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maraleia

By maraleia
in The Americans [V]

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Umbelina

Umbelina

‘The Americans’ Season 6 Episode 7: How to Get a Head in Business Without Really Dying By Sean T. Collins DECIDER

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But it’s the dreadful feeling, the awful feeling, shared by The Americans and The Sopranos in the end that stands out to me in “Harvest,” this week’s episode, and throughout this final season in general. Maybe it’s the presence of that cancer-stricken artist, who’s now so racked with pain she looks like she has a seizure disorder even as she barks orders at Elizabeth so she can keep making art until the end. Maybe it’s the return via flashback of Dylan Baker’s bioweapons-expert character, dying of a self-inflicted hemorrhagic viral infection as he talks to Stan Beeman about how the Jennings live the American dream. Whatever it is, there’s something sickly, diseased in the atmosphere. It permeates even the most innocuous or cheery scenes. So when Philip and Elizabeth embark on their most difficult mission yet, one in which failure could lead to the dismantling of their entire network, while at the same time their neighbor Stan grows more and more suspicious of his friends each time we see him…I expected a catastrophe. Somehow, not getting one, not yet anyway, feels even worse.

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I’m so very worried about Stan Beeman. It’s gutting to watch his heartfelt, nearly desperate concern for his “best friend” Philip’s well-being be greeted with half-truths about the travel agency failing, though if you read between the lines — “the business is falling apart, and I think it might be going under” — Philip could well be talking about his marriage, the Soviet Union, or both. Stan buys it for a moment, until, I think, Philip hugs him.

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sistermagpie
sistermagpie

I actually did get all of that, I just didn't see why it would be that satisfying to me. I spent seasons 1-4 hoping that Mischa was a lie created to manipulate Philip, so I was totally disappointed wh

Plums
Plums

Couple of new articles this morning about the end of the series. A Vox piece that is very nice and doesn't give away any spoilers for the finale other than to say the reviewer saw and loved it. 

SlovakPrincess
SlovakPrincess

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/arts/television/richard-thomas-of-the-americans-on-agent-gaads-fate-john-boy-and-jimmy-carter.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&_r=1 "Do you

SunnyBeBe

SunnyBeBe

I'm dying for some spoilers. If anyone has a link, please PM me.  The ending can't be that airtight, can it?  I mean, Breaking Bad, yes, I get how that was tight, but, even some of that slipped. 

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hellmouse

hellmouse

(edited)

A bunch of reviews of episode 8 The Summit. It's always interesting to read the different takes reviewers have on this show. But they all agree that this was an excellent episode.

From Vox.com: The Americans unveils a master class in building tension in The Summit

From Alan Sepinwall: The Americans Brings Elizabeth To A Series-Altering Decision

From Paste magazine: The Many Faces of Elizabeth Jennings

From AV Club: Between two conversations, The Americans do battle and seek absolution

From Den of Geek: The Americans Review: The Summit

ETA

From Vulture.com: The Americans Recap: Friendly Fire

From NYT: The Americans Recap: Elizabeth Comes Around

Edited by hellmouse
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Ellaria

Ellaria

(edited)
8 hours ago, hellmouse said:

From Alan Sepinwall: The Americans Brings Elizabeth To A Series-Altering Decision

From Sepinwall's review:

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* Also agonizing — and, given how little time is left, somewhat frustrating — was Renee preparing for her FBI interview with Stan noting that the most important questions are whether she can keep a secret, and if she’s a loyal American. That doesn’t feel at all like foreshadowing, does it, folks? The problem is, we’re so late in the story that the show is kind of damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t by now. If Renee is a spy, it’ll be introduced too late — and with too much else going on — to land properly. If she’s not, then it’s just distracting that they cast someone like Laurie Holden, and had Philip voice his own suspicions about Renee last season.

Completely agree. Wherever this goes, it wasn't handled well.

Edited by Ellaria Sand
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SunnyBeBe

SunnyBeBe

These showrunners sure are full of themselves. lol  I used to be a lot more impressed with them, but, some of their brilliance now strikes me as them being lazy.  This article is pretty amusing, though.  It's an interview with them about the final season.  I'm not so sure it has any spoilers, but, in caution I put in tags. 

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Spoiler

 

Interviewer: in the final analysis of the story. Will it be tragic or will it be positive? Let’s find out.

Was it hard to figure out how Henry fits into things? Can his parents keep him in the dark, forever?

FIELDS: Well, we’ll see how it goes. Generally, lying to their kids hasn’t worked out great for Philip and Elizabeth.

WEISBERG: It’s so interesting, all these years, audiences have asked about Henry and we’ve said, “Yeah, we’ve got a little bit more of a story for him, this season.” But in the closing season, I can’t wait to see what people think. For us, it all comes together. The role he’s always played and what he does this season will all come together.

 

 

http://collider.com/the-americans-season-6-interview-joe-weisberg-joel-fields/#fx

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Umbelina

Umbelina

(edited)

Podcast

https://slate.com/culture/2018/05/the-americans-insider-podcast-for-episode-608-the-summit.html

Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields about Philip’s truth-telling, an unusual act of kindness on Elizabeth’s part, and why the characters on The Americans watch television. Then we hear from Alyssa Monks, the artist who created Erica Haskard’s paintings, about how she felt when she learned that Elizabeth was going to burn a piece of art that holds special significance for her. Finally, The Americans’ design team—production designer Dan Davis, set decorator Mila Khalevich, and art director Tim Goodmanson—talk about the challenges Season 6 presented.

It's VERY interesting to listen to them describe the movie Philip watched. 

Edited by Umbelina
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Umbelina

Umbelina

10 minutes ago, jrlr said:

Don't know if this is the right thread, but Ruthie Miles (who played Young Hee) just lost her unborn baby,  two months after a car crashed into her and a friend, killing Mile's four year old and her friend's toddler.   This is beyond heartbreaking.

 

eta: http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2018/5/3/driver-dorothy-bruns-fatal-park-slope-crash-will-be-charged-death-two-kids

http://people.com/movies/broadway-star-ruthie-ann-miles-loses-unborn-baby-after-daughter-killed-car-crash/

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Umbelina

Umbelina

These reviews are SO interesting!  Thanks for posting the links!

Some are breathtakingly good.  I'm on the NYT right now, and wow.
 

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All this was just preparation, though, for the showdown to come — with Claudia. Jackson’s recording revealed Nesterenko to be, in Elizabeth’s mind, not a traitor but a loyal Soviet subject carrying out Gorbachev’s wishes. No matter, Claudia said — Elizabeth’s new orders were to kill him. Elizabeth duly donned a wig and concealed a gun in a newspaper, but in a series-defining moment, she walked past Nesterenko without shooting him.

Back with Claudia, Elizabeth — her radicalization nearly complete — said that this time, she needed to know why she was killing her target. The answer was not what she wanted to hear: just like Philip, but for less noble reasons, the K.G.B. had been lying to her. To “protect” her, she hadn’t been told that the general she met was part of a K.G.B.-military plot to oust Gorbachev, and worse, that her own reports about Nesterenko’s meeting would be falsified to provide the justification.

Which is how Elizabeth and Philip could be reconciled (without any intramarital homicide). Elizabeth now sees the Center’s plans as a betrayal of the cause she’s fought for all these years, and leaving an ominously silent Claudia, she went home to Philip to demand a meeting with “his guy,” Oleg. The Jenningses both want to derail the plot, and keep Nesterenko alive.

 

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hellmouse

hellmouse

Interesting article by the Jonna Hiestand Mendez, former Chief of Disguise at the CIA. (What a job title!)

Washington Post - The Americans got a lot right
 

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“The Americans” gets the tradecraft and the technology of the 1980s generally right, at least the way it worked when Ronald Reagan was president. The script is littered with dead drops and communication protocols, disguises and cyanide pills, secret writing and signals that were used for impersonal communication with your agent or your team. It is all properly executed; it is done the way we did it, and it is one of many ways that Joe Weisberg, the creator of this series and a former CIA officer himself, shows his hand and his familiarity with CIA tactics and methods. He and I went to the same tradecraft school at the agency, and we learned the same lessons. When I watched Matthew Rhys, the husband on “The Americans,” speed in reverse through an FBI roadblock in the final episode of Season 1, well, I have practiced that maneuver countless times, wrecking more than one car while learning the procedure. They did it right.

The makeup artists for “The Americans” do, too.  It is universally recognized that women wear disguises more easily than men do. Women have been disguising themselves from their early teens for generations; men, not so much. Convincing a male CIA officer that he should wear a wig and a fake mustache was one of my first challenges in the disguise business. I went on to become chief of disguise at CIA, and had other, more compelling disguise materials to offer, but the men were never a natural fit. Rhys makes the case, however, for disappearing under nothing more than a knit cap and a pair of glasses, a scruffy mustache and a messy wig. He becomes the consummate little gray man, invisible, the one nobody can remember was even on the elevator.

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Umbelina

Umbelina

(edited)

For those struggling or resisting Elizabeth's change of heart?  I highly recommend the Vulture recap, it's laid out beautifully.

Other's do as well, Sepinwall's is beautifully done too.

Edited by Umbelina
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Umbelina

Umbelina

(edited)
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Although the Soviet Union was no more, Haspel’s interest in Russia and the former Soviet republics intensified. So did her study of Russian tradecraft, said former CIA officers who know her. Haspel became a student of Moscow’s methods for recruiting agents and secretly communicating with them. One of her favorite TV shows is “The Americans,” Haspel’s friend said, because it accurately portrays Russian espionage in the 1980s. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/undercover-to-under-scrutiny-gina-haspel-nominee-to-head-cia-to-face-senate-grilling/2018/05/07/c8178dea-4fa5-11e8-b966-bfb0da2dad62_story.html?utm_term=.a117b29650ca

First female head of the CIA

Also, my favorite ex-CIA Operations Officer, Bob Baer about her.  https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/03/19/593323903/gina-haspel-used-to-work-for-me-shes-a-great-choice-for-cia-director

I've been reading a few more of his books.  Blow The House Down is incredible, I've just started on some more of his non-fiction stuff.

Edited by Umbelina
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scrb

scrb

1 hour ago, BingeyKohan said:

Not sure where to put this question but do folks who love The Americans also dig Killing Eve? Any overlap? Was thinking of giving that a try.

Good question because Villanelle also happens to be a Russian women who's a serial killer.

Villanelle shows no remorse for her kills and displays symptoms of a psychopath -- laughing at pictures of people or animals being killed.

Elizabeth has regrets but she's all about the cause.  Yet how do you compile such a body count without some level of psychopathy?

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Umbelina

Umbelina

56 minutes ago, scrb said:

Good question because Villanelle also happens to be a Russian women who's a serial killer.

Villanelle shows no remorse for her kills and displays symptoms of a psychopath -- laughing at pictures of people or animals being killed.

Elizabeth has regrets but she's all about the cause.  Yet how do you compile such a body count without some level of psychopathy?

Ask any soldier that has seen combat.  Or dropped drones on civilians.

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Bannon

Bannon

22 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Ask any soldier that has seen combat.  Or dropped drones on civilians.

The problem with Elizabeth's homicides is that there were too many of them, and it took too long for her to have a stress reaction to the high number of homicides committed, for a nonsociopath. My stepfather was a sniper in WWII. He had nightmares that would wake him, shaking, several times a month, for the entire 59 years he lived after the war, reliving what it felt like to kill a lot of human beings. I don't think the  writers meant to write Elizabeth as a sociopath, but they have come perilously close, with the number of homicides committed, and waiting until halfway through the final season to begin to show Liz having a major stress reaction to having committed them.

I wish the writers had trusted the audience more.

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Bannon

Bannon

On 5/21/2018 at 1:18 AM, cesstar said:

Commentary on what the show gets right (and wrong) from a former CIA intelligence officer

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-spy-cia-intelligence-gina-haspel-0521-20180517-story.html

I was disappointed to see her speaking positively about the car chase scene that ended season 1. Yes, the driving technique for getting through a roadblock was accurately portrayed, and at a normal road block, it would have a decent chance of working. The problem was in, as it often has been in with the writers, how the FBI was portrayed. A known extraordinarily high value target is not going to escape with that technique, especially in D.C.  because the FBI is aware of the techniques, and would have multiple redundancies in place to foil them. I almost dropped the show after that episode, because The Harlem Globetrotters vs. The  Washington Generals, absent the jokes, is kind of dull. I'm really glad I stuck with it, but I think this was another instance of the writers not trusting the audience.

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hellmouse

hellmouse

A bunch of reviews/recaps: 

TV Insider - Interview with Margo Martindale about the episode

Den of Geek - Season 6, episode 9 review

Uproxx/Alan Sepinwall - How Close Is Stan To Catching 'The Americans' Before The Series Ends?

AV Club - With one episode left, The Americans prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice

Vox - The Americans spends its penultimate episode raising lots of very big questions

NYT - The Americans On the Run

Paste - The Americans Reaches Its Moment of Truth

Vulture - The Americans: Topsy Turvy

Indiewire - The Americans Brilliantly Keeps Viewers Teetering on the Edge of Chaos

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hellmouse

hellmouse

A short interview at TVLine with Matthew Rhys in which he gives a tiny hint about the finale. I don't know if he's being straightforward or joking, but if t's the former, it's interesting. 

The Americans' Star Matthew Rhys Gets Nostalgic & Teases the Series Finale

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Q: Any hints on the finale?

A: I had hoped for a shock or surprise ending. I was incredibly impressed with how the producers threw a curveball that I don’t think anyone will see coming. It was a very emotional roller coaster — and then incredibly moving.

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Plums

Plums

This is an interesting article from Den of Geek UK, mainly lauding Elizabeth's character as one of the best, and also an important contribution for being a woman, in the TV age of anti-heroes. 

http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/the-americans/57983/the-americans-saluting-tvs-finest-female-anti-hero

Also, I saw it because Guillermo Del Toro tweeted it! He's one of my fave creators so it was really awesome to see we watch the same TV, lol. 

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SunnyBeBe

SunnyBeBe

1 hour ago, hellmouse said:

Here's a short video interview with Matthew Rhys from PeopleTV. The funniest part is how he cringes watching himself line dance and says he wasn't any good at it. 

Matthew Rhys on what he'll miss about working with Keri Russell on The Americans

OMG! What a treat. He is so hot!  Man.....I CANNOT believe we are losing this guy..I mean, character, Philip.  He looks fine to me in that line dance scene. 

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Umbelina

Umbelina

The Americans’ Final Season: An Oral History of the FX Drama

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Long: Going to Russia last year to shoot some material with (co-star) Costa Ronin in Red Square was a win. We shot with a Russian crew, very much on the DL. We tried to shoot the Kremlin and various places. It required a lot of connections. We couldn’t get permits for much. So at 4 in the morning by the Kremlin we’re with our guide who says “You’ve got five minutes.” We know we’re being watched on closed circuit TV. The guards came out and tried to move us along. There were guys that came out and started to “fix” the street lamps. Our location guy gave them money to go away.

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Noah Emmerich (co-star/director): I read the pilot and thought that I didn’t want to be somebody who carried a gun for five years. (Pilot director) Gavin O’Connor told me to read it again. I sat down and read it carefully and realized this is not about guns, it’s about relationships. I learned later that Joe and I went to college together — we went to Yale at the same time but we didn’t know each other. … I first saw Stan as a jocular happy family man. His world got turned upside down pretty quickly: His marriage fell apart, his lover got killed, his job was incredibly frustrating and he kept getting boxed in to a tighter and tighter corner.

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Plums

Plums

Couple of new articles this morning about the end of the series. A Vox piece that is very nice and doesn't give away any spoilers for the finale other than to say the reviewer saw and loved it. 

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/5/29/17392150/the-americans-fx-final-season-series-finale-review-philip-elizabeth

and an exit interview in Entertainment Weekly with Keri and Matthew. 

http://ew.com/tv/2018/05/29/the-americans-keri-russell-matthew-rhys-exit-interview-finale/

My favorite part of this one is when the reviewer asks them what their hardest seasons were, and my immediate thought was "surely the one where Keri was pregnant?", but Keri talks about how exhausting season 6 was for her. And then they go to Matthew-

Quote

RHYS: I can’t actually say that I have a hardest one, because Keri did a season pregnant, in which she did the majority of the night shoots in tight jeans and heels. So…

He's wonderful. 

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hellmouse

hellmouse

At Variety, an interview with Noah Emmerich about Stan. No spoilers. He sounds like he's kind of over the show, IMO, like he's glad to be done with it. Or at least he doesn't sound as fondly reflective as all the other people interviewed have sounded so far.  

The Americans' Star on Uncovering the Truth 

At Vulture, an interview with Costa Ronin about Oleg. He also talks about Homeland, which I don't watch so I don't know if it's spoilery for that show. He also says that if Oleg is considered hot, it's because of the writers, lol. 

Costa Ronin is just as surprised as everyone else that Oleg is still alive on The Americans.

At Racked, an interview with Katie Irish (costume designer) about Elizabeth Jennings' disguises. Interesting!

Keri Russell’s Spy Disguises Have Been the Best Part of The Americans. 

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Umbelina

Umbelina

https://newrepublic.com/article/148567/ending-conflicted-cold-warriors-americans 

Very interesting review.

 

Quote

 

As the show draws to a conclusion, Elizabeth is having a change of heart, but it comes from commitment to her country rather than from a betrayal of it. In her flashback, set in the early 1960s, two and a half decades earlier, it is layers of Russian and Soviet culture that shape her decision to protect Nesterenko. Elizabeth—then named Nadezhda—is in Moscow where she had recently arrived from the provinces. In training with the KGB, she is in the middle of a nighttime practice mission. On a poorly lit Moscow street, she picks up a message left in a dead drop at a bridge underpass and then moves along, under the bridge, past four large posters. One of the posters is clearly visible. “Work, sonny, just as you have fought!” says the message at the bottom of the poster. The image above: an older man at a factory gingerly putting his hands around a younger man’s shoulders; the younger man wears his work outfit covering but not fully concealing his army uniform replete with his “Order of the Red Star” medal awarded for valor in combat. Emerging from the underpass, Elizabeth stumbles upon a traffic accident that had taken place moments before: a motorcycle collided with a horse. One man—the horse rider—appears dead, the second man is pleading for help, the motorcycle is crashed, and the horse is close to death. Elizabeth continues on her mission.

As a flashback to the early 1960s, this scene—at first glance—doesn’t make much sense. The poster Elizabeth passes is a decade and a half out of date: Designed in 1945, it was mass produced in the immediate aftermath of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II (or what Russians refer to as the Great Patriotic War). The poster was intended as a visual aid in welcoming surviving Red Army soldiers back to civilian life and to the daunting task of rebuilding the Soviet Union at the end of the devastating war. What Elizabeth is seeing here is not a perfectly recalled memory, but a moment shaped and reshaped by the collective and cultural memory that often motivate her as a character. A child of the war, Elizabeth is both traumatized by wartime deprivation and moved by it to serve her country. In this flashback, it’s as though the older man in the poster is directly asking her to pick up where the wartime generation left off.

 

Wow.

She goes on to talk about the horse, which I agree looms large in Russian literature, poetry, statues, etc.  However, the podcast tells us that it was just cheaper to use than vintage cars. 

Much more at link.  Tagging @sistermagpie because, this is an interesting take on the flashback.

Loved all those links above, thanks for posting them!

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SunnyBeBe

SunnyBeBe

(edited)
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And, well, I won’t spoil whether that happens or not in the series finale (which I’ve seen and loved). But I will say that what

Spoiler

I should have been paying attention to in that day on set wasn’t my assumptions of where the show was going — all final blazes of glory and explosions and dark horrors — but rather where the show had always been.

 

As posted by Plum above

Spoiler
Spoiler

The critics words are above, after viewing the finale.  So, what is ablaze, who's getting glory, where are the explosions and what is the DARK HORROR?  This critic says that  we should pay attention to what we always have seen. 

Well, that would be watching them stroll around their house or on a mission, living a lonely life, as some nice music plays in the background, like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  That's how I see them.  I don't view them as dead or in a prison cell. So, I'm not sure that I follow.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/5/29/17392150/the-americans-fx-final-season-series-finale-review-philip-elizabeth

Edited by SunnyBeBe
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jjj

jjj

(edited)

Okay, on to the "most ghastly kills"  I will make my own list first, and see how I do.  Some truly were more awful than others.  Wow, you start to make a list for both Philip and Elizabeth, and realize they really have been monstrous.

Edited by jjj
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jjj

jjj

6 hours ago, Umbelina said:

I posted a much more in depth article about this probably in the real spy thread a couple of weeks ago.  Possibly in the media thread, but I'd guess real spy.

Super long interview with both boys, quotes from their parents, and the legal issues explained.

I'll try to find this -- sounds very interesting! 

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hellmouse

hellmouse

From Quartz, A Fond Farewell To One Of The Great TV Dramas Of The Decade

Quote

...But great TV shows are rarely actually about the things that they’re about. Breaking Bad wasn’t about selling drugs. The Sopranos wasn’t about being in the mob. Mad Men wasn’t about making commercials. The Americans, similarly, isn’t about the Cold War, except the one waged between a husband and a wife.

It’s not even about spies, or politics, or dead-drops, or funny wigs. It is a profound depiction of a marriage that uses the physical and emotional isolation of the Jennings family—and their high-stakes occupation—to tell a universal story. “There are subtleties about the Jennings’ relationship when we first encounter it that make it a more interesting and important portrayal of marriage than would, say, one characterized by the extremes of falling in love or divorce,” my colleague Annaliese Griffin wrote. “They are at a turning point that happens in many marriages, when it is not quite right, and must flex and shift to accommodate change, in circumstances, in the world around us, and in each other.”

From TV Ate My Wardrobe, Saying Goodbye to The Americans

Quote

...I was hooked on The Americans from the first episode, from the first TUSK. The spy stuff was fun, but the central relationship was what drew me in. And this has since turned into thousands of words about Philip and Elizabeth Jennings. The costume design, which didn’t scream the 1980s of music videos, wasn’t just a case of throwing on a ridiculous outfit whenever the story called for a cover disguise. Big glasses, big hair, later big shoulder pads all factored, but it was grounded in the narrative. And as her permanent cover, no one has made me want to wear silk blouses as much as Elizabeth has made me want to wear silk blouses.

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jjj

jjj

(edited)
23 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

YOUNG Matthew.  Man.....there are no words.

Wow, thank you -- I saw most seasons of "Brothers & Sisters," but had not seen this, nor remembered him being this young! 

Edited by jjj
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hellmouse

hellmouse

15 minutes ago, jjj said:

Wow, thank you -- I saw most seasons of "Brothers & Sisters," but had not seen this, nor remembered him being this young! 

I had never watched Brothers & Sisters, but I did after starting The Americans, and then of course looked for all the bloopers, interviews etc. I remember watching that video and thinking how thoughtful he was to give Sally Fields his jacket because she was cold. He really does seem like a basically decent person, as does Keri Russell. IMO it is always a good sign when people stay friends with former colleagues and both of them have done so. 

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hellmouse

hellmouse

Spoilers for the finale. I thought I'd start collecting some of the reviews and recaps.

I haven't read these all yet so I haven't pulled out any quotes but I'm sure they are great.

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