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 I'm 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 August fifth, we're continuing with A Gentleman in Moscow, a limited series
on Paramount Plus. So this one was called an Arrival, and it focused, as we might have guessed, on the arrival of Little so Fia. I don't remember in the book it being as much of a whole thing, you know, getting her permission to stay. But I could be wrong about that. I don't know.
I didn't do the fun bed thing that you were talking about, right, But it.
Was very cute when the counts or Alexander let's call him, set up a bed on the floor for her, and she just jumped into the real bed and he was.
Like, wait to go sweeay, I think we've established pretty clever girl.
Extremely yes.
Yeah.
Also in the book, they did not confirm that Nina had died in Sibea. Really that was so sad. They just were like, she never came back.
Oh yeah, yeah, well we saw that that seemed to be a likely outcome.
Yeah, I mean, it was certainly implied in the book. But wow, yeah, this one was a.
The one who has been narrating all along, right, Yes, it was like it's called an arrival. But the departures were just, oh my gosh, those two boys going off to war. Oh yes, I don't foresee a better end for them than for Nina. Alas, we'll hope for the best, but oh gosh. And they're so excited, right, as was Nina when she left originally the first time.
Yeah, and their parents are so like, we know what's going on in the room.
No, yeah, oh man, that's heartbreaking.
Yes, that's so hard.
To I mean, even if you don't more or less have a certainty about the tragic outcome, it's hard to just see kids going off to do dangerous and uncertain things, right.
When they're so psyched. This is gonna be great, right, look.
At my cool hat, my awesome uniform.
And you can't tell them no, absolutely no, I forbid it. But at the same time, boy, do you want.
To Yeah, my mom tried.
Try to keep you down on the farm.
Why would you want to go?
It's so nice here, right, because I am of a certain agent shut up. So that was tough. That was just really heartbreaking. The boys and then Nina at the end just I but so the I wasn't sure, but I read a right up of the episode that confirmed for me that Weasley Hotel assistant manager is the easily waiter with a promotion.
I thought so too, and I was I was meaning to check.
They did aging up that actor just enough that you like, he seems like the same brand of weasel right in fact, and indeed according to uh the website I read anyway, which I believe was screen rant it is.
I also suspected that, so, yeah, I believe it.
Man, can somebody like accuse him of something that will get him dragged away. It doesn't have to be true, it'll be fine.
Yeah, yeah, not good, not good.
And I also fear now for the actual hotel manager who put his I mean he got coverage, but still right bucked this weasel. Yeahls can be vicious, that is true, both the human and the animal kind. Ah, but what a what a change in his routine. He had a routine down that he he liked even in his little confinements there, and now he's a dad.
It's like a miss.
It's like mister mom, you know, like all of a sudden he has to know how to calm hair, he has to know how to you know, play a game.
He has to go and fetch the doll that got left somewhere.
Yes, it's just uh, suddenly there's all this stuff I did.
I loved, you know, the game. Like he's trying to read this book because his oh, Sid the jailer is expecting him to read it. And he's like.
Let's play the quiet game.
That doesn't work.
And then count to two hundred. That is a very familiar strategy.
Man, Yes, good try. It did not work because Sophia is way too smart for that, but.
See what you need, what you need to do.
Their account is you take her down to the toys r us and you set her in front of a back of cars and you sit and read your book, which is what I used to do with my son.
Doesn't have that for very many reasons.
You don't say that, not that that's what you find something she's interested in. Pretend like you're doing it for her, right, and read the book. Yeah, yeah, how fun. The thing I was reading was mentioning that he had a similar fun relationship with Nina, but he wasn't responsible for her twenty four to seven. They went, they had their fun, and then she was somebody else's responsibility. But Sophia is with him, right, it has to be responsible for her twenty four to seven.
And it's a burden.
Yeah, I mean it's it's like with Nina, he was the absentee dad or the grandparent or the uncle, but with.
The fun, but with exactly.
But with Sophia it's like, yeah, she's yours.
Yes, he's a parent now.
And it didn't take long for her to, you know, for him to be like, no, she cannot, I'm not giving her up.
No, I'm so glad they were able to orchestrate that, because boy, did the other solution not sound promising.
Right.
It's like anytime a young person leaves this hotel, we're going to go on huh right, even that young actress. I'm very glad that that Anna thought better of it and taught her some tricks. Yeah, right, before she goes off with whatever Skidy.
Fellas she goes off with.
But yes, Anna taking on the motherly role in a couple of ways that she didn't she didn't want to do, but she did.
Yep.
You identify the time of life and you're you're in whether you want to be in that time or not, and you.
Just go with it. It's so much easier.
Many of us have had that time where it's like wait, no, I'm here, No right?
What? Yes? And we had Olga too, you know, like when's the last time you washed that child? Puts her in the bathtub right away.
That was very sweet because she's she's been so sort of disapproving of him, Yes, but has a soft heart for lost little girls, apparently because it seems like she possibly saved Anna at some point right from a less promising fate.
So she turns out to be good?
And who was it? Was it? The It wasn't the manager. Was it the manager of the hotel that she was with in the bathtub? Oh? Yeah, I don't know.
I couldn't tell. You knew it was somebody. We probably should know who that was, but I couldn't. I don't think recognize him.
I don't think it was. Yeah, I don't remember who.
I thought it was maybe some official of some sort, but it surely was supposed to be somebody that we recognized.
Yeah, no, it was a hotel person. Okay, it might have been the manager, just because that scene where the you know, the orphanage lady came to pick up Sophia and there was just that wonderful series of looks, you know, from Alexander to Anna to the manager, to the Minister of Culture guy to like everybody. It was just beautiful.
That's true.
So let's let's assume that the manager is getting a little oohsome right exactly doesn't get them, doesn't get them the sweet they want. But still, you know, there's only so much a man can do.
All right, He's surrounded by weasels.
And you know, like I feel like the second floor suite is probably just as nice as the.
Thirtieth it's better than the twentieth floor suite to the count is in. Yeah, but kudos to that actor who plays the waiters slash assistant manager, because man, you don't have a lot of lines, but he just oozes yes, loathsomeness right, quiet, officious loathsomeness.
And flustered fire at the end. Wait a minute, you got played, sir? Still there?
Yeah, but he's going to be trouble.
Yeah, yeah, we got it.
We gotta frame him for something and get him shipped off someplace. As it is, he's just gonna be coming back up like a bad penny.
Yeah.
But I did appreciate the way we were talking last week about Osip having his own surly teen and disapproving wife, and that certainly informed his appearance in this episode. You know, okay, you didn't read because of the kid, I too have perhaps had that.
Right, I get it, man, but do better, but just for now.
Yeah, it's kind of a father to father moment, right. Well, we have to, we have to be charitable with one another in such situations. There's definitely a time in your life when getting from one end of a book to another is a monumental challenge.
Exactly, especially especially when it's Anna Karenina or whatever it was, because he started trying to read it so like, no, not appropriate for like a five year old.
I read Anna Karenino when we were in Russia to adopt our kids and we were like stuck in an apartment and the adoption wasn't going through, but we weren't going to leave without them, right, and so we just had this dead period sort of like you know, the counts passed. Sure, we were just sort of stuck in this apartment because we had no transport, independent transportation. We just and so I thought, oh, this is what I'll do, is I'll read this Russian book, this great Russian book, and man.
Is it depressing longing to.
Get me out of this country now.
I think I also.
Read Smellless Sense of Snow on that trip, which is also I don't know if you ever read that.
I did not fun vacation reading.
Yeah, it's been a long time, but from what I recall, Hi, I get that.
I needed to have brought myself like a suitcase full of romances, mystery novels and no Anakar in it right. Things that are yeah, resolved. I, well, that's what happened to be in the apartment.
So I guess the lady we were staying with and read it too.
And this is what in English?
Yes, it was in English, I did sadly, I did not speak any Russian. Had I been better informed ahead of time, I would have learned some. But it was Oh, no, you don't need to. We have people there who speak English, and your kids don't speak, don't talk yet, so it doesn't matter, right, it mattered.
Yeah, it would have been good.
Yeah, Alexander kind of being an adoptive parent here.
So that's right.
Absolutely, with no no home steady because he never would have passed one.
No, he doesn't even have a running water.
No, I guess he has.
I guess he has water, but he doesn't have a bathtub of any kind.
Fortunately, though, he's got a better choice of babysitters than Michael did on the island. Yes, he's got that going for him.
Yes, he's basically got the whole hotel staff working for him and mixed up for the weasel. Everybody else is on his side, and and Olga and Anna. Yes, he's assembling the quite the family for Sophia.
So he is, which is lovely and sort of what the book slash show I imagine is about. You know, you make the worst of situations good people helping good people and forming bonds and family. Yeah, good luck with that until until the weasel comes for you, in which case when your kids go off to be killed, right at least at the moment until next week, that's right.
Well, next week, speaking of, we will discuss episode six of A Gentleman in Moscow. It's titled the Fall.
Oh yikes, well, we wonder does that mean possibly the fall of the weasel for grace that I would enjoy? Does it mean the fall of somebody off the roof? That would not be good? It'll probably be something much more tragic and heartbreaking than that.
We will find out.
Well, falling off the roof would be pretty much tragic, now, Yes, the weasel take in a fall would not be heartbreaking at all. Non fact yay, Maybe the elevator goes out and somebody doesn't realize it.
Now, well, we'll see. So we'll do that next Tuesday, and tomorrow we'll be back here for a discussion of Lost.
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