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.