scartact

As I keep watching this season, the more I realize, in the context of these last three seasons, that I just don't fundamentally agree with Mandel's interpretation of the show and the characters. I feel like he took all their worst possible traits and then overemphasized them to the nth degree. His cast is better than the writing he gives them, and that's what makes this so frustrating because there used to be nuance to these characters, and maybe the point underlying this show is that everyone is ultimately on a downward trajectory and arc in politics, but meh.

Been trying to follow Veep weekly now that this is the final season and moving from season 6 to season 7, I definitely miss Iannucci's Veep. I was jumping around in watching episodes and the overt Furlong-ing of the characters does kinda suck. It just feels more caricature-ish than before. Maybe that's the point, but I miss the subtlety the show used to have surrounding the characters' relationships to one another, and I even find the way the use Gary as a little overestimated. Tony Hale is excellent, but Gary is such a weird character that I need in slightly smaller doses. I'm also not too keen on how all the characters have been shitting on Amy, the only character I find the closest to redeemable. It isn't all that great to watch her trying to make things work with Dan, even though she knows that historically he's been and still is a shithead. I also miss Sue. That being said, JLD and Hugh Laurie are fantastic scene partners and so enjoyable to watch together. And the square dancing was hilarious.

Oh man, I really don't remember this episode. I lightweight remember him calling her a robot, but eh, it was stronger when it happened in season 6. I sorta feel like this episode is an interesting contrast to The Summit in how the writing shifted and changed from season 1 to season 6, because the moment Elizabeth lets Patterson go is not unlike her letting Jackson go and having that be motivated by people basically calling into question Elizabeth's motives. It obviously resonates much stronger in season 6, because there's way more credibility to Phil and Liz's relationship at that point that I absolutely believe he would be the only one who could remotely crack her hell-bent ideology. Patterson using mind games just felt kinda cheap and silly for a character with pretty powerful mental fortitude. I just don't buy that the Liz we come to know would crack in that way. But yes, I totally feel you on some of these older episodes really underlining moments and character beats, especially in season 1. And I was actually really into season 1 when I first watched it (it was like Spy AU fan fiction dreams!), but I really appreciated how much the later seasons went into better nuancing these moments and more consistently building the emotional arc.

Popping back in to say I am definitely still aiming to eventually do a rewatch of the series! I hella miss the show now that we're approaching the months where usually new eps would be out. Anyway, Covert War has gotta be my least favorite episode of the entire series, from what I remember of that episode (I haven't watched it in a long while). It just feels so overestimated and overwrought, and it kinda feel like in an alternative universe, the show could have easily becomes this mess of an episode. And if I'm thinking of the correct episode, this is also the one where Elizabeth kinda has a minor freakout? I don't remember buying what they were trying to sell in that episode. Anyway, some half-formed thoughts! I miss thinking about an analyzing this show.

It was kinda amusing to see The Americans following the pathway that Friday Night Lights did in its final season and winning Best Actor & Drama Writing, but I was definitely hoping KR could slide in for a win, though it was quite unlikely and Best Actress was just packed with hugely competitive performances. Anyway, I am still incredibly happy the show got some Emmy love, though it feels like a travesty GOT won best drama!

Oh, absolutely. There's an interview Matthew Rhys did with Alan Sepinwall back in 2015 I think and Sepinwall asks if Elizabeth were to just suddenly ask Philip to defect, would Philip do it? And Rhys was like, in a heartbeat. The absolute only reason Philip stayed in a job that made him feel hopeless and monstrous is because he did not want to leave without Elizabeth. I always had a thought that the final character arc for Elizabeth would possibly be a situation in which she's asked very blatantly to choose between Philip or the Cause, though I suppose arguably the show shifted that final season to be about whether she could choose her humanity or the Cause (but that's only a half-thought, so I'm uncertain if I fully by that). I haven't seen the Pilot as recently as you have, but when Elizabeth catches Philip with Timochev, doesn't he imply that he's making the choice for everyone and that Elizabeth would learn to get used to it, therefore implying that if he turned in Timochev to Stan, he would effectively defect for both of them? Or am I misremembering/misreading? I definitely agree with this and it connects to your earlier point about when they're first introduced to each other how staunchly Philip and Elizabeth kept up the pretense of being those two people, rather than Nadezhda and Mikhail. I don't know if I would necessarily couch Elizabeth's relationship with Gregory in terms of her being her "true self" or not, but rather Gregory represents some kind of alternate life (the way I suppose Irina is kinda supposed to with Philip? But whatever; Irina was never as well-written as Gregory in my opinion) where Elizabeth doesn't have children and she's in love with someone who loves what she does with that same level of idealism and fervency. I think you are making me wonder what the show could have looked like if they had kept Gregory on, but yes I definitely agree that that wasn't the story the really wanted to tell because he would always be the literal third presence in the room. I like where they place him though, as someone who will always be incredibly important to Elizabeth, which makes me want to reflect more on that final dream sequence in the series finale, but that feels like a thought for another day from me! I don't know if she really had to face that particular issue. It's not like anybody brings up race when it comes to Gregory not going to the USSR. If that was his real reason for not wanting to go you'd think Elizabeth would address it directly to at least try to keep him alive. Well, to be blunt, I don't think this show wanted to fully contend with the implications of a Black man defecting to the USSR, because I mean, I would very much wonder what that would have translated to in his experiences. He sure would stick out like a sore thumb. It was hopeful conjecturing on Liz's part, without her necessarily taking up a more critical stance on a Black person moving to the USSR and blending in vs. a White person moving to the USSR and blending in. I think they kinda vaguely gesture to it when Gregory is like, "Can you imagine me in Russia?" but his incredulity is ambiguous enough that for me, there's not enough evidence to necessarily support a race-based reading of that scene, nor is there necessarily enough evidence to deny that as a possible reading too. I was just thinking about that scene in one of my earlier posts and I wanted to reference it, but wasn't necessarily sure where I was going with it. Anyway, I think about that moment a lot and the monologue that EST guy is saying primarily because it makes me think about how on one level this guy is telling Elizabeth directly (and us by proxy) that she loves her cage, and she does not realize it at all. And we can probably agree with it to an extent because Elizabeth puts herself in increasingly compromising positions all the time, and very often puts it where she needs to, and then just moves the fuck on. But on another level, she could be processing it as her thinking about Philip and what kinds of cages he loves, and how she also sees EST as a cage that he loves too, because EST tells you that you don't get it, and so you have to wind up buying in more and more. She denies her cage, but sees Philip's (supposed) cage. On another level, this also makes me think about what kinds of cages does Philip (unknowingly) love? Anyway, not the point of what you were talking about in the greater context of your post on Philip (an analysis I quite like), but just funny that you brought it up, because I was thinking about it today. It's weirdly one of my favorite EST moments.

I appreciate this read and the idea that Philip can still be seen as human in Elizabeth's eyes, even though he's done these incredibly horrendous things (I mean, so has she, but again with the compartmentalizing and all of that!), but she also imbues it with the confidence of what it means for them and their country. It's not unreasonable that the Center particularly enjoyed their investment in pairing Philip and Elizabeth together as a highly effective team for years prior to them making their marriage real in part because of their self-regulation, in that Philip's commitment was filtered through Elizabeth, and hers to the Cause, and so as long as Elizabeth maintained her duty and commitment, then they wouldn't have to worry as much about Philip. So of course, in season 1, when Elizabeth starts to really fall for Philip, Claudia is used as a proxy for the Center being all, "Let's put an end to that," because it made Elizabeth less committed to the Cause and more to Philip (and their family). Yes! That's a great catch and I love that; they both incrementally move toward one another (or I suppose, compromise) in that regard for the other person because they do truly love one another and this is why I tend to flat out disagree with You're making me want to get to my rewatch a little faster (but life is making it difficult for that to happen right now). I'm rusty on watching those first few episodes closely, but I was somewhat under the impression that Elizabeth was not very regularly with Gregory the way she may have been much earlier on in her marriage to Philip and I do agree with a read that suggests while Gregory was her first love, by the eponymous episode her relationship to him had significantly shifted and changed. Were there suggestions of how regularly they had really seen each other up to then? I also don't think Philip was always necessarily thinking to defect at the drop of a hat (though I do argue defection was probably always an undercurrent for him), otherwise he would have left with Irina! His defection was moreso pinned on the caveat that Elizabeth would defect with him and they would take the children, otherwise he woulda left with Irina when he was presented the opportunity in season 1! Which makes me realize... they also brought in Irina to present Philip with that exact opportunity to defect under different circumstances, but he's steadfast in that if he defected, it would have to be with Elizabeth and the kids; he maintains this this even in Chloramphenicol in that conversation with William as Elizabeth was sick.

Oh, I didn't notice that, but now that you've pointed it out, I really love those details side-by-side. Philip needed a space to concretize and verbalize through EST, while Elizabeth needed a space to be wholly intuitive and not always have the words. Not to reference another Philip and Elizabeth (let alone another television show after already namedropping The X-Files) but... I recently binged The Crown and there's a fantastic scene in season 1 where that Elizabeth tells her Philip that though it's quite possible marriage to someone else would have been easier than her marriage to Philip, the only person she's ever loved is him. That sentiment kinda reminds me of this Philip (whoa is it difficult to talk about two separate couples who share the same names simultaneously) and how, hey, it probably really would have been easier for him to haven fallen in love with someone like Martha (for instance; not necessarily Martha though, but really I'm thinking about the kind of temperament Martha had), who is more emotionally adept and vulnerable with him in ways that Elizabeth does not always afford him, but be that as it may, he loves her, whatever the indefinable spark for him that he actually tells Gabriel. Part of me thinks that because it's often easier to empathize with Philip, it's easier for folks to see what he gives Elizabeth, but yes, I definitely see a lot of how her seemingly unshakeable faith, her certainty, and her strength are factors into why Philip is drawn to Elizabeth. I mean, regardless of whatever kinds of labels we attach to it, we are told within the show that for Philip above all else, it seems that he just felt it in a way that ultimately made sense to him the way that Elizabeth eventually learned to understand him for it to make sense to her. Can anyone ever imagine Elizabeth being a "silly girl"? It's kind of an amusing thought!

This has shades of Elizabeth in Paige's compartmentalization of Philip, no? But yes, indeed it was super silly for Paige to have delineated between what she and Elizabeth do in contrast to Philip because he's "retired," so it definitely made that scene where Philip fights Paige even more disconcerting, because from her perspective, her father's gone soft, but Philip is as tough as ever (as we saw over the last five seasons prior to his retirement). Plus, unless I'm misremembering, was that moment the first time we saw Philip fight post-retirement? If so, that also speaks not just to Paige not realizing Philip is still a very strong, but it reminds us as the audience too that Philip didn't necessarily lose his years of training (in the event that we were somehow wondering, since he was "retired" and all). Well, I do think this falls back into Philip's abstraction vs. Elizabeth's concreteness. She's more place-based in that she can very much particularize and locate, while Philip often feels and intuits. The flashbacks follow the through-line of who their characters are. But yes, I also feel that Philip feels more, and thus cannot always describe, while Elizabeth intellectualizes more and will thus more often have the words. To be honest, I really do love this point of distinction between both characters and that this provides a source of natural tension and conflict for both of them, but it doesn't subtract from their marriage and relationship to each other. Yes, definitely! Philip is drawn to the stability of her idealism that his inclination toward doubt never provides him. There's definitely security in that. I'm not sure if this is a reaching parallel, but I recall during the initial run of The X-Files, Duchovny said that Scully is Mulder's human credentials (googled and found the original quote on Tumblr), and I wonder if on some level we can make that same reach of Philip for Elizabeth. I know folks find Elizabeth very harsh and inhuman in some ways, but Philip gives her something she cannot always give herself (like during the Young Hee operation, where he tells her it's okay for her to have apprehensions and feelings around it; using his natural doubt to push Elizabeth to question the kinds of things she's pushed to do in season 6). I definitely believe Elizabeth loved her children, but she totally projected onto them! To go into my half-baked reading of immigrant parent/Diasporic narratives, I think what this exemplifies is Elizabeth conceptualizes success for her children, not necessarily through tropes of the American Dream, but through this idea that they would learn to take on her ideology as theirs. This recalls the Pilot where, back when Phil and Liz seemed to have sworn to each other that their children would never get pulled into spying, she tells Philip that they can be raised to be socialists. On a random note, I've been thinking about how there's reviews and think pieces out there that will say, "At the heart of X Show, it is about [insert broad concept/idea]" (for example, many critics often talked about how the show is about about spying, but is actually about marriage), and I've always taken on the stance that the show is much more emotionally compelled and grounded by the marriage and family dynamic, hence why all the payoffs were emotional, rather than plot-driven (if the family is the emotional center, I think the espionage can be viewed as the "plot" center). And this is why I'm more or less fascinated by this notion of a reinterpretation of the show as an underlying and covert immigrant narrative, because I honestly do see it in so many ways (and I'm not the only one who has that reading; I always think of Mindy Kaling's tweet about the show, which also has a small back and forth with her and Joel Fields about this). But anyway, that's enough for now of my pending dissertation topic for this show!

I couldn't quite articulate it when I wrote my initial post, but I do find Philip to be actually quite longing and incredibly lonely. And to me, this is connected to the idea that often Philip is more abstract in his way of being in contrast to Elizabeth's concreteness. An essentializing perspective on both is that Philip is grey while Elizabeth is black and white, but I don't necessarily buy that this always holds true throughout the series. It's more of that's their default and/or typical pattern and way of existing, thus when the narrative allows each of them to be the other way, it can be very surprising. I do think very generally, the only thing he truly finds confidence in is his family and that is his greatest character motivation, which is inherently from a person-based perspective. And of course, this is in contrast to Elizabeth, who is ideology-based and arguably more place-based (though Tuan served as a critique to that because much more slowly and incrementally, she moves toward Philip's way of being), thus her greatest character motivation is the cause. But I always fundamentally go back to that one moment where Philip is trying to share with Elizabeth that all of it matters to him (I can't remember where that happened - season 3 maybe?). The rub is that Philip, for better or worse, can't compartmentalize as well as Elizabeth can (which I remember talking about once in the Liz thread haha). As for Paige and Henry "understanding" Philip, I always think of it more as Philip understands them better than Elizabeth does, especially from a culturally assimilative perspective. But I don't fully recall if Elizabeth asserted it as the kids "understanding" him better, or him understanding them better (slight, but significant semantic difference!). But all this to say is that I do think there's a relationship to Philip's way of being (his abstractness, his isolation/deep loneliness) and how he locates himself to either country. There certainly is a desire and a want to be part of, but there are ways that it's also just out of his reach, for both the USSR and US.

As you're all having this conversation, the only thing I can think is that there's a particular kind of Diasporic narrative (if the subject of Phil & Liz's immigration to the U.S. can be described as such, which the creators have loosely used as a reference point for Phil & Liz's relationship to home and country) that emerges to me when the subject of Philip's complex feelings surrounding the USSR and the US are taken into account. I haven't started any sort of rewatch on the show yet (where I believe I've said I have a stated interest in analyzing aspects of the show as an immigrant narrative), but my understanding of Philip is that he is never wholly settled, nor feels wholly accepted in either country, which is a very real feeling. He definitely better assimilates to the US than Elizabeth does, but by season 6 with his failing business we see that the life Philip wishes he could live is not a reality (no matter how much he shuffles in his cowboy boots), and to me there's something about that that on some level vaguely parallels the arc of his relationship to the USSR and being a weapon of the KGB. Anyway, these are just my half-formed thoughts on the subject, so never mind me! I would love to keep on reading more about peoples' respective rewatches.

I do think Matt Smith has moments where I'm like, "Oh he's actually fine," but other moments where I'm like, "Euch, I hate how he played that." But I do fall on the side that the relationship stuff is very underwritten (as is most of the show), and I really feel like it didn't need to be that way.

I just watched the entire series these last few weeks (I am typically late to the party) and this is the episode I tend to come back to the most, if only for that incredible monologue Elizabeth gives to Philip in the end in her full battle dress (a close second being when she throws the tennis racket at Philip in the previous episode!). I still haaate that the best apology he could give was a mouthed one, after her speech to Churchill. But regardless, I feel like that monologue was when I became fully taken with Claire Foy's performance, which I didn't want to like as much as I ended up loving, mostly because I really want Keri Russell to win an Emmy for her Elizabeth (though most predictions point to Elisabeth Moss going for the second, so there's that). Anyway, that's a silly reason to want to resist a great performance. Foy is incredible. But ugh, the character/emotional arcs on this show are just Not Good from a writing standpoint (though all the actors do great to find continuity) and so when Philip gives her that mouthed apology, I was struggling to figure out if it's the writing or Matt Smith's performance, or a combination of both that just make Philip so awfully unsympathetic, regardless of what season 2 attempted to show us. Though I do like his chemistry with Claire Foy, part of me feels I'm just not agreeable to Matt Smith's acting in this role. Anyway, I do love Elizabeth's friendship with Porchey!

Your suggested original order is interesting and I keep trying to think which one seems "better." On the one hand, the murder issue being called out right away the moment Philip says, "We had a job to do" makes sense to me if the show wanted to highlight Stan-as-FBI and to have him contend with the very real acts of violence (in this universe) that Philip and Elizabeth committed throughout the entire show. However, I think the aired order is more aligned with the creators and show's desire for people to contend with their relationships to and with one another first and for me it echoes a lot of VanDerWerff and company's (on Vox) post-show analyses, wherein they often talk about how the human element almost always took precedent over the spying and intrigue, and the show was often more invested in the emotionality of a scene or arc and its thematic underpinnings, rather than necessarily major gunfights and battles. Often, the most cataclysmic moments (to use VanDerWerff's phrasing) are what happens inward and the personal betrayals we feel to and from the people who know us best. I also like the arc of Stan's feelings that you suggest, from anger to hurt to anger again, because it shows Stan internally trying to reconcile with the betrayal he feels with the job he has to do (AKA get the Jenningses into custody), and it makes Philip's sensibilities and manipulation of the moment even sharper (he also said he had to a job to do, just as Stan has a job to do in this scene). Just when Stan connects more dots, Philip makes the move to pull the unraveling thread of Stan's betrayal. The more I sit with Nussbaum and other users' interpretations of that scene, the more I see the ingenuity of it in terms of Philip masterminding it (presuming people buy into how Philip convinces Stan to let them go, which as this thread has shown, is quite a contentious plot point! Hey, I think it's a fair critique though). [Also, to answer your final question, I totally think it matters! I studied rhetoric during my undergraduate and I think how form shapes content always informs meaning.]

Hey, that's why I like the ambiguity of the ending! We can plausibly choose to believe Paige and/or Henry decide not to engage with their parents at all, even after the fall of USSR, or we can imagine a world wherein either of them find a way to rebuild a relationship with their parents (er, depending what kinda shit goes down with Paige and the FBI, as others have been speculating in this thread). I think I just really like that even if history gives us certain inevitabilities, it impacts but does not necessarily predetermine the family's future (as in, when the Soviet Union falls and the borders open, Paige and Henry will reunite with their parents in some capacity; or, after the Soviet Union falls, they will not still choose to engage). I think depending on my state of mind, I move back and forth between what kinds of possibilities exist after that final shot.