That brutal scene with Vinter, where hes set on fire, is one of the rare times weve seen that kind of look on the faces of Philip and Elizabeth, where theyre truly distressed about something theyre involved with. What about this in particular really hits them?
Basically, theyre just party to something incredibly brutal. They become witnesses, and I think its stepping back and looking at your life and realizing what you do and what you witness. You touched on the idea about what your child might potentially go through. To me, the series always works best when we see the cracks. Theyre not super spies. Theyre not Jason Bourne. The interest lies in their faults. Its one of those moments where you do see the cracks. You do see it affect them. It makes it all the more real for [Philip] then.
We also see this big confrontation between Clark and Martha, which everybody has sort of been waiting for, as you said, a crack to show in that relationship. When he tells her, Is that enough, or do you need more than that? is he kind of saying to her, Do you really want to know whats going on?
Yeah, I think the beauty about the writing being so subtle is just before he says that, he says, I would do anything to protect you. I think what hes trying to do is warn her that if she were party to more knowledge, it would endanger her. My hope was that thats kind of what was gently relayed. Listen, if you need to know more, you can, but it might be detrimental to your health.
We do get a sense from that that he does genuinely, on some level, care about her. At least cares enough to put her in as little danger as possible.
He does. What comes with Martha is this incredible sense of guilt stringing an innocent along and manipulating her and using her life to his end. His beliefs are slowly diminishing. Its hard to play with someones life in that way, and then when the crumble begins, its a hard smack in the face when you realize what youve actually done.
