Welcome to the Parenting Roundabout podcast. I'm Terry Morrow and I'm Catherine hileco. As parents and parenting writers, we can't help but see everything through a parenting lens. But as our kids have become adults, we find ourselves more interested in getting caught up on movies and streaming than on going over the same parenting topics over and over.
So, since we're pretty sure we can find parenting wisdom anywhere, we're going to talk about what we're watching, what we thought about it, and maybe what we can learn from it, if only what not to do. Watch and listen along, and let's all make like we're doing something important for our families. Each Tuesday we bring you our thoughts on a newer entertainment property, and for this week of July twenty ninth, we're continuing with A Gentleman in Moscow, a
limited series on Paramount Plus. This one was called Good Times. How good were the times?
Well, there were a lot. It was a long time, so some of them were good, right, right.
We had a romance in the kitchen, Yeah, which was sweet, especially with this sun like observing as this went down.
Yeah, that was very sweet and unexpected, and we ever had any kints or mentions of that previous to this episode.
I don't think so.
It could be so like encompassed like ten.
Years, right, it was quite a lot of time, yes.
Yeah, so plenty of time. He could have started at the beginning of the ten years and he had had his nerve up by.
The end of them, so right, yes, something like that.
So well, by the end of the ten years they had a kid, So it's six years or so. I don't know.
No, they didn't have a kid. That was her son from before.
No, but I think there was. She was holding it oh.
Right, right right, yes, at the very end. Then there was baby, yes, or a toddler.
Correct, the older her son of her pre existing son looked on from the kitchen. Yes, not the only child introduced into this stool.
Yes, I was waiting for oh little so.
Oh my goodness, happy to meet you, Sophia, but so sad about the circumstances. Yes, yikes. That took a turn. Yeah, I mean that could have been anticipated, but still was especially heartbreaking.
I mean I anticipated it because I read the book. Yeah, but I don't know that. Did you feel like you had hints that that was coming?
Well, I mean, you knew she was going to this place that Misha, Yeah, that Misha then said is not a good place, and why so you kind of figure she's going to get a rude awakening. But I didn't think about it that far ahead. She would have married and had a child, be you know, basically coming to the hotel to say goodbye to the count before she
went and died. That's what it seems like. So it's yeah, I didn't know what was gonna come of that, but I didn't have I didn't have real good feelings about it, even before Mische told his story. When she's just just me and my comrade's gonna go right farms, he'll be great. Yes, discussed in past I think last week. Oh sweetie, you're so young, yes, yes, and so impressionable to really bad ideas.
Right.
You know, who would have thought that if you kick all the farmers off the farms, that that might be trouble grown food?
Yeah, these are the good times.
They made sure to say that in the hotel, right, people still had food. Right in the hotel, everything was good as long as you didn't cross anybody, right, which good luck with that, yes, exactly. You know, even if you are an American newspaper person, you know what to what information? Not even in an elevator. Yikes, that was that was unfortunate. That really was and uh not not good times by the end there it's yeah, I mean the contrast in terms of his his enjailment, he seems
to be coping fine. It's become a waiter, yes, which is hilarious, right, but that's where all his friends are anyway, so why not? Yeah?
Yeah, And in the book, I feel like he made a lot more use of his secret room. Although in this episode we had Misha hiding in there, so yes, that was important, but I felt like he was he was always there and having parties and you know, just full, you know. But also in the book, in the book, it did make it seem like his main you know, his initial room was very teeny teeny yes, you know, far smaller than what they've got here.
So and he got a fake camera in there.
Yeah, exactly. And I don't know how they'll do this. But in the book, I mean, who knows if this is a spoiler for what's coming, but it's it's not important. In the book, there was so little room that he elevated his bed somehow with you know, books or something something to lift it off the ground, and he put Sophia in the bed and he's lept on the floor under the bed.
Oh my god.
He made like bunk beds for them.
Yeah, I thought maybe he would put her in the little hidden room since I don't know is she's supposed to be there. Well, we'll see, yes, yes we will.
So, yeah, we'll see how how they handle that in this.
But that's you know, after all the tragic things you saw coming, like you know, Misha wasn't gonna be long for the show that I didn't see that quite coming, in that detail of there being a new little child there for him too, well grandparents at this point, I guess, right, Yes, she looks like she's wtf is going on here?
Yeah, she's pretty yeah, pretty shocked or pretty yeah, pretty just you know, traumatized, Yes, exactly, because I imagine things haven't been so great for her either.
No, dad got arrested, and yeah it is it is a real I mean, even though good times, but there is a certain amount of shelter and remove in the hotel. Right, you're not seeing this stuff firsthand, you know, it's happened and you're being told about it, but your little world, you know, when somebody's not threatening your friends with death, if you don't spy on other people and all that, but still comparatively good times.
Right, And then there's the whole you know, camaraderie among the yes, I use the word comrade among the staff, and yes, you know they're not so far you know, riding each other out and turning on each other in the way that.
The one guy got pulled out in a way that did not suggest he was going to be coming back to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I worry about them. They have it too good. Yeah, yeah, this is true, so to speak. But it was I I am glad that after that original scene of Nina coming back with her friends and being you know, the Nina, same Nina as at the end of the previous Yeah, humorless and not lovable, right, that she came back and was so
sweet and so much showing signs of her old self. Right, And that lovely little time with.
Him that's seen when they were up on the roof and yes, she just lays her head on his shoulder and then he Yeah, very very sweet.
That was lovely and it was such a such a father daughter moment between them. And you know, he says to her, the importance of good posture and manners is timeless. He must also refrain from rolling our eyes. All those who have said that to children of a certain age is your hand. Yes, and she says, we must respect our gray haired elders. Yes, dang right and sweet and
don't you forget it. Oh, And then he says the heart must always be a priority, which maybe not such good advice as it turns out, but still, I don't know. It's hard in a situation where you know things are perilous and probably never going to be right to still, you know, buck up a young person, and you know you want them to remember the things that are important. But at the same time, remembering the things that are important can be costly, as they turned out to be
for Misha. And yet you can't really just let them go. It's difficult. It's difficult shepherding, shepherding kids or even oneself through that sort of time, which to some degree has resonance today. Yes, that's probably any time.
Right.
I was amused that at some point his jailor what oh sip right said the classic line which Brian Grubb, who's a writer we both enjoy, often makes jokes about, is the line we're not so different to you. Yeah, we's got to see him with his family and his own surly teen that's right, popp It, and his disapproving wife like you know, how dare you bring work to the table here, even though you know work his life
right at this particular period in history. Yeah, so we are meant clearly to have a little sympathy for that dude, even though he is sometimes quite unsympathetic. Even the bad guys have children who don't listen to.
Who don't appreciate getting a birthday cake in a hotel.
And wives who disapproved. Yes, oh my goodness, she was a little icy. So it's interesting where it will go from here. Probably nowhere good, but perhaps with little, uh, little bits of happiness in there.
Yeah. Well, now we have another little.
Kid, that's right. I bet she would enjoy bread with honey up on the roof.
She probably is gonna have to.
If she wants to eat. Yep, I'm gonna get probably can't go to the dining room. We'll see. So you said, this encompasses forty years in.
All that's kind of just a stab. That's a guess.
I think we've gotten ten at this point, maybe more.
Probably more, because maybe more like fifteen.
I think it was six thousand some days at the end, so it must have been ten at the beginning, and then it went up by that. Anyway, right time, it'd be moving along.
It'd be moving along. Yeah. I mean we've seen Emil and Marine, the chef and Maria that, you know, have a whole relationship a kid, and that kid was like arms right, that kid was like two or three. So yeah, I'd say maybe it was around ten at the beginning of the episode, and yes, fifteen by the end or something like that.
Yeah, I think it was a six year jump at the end, so well, good for them, happy to be spared all the individual indignities of those six years. Just get them as a lump, right. But hmm, yeah, there's a.
Lot of more to go.
I mean, yes, I know. That's something I was at the end of this after they took that big leap. I said, there's still four more episodes really only half done.
Yeah, well there's yeah, there's some big, big stories still to come.
Yeah. Yeah, huh, so doesn't sound like the actress's career is going to be going anywhere good, so going to have been going so I wonderful. We'll see her again, probably in less posh circumstances. Well, Sie, she seems like kind of a survivor.
Yes she does, so good for you, Mary Elizabeth Twinston.
I like the like the brown hair instead of the blonde. I think it suits her. We got a little bit more backstory on what happened with the Count's sister. That's right. There was a whole guy killed in a duel. So it wasn't just that he sent Michael away and then she killed herself. It was she then got involved with a bad dude who the Count had to kill, is what it seems. Yes, there were two appeared to be two actors there, one shooting the other, and they both looked identical to me, so.
Yeah, and they they were extremely blurry and yeah, you know, made it very difficult for you to believe, you.
Know, sure one of those dudes is the Count and the rather what is the boyfriend.
Right, who abused her in some way, you know, I mean like, yeah, she was like beaten up, so.
Right, so more to come on that, I mean, yes, but not from conversations with Misha, I suspect could be wrong. I didn't think he'd be coming back from being taken outside, but you never know, right, And I also enjoyed at one point Misha said, where does it end? If everyone accepts the lies and only thinks of themselves? What kind of world are we left with lies upon lies until the truth ceases to exist? And that is something you
need to teach to your children. Is very difficult, especially in a time when everybody is accepting the lies and only thinking of themselves. How do you you teach them good values? And you know if it's gonna harm them? So yikes. Right, Fortunately it was only that time when this happened, and never never wrustle with that particular issue. Sure, So what is the title of the next one? Can we anticipate from it whether the times will be good or bad or indifferent?
So next Tuesday we'll talk about episode five and it is called an Arrival. So I don't know if that's more referring to the arrival of Sophia the little girl that that really happened at the end of this episode that we just watched, or if there's some other other stuff happening. We'll see and we'll see you back here tomorrow for a discussion of the two thousand and four series Lost Lost, speaking of time moving in irregular ways.
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