Plums

Why not? I get what you're saying, but that just isn't what this show is about to me at all. In any event, Gorbachev was deposed in a coup four years later, yes, but that was in an effort to return to the status quo of the pre-reform system, and that failed spectacularly. The Soviet Union dissolved and Russia descended into chaos and organized crime until the oligarchs took control. The intelligence apparatus didn't become powerful again until Putin became president.

I think the finale telegraphed pretty clearly that because Philip and Elizabeth made it to Russia with the coup message, and Arkady met them there, that they were in the clear because he had all the information he needed to gain the upper hand on the conspiracy faction. I'm sure it helped that a high level official in the US Rezidentura tried and failed to assassinate one of their own negotiators. I imagine everyone who can't be directly implicated that may have been involved will be keeping their heads down to save face. In my head, the Party quietly purges people they can prove were in on it, and may even scapegoat poor Tatiana as a lone wolf publicly, since they can't hide her actions. But that's all just my own speculation. In any event, my interpretation of the end is the Philip and Elizabeth are safe from anyone related to the coup because their story transitions to living in the aftermath of what all their decisions have wrought wrt their children. They have to learn to readjust to more or less civilian life in Russia, and they have to adjust to what their marriage is now and the loss of their children, and honestly, they were basically estranged and at cross purposes for the majority of season 6. They didn't really deal with any of those issues because everything was back-burnered in the immediate need to escape and bring the coup message to the reformers. Now they're there and together and stuck that way and have a whole host of new challenges on top of their old ones. At their core, they love each other more than any problems they could have, but now that they're out of immediate danger and will transition to settling down and with the thought that they'll never see or speak to their kids again, they have to deal with each other. That's where their story goes. The idea of the pro-coup elements just taking them out doesn't feel dramatically natural at all to me.

Yeah, at the outset, The Americans was established as depicting the lives and operations of illegal spies as way more dangerous and violent than they really were during the Cold War, and this was treated as SOP by the characters. I accepted that dramatic license with history the premise took, and from there, the most important thing for me is that it never became internally inconsistent with the established rules, and the characters stayed true, which, if either of those things were violated in service of a story that felt inorganic, would have really have bugged me. But I never felt that way. Others may disagree, and I'm sorry they couldn't enjoy this show as much as I did. I wasn't personally disturbed by Claudia's revenge killing. I thought that was kind of a badass mini horror movie, tbh. But Stan killing Vlad remains to me one of the most disturbing acts committed by anyone on the show, and it's one of the only scenes that is super difficult for me to rewatch because of how horrific it is. Yeah, their kill count is probably a lot higher than Stan's, but at least the Jennings never targeted an innocent person to terrorize and murder. They may have incidentally terrorized innocent people over the course of their murdering unfortunate witnesses, but it was never something they intentionally set out to do.

I want to just express a lot of appreciation for that interaction between Stan and Aderholdt by the elevator. Like, Dennis is clearly incredulous at the entire idea that Philip and Elizabeth are spies and thinks Stan is being paranoid, but my favorite part is particularly his reaction to the notion that Elizabeth could have been Gregory's girlfriend. He's hung out with them socially a few times at that point and has this vision of the Jennings as this super normal, upper middle class, suburban white family. The idea of the Elizabeth he has in his head at one point having been the girlfriend of a drug dealing, radical, black militant was too crazy to even be in the realm of consideration. I love that this image doesn't seem to deter Stan at all, but that it would be immediately absurd to Dennis. The show very rarely commented on race, but I thought that moment was a nice subtle detail.

I mean, I think in the universe of the show, we're meant to just take what happens in the immediate aftermath of the escape as a shorthand for knowing how events will unfold further- Stan lies to Dennis about letting the Jennings escape, and because he brought the suspicion to Dennis earlier and Dennis dismissed it out of hand, Stan will not be under suspicion. I think the fact that we saw him with the team collecting evidence from the house the next morning supports that, so plainly, both Dennis and Stan were allowed to investigate it themselves even though they both personally knew and were friendly with Philip and Elizabeth. Presumably Dennis knew Stan was going to drive to New Hampshire afterwards to break the news to Henry as they were leaving- Henry, who still hadn't been talked to or taken in for questioning even as his parents' Wanted posters had been distributed to Border Control. It's all just an example of the dramatic license with the FBI that the show has taken.

The type of pervasive, persistent melancholy I envision for Paige's future could be perfectly expressed through her. They don't match up physically, but then again, Holly Taylor's coloring has always been too off to believably be the daughter of Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, so whatever.

I agree with literally everything @Erin9 just said, lol. It was super believable to me that Stan let them go. If he was in pure law enforcement mode, he would have called for backup and not confronted them alone, he wouldn't have just poked around their house while they were away like a snooping neighbor instead of an FBI agent looking for evidence, he wouldn't have looked up their names in a criminal background check database but checked for death records indicating a stolen identity instead. He would have actually discovered incontrovertible proof in a way that was easily available to him, but he didn't. Because he was never really in FBI Agent mode in the time he became suspicious of them and started figuring out they were the illegals- he was in Horrific Ultimate Betrayal mode. Noah Emmerich compared it to a spouse knowing their S.O. is cheating on them and all the clues adding up, and you know it's true in your heart of hearts, but you're in denial because you don't want it to be true because if it's true, it would completely destroy you. And that is super apt. This was always more personal and emotional for him than it was about catching the illegals. Eventually there were too many clues for him to be in denial anymore, and all that was left was confrontation. When they made it clear they weren't going to just surrender and peaceably let him arrest them, when it was a choice between shooting them or letting them go, obviously he was going to let them go, especially in combination with all the reasons previously mentioned why he would let them go. That whole encounter went the way it did because Stan loves this family, and Philip loves Stan, and relationships have always been what this show is about. Even though Philip was manipulating him, the way he was choosing to do so is the reason why Philip is the best spy on the show- he's able to be authentic and honest and truly connect with people while he's manipulating them to do what he wants, and the other person senses that because it is true. The only thing they were really lying about there is the fact that they kill people, and I think they did that due to Paige as much as Stan. And he probably knows they were lying about that, but it's not something he was prepared to think about or fight them on in that moment. Because as soon as Philip stopped pretending to be innocent and confessed, the conversation stopped being FBI vs. KGB and became about the personal betrayal of the friendship. Even Philip mentioning EST, which I've seen derided, to me didn't seem so much about Philip using self-help jargon to persuade Stan that he knows he really wants to let them go, but about Philip reminding Stan that this is Philip, his best friend who is super into this touchy-feely self-help movement and goes to seminars and weekend Forum retreats, and I've always known he is a doofus in that particular way. It is something extremely Philip to say, which is I think what punctures Stan about it, not any sort of EST insight. Anyway, yeah, I love the entire garage scene and think it's masterful. Also, not for nothing, but Stan has a long established history of going rogue and betraying his country when it comes to Russians he's personally invested in. He committed low level treason for Nina when he thought she was in danger from Oleg and very nearly committed high level, execution worthy treason for her when he knew she was probably going to be die if he didn't. He barely pulled himself back from the brink of that and almost didn't. Then he blackmailed the entire Justice Department into leaving Oleg alone in Russia by threatening to admit to murder in the media and the fact that the FBI covered it up. I buy completely him lying to Aderholdt about seeing them and letting them go. His relationship with the Jenningses is way deeper than what he felt for Nina and Oleg.

I agree with @sistermagpie in thinking they lacked self awareness in the sense that they never really engaged in serious introspection, until Philip got into EST. But it's also missing in the sense that spending their entire adult lives as spies warped their sense of how their actions look from outside of that world, and this is also evidenced throughout the show. When the J's talk about Elizabeth experiencing one or two "cracks" per season of self awareness that get to her in spite of being the person divorced from reality that this life has made her, I took that to be like, okay, in season 3 the crack was Lois Smith calling Elizabeth's grand ideological moral self justifications for murdering innocent old ladies in order to bug mail robots something that "evil people tell themselves when they do evil things". In season 5, a huge crack was P&E reading Pastor Tim's calling what they've done to Paige monstrous, on the same psychologically damaging level of physical or sexual abuse. I also take the J's point that neither Philip nor Elizabeth could have possessed anything remotely like self-awareness when they decided to have kids to further their cover in the first place. Because what could possibly have been the end result of that decision other than the exact personally devastating tragedy that befell them? Those kids lives and their relationship with their parents were destined to be ruined from the moment they were conceived. And it's evident in smaller ways as well, how it never occurs to them that a pattern of meeting privately in the back room at work with the door closed, blinds shut, and turning on a printer randomly to create noise, would look super suspicious to the employees of the business after awhile. Or going on business trips constantly for clients they don't have. It doesn't occur to them to worry that Henry could give anything away to his FBI Agent buddy about the behavior of his parents because Henry doesn't know the truth, so there's nothing for him to say that could arouse suspicion. I actually think they've been very intentional in drawing attention to how deluded and un-self aware people in this business can be. They actually voiced that idea through Oleg's wife when she was arguing with him about not getting sucked back into that world. There are a lot of examples. When Philip is suspicious of Renee in season 5, Elizabeth asks him why it bothers him so much, and he says "I don't want Stan to be like Martha" because he loves Stan, but he is utterly blind to the reality that what he is doing to Stan himself is the exact same type of horrific betrayal he's worried about. Philip has platonic honeypotted him. They're both almost willfully delusional about how the kids would fare in Russia in all the times they consider either having to or deciding to move back, particularly Elizabeth regarding Paige. Elizabeth has always deluded herself where Paige is concerned. But it's both of them. All their worries stem from how the kids would have difficulty adjusting to a new life in a very different place, and it's like it never even occurs to them to consider that the lie of their parents' lives would destroy them more than any change of scenery or language would. Even when Philip is talking about how he never knew is parents at all to Elizabeth, and he's plainly bitter about it, he doesn't connect those feelings to what his own children will inevitably feel about him one day.

Oh, I think they would definitely be prepared for that. They'd be very aware that they could run into someone from these places. I'd imagine they visited both places soon after arriving to even familiarize themselves with it and even what was no longer there, plus explanations for why they might not be as familiar with it as all that. They'd learn enough to know what to do if they ran into the worst possible person, I imagine! It's funny--I was on a trip a while ago and met this woman who seemed to exaggerate everything about herself. There was nowhere in the world, it seemed, that she hadn't lived. She was always telling people she was from two places, one the city that I live in. Only there was a couple of times when she'd say something that made me think no, you don't live here at all. What was funny was eventually another woman asked her exactly where she lived and then she said that she actually lived in a town outside the city...which happened to be exactly the town where I grew up and, it turned, out where this other woman's husband had family. So she and I were all "what are the chances?" and talking about the place while the woman claiming to live there obviously did not even really understand the kind of place she was describing. Like I don't even know where she came across the name. Reminds me of Renee and whatever that famous slip-up was about the college team. I could be misremembering, but didn't they train together for like 3 years before they even arrived in America? They met in April 1962, and then they didn't get to the Virginia hotel until August 1965. That is plenty of time to research backstories and work out believable anecdotes from their fake pasts. I actually just went back to the pilot to check this out, and I've never considered it before, but 3 years is a long time. They started working together basically when they were Paige's age in s6. I don't know how old Philip is, but if they're the same age, they'd be what, 19 when they met? Since Elizabeth says she arrived in America when she was 22. Now I'm completely fascinated by those three years they were training in Russia together. I understand even more how hurt and taken aback Philip was when she described being "in a strange country, with a strange man" during her explanation and apology about Gregory, lol. Like, how distant could she have been in those three years when they were working together on finessing their spycraft and cover story? And he had fallen in love with her at first sight too, omg. Your story about the Renee lady is funny. People who give off fake vibes like that are so disconcerting. And the slip up with the college is calling Indiana University "U of I". that whole monologue from her was off though. She's lucky Stan was totally distracted and not paying close attention to her. She was just dropping all these details about places in such an unnatural way, like she was showing off that she had memorized them for just such an anecdote. I'm gonna transcribe it, just to see if I'm not crazy about this- "My friend Jenny and I were driving to Arcadia National Park, in Maine. She's a hiker. We stopped in Bloomington, Indiana (cause Jenny went to school at the U of I), and it was real hot, so we went skinny dipping in the rooftop quarry. And it was right there. It was right there where they shot that." That's just weird, isn't it? All these irrelevant details leading up to her just pointing out that she had gone skinny dipping with a friend in the same place that was on screen in the movie they were watching. She could have just said, "When I was in college, my friend Jenny and I were on a road trip and went skinny dipping right there" But no, she has to let him know she knows what state Arcadia National Park is in, and the reason why they were going there. She has to let him know she knows the town the university she's casually name dropping an incorrect shorthand for is in. It just comes off weird.

He is young, but he does have an idea how to pay for his remaining year of high school. He'd worked that out himself when Philip couldn't pay it. (Since they weren't talking about Henry having to leave school the next semester I assume he had covered the rest of that year.) Henry was applying for more scholarships and had a job for the summer that was very well-paying and included room and board. So that set him up until college when he'll presumably be looking into more scholarships and financial aid. How he'll process his life being a lie is another matter, of course, but he'll have to do it without parents. That's the one thing I think Stan could step in for. If Henry is emotionally capable of handling it after the shocker of his parents being gone permanently and his life being a lie, and if his school even lets him stay there, I could see Stan helping out with the tuition for Henry's senior year. They did after all make a point of Stan mentioning how he wasn't hurting for money in that conversation with Philip. And even if Henry doesn't really need him to take care of him as a parent, I think Stan took that directive from Philip and Paige seriously and would want to help Henry in any way he could. If Stan and Henry didn't really have the close relationship the way a lot of fans interpret he did, I think Stan will feel much more strongly about him now in the wake of this disaster in their lives. They share this betrayal and loss. I agree with you that Henry probably won't need him to a very great extent, especially if Paige will be there, but in whatever way he does need someone, I think he can rely on Stan.

I definitely think Henry thought of Paige as favored more than he had a subconscious knowledge that she was wrapped up in whatever weirdness their parents were in. We didn't see much of Henry in season 5, but what we did see that stood out was how he was hurt at the idea, that he'd internalized, that his parents couldn't possibly see him as all that worthwhile when his teacher spoke to them about moving Henry into an advanced math class and they tried to talk to him about it. He specifically mentioned how they saw Paige as the one who could do no wrong in a way where he had just accepted it. He complained about it to Stan later, that his parents were shocked to discover he was smart because they always thought he was the screw up. And the fact of the matter is, for as often as Philip and Elizabeth were suspiciously gone, Henry wasn't around either to notice it or care as much as Paige had been. Henry was always more independent and private than Paige. He was always gone at some friend's house or another, or up in his room doing homework or masturbating to pictures of Sandra in a bikini top or whatever. If he wasn't doing those things, he was playing computer games. So to the extent that he noticed his parents were always gone, whenever he did notice it, he probably just thought they didn't prioritize him, so he didn't trouble himself thinking about it further. He was always super dismissive of the normalized weirdness of how he grew up in the house in any case. Like, Paige saying she was going to check in to see if her parents were in their bedroom and Henry saying something like "No, you're not allowed and you know that.", in a bored, incurious way. Like he always just accepted it and never questioned it the way Paige did. And because he was more independent than her and spent so much time away, it was a lot easier for him to not question it. And really, I think for the most part, P&E were probably home and relatively normal. When the kids were young, before Reagan, they probably didn't have nearly the intense type of operations they had in the timeline of the show. And it was only really from 1981-1983, Philip was gone for two days of the week and they both "worked late" or had to go "back to the office" for one reason or another, every so often, but Henry never paid attention to when they came home in the middle of the night. There was the 7 month break, where P&E were both home but had shifted a lot of focus to Paige because of the Pastor Tim thing, which Henry noticed, and then he decided to buckle down and get into this school and was rarely at home. And then he was away. I take his assessment of his home situation and his parents, whenever he talks about them, at face value.

I've gotten so sentimental and indulgent over my fanfic-y future wish fulfillment speculation. I don't actually think anything so nice could ever happen, but I like to imagine a best case scenario anyway. Like, for example I have an image of Henry and Paige eventually overcoming bitterness and becoming healthy, grounded adults in just a few years, and open to reconciliation with their parents enough to reestablish a decent-as-could-be-given-the-circumstance relationship with them, post USSR. I take this view because of how the RL Canadian spy kids feel about their parents. Like, they're bitter about the lies and all the legal shit they now have to contend with, but they still understand their parents were always their parents and that love and basic relationship was never a lie, and they still have strong relationships with them, even with the weirdness of the general situation that they just try to ignore as much as they can. So I like to think Paige and Henry end up in that same kind of place wrt Philip and Elizabeth. The person I worry about the most is Elizabeth, tbh. Like, even though Philip is the one who is going to miss the life he had in America the most, I could see him readjusting as well as he could. But she's not going to take the dissolution of her country and the collapse of communism well AT ALL. Like, she's going to probably be horrified by the stark differences and seeing just how bad things are soon after their arrival, but I see her looking on TV at the Wall coming down, in shock, and just experiencing an existential meltdown. Like, for all the terrible things she did to people, she was able to compartmentalize it when Philip couldn't because she was doing it for The Cause. I can't imagine how awful it could be with all that coming back upon her when the ideals and country she fought for disappears. Her country becomes Russia rather than the USSR, and the eastern bloc devolves into civil war and joins NATO and the EU. And that, combined with being estranged from her children is just too much. So I at least want her to have her children back at some point. I think Philip's family in Moscow will help alleviate some of the pain of the separation, but at the same time make it worse for them, especially Elizabeth. She'll have so many regrets. She'll be like Ericka thinking at the end of her life that the work was all pointless and she should have been spending her time being with family and being happy. So yeah, all my thoughts about the future of these characters end with P&E getting to have their kids back.

No, actually I think you're right!

Nina was such a good source she got P&E tortured because the Center was so mad about the things that were being leaked! And she was so above suspicion Arkady came to trust her enough to let her in on the illegals operations. I think her ultimately turning triple agent was a combination of knowing the FBI killed Vlad and Stan was lying about not knowing anything about it (I don't know if she knew for sure it was definitely Stan until after she had already turned, when they played the tape of Stan and Gaad talking about it from the office bug) and a combination of her loyalty to her country. She made the decision to confess after Arkady made a show up explicitly trusting her and making her read aloud an oath of loyalty to the Soviet Union. That oath genuinely moved and guilted her. Nina was such a wonderfully complex person. She confessed to treason out of a genuine love and loyalty to her homeland, even when she knew that homeland would kill her for it. This, after she spent so long working to eventually be relocated in America. It's one of the bravest, most noble acts from any character in this show. I think Stan will eventually figure out Nina turned triple agent. He's been going over everything from the beginning since he started suspecting P&E, and now the whole office will be going over those old cases. Knowing now that Philip and Elizabeth were Directorate S officers, and presumably after interviewing the kids and from Stan's own recollections, they'll be able to put together a timetable of a lot of the operations they were involved in. It's not going to take much for Stan to remember shooting the female half of the illegal couple during the Weinberger debacle coinciding with Elizabeth's sudden two month disappearance to take care of a sick aunt. Nina originally told him the woman died and the man was exfiltrated. Now that's obviously a lie, and even before Stan suspected them, he guessed the woman who beat up Dennis and Gaad was the same woman. There was that knowing, icy look Nina gave him during the lie detector test when she was asked if she knew who killed Vlad and she said "yes". He'll remember and know she turned and was playing him. Plus the relationship with Oleg? I wonder what Oleg'll say now that there's no one to protect. In any case, Stan has probably known she was playing him on some level for awhile, but now he won't be able to deny it. And he'll probably realize he was the one who blew the trap in season 1 because he told her about it that morning. The next few weeks will probably be the shittiest time ever in Stan's life. And Dennis too, who actually saw Elizabeth and heard her speak before they physically fought each other, will be dumbfounded how he never recognized her. The more I think about Stan's future, the more sure I am that if he doesn't just straight up quit the FBI, he's definitely transferring to a field office.

I can't remember- was this conversation with Kimmie before or after Paige knew and blabbled to Pastor Tim?

Definitely not season 1, imo. He's seeing him as the enemy at the end there. There's some point in S2 when Philip tells Elizabeth that Stan told him about the affair finally and when she asks how Philip got him to tell him Philip says, "We're friends." What I remember loving so much about that "we're friends" moment, was Elizabeth's kind of incredulous reaction to it, like she was expecting Philip to describe how he manipulated Stan into admitting to the affair, but no, no spy craft involved there, just a guy confiding in his bro. And it was like the notion was so weird to her, lol. I'm thinking the reason why the Jenningses never cultivated actual friendships with anyone, like, not the parents of their kids' friends or whatever, is mostly on Elizabeth. Like, you see Philip out line dancing with his employees because he thinks it's fun and presumably enjoys spending the off-the-clock time with them. But with Elizabeth, it feels like all of her genuine relationships with people outside her family all had to do with the job. She became close to the other spies she worked with, and all the other times she played friendly with any other Americans, including Stan and his family, it was solely for the sake of her cover, and she never actually cared about them. She came to genuinely care for some of the people she targeted in her operations, like Young Hee, but as Elizabeth Jennings, it's like she just didn't bother making the effort because she didn't have to. But that doesn't seem typical at all. She even seemed to understand it was a problem and worry about it in season 2 after Emmett and Leanne were killed, when she wondered about what would happen to the kids if she and Philip were gone, because they didn't have any friends. He said the Beemans would take them, and at the time Elizabeth took it as a joke, and Philip may have only been half serious when he said it, but it's true that the Beemans in season 2, people Philip and Elizabeth had only known for about a year, give or take, were the closest thing they had to real friends that we saw, and then only because Philip originally wanted to cultivate a friendship with Stan to use as a potential source. You look at Emmett and Leanne, in the brief time we saw them though, and they were super involved in their kids' lives and school, Jared moved in with a normal family that was close enough to them to take him in without question. So it's not like the Directorate S officers were discouraged from forming friendships with people in the course of their cover lives. With no family, you'd think it would actually be an encouraged thing to do. So it feels like it's just something with the Jenningses specifically. Anyway, just something the conversation is making me wonder about. With regards to when Philip really became Stan's friend- Philip is naturally more empathetic I think than Elizabeth, when it comes to the people he interacts with a lot. Or less able to compartmentalize. When he's playing characters that care about people, that take care of people, it's very easy for him to become the mask. He played the part of Martha's husband for 2-3 years, and that turned into a very genuine depth of feeling for her, even if it wasn't ever romantic love. He cared about Kimmy in an almost paternal way (that is a super interesting relationship to me btw), and I think when Stan was going through his divorce and then was single, after Nina was gone, when he really started to lean on Philip as a friend because his personal life was such a lonesome disaster, Philip probably genuinely came to reciprocally care about him as a friend at that time. Philip has always had a weakness for vulnerable people who need him. He never stopped reporting on Stan, but I don't think that's particularly relevant to how he felt.

Been rewatching it lately, and it strikes me that the part in Philip's garage speech where he's describing the irony of the operation that finally got them caught being about a KGB plot and how nothing to do with the Americans ever amounted to anything important or useful, while masterful emotional manipulation on Philip's part, is also not quite a lie either, the way that whole speech is. Because look at some of the hardest, most haunting and draining shit they ever did- -The propeller plans they went to so much effort to steal in s2 were a fake batman gambit by the US government that led to a soviet submarine sinking. And in that same season, they spent basically the whole time super paranoid and tensed up thinking someone was going to find them and kill their whole family, and they got involved with Larrick in the first place because of Claudia's suspicion that he's the one who killed Emmett and Leanne and might have made the spy network, which almost got them killed and led to Larrick actually making the spy network. Then it all turned out that Jared killed his family, because the Center was trying to recruit the kids of their officers behind their backs. -Martha eventually was caught because she drew suspicion copying William's surveillance logs, and it completely destroyed her life. Elizabeth had finally formed a genuine friendship with Young Hee and respected and admired her marriage and her family, and she completely destroyed all of it and hated doing it so much she actually showed hesitation in following orders for the first time and asked the Center to reconsider the plan. This was all in service of getting William an access code to an area beyond his security clearance, for which he got his hands on exactly one virus before the FBI arrested him and he killed himself, and then Elizabeth lost Hans as well exhuming his body for a sample. So many lives ruined and so much effort wasted all for one horrific biological weapon that wasn't even used defensively, like the Center told them it would be, but was used as an offensive weapon in the field. -Elizabeth had to kill a kind old lady and make it look like an accident, which involved slowly torturing her death, and it completely emotionally gut punched her, not just because she was an innocent bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but because she was of a generation when the US and Russia were allies. Her husband fought on their same side in WWII, and you know how much Elizabeth respects that. And that whole "that's what evil people tell themselves when they do evil things" totally left a chink in Elizabeth's armor. This was all in service of bugging the mail robot, which yielded absolutely nothing of value at all. -The entire wheat plotline. Yes, it led to them inadvertently finding a valuable source into the CIA, but the entire thing was all a bullshit wild goose chase. They had to get close to this other family they planned to destroy, which involved a whole elaborate fake life and emotionally torturing this kid enough so that his mother would take him back to Russia, they had to constantly travel back and forth to Kansas in service of it, neglecting their actual family in the process, they murdered an innocent lab tech based on the false information they were given about the the wheat plot, and the whole entire operation fucked up and burned out Philip so much that he quit active spy work. And it strikes me even more, when first rewatching it, that the Center knew the whole bug thing was complete bullshit the entire time. They were probably hoping it would yield some reports they could alter in order to create anti-US propaganda for the Russian people to explain why they had no food. When the guy Oleg was working with in the KGB told him right off the bat at the beginning of the season that the reason why there was no food was due to systemic corruption and incompetence. -The Harvest exfiltration failed, and they lost Marilyn and had to chop off her head and hands. -Elizabeth killed a shit ton of people in season 6 because she was on a super rushed time table to get a part for a weapons system that was never going to be traded away in the first place, and she was being used by higher ups in the KGB as a pawn in a coup the whole time. Like, there were some operations that yielded good, actionable intel, like the Weinberger bug (another rush job that ultimately almost got them caught because of the incautious, sloppy execution that was all they could come up with in the unreasonably short amount of time the Center gave them), Yousef, the Breland bug, sometimes Martha, but by and large, the huge, elaborate operations that took them away from their family and emotionally damaged them the most were in service of utter bullshit.

To me, it's kind of wild that, according to the J's, they spent months writing and rewriting and refining the garage scene so that it would work, so that the emotions would ring true and the end result of Stan letting them go would be believable. And when they finally had their finalized form for the script and shot it, they still moved around entire pieces in editing to refine it! Like, lol. I guess sometimes something doesn't click until you see how it looks actually played out by the actors, no matter how long you think you've got it from just picturing it.

It was executive-produced by Graham Yost, who also played that role for The Americans (though I don't think he has as much creative input for the latter). I've recommended Justified to several people who share my taste. Give it until at least the 5th episode before making up your mind -- as I said, that was a turning point for me -- not that the previous episodes were bad, just more episodic. Season 2 of Justified is damned brilliant, and features Margo Martindale. I still haven't seen Justified either, but it's been one of those, "Everyone says this show was great, I should watch that show sometime" shows that's been my list ever since I watched Deadwood. I'm finally determined it will definitely be the next show I watch. To bring it back to The Americans, I didn't know Margo Martindale was in it either, so now I'm really looking forward to it! FX seems to have quietly been the channel putting out the best prestige dramas that most people haven't known about in the last few years. Like, everyone was all hyped up when Mad Men was airing on AMC and hyping up all those other AMC shows and building up the channel as the basic cable answer to HBO and other premium channels, and while I watched and loved Mad Men, the entire back half of the series felt like a chore to get through a lot of the time, and I was over all the grimdark focus on Don, because he had long since stopped being a compelling character to me. I tried watching The Killing because I bought into the AMC hype, but it felt like unrelenting darkness for the sake of unrelenting darkness, and for not other purpose. Even with the HBO shows that are all hyped up as great prestige drama, I gave up on Game of Thrones mid season 3 because I thought it was hacky, terrible trash, and Westworld is starting to lose my interest in season 2 because I don't really care about the characters, and the overall plot and themes aren't being told in a way that is all that engrossing to me. Whereas FX seems to be making really great shows with great writing, great acting, and most importantly great, dimensional characters dealing with truly compelling conflicts, telling stories with complete thematic and character arcs, and it's all just flying under the radar in the popular consciousness in ways stories that are not as well done aren't. For me, The Americans is one of the best, most complete and well told dramas I've ever seen. I'd put it up there with The Wire.

I'm still on the level of thinking they'd pin her for spying and treason is overestimating what the FBI would ask her in the universe of this show. There are so many truthful things Paige can draw on as the extent of her experience that would make her appear more on the innocent side of the sliding scale of guilt and innocence. The constant pressure her parents put her under to keep their secret was extremely damaging to her, finding out her entire life and what she always thought she knew about her parents were lies was extremely damaging to her, her mother took her to meet her russian grandmother once, her mother taught her self defense after getting mugged traumatized her, which led to her growing closer to her mother, she met her mother's handler, who was a cool, nice old lady named Claudia, and they would spend afternoons talking about life in the Soviet Union and their perspective on the world and history, and we would watch Russian movies and TV and listen to Russian music and cook Russian food together. They would ask me what my professors were saying about the Soviet Union in my poli sci classes. No, they never told me any details about their operations except this one time when they were trying to stop the US government from creating a famine in Russia. I know my dad wasn't working as a spy for the past three years except for going to Chicago after my mother went there. No, I never gave my parents classified information or anything like that. I think my mom and Claudia eventually wanted me to get a job in the state department though. Like, there's a ton of stuff she could say that's mostly innocuous, and dropping a bombshell about how she'd obviously been getting groomed by her mother to become a spy is pretty attention grabbing all by itself. It's pretty believable to me that she would be able to lie about the details she would have to lie about to stay out of serious trouble or cover for Pastor Tim if she wanted to. I could easily see her getting though an interrogation without admitting she took pictures or was on surveillance teams for her mother's operations, especially if she talks about all this other stuff. It's not a laundry list of things she has to lie about.

I actually agree that the Thanksgiving toast was totally weird. I fanwanked it well enough as Stan being pretty socially awkward, and also still pissed off about the Teacup murders, but it was still such a wtf moment for a Thanksgiving toast, lol. And this I really agree with. That moment was intentionally written as bizarre. Definitely a record scratch moment for Stan. Like he just had no idea how to react or what to make of it because it was such an unexpected, bizarrely ditzy thing to say, and it wasn't a joke either. Like, how is it even possible she seriously doesn't realize that "FBI Agent" is not just a random government job anyone can apply for? It's actually one of the main scenes that affirm for me my 100% belief that Renee is definitely shady and almost definitely a spy, if she isn't just a shady person with a screw loose. She wasn't seriously expecting him to help her become an FBI agent, but to do exactly what he did, which was to look for a way she could get a job there, like an administrative role. All she'd want is access.

oh my god, yes. I downloaded so much awesome classic rock because of this show. I had never even heard Tusk before the opening foot chase, and it's so great! And some of the visuals that went along with the music will stay with me permanently. Like, I'll never be able to hear "with or without you" and not picture the train scene. I'll never be able to hear "Don't Dream it's Over" without picturing the season 6 opening montage. Even music that went to scenes that weren't all that significant story wise have stayed with me, like "The Chain" to them kidnapping that South African dude they necklaced in their low key punk disguises. One of the most badass things anyone has ever done in this show is Pastor Tim talking Philip down from the other end of Philip's enraged, murderous intent. One thing I appreciated so much about the garage scene that I never really considered before was how Stan immediately treated Philip as the truly dangerous trained elite soldier that he is and treated him with the appropriate caution. I had it in my head that Stan's ingrained view of Philip as this kind of sensitive, passive, beta guy would cloud his judgment in a confrontation, but nope. As soon as he knew Philip was the illegal he'd been looking for, he knew he was dealing with someone he couldn't let get anywhere near him if he wanted to live. Which of course didn't stop Stan from underestimating Elizabeth, lol. She was tensed up and staring him down like she was only waiting for the best moment to pounce, like an apex predator.

oh well when you put it all together like that, you're probably right that they'll question him, but my interpretation of what will happen based on the feeling of the end of the show is that the most Paige ever fesses up to his knowing and keeping the secret, so they can never actually pin anything on the Tims even if he looks suspicious. He already escalated from not turning them in to lying once to the FBI. In for a penny, in for a pound. In my mind, I don't see Paige going back to face the music. She's going back because her life is there and her brother is there, and in consequence she'll have to face questioning, but my interpretation of her character is that she'll be able to tell the almost whole truth and not implicate the Tims at all. imo, the wildcard here is Alice. I can see Paige and Tim covering up him knowing, but with her, lol nah. Someone from the FBI would call her and say "Hello Mrs. Tim. I'm Agent Such and Blah from the Federal Bureau of Invest-" "OH MY GOD IS THIS ABOUT PAIGE'S AWFUL SPY PARENTS!??!"

why would they have any reason to suspect Pastor Tim? The only way they do that is if Paige admits she told her old church pastor, and I very much doubt that happens. Even if Stan suspects Tim knew something from that phone call from the tone of his voice, he said he didn't know the Jennings all that well because Paige was the one involved in the church, not her parents. Stan reports that conversation to the FBI in their investigation, there's no evidence of any wrongdoing such that they could justify extraditing him to face interrogation. Honestly, the employees of the travel agency and Stan himself will face a lot more scrutiny from the FBI than that Pastor Paige had for a couple years from back when she was in high school.

I think we really just have to agree to disagree on what will ultimately happen. We just have wildly different interpretations of the characters and the story.