According to the showrunners in the interview Todd had with them: "It’s to the point where we, a few times, had to remind certain people on the show that this was a nice church. That there was nothing nefarious. They kept waiting, I think, for this minister to pull his mask off."

Despite my disgust with the Jared plotline (and to some extent with Larrick as super-spy), I did like some things in this finale. I agree for instance that Emmerich's acting was very strong as usual. I would like to note that my contention from last week, that Stan and Gaad were still on good terms, was vindicated…

I agree with you about all of this, except that there were episodes earlier in the season that were given A- that I thought were basically perfect TV.

It was properly highly rated (perhaps even a bit underrated in its first season) until it started going sideways the past couple eps (and then really jumped the shark with the Jared thing this time).

It was. And is.

Contra the claims of the showrunners, I don't believe for a second they intended Jared to be the killer when they shot that episode.

You bet!

I agree that this meme is overstated. But the most egregiously presented sexual assault I've ever seen in a film was inflicted by a gay man on a won in the French film Irréversible. That's not real life, of course; but neither is this show.

In the U.S., giving sanctuary to left wing Salvadorans. I suspect this might come up on the show in the church Paige is attending: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…

I wouldn't call them "deep personal feelings", just my observation from a distance combined with my leftish politics. Bill DeBlasio OTOH, went to Nicaragua, worked with the Sandinistas up close, continued to vouch for them all the way AFAIK, and is now the mayor of NYC. He doesn't strike me as a totalitarian or…

Wouldn't he just assume that the child of the KGB agents who were blackmailing him would be important to the KGB?

My parents were part of the El Salvadoran sanctuary movement, so not quite true. And then there was Congress, that got very exercised about the illegal mining of Nicaraguan harbours.

Okay, so it's not spreading wildly across the Internet at least.

Todd, you said Stan's "relationship with Gaad has deteriorated to the point where his boss won’t even look at him when they’re having a quick conversation". I could see how that one scene could be read that way in isolation, but does it really make sense in the context of recent episodes? Wasn't it just last week…

Right. And though I initially dismissed this out of hand, I'm starting to worry that it could actually be the way they go. It would be a bit of a shark jump so I hope not.

I too heard it on another board (perhaps the same one) a couple weeks back and said it was ridiculous there. It seems slightly more plausible now with some of the things they've revealed, but I hope they don't go there.

SDMB?

Do you have a DVR? You hear about a good show, you enter the name of it, tell it to record it automatically. The network then is basically irrelevant.

Gregory was basically atop the Most Wanted list, so you have to get him behind the Iron Curtain.

Genevieve was puzzled by this too, but my interpretation was like H. Maddas: simply that he had lost Elizabeth and Jared was the only lead he had left.