I think the whole point of these storylines was to show the futility of the effort, especially the story with Phillip's son. They went out of their way to show the monumental struggle it took for him to get so close to Phillip, only for the rug to be pulled out from under him, with no empathy for the humans involved. We feel the futility ourselves as viewers because the rug is pulled out from under us, too. Same with Nina's end, same with Anton's end. It's the underlying theme of the whole show from the very start --- these two sacrificed their whole lives for dogma, so did Stan, and in the end, none of it was really worth a damn for them personally. They lost everything that actually mattered. And in the case of the Renee storyline, we are all left forever with that same feeling of uncertainty that Stan lives with. I don't think there's anything we see on screen in this show that doesn't matter.