No one answered you, Liz, so I will :)
I agree with everything that you said so far.
I don't like Fyodor, but I'm sure that no one else does either.
I don't understand how you can just forget about your kids, but one thing I did think was kind of interesting was that when Alexei came back, for whatever reason, he was actually... not nice, but not mean to him either.
Does that make sense?
Probably not, I'm still trying to read this ridiculously long article, so I have no brains :D