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.