The World Council of Churches

Elizabeth and Philip are seriously considering retirement. The next time they meet with Claudia they tell her and she says that she understands when agents feel like it’s time they rarely regret being pulled out. She’ll start discussions with the Center to get the ball rolling. Reacclimation takes 2-3 years, but they worry less about themselves for this decision and more for their kids. They’re especially concerned about Henry. Claudia advises not to tell him until they’ve actually left. On their own, Elizabeth and Philip think Paige would have the easiest time. Everytime we see Henry, you can see the pit in their stomachs grow. Henry is really happy. A full blooded American kid, he’s got a girlfriend and he’s looking forward to his future more every day. He even makes them dinner with his girlfriend to thank them for giving their blessing to go away for school. I can see very little being more traumatic for Henry to one day up and leave and be told the truth when they land in the Soviet Union.

Pastor Tim gets the offer for ministry work overseas and he takes it. Paige is happy but taken aback by it a bit. She’s really not sure how to react knowing that she helped to get him this offer to get rid of him. It is relief though and her parents have a muted, but welcome response when she tells them. A big surprise is after telling them, Paige takes off the crucifix she’s been wearing for years. Not just take it off, but throws it into the kitchen garbage can. Philip and Elizabeth are stunned and tell her she has to keep it on until he leaves. It’s a stark contrast to who Paige has been and believed in. It’s transformation how she holds Pastor Tim in her mind and that she’s more like her parents now. She asks more details about their past (where the name Jennings came from) and we also get to see her train by herself in the garage. Additionally, in a big surprise to me, Elizabeth and Philip seek council with Pastor Tim on moving the kids. With him moving on they must not see him as a threat and when you think about it, there’s no one else they can ask advice from. He has their same concerns- especially with Henry being completely in the dark.

Oleg gets more heat. He’s questioned again and this time the outright say it. It’s shady that William got busted when he shouldn’t have been under suspicion. Your contact with Stan and the other two Soviet agents who were in Stan’s sphere looks like more than a coincidence.  We’re sniffing you out for treason. Oleg handles it well and keeps himself safe (for now at least). His work on the food thing is major points in his standing with officials. It clearly helped him. He also manages to throw some influence around, keeping one of his informants out of jail. With all of this good work done, it also comes out that it looks like the investigation isn’t going to go any further. They’ll punish two or three people but it seems like Oleg has hit a corruption wall. One of his bosses puts the breaks on things for seemingly no logic reasoning. Oleg talks to his dad who offers help and Oleg turns it down. He wants to keep his father away from everything he’s dealing with to keep any potential fallout contained.

In a surprise scene, Mischa meets his uncle (Philip’s brother), aunt and cousin. I assume it’s the work of Gabriel to give Mischa a tether to family in replacement of meeting his father.

Stan and Dennis get blindsided. The mark they’ve been working with shows up with her boyfriend. They told her to keep him at arm’s length and not only is she engaged (!) she told him everything. Much like when Paige was talking to Pastor Tim, Stan and Dennis struggle to keep their faces from exposing their horror. They’re really quite during the meeting of this guy (who actually asks they give her more money for her dangerous work and that he can work for them too) and try their best to not tip their hand in any direction. Maintain calm to get out of this. Back at the office, Stan and Dennis have to re-evaluate everything. She’s as good as burned no matter what. She fell head over heels for this guy and the jig is up, they’ve lost control of this asset so what do they do now?

Finally, the show takes a flying kick to the face in the last scene. Tuan’s bully plan has worked.  Pascha is getting beat up. Elizabeth see’s the black eye herself when talking to his mother, Evgheniya, at their home. Elizabeth works to get Evgheniya to stand up to Alex to protect Pascha, but she says Alex won’t listen to her. The other half of the plan isn’t going to work. Pascha’s misery is enough to move the mother to want to go back to the Soviet Union but not the father. They need a new idea.

Tuan comes up with one on his own and doesn’t wait to put it into motion. He shows Pasha how to cut his wrists to miss the arteries and co-writes his suicide note. Do it just in time for when his parents can find him and force his father’s hand. Tuan is sure, whether Pascha lives or dies, that this will get them what they want.  Elizabeth and Philip rightfully freak out and Philip bolts to get to Pascha’s house when no one picks up the phone. To complicate matters, the Morozov house is being watched.

The season finale is next! The race is on at the very start of next week’s episode and whatever happens there is going to point the direction of what Elizabeth and Philip can do. There is a lot up in the air. The real logistics of leaving (besides the kids, what about the long term Kansas mission). Tuan has gone rogue with a sacrifice move in one of their missions. And where has Stan’s girlfriend Renee been? Is she a spy?

Fun season. The expansion from 6 to 10 episodes offered a larger and longer look into the Badlands that I liked a lot. We got to see much more of the world, many more locations and outside set pieces. Last year I can’t remember too many locations that were far from Baron compounds.

This season took off a few months after the end of the last where Quinn is considered dead, his son has taken his place, Sunny is locked up and MK is in some kind of monetary hiding to learn how to control his power.

The Widow is more or less the main focus as she upended the Baron power structure. Her aspirations to change the world, to essentially eliminate slavery, is an admirable one but she gets a lot of pushback from the other Barons. Then Quinn makes his presence known and throws everything into to disarray. Surprisingly, MK takes much more of a back seat for this run. While we see him in training, his arc is pretty simple and he comes in and out of the story in bursts, the point where he has little to do with the season finale.

Sunny’s whole push is to get to his wife and son which is quite the journey. Nick Frost plays the new character, Bajie, who was a great addition. You first meet him and think he’s just another prisoner, but they intertwine him well. All the scenes he’s in are mostly great and getting to see him fight is a blast.

Speaking of fights, I want to say there were more (or longer) fights per episode last season than in this one. That’s how I remember it but I’m probably wrong. While there are great sequences throughout, the real standouts are in episode 9 and 10. There’s some truly amazing choreography in the finale. The wire work is especially good. It’s superhuman but it still maintains a sense of real world weight.

The show is always drop dead gorgeous. Some of the best cinematography around and the action blocking and editing is second to none on TV. One of my favorite things about Into the Badlands is that there is no other show like it on TV. I like the world, the characters, the actors and the feeling of being somewhere familiar but ultimately new. Great set up for next season which is getting another bump in episode size.

Dyatkovo

The end of this episode was absolutely nuts! Considering the 40-minute build up, the pay marks one of the most shocking moments of the series.

Oleg and his partner question the woman they’ve been scouting. She’s one of the higher ups in the food game and when they pressure her in questioning, they get more anger than fear out of her. She’s rather offended that government employees are coming after her. They live in a world that the general Soviet people don’t live in, oblivious to the struggles and how their country really operates. She works for powerful people and is simply doing her job in a system she didn’t set up and has no control over. This is just how things work…she’s not going to talk.

Of the Jenning kids, Henry gets some time this week. First, Philip and Elizabeth come to agree that if Henry wants to go to boarding school, he should be able to go. If he gets in, they won’t be a barrier, Henry, more interestingly, gets to tag along with Stan to the FBI for an article for the school newspaper. Stan gives him a general tour and when Henry shows him the first draft of his writing, he thinks Henry is laying it on a little thick. Henry has been more that impressed by what he saw and wonders why Stand doesn’t think his career is awesome. It’s all about relationships. In his line of work, Stan can’t blindly trust anyone. Everyone he meets must be scrutinized, it’s his job to sniff out deception from anyone, no matter their age, sex, gender or ethnicity.  That kind of mentality follows you home.

When Henry comes home, Philip and Elizabeth see how excited he is from the field trip. When they ask about his day one thing in particular sticks to them: the room that can’t be bugged.

This episode sees an entire reprieve from their missions in Kansas. At their meeting with Claudia, she first relays information the asked her for previously: yes, the Center weaponized the virus they took off of William. They named it after him to boot. Not too thrilled about getting that confirmation, Claudia puts them on a new mission. The Center believes they’ve found a woman they’ve been looking for 40 years. They say she’s guilty of killing hundreds of Soviet soldiers during World War II (Dyatkovo is a town in Russia that was heavily contested through much of WWII, the location’s occupation force changed multiple times).

Elizabeth and Philip especially, are skeptical. How did the Center find her? What evidence did they find and use to finally track her down? The first task the Center wants them to do is simply stake her out. Take pictures, see how she’s living her life and they’ll take it from there.

In a short amount of time, they scope her out and report their findings (with pictures). The Center is convinced that they found their woman and want her taken out to punish her crimes against her countrymen. Elizabeth and Philip are not happy about being put on this. After the lab fiasco, they have a lot of doubts that make them not blindly follow orders now.

I’m not going to describe what happens. It’s one of the most emotionally vacillating and intense scenes in The Americans. They found brilliant actors to make the scene work as well as it does. I was left dumbfounded and what Elizabeth says afterward means it’s completely changed her. She’s been able to compartmentalize and soldier on better than Philip, but this…oof.

Darkroom

Major, major moves for Paige in this episode. I’ll save her for last as it’s the biggest plot point. I’ll start with the brief updates on the other 2 angles.

Oleg is more or less stewing. He’s made progress at work and has dodged getting into trouble from the surprise search of his home. While they found nothing and he navigated the interrogation well last week, it’s still a dark cloud following him. This episode we see him making friends with his partner while they’re on a stakeout. His partner clearly thinks well of Oleg so it looks like Oleg is making positive strides on someone he needs to trust him. His relationship with his parents is ice cold though.

Stan and Dennis’ recruitment, Sofia, looks like it’s going to start producing results soon (she’s got a hell of a smile now too).

The spike being driven into the Morozov family to get them to go back to the Soviet Union has started to hit flesh. Philip talks to Alexei (getting very little out of him) but Elizabeth gets much more from Evgheniya. Tuan’s twisted plan to get Pasha bullied so bad that it will force Evgheniya’s hand has worked. Some kids put dog feces into Pasha’s locker and it’s a fight every morning to get him to go to school. He and his mother weren’t happy to start with and this is turning into real trauma. So much so that Evgheniuya admits to Elizabeth about having the affair. Using her masterful manipulation skills (by way of motherly concerns), Elizabeth plants the seed that Evgheniya needs to fight for what she wants: her son to be happy. The seed to go back home has been planted.

Claudia tells Elizabeth and Philip that the wheat sample they got (and went back home with Gabriel) is a fantastic specimen. But the results of that effort won’t likely be seen for years. They both have to stick with their marks long term. Their faces when being told this speaks volumes about how they feel about it. As an aside, I totally misunderstood who Father Andrei is. He, just like Elizabeth and Philip was being handled by Gabriel. He isn’t a replacement (I believe Claudia is temp until a permanent one can be installed) and is now rather rudderless without Gabriel. He comes into use this episode though.

Philip still goes to EST meetings occasionally. The latest topic for this meeting is that people are machines, run with basic objectives with no free will that operates on simple stimulus. Philip is not cool with that. With having to deal with his mark in Topeka crushing him down, something he absolutely does not want to do (and feeling disillusioned with The Center’s motives) he feels the overwhelming need to take control of something in his life. What’s been keeping him grounded and what does he truly care about? Elizabeth. Their relationship was manufactured. A mission with the appropriate fake documents made so he and Elizabeth could hide in plain sight in the US. Through the years they’ve grown together and have formed an undeniable bond. Their marriage hasn’t been real and Philip wants to change that. Elizabeth agrees. They are secretly married by Father Andrei.

United stronger than ever, Paige enters the fold. This whole bit was watching The Americans unfold at it’s finest, really one of the best arcs to come together in the series.

Philip and Elizabeth come home late at night to see Paige cleaning the kitchen floor. To say she’s distraught is an understatement. Paige has continued to spy on Pastor Tim by reading his journal when she babysits for him. In it, she finds an entry about her. Pastor Tim thinks she’s a broken girl with a lost soul that may never be saved. She’s  being harshly judged by someone she’s admired and respected for a long time. This puts incredible self- doubt on her. Her parents work to pull her back from the edge: this man, this judgemental man, doesn’t know her. Doesn’t know her heart, her thoughts, her dreams. They know her and know that this guy is full of it.

They next approach her with an idea. It isn’t right for her to have to be around this guy for years to come, to constantly monitor his threat level to them. What if we can get him humanitarian work overseas? At first, she’s shocked and dismisses it. How can you control another person’s life like that without their knowledge? It’s creepy and weird. They lay it out for her: it’ll be something he really wants to do and it’ll be nothing but positive for him and his family. We can’t force him to go, we can set up an opportunity, but he has to take it. It’s his choice. That seems to move her, but she has her doubts, so she asks about what has happened with “the wheat and the bugs and stuff.” They simplify what happened (lying through omission really) but they do tell her the truth. Their people will not starve because of infestation. They present the results to her so she thinks they had direct influence in stopping mass murder (an evil plot that actually never existed. Oh, and they killed an innocent man). They changed the world for the better because it was the right thing to do. They helped people and that is the sole reward for the work they must do in secret. That speaks to the core of who Paige is. It makes her feel good about what her parents do. It’s a large weight off her conscience.

This leads to the final scene and the reveal of the episode title. Paige took pictures of Pastor Tim’s journal in the hopes that they could pull info from it to figure out the ideal job offer for him. She hands the camera to them, knowing that bringing it to a photo mat would be stupid. Elizabeth and Philip get to work right away, bringing Paige right along side. They go into the garage and Paige watches her parents build a darkroom and develop the film themselves. As the pictures become legible, Pastor Tim’s words become visible and it’s horrible stuff. Elizabeth and Philip are absolutely stone-faced in anger as they read the condemnation and damnation of their daughter and themselves.  Before this, Paige mentions to her parents that Harry should get to go away to school because that’s what is right for him. He’s different, he’s not like them. Paige is now completely turned away from Pastor Tim and standing next to her parents.

IHOP

This episode was packed with bob and weaves, a few blasts from the past show up. As a whole, it felt like staging area while we wait for the next big thing to happen.

Where to start? Stan seems like as good a place as any for this week.

At work he’s informed that the FBI has dug around Frank Gaad’s death when he was in Thailand with his wife. A few known KGB agents were in/around there and that’s enough for them to link Gaad’s death to the Soviet Union. Stan goes to see the widow to tell her what he found out. He doesn’t come away from the visit with what he wanted. She tells him he’s the first person from the FBI to visit her since Frank’s death. She’s been more or less been sent adrift by the agency. Not really going to her for a social call, he really wanted to get her advice. With the trauma of Frank’s murder brought to the surface again and Stan with the possibility of using Oleg to get who did it, Stan asks her what she thinks Frank would do given that it would pull an innocent person into a mess. Stan thinks Frank would let it go. She steps on that with barely a second thought. “He would want revenge.” Stan has been vehemently against using Oleg for anything but this personal twist seems to have changed Stan’s mind.

Oleg gets pressured at home. Them finding nothing in his apartment last week didn’t soothe their suspicions that Oleg has been compromised. He talks face to face with two higher ups and they get into talking about his time with Nina and Stan. He confirms that he spent the most time working Stan (the whole Nina disaster) and that his efforts went nowhere. Everything they did to flip Stan didn’t work and he downplays how much/often he conversed with Stan. After so much effort to ignore (or cover?) the past, Oleg is forced to bring up Stan. Olef and Stan have gone to great lengths to steer clear of each other half a world away and now it looks like they’re slowly being turned to face each other.

Mission wise, Oleg makes some headway with the man he arrested. Letting this guy stew alone for awhile along with some persuasive talk about family gets Oleg a name on who runs the food game in the Soviet Union.

Speaking of family, it’s time for the Jenner’s and their kids. After a big episode for her last week, her story is pushed to the side. She gets a name drop early on and this time it’s major waves for Henry. He drops a shocker on them: he wants to go to boarding school in New Hampshire in the fall. He’s got his reasons all planned out and Philip and Elizabeth are dumb founded. Chris, the girl he’s been hanging out with (“new friend,” not girlfriend) is going there. She’s talked up about how great it is, he thinks his current school is holding him back and Chris’ father has written him a recommendation letter. Him suddenly doing so well in school surprised them, this stuns them. If they had concerns that they didn’t know their own son, this pushes it over the edge. Henry has clearly been thinking about this for some time and has been talking to Chris’ parents way more than his own. Talking it over with Philip, Elizabeth thinks they can’t hold him back from growing up. Philip is stuck thinking that Henry, the Henry he has known up until now, would never want to go away to such a strict school. The first thing that popped up into my mind when Henry said all this was brought up. “Do you not want to live here with us anymore?” asks Philip. I saw it just like that, but Henry says no, that’s not what this is about. Henry is clearly being heavily influenced by this girl but as Elizabeth comes to think, this could be the jumping off point for a bright future for him. They just thought high education like this would beb where Paige would head to, not Henry.

Tuan gives Philip and Elizabeth a scare. He disappears and they have to put the spy squad on him to see where he’s slipping off to. They track him to an IHOP in Pennsylvania and when they confront him, he says it’s for family. The family that took him in, their biological son has leukemia and isn’t doing well. He went way out to PA to keep his cover, go far away to make a phone call to talk to them. He’s been careful and noticed he was being tailed (they taught him well) so he only ate at the IHOP that night, he didn’t call them. Elizabeth has sensed his loneliness and has been worried about him. Tuan making such effort to reach out to connect like this makes sense to her and believes that he’s telling them a truth. Being up to their eyeballs in muck for so long, Philip is inclined to agree. He’d go for a chance to reset things and start over too.

Last week, I thought that Claudia was Gabriel’s replacement. She’s not, it’s going to take some time for that person to come in. In the meantime, the temp contact is Father Andrei. Philip goes to meet him in a hospital. He passes some intel to Philip but they were talking in code so I didn’t get a grasp on what was really said (I assume we’ll see where that goes next week). Before Philip takes off, Father gives him some advice: prayer can help soothe the soul for those that do the work that we do. Philip is clearly not hiding his beaten psyche well.

This is after Philip hears (from the bug he’s been running on Kim’s dad for a long time) about a group of fighters in Afghanistan being killed by a violent sickness. It sounds a lot like the bio-weapon they got from Will. While it could be just a coincidence, Philip thinks that’s highly unlikely and puts this up for Elizabeth to digest with him. What if getting that bio-weapon wasn’t for defense but to go on the offense in Afghanistan? Whether the Center pivoted the use of it or they just lied the whole time to Philip and Elizabeth is up for debate but the end result is the same: their work is being used to murder.

Finally, Gabriel, now home, goes to visit Martha. It’s a brutal scene. He shows up at her crappy apartment where she’s alone cooking a crappy dinner. She asks him if he came to giver her news (no) and if he came all this way just to visit (no, I’m retired). Gabriel is clearly feeling guilty. He does tell her that her parents know she’s a live, but not where she is. And that’s only because Clark (Philip) made arrangements for that to happen and that he thinks of her all the time. You can actually see Martha’s brain boil at this nonsense gesture. The catch up talk they have is horribly depressing. She got screwed. She’s lost everything and the help and thanks that she’s been getting by the Soviet’s has been garbage. Gabriel tells her that it’ll be better when her Russian improves. She kinda strugs that one off. Then, when he tells her when her Russian is better and that they’ll get her a job so she can translate for them? Message received: I’m just going to be used more. The look on her face! She kicks him out, telling him never to come back. The question in Martha’s head is the same as Philip’s. What the hell did I go through all of this for?

Immersion

Each piece on the chessboard moved a space this week.

First, the kids. A very quick check in with Henry. We see him play Atari with two friends. The girl is most likely the one he has a crush on (Elizabeth asks Stan if Henry has told him anything about this girl and Stan says he’s been sworn to secrecy so he doesn’t give an answer). Paige, as usual, has much more going on. We get to see her in a garage training session with her mother and she’s come a long way. Elizabeth has clearly taught her some moves and Paige is able to keep up with what is being thrown at her. She’s much less timid and has a decent mastery of strikes and evasion.  While Paige seems more confident, she’s down on breaking up with Matt and confides that she’s tired of being scared. The progress is good but there’s still a long way to go. Seeing this, Elizabeth opens up to Paige, telling her many years ago that she was raped. She understands how Paige feels and tells her that through her determination and training she has been able to overcome it and move on. The mental fortitude to know that no one will be able to hurt her again is what keeps her strong and confident. Later one when Paige is bumming around the house, Elizabeth gets her to go on a walk with her. Again, she opens up to her daughter even more. I think what we see them discuss during the walk is the longest and the most meaningful conversation they’ve had on the entire series. Elizabeth is making great strides to connect with and teach her daughter.

In the Soviet Union, the KGB gets suspicious of Oleg and come sniffing around his (parents) home. They don’t find anything because he destroyed the evidence from the FBI. That could have been a disaster.

Stan and Dennis meet up with their new mark. After being largely spooked by the last conversation they had with her, she’s now very open to helping the FBI. The rewards they have offered her seem to best the risks she will be taking to get them information. Interesting stuff watching them teach her how to observe without raising suspicions.

Claudia has taken over Gabriel’s position, much to the chagrin of Elizabeth and Philip. Especially Elizabeth. They’re very short with her, making it clear that it’s going to be strictly business. Claudia will update them on what The Center is doing and wants them to do. They will handle things as they see fit with no input from her.

Now for the mission. Alexei’s wife, Evgheniya, has begun teaching. She updates Elizabeth on how it’s going and mentions some of her students and that she’s going to go to one of their houses to teach the group in a less formal setting. This is great news for Elizabeth and Philip, they’ll be able to get all of her students on film to get ID. They follow her around and discover that she’s having an affair with a man named Bruce. The Center pegs him as a likely important transplant to Moscow when he’s ready to go and they want Evgheniya to be with him when he does. An easier flip if his mistress is with him. So the mission hits a pivot point: how do they get the Morozov’s to go back to the Soviet Union? Tuan comes up with a plan that might work.

Finally, The Center still wants Philip and Elizabeth to work their marks to keep up their connection to the wheat samples until they hear back about the sample Gabriel took home with him. Elizabeth’s mark, Ben, says he’s upset he won’t be able to see her that week (she’s got to work the Morozov angle with Philip). It seems sincere (remember, he isn’t keeping an exclusive relationship) as does Elizabeth when she says she looks up to him for the work he’s doing. Philip’s mark, Deirdre, has been a shaky connection from the start. When he calls her to tell her about not being able to see her for awhile, she’s cool with it. So cool, that she breaks up with him. Apparently, he’s not assertive enough. Philip is visible knocked down a peg. When he tells Elizabeth she wonders if he deliberately scuttled the relationship by not committing. He says no and gets down on himself, “Not everyone is as good looking as you are.” Quick to react to his self-doubt and crumbling self-confidence she rebuilds her partner. “If you want to get her back, you can.” Philip takes those words to heart and calls Deirdre to get her back. Using the “assertive” angle on her, he reels Deirdre back in quickly. With Philip being a pale imitation of himself for awhile, it’s something to see him get back on point.

It’s hard to believe 16 months have passed since Season 2 ended, but here we are. The all-new true crime story that involves Fargo, ND brings us closer to present day. The dumb criminal rub this season:  sibling rivalry takes a twisted turn to mistaken identity murder.

The star of the show this year, playing brothers Emmit and Ray Stussy, is Ewan McGregor. One episode in and Mr. McGregor impresses (props on his make-up, very realistic). On the surface, Emmit looks to have been doing better in life. Emmit has a job that requires a suit and Ray doesn’t look too committed to his job as a parole officer. His side job of professional/amateur bridge player with his parolee girlfriend, Nikki (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), may payout, but we’ll see how that goes. I’m leaning to not so well as we see the “oops and whoops” crime occur when Roy tries to get “his” collectible stamp from his brother with the help of a not too with it parolee, Maurice (Scoot McNairy).

While Roy’s lean toward being shady are more readily apparent, it takes some time for Emmit’s problem to come to light. In Fargo, there’s always more than one guilty party. He’s taken out a loan some time ago and he’s ready to pay it back. He’s having trouble doing so and when he gets visited by super creep Varga (David Thewlis) he finds out his loan had some serious strings attached.

Our link to the law is Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon), a single mom of a teenage son. Roy’s plan swings into her life with terrible results and now we’ll follow her to see how big this web of insanity gets.

The stage is set for another great story in the bitter cold. We’re off to an intense start with two people killed in the premiere so there’s no telling how high this year’s stack will get. David Thewlis as Varga stole the show for me and he was only in one or two scenes. In just a few minutes of dialog he’s established a character that will make your skin crawl. I’m really excited to see where this goes.

Great season!

There was a lot to love this year. Great pacing on a story arc that remained interesting and constantly moving through the 13 episodes.

The protomolecule remained the focal point as Earth and Mars power clash with the Belters stuck in between. Part political gamesmanship and sci-fi actioner, The Expanse covers a lot of aspects of mankind stretching past its home planet. There were a lot of factions at play this year so the cast this year was varied. People come in and out as necessary and once a character reaches an end they go off with purpose and meaning. The show makes a large pivot around the half way point, offering more extensive looks of off planet locals (ships and stations mostly). As the protomolecule turns into more than just glowing blue stuff, the stakes and interest are raised at each step.

I really liked the story arc of Holden and Naomi this season. Holden getting more reckless and justifying more and more extreme acts in the name of doing it for the greater good. He gets tunnel vision and Naomi reacts to it, going as far as separating from their group to make a difference in her own way when she sees people in need. The crew of the Roci aren’t nobodies flying around the galaxy. What they do and how they do it has great repercussions. That all comes together in the finale in great ways, one of the most effective season finales this year.

The cast goes a long way in making this show so great with my only outlier being Cas Anwar who plays Alex. Whether he’s playing the character like he is in the book or his own take on him I don’t know, but they let him ham it up in every scene. While he can work as the comic relief it often comes off as being phony and at worst, inappropriate to the point where it’s distracting. Near the end, he has a reaction to seeing something on a monitor that is delivered so poorly it mars the scene. While everyone is selling realism, Alex often comes off like he’s from a different show.

Otherwise, The Expanse is amazingly well made. Great cast, I think Thomas Jane as Miller is great (yes, he’s playing a clear character type like Alex, but he keeps it together much better) and the new characters of Bobbie Draper and Dr. Meng are very well done and great additions. I don’t know who does the CGI on this show but they put every dime they get on screen. Some truley impressive work for a cable show, I think it sets the standard for sci-fi visuals on TV. Miller’s opus scene is stunning and the full scale reveal of the protomolecule project is phenominal. With such quality work from the special effects, the set designers and the sound work, it makes believing what’s going on screen very easy.

Great storytelling this year. I’m looking forward to what happens next season.

The Committee on Human Rights

With Gabriel giving the signal that he’s retiring, The Center works quickly to bring him home. Elizabeth and Philip bring Paige to meet him. It’s a sort of humanizing, fill in the gaps, meet and greet of someone very close to her parents (of which there are very few). She gets a certain comfort from talking with Gabriel and he gets to finally meet the daughter he’s essentially only heard about for years. Being trained as well as he has, Gabriel deftly navigates her questions.

Mission wise, Elizabeth gets the list from the psych office with no problems. Elizabeth passes off the info and Philip asks her what was in the documents. She tells him she doesn’t really know, it was a list of names. Philip has to go to Gabriel to find out.

Philip’s mark is more or less treading water. He’s working the Lotus 1-2-3 software angle to get the info he wants from her but it’s like pushing a boulder up a cliffside. Being with her is a clear struggle for him and at the rate things are going, she’s fine with a slightly elevated friend with benefits relationship with him.

Elizabeth has been having much more success with her mark and while following him around, she gets a surprise. He’s seeing other women. It’s a strange mix of shock and jealousy that gets revealed on her face when she sees it. She’s worked to keep herself emotionally detached after the ordeal she went through with Young last season, but part of her does look hurt over what would normally be a betrayal. The other part is that she’s totally caught off guard by this move. Elizabeth thought she had this guy pegged and seeing him do something so out of character has thrown her. She’s not as good at reading people as she thought she was.

Stan and Dennis continue to work on getting informants. They get some traction with a woman, but Stan is honest with her about the type of protection they can give her and without any guarantees of safety, she isn’t going for it. Stan gets called into a meeting with his boss for a private discussion. The suits above didn’t like his stunt to get them off of Oleg and want him gone. His boss bought him some time, convincing them that Stan is essential to the recruitment work he’s doing right now. Once this job is over, Stan’s career might be as well.

This weighs on Stan heavily. Renee immediately notices that he’s bothered by something and gets to vaguely tell her what happened at work. In this scene, Renee gets into some deep conversations about what they’re watching and about things in her past. If she’s a spy, this woman did an amazing amount of training and preparation to put up an intricate false identity.

After meeting Gabriel, Paige decides to pull the trigger on Matt. She breaks up with him without giving him much of a reason. “I have a lot going on” is about the gist of it and Matt tries to stay with her. “I’m not my father” and that he’ll change anything she thinks he did wrong. It’s a rough breakup and Elizabeth is the first to help her navigate her feelings. While talking with Gabriel might have pushed her into the breakup, it looks like the general fact that she has to lie to Matt all the time was too much for her to handle. While it seems like Paige is picking up on techniques, deep down it doesn’t look like she has the fortitude for her parent’s profession.

Gabriel talks to Elizbeth and Philip for the final time, separately. Elizabeth is first and when she asks him again about why he is leaving, Gabriel admits that the weight of the work is pulling him down. Years of being in the grinder have taken their toll and he wants to stop. He never mentions Mischa.  When Philip meets him, Gabriel goes over his final mission in the United States. He’s got to get the sample of wheat that Philip and Elizabeth dug up, now arranged like a 1-800-FLOWERS purchase, to the Soviet Union. Philip, stuck feeling like he’s being lied to and kept out of the loop, can’t help but ask him some more questions. First, the list that Elizabeth stole. He receives a rather vague answer: names of a growing oppositional force back home. Then, the big one bouncing around his head, is Renee one of them? Gabriel scoffs at the idea, “You’re losing it.” He’s quick to cut off Philip’s paranoia but then steps on that by continuing with this nugget: if The Center really wanted Philip not to know, they’d keep Gabriel in the dark too. As far as Philip is concerned, Gabriel’s denial holds no meaning. Then, in another shot to the head, Gabriel leaves with a final thought. He thinks Philip was right, Paige should’ve been kept outside of their world. The main worry that Philip has had with his daughter gets validation from his father figure. Thanks for your support now, dude. Could have used it a few months ago, Paige is a freaking mess now.

Saul snuck up on me this year. It’s great to go back to New Mexico.

After Jimmy’s full scale switcheroo to get Kim back in the good graces of Mesa Verde by making his brother Chuck look senile last season, we pick up right where we left off. Chuck is pissed and tricks Jimmy into confessing with a recorder hidden in the room. His confession gets Chuck to agree to go back to work (Howard needed him back). So Jimmy blurts it out basially to make amends with his brother. He thinks admitting that he did it for Kim makes it a water under the bridge moment and tries to get things back to normal. While pulling the tin foil off of Chuck’s walls, Jimmy gets into some brotherly banter. Chuck shuts him down with a curt, “I’ll never forget what you did. You will get yours, eventually.” It’s a chilling threat that Jimmy has to know Chuck intends to follow through with. He doesn’t say anything back.

Things are going well at Jimmy and Kim’s practice. A lot of will work, working with the elderly who love taking up your time like you don’t have a room of other clients waiting for you. Jimmy is spooked by what Chuck told him and carefully navigates himself around Kim. He broke some serious laws in the name of helping Kim and the blowback for it would be immense. So she’s on eggshells too when she visits Mesa Verde and listens to a peer talk shit about Chuck’s mistake knowing what really happened. It makes her feel uncomfortable and second guess her work.

Chuck brings Howard the tape of Jimmy and Howard basically says, that’s insane but you can’t do anything with the tape legally. Being an exceptional lawyer, Chuck knew this. He brought the tape to ensure that he has Howard on his side. It’ll forever expose Jimmy to never be believed by Howard. Plus, he has a plan that has nothing to do with the law. He doesn’t say what it is and the only thing I can think of is to use it to turn Kim. At least brak them up. He knows Jimmy can live without the work, the career is kinda secondary to him. Kim is far and away the most important thing in Jimmy’s life. He must not think Kim knows but having Jimmy on tape is still serious personal leverage.

When we last left Mike, he was about to pull off an assassination when his car horn started blaring. A stick on the horn and a note on the windshield (“Don’t”) sends Mike into a panic. He’s being watch and has no idea who it is. He spends most of the episode trying to find a tracker in his car and when he does, it takes measures to turn the tables. He gets the people watching him to take a bug of his own so he can follow them and find out who and what he’s dealing with.

The moral shadiness of Jimmy continues to feed the madness and Chuck’s threat adds that family karma threat. Kim is totally going to get caught in the middle of this which is going to be hard to watch. Watching Mike work his magic, on the other hand, is nothing but a treat. Safe bet that the trail is going to lead him to Breaking Bad great, Gus Fring.

Season 6 proves to be a winner. Moving locations and bringing in a brand new plot about the time after the POTUS is voted and sworn in brought in a rgreatfresh story arc to the show that pulled in a lot of what’s going on in the real world today.

Of course, these current events are filtered through the established players of Homeland. The show operates best with a great conspiracy plot and this season had one of the best. Carrie is working in Washington as an advocate for Muslim Americans. On the defense team for a young Muslim man with some eyebrow-raising views he puts online, his case takes a crazy turn in a threat to national security kind of way. This puts Carrie onto the path of a runaway plot against the President-Elect.

The staples of the show are all woven together. Dar, Saul, Peter and Max work on different ends of the conspiracy and they all converge in really creative ways. While the cast is always solid this season’s stand out is far and away Rupert Friend as Peter Quinn. He was put through the ringer last year and his performance in Season 6 is some award winning stuff. Peter has always been one of my favorites and where he goes this year is some of his most harrowing and touching material. I wasn’t sure how they’d top Season 5 for him, but here we are (and I found it very believable).

I don’t think there was a bad episode this year. Always entertaining, often nerve-wracking, they paced it out well. Big events and big character moves from beginning to end, gotta love it. By the time the final credits roll, the fallout is massive. I hope the writers have been cooking and fine tuning worthy ideas for next year. They’ve put themselves in brand new territory to continue on from, so we’ll see. Really looking forward to Season 7.

Crossbreed

With the revelation of being wrong about the wheat, a pivot is made to salvage something from the mission. The wheat is valuable, if they can get it home then the Soviet Union won’t be reliant on buying from others.

The mission and the stress aren’t over. The center wants Philip and Elizabeth to stay on their Topeka marks. Elizabeth is also given the task of getting intel from a psychologist’s office. She does some recon and comes away from it that his security to get files won’t be difficult to get by.

The eyes on Alexei’s wife have expanded. Knowing that she’s teaching Russian to FBI agents his a huge lead so that mission has expanded to others figuring out her schedule and who she meets. Tuan will continue to work on Pasha to get more inside info from home.

This episode spent a lot of time with Philip. He’s recalling much more about his childhood. Remembering things about his father coming home from work with “things.” Clothes and boots that he’d give to his wife to clean off blood. Philip’s mother never told him what he did and the concept of the other kids bullying him “for no reason” was because of what his father did for work. Philip never had a relationship with his father and times were really tough for his family. His current position, living as a spy in America with everything he needs makes him reflect a lot on his passed. Then, when Gabriel tells them he is going back home, that he’s done, Philip is essentially losing his father figure. They’ve known and worked with Gabriel for a long time so this is a deep cut to them. With time running out to talk to Gabriel, Philip asks him about his father. He tells him he was a guard at a prison camp but didn’t know what he did specifically. There were good guards and there were cruel guards but it was work. He was just a nobody working with the other nobodies. Gabriel tries to ease him down a bit saying it was so long ago, it’s fading into the past.

So now Philip comes to see that he is more like his father than he ever imagined. Both worked for the government and did terrible things (his father likely, Philip definitely with the lab worker’s death fresh in his mind). He didn’t know his father and Henry doesn’t know him. With finding out Henry is gifted at math from his teacher, Philip doesn’t know his own son. And for the audience, who watched Gabriel send Mischa away, Philip also doesn’t know his other son, whom he has never met, came looking for him.

Elizabeth and Philip are very isolated. They do have each other (as they confide in each other more, Philip especially)  but they are certainly floating around their own heads dragging around a crushing amount of weight.

It shows up on the kids. Henry leaves the (once again) empty house and brings leftovers to eat with Stan. They have what could only be described as a father and son scene when Henry tells him about a new girl he likes (and Stan even knew about a crush he has had on a teacher). Henry is way more open to a neighbor than he is his own parents. Paige answers the door to get a sales pitch from a Mary Kay sales rep and Elizabeth shuts it down quick. She is in no mood to have a walking, talking embodiment of capitalism (which comes up when she sees Paige reading about Karl Marx) at her doorstep. Paige is put off with how her mother wasn’t “very nice” to the rep. Elizabeth  Elizabeth’s mark can feel her anxiety and in one of the season’s most humanizing and grounding scenes, he teaches her Tai Chi.

Also, Elizabeth’s mark can feel her anxiety. In one of the season’s most humanizing and grounding scenes, he teaches her Tai Chi. Philip is haunted by his father and Martha. Elizabeth has her guilt with destroying Young Hee’s family last season.

It was a pretty dreary episode as a whole. Oleg might have had the better moments depending on how you weigh his day. It made rather big moves on his work, getting to a distributor in the food corruption scene. When he and his partner squeeze him for more information, he refuses and they take him into custody. He looks down (literally) at the man in his cell. Whether his work will amount to anything is debatable, but it is progress. When he goes home he destroys the evidence the FBI dropped on him in order to turn. Oleg has firmly made his decision on the matter.