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Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

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Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#301

Post by matwood »

etc-hosts wrote: post #61
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #9

This is my semi annual plug for all of you to watch the fantastic and somehow forgotten FX network TV show, The Americans, A spy drama set in Washington DC in the 1980s about KGB “illegals” posing as travel agents. It’s way better than any basic cable TV show had any right to be. Plus, all seasons are streaming on Hulu, so you don’t have to worry about whether the story will be completed. https://www.hulu.com/series/…

I loved the show, but in retrospect, the premise of 2 Soviet spies being the most prolific serial killers in the history of the DC area without being caught is a bit weak. Masha Gessen did some work on making the spoken Russian be more authentic https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/translating-th... ( She must have given up on Keri Russell ) Peter Jacobson (FBI Agent Wolf) appears in comedy Russian TV show i…

It's estimated there are 25-50 serial killers active in the US at any given time. There are also around 6k new unsolved murders each year. The point is that a murder done by someone with no connection to the victim is very hard to solve.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#302

Post by tharkun__ »

robocat wrote: post #290
lazyasciiart wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least some of them certainly do record it. I have multiple passports and have had difficulties several times with an airline that has one of my passports listed, that doesn't show the right of entry to the other country and which I was not intending to use for that flight. Moreover, if you are travelling on a codeshare flight, for instance, all airlines involved will record your travel documents, but only the airl…

Is there a conflict between (a) wanting to exit a country using the passport you entered it on*, and (b) wanting to enter a flight using the passport you will exit on? * don't want to be recorded as an overstayer

That's a definite maybe!

Some countries make the airline need to know in advance whether to let you even board. Say the US with the electronic visaless authorization. You gotta give the airline your ESTA. Canada wants to know as well. So you need to have your PR card or Canadian passport on file or the electronic authorization.

But that doesn't stop you from entering Europe on a European passport. You can have your say Canadian passport on file and fly out on that. At the destination you show your European passport (smaller line ups and basically you are just waived through). You never show the Canadian passport in the EU on arrival. You have the Canadian one on file and show that when leaving so they let you board. Back in Canada you use your Canadian passport to enter.

This way you never get any visa stamps and you "fly through passport control" on either end.

So yeah, even if this is maybe used by "sleeper agents" it's also just normal for dual citizens.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#303

Post by brnt »

epolanski wrote: post #284
brnt wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the original was scoped and paced perfectly: no fluff, all action (of the suspensy kind), didn't wait for itself to peter out. The remake just drags on and on and on. Tons of irrelevant detail and uninteresting sidestories.

> Tons of irrelevant detail and uninteresting sidestories. That's how I felt about Succession for 3 seasons. I felt it just dragged and dragged and I couldn't understand what was the fuss. Then I started watching some YouTube commentary and starting to understand that the irrelevant and uninteresting was actually relevant and interesting. ATN, the succession, that was all bogus for character development, a setup. I f…

Oh I have no doubt that was the aim in the HoC remake. It just wasn't any good, unlike Succession. Not all character development and dynamics are interesting.

The scope and pacing in the original was just perfect. Just because you can layer on more, doesn't mean it's gonna make it better. Much was pure tedium and seemed to serve filling time first and foremost.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#304

Post by vundercind »

foobarqux wrote: post #277
cess11 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure you aren't confusing The Bureau with something else?

No. Every season ends on a cliffhanger that seems critical to the story and then is quickly resolved as if it were some minor point in the first episode of the subsequent season. This is the nature of this type of episodic television that runs for an indeterminate time and therefore has no real overarching story (but pretends to) like soap operas do. I only know of a few examples where writers escape this. The first…

Riverdale is that thing you hate but made the primary characteristic of the show. Especially past season 1.

They’ll set up what feels like a season finale in most episodes, then instead of resolving it in the next, quickly toss it aside or even just ignore it. It’s not good, and I would not recommend it at all, but it’s maybe the weirdest show I’ve seen.

I remain unsure whether the writers were aware they were writing one extremely-long joke about television writing, or if they thought it was actually good.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#305

Post by vundercind »

lencastre wrote: post #194
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't judge it by its first few episodes Strong advice for any show.

Except Community, and BoJaxk

Bojack ep1 is terrible but it immediately gets better, and it’s gold by the end of s1.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#306

Post by tharkun__ »

eastbound wrote: post #213
mmsc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would should both to the airline staff. "This is my ID I used, and this is my ID which allows me entry so you(the airline) won't have to bring me all the way back to my arrival point." Airline staff will not record this second form of ID: it's only to show the staff for a moment.

Okay, but spies, terrorists and tax evaders (or military duty evaders for Iran) with double nationality have been using the double-passport trick for over a century: Is it time that airlines feed their incoming passenger list to the destination authority? I mean… isn’t that built-in to the system already? I never supposed entering Thailand that I wasn’t already known to the Thai border police, who surely must have ch…

It's not even a "trick". It's just normal for dual citizens to make things faster.

Leave Canada on Canadian passport. You just get nods and wave throughs. Enter European country on EU passport in the smaller line (or nowadays automated border control stations). Just scan passport, (don't) smile for the photo and off you go. Flying back Canadian passport is on file and the CBSA just asks you some basic questions and waves you through.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#307

Post by Fnoord »

jackfoxy wrote: post #200
SoylentOrange wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Americans is a highly sensationalized and fictionalized retelling of the life stories of Elena Vavilova and Andrey Bezrukov. From a historical/accuracy perspective, there’s basically zero resemblance of the show and the source material beyond the premise. As drama, it excels in the drama around the marriage rather than the actual fact of them being spies, and has been praised as “fundamentally a show about a marr…

I watched the entire series, The Americans . It's thrilling and well-crafted television, but totally bogus as a representation of how illegals worked in the USA. Illegals were/are special assets that would never be concurrently running so many different operations and engaging in risky wet (i.e. assassination) operations right and left. More likely they would spend many boring years cultivating their positions in soc…

A good 101 on an illegal story is by Jack Barsky, on his own account. He wrote a book on it, there's various interviews with him, a podcast series (The Agent) and he got interviewed by Lex Fridman (#301). I recomment The Agent podcast series [1] on his (life) story. Also available on Apple Podcast.

[1] https://open.spotify.com/show/5DToOunQsM18OmGD5eVRXR

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#308

Post by pixl97 »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #55
temporarely wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most realistic Russian sleeper scenario imo was in Slow Horses. Brits don't insult your intelligence too greatly in their spook shows; the American variety always involves some sort of super-human characters. It's good as entertainment, the Americans, but just over the top.

Yeah but "the dogs" in Slow Horses is laughably out of control ridiculous at points...reaches out of your immersion in the interesting story to grab you, shake you, and declare what you're watching is absurd hyperbole. Very disappointed by that aspect and I hope they're done with that excess.

>is laughably out of control ridiculous at points

I mean this is just American politics in general.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#309

Post by jfengel »

garyrob wrote: post #26
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #9

This is my semi annual plug for all of you to watch the fantastic and somehow forgotten FX network TV show, The Americans, A spy drama set in Washington DC in the 1980s about KGB “illegals” posing as travel agents. It’s way better than any basic cable TV show had any right to be. Plus, all seasons are streaming on Hulu, so you don’t have to worry about whether the story will be completed. https://www.hulu.com/series/…

I want to give some advice: Don't judge it by its first few episodes. When I first checked it out, the basic setup seemed rather inane and I stopped watching. Then, a couple years later, I needed something to watch during long exercise sessions and I checked it out again. It was getting much more interesting by the end of the first season. And every season got better and richer. By the very end, I experienced it as a…

Thanks for the advice. I shut it off after one episode. I'll give it another try at some point.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#310

Post by jjtheblunt »

pixl97 wrote: post #308
jjtheblunt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but "the dogs" in Slow Horses is laughably out of control ridiculous at points...reaches out of your immersion in the interesting story to grab you, shake you, and declare what you're watching is absurd hyperbole. Very disappointed by that aspect and I hope they're done with that excess.

>is laughably out of control ridiculous at points I mean this is just American politics in general.

It's a show specifically about MI5 in Britain.
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