot of fun to watch and that whole segment brought one long standing puzzle with the keys to an end and introduced a new powerful totem to the series. Monroe and Rosalee are cornerstones to this series and I liked the background work they did for them (especially Rosalee’s ex, Tony) and they have a big future ahead of them

Trubel went away for a bit found a greater purpose working at HW and it was great when she came back. In fact, the HW was one of my favorite additions to the show. Really liked Juliette and Trubel being brought in to work for Meisner. He helped fill a much-needed Grimm ally position.

Renard took quite the turn in the later episodes and I’m not too happy with it. While the set up and the ultimatum for him to switch sides was given a lot of time, when he does switch it felt really sudden. I think it’s because they changed his personality to becomes much sleazier than he ever has before (being so aggressive with Adalind was really pushing it).

Speaking of Adalind, her motherly instincts were put to the test. Bringing back Diana added a big wild card as she’s an incredibly powerful young girl. Now that Adalind is now part of her life, will she be able to keep her from being a full blown monster?

I liked the season finale quite a bit, had some satisfying confrontations and the body count on both sides is a lasting one. Black Claw was in the shadows for most of the season, but they came out to make some serious moves at the end. More or less a draw with that cliff hanger ending.

The show has been given a truncated season 6 order so there might not be much time left for Grimm. So far it’s going to be 13 episodes (down from 22), I just hope that the creators get to do what they want. Will it just be a shorter season with more to follow? Will they get more episodes if they need it for the season? Will they only get 13 to end the series? I guess it’ll take the summer for them to find out. I hope they don’t get cut off at the knees by being forced to rush a finale to the series. The Black Claw is a global movement so there could be a lot (outside of Portland especially) to explore.

The Scandal of Altruism

Just passed the halfway point of Season 4 and I think they might have delivered one of the best episodes of the entire series. Easily the best this season at any rate.

More went down this week than I can really cover because answers to questions that started in the series premiere were answered (and I don’t think fans should know what happens beforehand). A ton of lore and a tremendous amount of characters intersected in some incredible ways. I can’t see a single Orphan Black fan not doing backflips after watching this. Some serious writing was done for this episode with major reveals and major moments with massive impact for the rest of the show. If I didn’t know any  better I’d be calling this a brilliant season finale but there are four more episodes to go.

I’m so impressed with this episode from start to finish. Brilliantly paced, a ton of stuff happens and there are some really striking visuals. I don’t know how or if they’ll top this one anytime soon, but I can’t wait for next week. Serious losses to the Clone Club, I’m not sure what their next play is going to be but the playing field as certainly changed. I think some old enemies will be switching sides to take down the new cut-throat villain.

Munchkins

There were some great parallels in this episode and the kids take more of a center stage. Paige is curious about Philip’s past and they bond over the story of how strong (and the tough life in his home country) his own mother was. A fine night at home is shattered when Pastor Tim’s wife, Alice, knocks on the Jennings’ front door. Their biggest fear of Paige’s mistake storms into their house. Tim went to Ethiopia to do missionary work (with travel arranged by the Jennings’ travel agency) and he’s gone missing. She’s convinced they had something to do with it and threatens them with a recording she made about Philip and Elizabeth being spies.

After Alice storms out, they’re all stunned. The threat of her parents being caught has been very nebulous until now. I don’t think she put much thought into them being punished more than them getting into “trouble” and she and Henry having to go live somewhere else. When she hears them say we may have to seriously flee to Russia, she’s dumbstruck. “I’ve never been to Russia! I can’t speak Russian! And what are you going to do? You can’t be Russian spies in Russia!” She didn’t mean to be funny but that line was hilarious. Elizabeth gets more assertive with her to try and calm her down.

The immediate aftermath is interesting. Deep down Paige doesn’t trust her parents. They say they had nothing to do with PT disappearing, but she can’t be sure. This later brings up the discussion of when they are going to tell Henry about what they really do. In a brilliantly set up scene, Phil and Elizabeth try to dodge the question and basically say they will only tell him if he starts putting things together like Paige did. In this conversation, Henry is outside bouncing a tennis ball off the garage door. It sets the soundtrack to an interrogation like level with Elizabeth commenting through irritation that Phil should stop him from doing that because Henry could break the door doing that. “It’s only a tennis ball.” Paige comes in and says the exact same thing as her mother. As much as she may not think or realize it, she’s just like her mother. Plus, Philip and Elizabeth are annoyed that they are getting heat for something they didn’t do. After Paige storms off, Elizabeth laments, “Like we’d do it and leave Alice around to talk!” I appreciated the gallows humor in such a serious moment. Things end up working out on their own and Paige falls right back into working with her “agents.” Despite the ultimate stress test, the indoctrination is still working.

Much like Philip’s mother, Elizabeth is the strongest of the family. She’s been that way since the start of the show but the “Patty” mission is weighing on her soul more than any mission before. Gabriel see’s this in her uncertainty with getting the codes from Don (super awkward visit with Young and Don and their home and a heartbreaking phone message from Young). He offers to see if there is another route The Center can take to alleviate Elizabeth.

The Russian’s send some guys to talk to Gadd when he’s on a trip with his wife (Stan told Philip about it last week) and it goes off the rails. While it’s unclear what they went to see him for, we see the disaster was done under Arkady’s watch. Another person close to Stan has been taken out, we’ll see if it prods him anymore.

I’ve already covered Paige, but there are two other kids that need to be mentioned. We go with Philip to visit Kimmy. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen her, but Philip brings her pot as a cover to plant a fresh bug in her father’s bag. As we watch them catch up, Kimmy tells Philip that her father is really in the CIA, not the State Department. She tells a stranger a secret that she shouldn’t have. Philip gently tells her she shouldn’t break her father’s confidence (sound familiar?). Second is Matt, Stan’s son. He’s popped in and out of the show for awhile, but it looks like he’s being pulled into Paige’s orbit. She talks to him about his father being in the FBI and if it ever feels “weird.” If you immediately jumped back to thinking about Kimmy, we are sharing the same concerns about what could happen in the very near future.

It’s a tense time right now that’s for sure. There are a lot of people being used right now: Philip->Kimmy, Tatiana->Oleg, Elizabeth->Don. Gaad’s death is going to have some serious blowback, can Paige get the tape from Alice to get some kind of security, what role is Tatiana going to be taking (she’s the most mysterious, I’m curious to see where they go with her), and will a piece of Elizabeth’s soul be spared from the “Patty” mission?

The Day After

The Jenning’s household is pretty quiet with the seven month break that Gabriel got them. Playing racketball with Philip, Stan comments on how much energy Philip has. “Are you taking vitamins?” “No, just more sleep.” Without making life or death choices every week, both Philip and Elizabeth have been able to reclaim some peace. The wheels haven’t stopped spinning, though.

As we saw Elizabeth give Paige the riot act last episode, Paige has kept up her “duties” on keeping Pastor Tim and his wife close and unsuspecting. Philip has been taking a calmer and level handed approach with Paige. While Elizabeth in no certain terms gave her a job that she has to do, Philip is the one guiding her. She’s still torn over doing it (and PT notices her demenor) but she is taking a more proactive approach. It’s her idea that her parents go to a meeting to make PT more complacent by seeing them together, happy and “normal.” Philip’s time teaching Paige how to drive is multifaceted. At the meeting, PT makes tips his feelings a bit, telling Philip he wants to have a private discussion with all of them. He wants some kind of check up as he’s not convinced of their true intentions. Elizabeth and Philip will have some adjusting to do soon.

With things calm, Elizabeth has maintained her relationship with Young Hee. Given the chance (and the trust of Young Hee and her husband Don), Elizabeth gets a look around their house to dig up some dirt on Don. On finding nothing, Elizabeth is forced to make a scenario where she can blackmail Don to use him. It’s a terrible burden on Elizabeth. It’s back to terrible deception and it isn’t on strangers this time so it’s much harder to rationalize and emotionally accept. She’s become real friends with Young and she’s doing real harm to her friend. Spies have very few real friends and Elizabeth is forced to end her only one in a moraly corrupt way.

The Day After refers to a TV movie that aired in 1983 about a nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Union. It’s a fearful drama chock full of death and destruction, one that makes its mark on everyone that watches it. Being in the trenches, it’s more or less the ultimate fear the Philip and Elizabeth think of every day. It’s what they were recruited to stop and Paige takes note of that feeling on her own. It reassures her of her natural instincts of wanting to do the right thing and help others.

There’s a lot of uncertainty from everyone. Oleg talks to Tatiana about their capabilities of always making the right choice with limited resources and information. Going ahead with a plan more through fear than information and logic could start a war. William goes directly to Philip about a new virus being cooked up. He feels unsure about the Soviets getting their hands on it. The stuff can liquefy organs and after the botched move of the last virus with an unsuitable container, he doubts their competence. It would probably get loose before it got out of the state. No one should have this stuff and he thinks they shouldn’t relay the info to The Center (hence cutting out Gabriel).  Philip agrees but Elizabeth reasons that if the US has it, it’s too much of a concern to let it slide. The US is the one that dropped two nukes so it isn’t a reach that they would use this stuff. She takes the hardline stance that they are doing all of this for the defense of their own people and the rest of the world.

For the first time, I’ve noticed a major time error on the show. When Phillip is teaching Paige to drive in the amusement park parking lot (I think it’s Rye Playland), the yellow roller coaster in the background was built a good 20 years after the show takes place. The design for that ride wasn’t developed until the mid 2000’s so that ride didn’t exist anywhere back then. It’s a garbage ride to boot too, horrible engineering, it beats the stuffing out of riders.

The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears

With a title like that, you’d never be able to guess the direction of this episode and it might be the best episode of the season. The direction was a real stand out this week with some really striking visuals and compositions. I just looked at who directed it to see if it’s someone well known and it’s Matthew Ryes! Philip himself! Not only is he a great actor, he can crush it behind the camera too.

Incredibly tense episode with emotions hitting the breaking point. A brilliant, almost silent, opening set the stage. Philip gets Martha to the plane and sees her off. A handful of dialog with some crazy minimalist environments and lighting to accentuate the mood.

First, Stan is at wits end. The FBI’s leads are all drying up, they can’t find Martha. They have come to the realization that they have to eat not seeing the spy in their own offices and the KGB making her disappear under their noses as well. Stan looks like hell when he visits Philip (it’s been awhile since he’s done that).

Philip has been running on fumes for awhile now and has been more or less the focal point this season for it. He’s depressed and he looks like hell. His only bright moment is knowing that he made the right move getting Martha out. Elizabeth goes to EST to check it out and they get into a huge fight about it. That was something to see, Elizabeth brings up some serious stuff. The shade she throws at him is unreal, essentially calling him a weak American. She’s tough as nails, but it turns out her fuse was only a few feet longer than Philip’s. While she disparages her husband for not Russian-ing it up and to just get on with his life, a complete freak out on Paige is just the start of her meltdown. Elizabeth lays down the law on Paige, which was super intense to watch. Then, her own agent, Lisa, breaks. Martha was Philip’s responsibility and after it’s all over, Elizabeth gets slammed with the same thing. Another thread in their web has broken, throwing everything off kilter. Lisa threatens to go to the police and Elizabeth reacts. When she goes back to Gabriel’s, where Philip is, she’s a basket case. There is no more anger, just shock, and devastation. Almost all of their hard work is gone.

Gabriel starts this episode in a similar emotional state as Elisabeth. He’s pissed his two agents are getting emotional and eroding their relationship. Not just between themselves, but with him. He tries to reason with and guide them, but they don’t listen or trust him. But then with the loss of Lisa, he sees the stress. There is no way to charge through what they are going through any longer. He vows to get them time off, they’ve been being pushed too hard and too long by The Center.

That leads into a long break, seven months, where they pull themselves together. In a very telling final few minutes, the FBI has restructured after the embarrassment of Martha and Stan is now in a better mental space when he gets advice from his ex-boss. When the time comes to make the hard decisions, keep your conscience in check and go for it. Watch carefully.

Back to Elizabeth and Philip, the look much better too. Paige has listened to her mother and is begrudgingly keeping close tabs on Pastor Tim and his wife. The two professional spies have been given a break on the constant lies and deceit, they’re not pretending and sneaking around 24 hours a day. But now their young daughter is being forced to put up the smoke and mirrors. Paige hasn’t been conditioned to do it like they were and it’s getting to her.

The next crisis is brewing.

I wasn’t a huge fan of last season. It was uneven with many slow parts that kept it from reaching the heights of Seasons 1 and 2. It kinda felt like the writers weren’t too sure where the season was going to end up when they started, took some extra work to get to the good stuff.

The end of Season 3 reset a lot and that allowed this season to kick off with a running start. Right away I got the feeling that the writers figured out the bulk of the season early and got to work with the details. They throw it back all the way to the beginning of the series with  Beth. The clone we pretty much know nothing about and even less about what she knew before she died. They found a fun and interesting way to mix things up and dig back into the central plot of the show. Saying Beth was messed up is putting it mildly and now we’re getting a great look at how Beth was put onto her final investigation…another clone. And it looks like she knows a lot.

The team is rather splintered so far too. Felix has sidelined himself to focus on his own life (much to Sara’s annoyance). Sara is finding more and more crazy stuff about the Neolution (whoa Biotech!) and her daughter is getting weird. Time for the golden child to start developing some powers. Rachel (not exactly part of the team but…) has been isolated to recover from her S3 downfall and gets a rather nasty visit from her keeper. Cosima is doing her best to move forward without Delphine and the comedy trio of Alison, Donnie and Helena are as strong as ever. The cops show up to the house during a terrible time forces Helena to fake being Alison, bringing repercussions from one of the best parts of last season.

All the credit in the world to Tatian Maslany. Being the lead of a show is one thing, but she’s playing something like 8 characters now and they are all different. She’s literally 95% of the show, I don’t think anyone works harder or better than she does on any TV show, she deserves far more acting awards than she has right now.

3 episodes in and Season 4 is on a tear. Really looking forward to the rest.