Did it ever reveal why they were being followed in the first place?
They were being followed because they were observed staking out the house of one of the CIA Afghanistan team.
That, plus the fact that they were on the lookout for someone of a particular build who had (at least momentarily) had access to the names of the CIA Afghanistan team (the meeting with the embittered CIA analyst).
They’re going for a different kind of cringe now. Pedophilia cringe.
Fortunately they haven’t gone too far down this road, at least not yet. Part of this show’s great appeal is that we’re able to identify with Philip and Elizabeth even though we know they’re the “bad guys.” Turning Philip into and out-and-out pedophile would really risk breaking that connection. It’s also possible to read the episode’s final scene in a different way: Philip putting his arm around Kimmie in a fatherly way; using Kimmie as a substitute for his fears about Paige.
I think it’s quite clear that Philip is not actually a pedophile, but that he’s being forced to play one for espionage reasons. There’s been nothing about his approach to Kimmie that’s been fatherly. He’s doing all sorts of stuff to deliberately fit in with her crowd. Smoking dope, conspiring with them to get fake ID’s, emphasizing his youthful taste in music, liking hers, and pretending that bands that were definitely acceptable to teenagers in the 80’s was “cave man era” music.
It’s all intentional, since they picked Kimmie because she had a thing for their earlier CIA target, so she’s one of those teenagers with a fixation on guys in their 30’s. The previews made it crystal clear that it’s going to continue in that direction, with Kimmie saying things like “age is just a number.” The tension is very clearly going to be between Philip’s personal revulsion for sexually using a 16 year old and the needs of his mission.
In the preview, we also see Gabriel telling Philip that he has a conscience and that conscience can be dangerous. Undoubtedly that’s a reference to Kimmie, so we’ll see just how far he is willing to go. And I do think Philip’s worries about Paige are having an effect on his relationship with Kimmie. He didn’t bring that Yazoo album home to Paige for no reason.
I was all set to correct you on the band name, but I did my due diligence and discovered that indeed, Yazoo is the proper, original name, and that Yaz (as I knew them) was strictly a name for North America.
While they didn’t say, I halfway expect that the album that Kimmie was listening to when Philip talked music was Upstairs at Eric’s, and that’s how it first showed up on his radar. I don’t think he’d be aware of it otherwise. Not only is he really past the point where most people keep current on popular music, he doesn’t have time to listen to the radio.
Amazing 3rd season so far. I can’t believe how consistently great this show is; every episode is just fantastic. It’s a shame this show is ignored by the Emmy’s; I think the scenes with Elizabeth and Betty on this weeks episode would get Keri Russell an emmy.
That was a very good scene. I appreciate how quickly they both communicated, just a scatter of pills and all was told, with no annoying music in the background.
I didn’t even realize the counter ops title was the one Philip pretended to be. That makes Martha’s initial reaction so much more fitting.
That one word broke my heart. “Elizabeth.”
Renewed for season 4 and the FX boss recently stated in an interview that he sees the show getting at least 5 seasons. This is great news. Still, this show is under watched and under appreciated.
Assuming the show continues to follow the 80s calendar in real time, so to speak, it would be unrealistic to expect it to make it all the way to the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it looks like they have a shot at making it to Gorbachev. I’d love to see how they handle glasnost.
It may require Keri Russell to go back to curly hair.
That’s right! There was that period in the 80’s in which the tight-curly-hair permanent was all the rage, even for men. In Spanish my mom dubbed it the "fried beans hairdo (“frijoles fritos”).
I vote for bringing in Rebecca Gayheart instead. Now those were some curls.
Seeing Paige take in the scene at the end. Wow. This show is bananas.
That was pretty great–she’s no doubt thinking “OMG if only this clueless FBI guy KNEW!”
Holly Taylor (Paige) is only 15 and yet shows some dramatic chops well beyond that age. This episode was incredible in my view and one of the best things was how they let the big dramatic scenes just work. They didn’t stack on the heavy-handed dialogue or direction but just let the actors carry the scenes. Outstanding.
Agreed and they did a fantastic job of building tension without any dialogue in cutting back and forth between Philip and Elizabeth sweating it out at the office and Paige at home. When she finally picked up the phone to call Pastor Tim, it was a true edge-of-the-seat moment.