User Reviews

I couldn't believe when I started watching this, it was like someone stole my story. My husband and I traveled to Kazakhstan in February 2004 to adopt our daughter from a baby home in Kostani. Everything was spot on, from packing the bribes to give to the officials, to almost immediately after meeting our representative, she requested we handover our money. We were told to wear our best clothes to meet with the director first thing in the morning. After arriving at the baby home, we met the director and were given tea and a tour of the baby home. It wasn't until I last 15 minutes at the location that we were introduced to our daughter. She was eight months old at the time and for the brief time that we had her that first day, she would not look at us or did not act in the manner a typical eight-month-old baby is supposed to. We went back to our hotel and I broke down and told my husband there was something wrong with this child. His only answer to me was, "Is she, or is she not our child?" I'm happy to say that we had two more weeks of visitation time with her, and by the end of that first week she was learning how to crawl, and giggle, and lit up when she saw us. I just think it was such an overwhelming experience for her that first day. She is now a healthy, happy soon to be 16-year-old. I felt like it was an out of body experience watching this episode. Everything, was spot on about how the adoption process worked in Kazakhstan back 15 years ago. And the way the town was presented took me back as well. Every market had an armed guard. Our female judge was very intimidating, considerIng there was a lot riding on her decision. Our interpreter also told us that for the girls who are left in the baby homes, once they turn 16 so many of them turn to prostitution to survive. During our tour on that first day of the baby home, we walked into the three-year-old room and as soon as my husband turned a corner every one of those children looked up and said "Papa!"

Wow, so I experienced the same thing in Vietnam where they switched the baby and lied about the age and origin and everything, at what point does one see themselves as human traffickers and a mother wanting to love a child. Incredible episode along with how when a women gets to decide motherhood and a father in what is "fatherhood" being gay or being able to tell a women when to be pregnant or at what point identity and race play into the construct of being. Amazing story.

The most compelling and intelligent installment to date of The Romanoff's, this period piece takes us to the Russian Far East (Vladivostok) in 2008 and follows the story of an American Couple from LA who have scraped together $50,000 and flown to Russia to adopt a white, Russian baby after unsuccessful attempts to have their own. Having lived in remote parts of post-Soviet Russia myself, I am struck by the accuracy with which Matthew Weiner captures the mood of the Russian Far East in the dead of winter. There are some minor inaccuracies put in for effect, like a border guard with an AK-47 menacing arriving international passengers at the airport, but they don't detract from the edge of mood that foreigners visiting these remote areas find themselves with. The orphanage, the courtroom, the hotel, even the little convenience store are exactly as I would expect to find there. The dialogue in this episode is deep and the acting is excellent. The couple adopting the baby find themselves doubting their concept of the value of life. Alone together in a strange land, the situation drives them together and drives them apart at the same time. Annet Mahendru, the exotic beauty who played a KGB secretary/spy in The Americans, is outstanding as a translator/expeditor working for an adoption agency. The morning after I watched this episode, I felt as if I had just returned from a lonely trip to Vladivostok. On the surface this is just an adoption story, but on deeper levels it is a stinging commentary on post-Soviet Russian society and on the questions that prospective parents in our own society must face. I give it an A+.

WE are flooded with it: "Children are our future, they are the meaning of life, they are everything" . Sometime between the end of WW11 and when the baby boomers had grandkids. having kids and parenting became a national obcession, to be placed above adults even though they are simply going to become us. Was this because it is a noble thing to do ? No, to the contrary, if you are an American in particular , in a world w 7 billion having kids is actuallly the worst thing you could do for a world already choking to death on it's own vomit. No , boomers parents could have told you, and their parents and great great grandparents before them : all the hoopla was that so people could sell you stuff , it was a simple marketing scheme . In this piece, the "go to chick" to play the ugly friend Katheryn Hahn, plays a current day mom wanna be, who is so narcissistic she wants to get one by any hook or crook so that she can show the world. "I'm a mom, see, I am doing what you all want to do " even though , nobody cares... This movie makes me thankful for so many things - that I am in a relativly wealthy country, that I have nice family and friends, that I am healthy and most of all , I am not married to Kathryn Hahn. At the end the look on hubbies face tells it all. It can be interpreted differnly by differnt people, but the way I see it is he wishes he werent married to Hahn.