This may be true, but the question that needs to be asked is why does Neil
constantly put his career on the line, especially after Laura's death.
Jeff thinks Neil is trying to get himself fired, and I think he's right. I
think Neil is not operating out of principle in the end; he's trying to
find a way out of his job. It's like an addiction to him. He can't live
with it, but he can't bear leaving because his self-worth is too tied up
with his job so he has to engineer his own exit. Willie,
I'll be interested in the responses to this - I feel I'd really need to
look at the post Laura eps again. Before Laura came on the scene, Neil
always found a way to do what he wanted rather than follow orders from
above. While we can feel the effects of Laura's death in Neil's growing
tension and depression, how many times does he do something on the job
that's all that different from his previous behavior?
I will say that the contrast of the last two episodes has always struck me
- Neil fighting to reclaim his job (one of my favorites), then totally
sabotaging it beyond redemption in the next episode. The extremity of it,
while in line with Neil's veiws about the Russians, seemed just a way to
create an end for a show that had lost its creator.
Gayle