4x09 My Realm: Becoming A Successful Travel Agent 101: tvhaven

kungfuwaynewho in tvhaven

4x09 My Realm: Becoming A Successful Travel Agent 101

Apr 07, 2013 19:56

The Cold War is over, but no one told Philip and Elizabeth Jennings. Determined to maintain their American cover, they find themselves required to take continuing education credits in order to renew their certification for their business. This takes them to Greendale Community College, where they enroll in...

Becoming A Successful Travel Agent 101
Capitalists (Jeff Winger, Shirley Bennett, Pierce Hawthorne) vs. Communists (Elizabeth Jennings, Philip Jennings, Britta Perry)

The Jennings had arrived in America with a cover occupation - travel agents - already intact. They never had any need of higher education, and indeed viewed it with some level of contempt, an opportunity for soft Americans to dabble in impractical, unnecessary courses, to become frivolous dilettantes. But a newly-passed state law required the Jennings to go college, to take a class that would assist them in their day-to-day duties. Greendale Community College had the most straight-forward class that fit that description: Becoming a Successful Travel Agent 101.

With their decades-long experience as travel agents, the Jennings figured the class would be easy as pie. What could a community college professor possibly teach them that they didn't already know? It turned out that the professor would teach them practically nothing. The other students, however...

Philip hit it off with Jeff almost immediately. On the surface, they seemed to have a lot in common: attractive professionals in the prime of life, men living the American dream to its fullest. Jeff couldn't know that Philip was struggling with that very identity, having difficulty reconciling his appreciation and satisfaction from the capitalist-bourgeois American dream and his loyalty to the Motherland. Jeff's odd relationship with Pierce Hawthorne, a man whose very existence seemed defined by Capitalism-with-a-capital-C, confused Philip even more.

Elizabeth felt that Britta was a kindred spirit in a way, and considered bringing her in as she had done with Gregory. The woman with high-minded ideals and limitless energy when it came to causes could be a valuable asset, under the right circumstances. But Elizabeth could never seem to get alone with Britta. Her friend Shirley was always there, too - the whole group seemed joined at the hip. And Shirley was a businesswoman, an entrepreneur, a capitalist as bad as Pierce - though in an entirely different degree.

Before too long, the Jennings found themselves not worrying so much about The Center, the KGB, undermining the imperialist regime of the United States - things like that. Instead, they found themselves worrying about things like paintball competitions, documentaries shot by a strange, strange boy, pizza in the cafeteria, and something called “pop-pop.”

Spending time with Pierce led Philip to question the worthiness of capitalism - how could such success lead a man to become so unhappy? Elizabeth ended up helping out in Shirley's Sandwich Shop, and was surprised to find that she enjoyed taking part of the most basic capitalist enterprise: the small-business owner. Somehow on opposite sides of their most serious long-standing disagreement, the Jennings were shocked to discover how much their time at Greendale had changed them. Elizabeth wondered if the American way of doing things was so bad after all; Philip rededicated himself to instilling good socialist values in his children, even if they didn't know that's what he was doing.

And the next semester, they signed up for another class. With the Greendale Seven, of course. The class itself didn't matter, as it didn't to Jeff, Pierce, Shirley, Britta and the others. What mattered was spending time with their new friends.