selenak

In which the Elizabeth and Philip who aren't British Royals are back, Gorbachev is General Secretary, and the end, my friend, is near. Also, Arkady Ivanovich is BACK, and I know at least one person on lj whom this is going to make very happy indeed.

Especially since Arkady this time actually was given something important to do, narration-wise, which he hadn't been since the second season. Who'd have thought then, when there was so much irritation between him and Oleg the newbie at the Rezidentura, that the reunion between him and Oleg would one day make us (well, me) feel all sentimental and verklempt? Anyway, one aspect of this final season I immediately loved was that our Russian characters not only finally get to interact with each other - the only time before when one of the Rezidentura Russians got a scene with either of Our Antiheroes was a) Elizabeth calling Arkady on the phone, but that wasn't even a conversation, and b) Philip seeking out Arkady about Paige -, but that each of them, including Philip, in different ways gets called to action by appeals to their patriotism. All the way back in the pilot we got the "to defect or not to defect?" conversation between Philip and Elizabeth, and a great many professional reviewers thought thereafter it was inevitable that this was going to be the central conflict. (Spoiler: it wasn't.) Not least because Philip is more adjusted to US life. But Philip enjoying (when he's not struggling with the long time effect of being a professional killer or his family life) his existence as Philip Jennings never did translate into Philp thinking the US itself was just grand. (As opposed to, say, the unfortunate dissident he kidnapped.) So the fact that Philip, too, just like Oleg (by Arkady) and Elizabeth (by New Russian General Character) gets the "do it for the future of your country" speech - and that what's good for the future of the Soviet Union is very differently seen by Oleg & Arkady than it is by New Character, Claudia, and, presumably, Elizabeth makes for a far more interesting seasonal conflict than a rerun of "to defect or not to defect" would have been.

Mind you: it's a bit depressing to reflect on the fact that while in the short term, Perestroika wins, in the long term, the reactionary forces within the KGB triumph. I have no idea what Elizabeth would think of fellow KGB agent Putin. Presumably she'd approve of him having made Russia feared again, but otoh she's a genuine believer in Socialism, and so I think she'd be appalled by the corruption, the oligarchy, the sponsoring of right extremists all over the globe, the alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church. This is not the future she wanted for her country any more than Perestroika is.

Back to the show; we're still before the fall of the wall, so what New General & friends are planning can't yet be the coup attempted which failed but did trigger the end of the Soviet Union. So presumably they will be foiled (for now). Given the way we've seen the relationship between Philip and Elizabeth strengthened (despite all the various trials and crisis) through five seasons, however, I need more than just "Elizabeth refused to talk to Philip because she's too tired when he attempts to tell her about the conversation with Oleg" if we're to see a scenario where Philip actually goes go through with spying on Elizabeth. So here's hoping against the odds that either they do talk and that's the reason why the current coup attempt will be foiled, or we're given some more reasons why, given they've both seen the damage NOT confiding into each other has caused before, they would make this mistake again.

Oh, and also: Paige practicing junior spying skills, though still with the naivete of not guessing her mother would go after the unfortunate guard and kill him; I hope we hear something about what Paige thinks about Gorbachev, given at this point he's all over the US news while her mother and Claudia are simultanously trying to sell her on the Soviet Union as socialist paradise, albeit an embattled one.

Incidentally, the scene of them watching a subtitled Russian tv show (or movie); my favourite detail was Elizabeth afterwards, once Paige has left, saying to Claudia "I can't believe what Moscow looks like today". Because the truth is, Elizabeth hasn't seen Moscow - or the rest of her country - for decades. She hasn't much of an idea of what it is actually like in the present; she's spying and using herself up for an ideal, which has always been the case, granted, but the difference to reality is something that becomes impossible not to notice. Especially now when she's hearing that part of the upper hierarchy is plotting to take out the General Secretary. (Not news in Russian history, but still begging the question - who to be loyal to? Who really embodies this ideal?)

In other fannish news: this obituary of Philip Kerr, whose death I wrote about some days ago, goes into more detail than the Guardian one I linked earlier.

Also, I've known I liked the current Speaker of the House of Commons ever since he declared the Orange Menace, should he visit Britain, would NOT get invited into Parliament, but my distant affecton for Mr. Bercow got strengthed by him dressing down Boris Johnson yesterday. Britain's version of the Orange Menace and Foreign Secretary was as obnoxious as usual in ridiculing his Labour counterpart by calling her "Lady something" instead of her name, and Bercow calling him out on this was just beautiful to wach. Enjoy:

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legionseagle

I learned of Philip Kerr's death by a tweet from his widow, Jane Thynne, and only made the connection with the author about whom you'd written admiringly with a little digging. Jane Thynne was in my year at college, though I don't recall speaking to her much if at all - she read English, and was beautiful rather than pretty(she got into some trouble with the proctors when cast as Diana Spencer in a topical skit called "Don't Do It Di" by one of the Oxford drama socs which was pulled as being too disrespectful, after she'd had her hair cut in THAT style, so she got stuck with people thinking she had done it for sycophantic rather than satirical reasons) and then I found myself sailing across the English channel from Brighton to Boulogne with her father, who found my friends and colleagues hilarious (it was a "milebuilding" weekend organised by our Yachtmaster theory tutor, and only me and Mr Thynne were actually interested in racking up mileage - the other three just fancied a cross-channel booze cruise with the adventure of doing it under sail) so it was one of those, "Sorry to hear someone you knew of and what you knew, you liked had been widowed young" moments.

selenak

It really can be a small word sometimes, with not even six degrees of separation.

...I'm v. impressed you sailed the English channel in a hands-on way, though. The one time I crossed it by boat, and it was a solid ferry, I still felt a bit queasy.

I've sailed across it several times; the scariest time was in fog. The big problem, really, is the traffic: they have a traffic separation scheme like a motorway (big ships drive on the right) which small vessels have to cross at right angles, and being in the middle of it always made me think of Ged sailing Lookfar down the Dragons' Run.