Tangerines. The turning of tables.

Warning: This blogpost contains major spoilers, and assumes you've already seen the Estonian-Georgian film Tangerines.

In a recent IMDb post, a user wondered, if Ahmed had grown to like Niko a lot, which caused Ahmed to shoot the Russians. Here's my response:

(As was specified in the post's thread, it was only heavily implied that these were Russians, because it's not said so on-screen.)

And so, near the end, Ahmed was playing his part as he did before (covering for Niko), but the Russians were actively provoking Ahmed (who had been fighting as a mercenary on their side), and were very disrespectful towards him, because they didn't believe that he was a Chechen and on their side.

As far as I could see, they were ready to kill Ahmed anyway, but then Niko intervened, and then Ahmed killed the Russians.

So, it wasn't because Ahmed had grown close to Niko, but that in the nick of time, Niko saved Ahmed's life, and they had to protect themselves and their hosts Ivo and Margus.

Before things went downhill, Ivo had thought that he could de-escalate the situation as he did before, but Niko saw from the window, that these weren't mercenaries, so he essentially knew better.

All in all, it didn't end well in the film.

As it is, it's a fairly realistic film about war, because death happens, and usually, both sides lose in one or another way. Or that neither side wins convincingly.

While it's not rare, that one of the parties wins, then recent history has shown, that a definite victory does not happen often. That's why it's called a win, because chances are, that one could lose, too. The victors may realize the subsequent loss only after war ends, and after some time has passed to reflect on the events; especially, if it was not a just war.

Claire and Frank (possible spoilers, you've been warned)

Based on information from IMDb forums and Season 3 synoposes

Not actually spoilers, but a theory nonetheless, so half-spoilers.

Rape is one of the reasons Claire might have decided not to have children.

I think Frank is the one in the marriage who is unable to procreate. It's possible Claire might have tried and not had any results from Frank. (I wonder, though, if Frank knows it himself.)

All that would then explain why Claire had had three abortions; because despite having had an otherwise healthy marriage with Frank, she could have been conceived by other men (the day-after pills don't always work), but a different-looking child would eventualy become obvious. And then there's DNA testing.

Claire's biological clock ticking, she decides to get preggers anyway. That's why she wants to separate from Frank and a possible divorce, because she is very certain the child is not his in the first place.

If she's pregnant, then it's possible she might be using it as pretext to disassociate herself from Frank, because she knows that he killed Russo and Zoe. If the murders are eventually revealed as such, she can later claim some plausible deniability. The moodiness might be caused by pregnancy or might even be intentional to throw Frank off the loop, because she needs her female moodiness and the pregancy to disassociate herself from him.