more talking about phillip jennings
So after writing the last post, the twenty minute walk home from work with Phil Collins on the headphones gave me some time to think EVEN MORE META THINKY THOUGHTS. I can't shut up.
In the last post I talked a little about Phillip and how he came face-to-face with the realities of the women in his life and how sex affects them. And it isn't how he sees sex: he thinks pedophiles are gross, he doesn't want to hear a recording of his wife having sex with another dude, he wants to show physical affection for his wife and doesn't understand why, even if their marriage was a construct, she wasn't content to go along with being a family and sleeping with her husband. She fucks men while looking demure and staying on top and never, ever letting them see who she is, but stripping herself bare for Phillip is something she does not want to do.
There's the pedophile in the mall when Phillip and Paige shop for shoes. Nothing happens; it's just a minor scare for his daughter and for him, the sort of threat that's present in mundane life. Philip isn't like that guy; that guy leers at little girls in tank tops and Phillip is disgusted by it. But he doesn't do anything about it; he could, and it would break cover because why would a middle-age travel agent be able to efficiently take down a big guy a head taller than him in the middle of the mall? Even his daughter doesn't want him to do that.
In the meantime, Elizabeth is the girl who the man who should have known better DID get to. And that man is in her garage and oh, if the Russians aren't going to torture him to death tomorrow then she wants the chance today. But Phillip doesn't know her history, and in the choosing of sides, he's thinking that picking Timoshev's side and selling out might just be the way to go. Because he is a man who tries to be decent and play by the rules, even in his odd double life, and he doesn't fully understand the men who are powerful and who don't play by the rules.
So in the garage when Elizabeth doesn't brain Timoshev with the tire iron and Phillip begins to grasp what happened to her, he's realizing that the type of man who preys on girls, who he thought was so foreign and so disgusting, is the man sitting in front of him. And this man is the one Phillip has been listening to, and thinking about siding with, and wondering aloud if Timoshev's life choices were good ones, and telling Elizabeth that he really likes the sound of being on Timoshev's side.
Except this is Timoshev's side. It isn't the safe wholesome American life accepted with a hefty paycheck. It's the life that flashed before his eyes when he considered what could have happened if his daughter had been out of his sight in the mall. It's the life that causes his own wife to turn on him with a knife in her hand when he suggests they should behave like married people do.
And in that moment he decides what side he's going to be on. He's going to side with the two women he loves so deeply. That means definitively killing the alternative, partly so Elizabeth can see who he fights for, and partly because right then, he is choosing what kind of man he is going to be.
In the last post I talked a little about Phillip and how he came face-to-face with the realities of the women in his life and how sex affects them. And it isn't how he sees sex: he thinks pedophiles are gross, he doesn't want to hear a recording of his wife having sex with another dude, he wants to show physical affection for his wife and doesn't understand why, even if their marriage was a construct, she wasn't content to go along with being a family and sleeping with her husband. She fucks men while looking demure and staying on top and never, ever letting them see who she is, but stripping herself bare for Phillip is something she does not want to do.
There's the pedophile in the mall when Phillip and Paige shop for shoes. Nothing happens; it's just a minor scare for his daughter and for him, the sort of threat that's present in mundane life. Philip isn't like that guy; that guy leers at little girls in tank tops and Phillip is disgusted by it. But he doesn't do anything about it; he could, and it would break cover because why would a middle-age travel agent be able to efficiently take down a big guy a head taller than him in the middle of the mall? Even his daughter doesn't want him to do that.
In the meantime, Elizabeth is the girl who the man who should have known better DID get to. And that man is in her garage and oh, if the Russians aren't going to torture him to death tomorrow then she wants the chance today. But Phillip doesn't know her history, and in the choosing of sides, he's thinking that picking Timoshev's side and selling out might just be the way to go. Because he is a man who tries to be decent and play by the rules, even in his odd double life, and he doesn't fully understand the men who are powerful and who don't play by the rules.
So in the garage when Elizabeth doesn't brain Timoshev with the tire iron and Phillip begins to grasp what happened to her, he's realizing that the type of man who preys on girls, who he thought was so foreign and so disgusting, is the man sitting in front of him. And this man is the one Phillip has been listening to, and thinking about siding with, and wondering aloud if Timoshev's life choices were good ones, and telling Elizabeth that he really likes the sound of being on Timoshev's side.
Except this is Timoshev's side. It isn't the safe wholesome American life accepted with a hefty paycheck. It's the life that flashed before his eyes when he considered what could have happened if his daughter had been out of his sight in the mall. It's the life that causes his own wife to turn on him with a knife in her hand when he suggests they should behave like married people do.
And in that moment he decides what side he's going to be on. He's going to side with the two women he loves so deeply. That means definitively killing the alternative, partly so Elizabeth can see who he fights for, and partly because right then, he is choosing what kind of man he is going to be.