[Spoilers] Theory about Martha after "Travel Agents"

I was fully prepared for Martha to die this week. Since that didn't happen, I'll brace myself next week. Die she will. Sooner or later. To be honest, unless I was a high ranking KGB official or a citizen, living in the former U.S.S.R. would've been as good as death. Gregory chose death over moving to the Soviet Union where he would've been a celebrated hero and even Oleg hesitates to go back too much.

After that conversation, I got the impression that the plane was only for the rat, not Martha. We'll see.

Who knows. I find tatania one of the most inscrutable characters on the show - she has so many engmatic expressions.

I think Tatiana is pretending to help exfiltrate Martha, because Philip needs this to stay loyal. But higher-ups don't want the baggage. So they're keeping everyone clean who can't betray or be seen to betray Philip: Gabriel, Elizabeth, others connected to the Rezidentura. But something awful is planned. Maybe crash the whole plane somewhere to test/release the virus and let Martha die in a plane crash.

Since the whole Martha arc started back in Season 1 I fully believed that everyone but Martha would wind up dead. I'm finding it hard to hold onto that theory any more but I still really want to see her make it out alive. I have a feeling something will definitely go down with her and the rat on the flight.

I got the impression she was arranging that as well and I can't imagine that happening for any reason that doesn't end in tragedy. :(

I joked that the rat will travel to Russia in Martha's handbag, maybe in a paper bag.

"What's this?"

"Never mind, dear, just don't look in the bag."

The rat in the jar isn't going to infect anybody: It would be just silly to have it happen again. The one incident with Gabrial and the glanders served to show how dangerous the sample was and how difficult it was to contain it. But to have it happen again would be to imply that, somehow, things just can't be contained, and that would be absolutely silly. Dangerous pathogens are handled all the time and transported safely in containers.

With reference to the comment about getting a message to Martha's parents, I've been wondering about that in reference to a growing theme about 'patriotism.' To a large extent, characters justify the terrible things they do by seeing it in light of "the bigger cause." The older generation remembers the horrors of WWII for Russia. Arkady comes to terms with Nina's death by ultimately seeing her as someone who made one too many traitorous actions and therefore couldn't be protected.

Elizabeth certainly sees herself as fighting the 'global good' and the shared ideology was part of her relationship with Gregory. Gabriel calls William hard to handle, but ultimately a patriot. To take care of Martha would be seen as the right thing to do, and part of seeing the USSR as the noble cause. To not take care of Martha would call that into question. Phillip, obviously, has been questioning the cause since the first season, putting his family before ideology, and has does not see The Centre as always right. William has been his comrade in that and gives voice to his growing cynicism, but Phillip has occasionally pushed back as when he says to William that William would go home a hero and William replies 'in a box." That push back, it seems, comes somewhat from Phillip's commitment to Elizabeth, his choice of her, and her choice of 'the cause.' (The voice in his head says run, run, run, but she stays and so he stays.)

So, if Elizabeth's armor starts to crack a little -- and it has cracked a little over time -- the question of whether the Soviet state is honorable enough to justify these actions is a big question. We, as viewers, know more that they do...about what's really going on, about the impending fall, even about the kinds of internal issues that Oleg saw when he went home for his brother's funeral. But E & P actually haven't been back to Russia for decades. The Russia in Elizabeth's mind is a myth -- what happens when that crumbles? (if it crumbles).

So I'm speculating that conveying a message to Martha's parents is an example of "do the right thing" for Phillip, sort of like "let Elizabeth see her dying mother", and he kind of thing that The Centre should just do because it is the right way to take care o the ersatz family of KGB officers and honor their sacrifice. If they don't, it just pushes him away.

On the other hand for Elizabeth, who made the choice not to kill Martha when she had the chance, the belief that they will take care of her might also be real and a point of honor in the sense of the greater ideology of what she is fighting for. What happens if she sees at some point that the myth and the reality are not the same? I remember her rage at Claudia when Claudia set up "the test" of Phillip and Elizabeth's loyalty...but then Claudia is our older generation example of a woman who gave up a great love and suffers from world-weary cynicism and loneliness.

I'm just thinking that as we move forward in time to the actual unraveling of the USSR, the "is it worth it?" theme has to grow for her even more deeply since she has been the most committed to it.