The Family Flynn
@proflucypreston sent me this through tumblr's messaging system:
Okay but real talk: did Flynn + family live in Croatia or in America? I assumed they lived in America because English. In the small scene we got (be still my heart), Lorena and Iris had American accents, so idk. Hit me up with your thoughts.
Which is such a very, very good question that I had to make a post about it. And tag it. Because this has bothered me for a LONG time, but there remains no clear-cut answer-- despite the flashback in the finale. So I'm making a post to present my evidence and ask for any opinions. Please do offer yours if you are reading this. Yes, you, person I speak to all the time. But also you, person I have never spoken with before. If you have a thought on this, I'm all ears.
No joke now. The setup for Flynn's family (and even his current citizenship) is a major cluster... mistake. lol. It contradicts itself at every turn. It always has. I feel like it would be a tremendous help if they told us how Flynn met his wife. Because before the flashback in the finale, I had pieced together a rather different theory for his family's nationality.
Yes, Flynn worked with the NSA (an American organization), but in the Pilot, he was specifically said to be an “ex-NSA asset !IN! Eastern Europe.”
In.
In Easter Europe. In. ...In.
But there is a little contradiction over his exact role. His file listed on the television screen in that same scene says his rank was a covert operative and he worked within the NSA department. Tidbit: The original Pilot script said he was an ex-NSA operative. A change was made from “operative” to “asset.” This... may... have to do with Goran’s own origin following casting. Let the record reflect this intentional change.
But because they never said outright, I still can’t definitively conclude if he worked in/lived in America. Intelligence thought, quoting Agent Christopher, that prior to his appearance at Mason Industries, Flynn was, "holed up in Chechnya," a place in Europe. And from there on, clarity never really gets better. Regular agent or asset?
In 1.06, Flynn said that his "old pals at the NSA" outsourced some surveillance to a group he worked with. Later, he says he flagged the suspicious transfers he found to his "NSA contact." Again, he sounds like an asset, not an agent.
Also in 1.06 we got his family's names. Obviously, I looked up "Lorena." It can be used as an English name, but has more popularity in Spain, Italy, and (of all places!) Croatia. So I thought, with an understandable amount of confidence, "Oh, maybe his wife was Croatian as well."
At the end of 1.08, Agent Christopher specifically says Flynn went to work "with the NSA," not "for the NSA." Yes, that's an important enough distinction for me to mention. Shh.
For reasons like the above, I always considered that Flynn was not an outright NSA agent but was, as they said, an Eastern European asset. In Eastern Europe. He worked with/for a nondescript group that the NSA outsourced jobs to. I even leaned more towards believing that he and his family lived in Europe. It made the most sense. However, I was thrown the occasional curveball, like Flynn's very obvious and often-pledged patriotism to America. So I still couldn't decide if he is now an American citizen or not. But, granted, his mother was American. There's no way he did not carry some sort of interest towards it. (Psst. Hint: He likes the American cowboy fantasy. He likes Colonel William Travis, one of the men responsible for the annexation of Texas, his mother's home state.)
Another curveball, the writing on his wife and daughter's tombstone is in English. Only two words, but two words of English. That may simply be a consideration for the audience (if it were chiseled in Croatian, we would only have the names to go on and guess with) or it could be because they died in America. There just isn't enough to work with.
And then... the finale happened. We had the flashback scene with his family. They're all speaking English. His wife and daughter have American accents. And I honestly don't know what to make of it. Three months later, I don’t know. Like I said, I had evidence-supported conclusions going on without incident and that scene really threw me. ...I got nothin. I have failed you.
I don't think it's a leap to say the writers don't put a lot of thought into backstories sometimes. Well, they do, but not Flynn's backstory. And especially not Flynn's backstory with concern to his family. We probably aren't meant to be putting it under a microscope. Because it does, very easily, begin to unravel on itself.
Evidence does support that they lived in Europe, specifically Eastern Europe (but not specifically Croatia itself). Due to her accent, Lorena may have been American. The best I can personally come up with is that (through marriage or application) Flynn has dual citizenship. (Like Goran himself.) Especially if he is going to be tried in an American military court. He is American. He works for America. He did not live in America. They did not live in America. But no matter where they lived, Iris was most likely being raised bilingual. (I know it is very important to Goran that his children speak Croatian-- and without an American accent. He is proud of his heritage.) The fact Iris shared her mother's accent affirms the obvious: she was her primary source for learning English. It's equally likely she spoke some Croatian with a Croatian accent, taught by her father. Perhaps they had future intentions of moving to America, thus why they spoke in(/practiced?) English. (But also, you know, consideration for the English speaking audience.) Flynn worked for America. It's logical he would soon progress to working in America, living in America. But in 2014 they were still living in Europe? Lorena's family claimed the bodies to be buried in America? Maybe... ugh... Maybe they were already living in America, but Flynn still worked primarily in Europe because his contacts there made him a better asset. Maybe that’s why Rittenhouse (an American-based organization) didn’t attack him for four days, waiting until he returned home? Because he worked in Europe but lived in America? (Do you see how messed up this whole thing is?!)
That is my best theory. I can do no better. I made the pieces fit as best I could. I know I based a fair amount of it on Goran's own life, but, and to be fair, the show bases parts of Flynn on Goran's life as well. Like the fact that Flynn joined the army in 1990, like Goran, and fought in the Croatian War of Independence, like Goran. (Except, unlike Goran, Flynn was only fifteen-years-old at the time. Shh.)
I am just a poor, desperate fan trying to make sense of this mess. So if anyone has an opinion or some insight, please share. Please.