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I must really be out of the loop, but I didn't know Kerri and Matthew were a couple. Hmm......I've read it in two places.

http://heavy.com/entertainment/2015/01/keri-russell-matthew-rhys-dating-boyfriend-girlfriend-the-americans-married-to-net-worth-husband/

Some interesting photos of them.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20802179,00.html

Yeah. Keri (with 1 R, I think like the Keri dry skin lotion/shampoo, not 2) & Matthew have been a couple since the hiatus (vacation) between S2 &S3. I think Keri & her husband/the father of her/their kids split & got a divorce, which is apparently already final & legal, sometime in S2... Maybe about midseason. As far as I know, Keri & Matthew are still an offscreen couple too, but I haven't seen pics of them at anything which would confirm/deny that in a few weeks/months. Not since they attended a party thrown in LA by FX networks during the Television Critics Association Winter Meeting/Press Tour; that was either late last year (2014) or early this year (2015). As I remember, it kinda dovetailed into the holidays; I think it was after them, sort of early this year.

Honestly, though, if you hadn't seen a pic of them looking like a couple while doing offscreen things, in a celebrity magazine or a tabloid, you probably wouldn't know they were a couple on both sides of the camera. I don't think they're volunteering that info in interviews (I keep missing Keri's interviews, so I don't know if she is or isn't talking about it; I've seen at least a couple of Matthew's interviews, & I can say for sure he's not volunteering the info, at least not in the interviews I've seen). And the interviewers aren't asking them--either because they don't know to (or that they can) or because they've been told, flat out, they're in a relationship offscreen but it's not a subject they're discussing in interviews.

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Some interesting reviews:
 

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/16/the-americans-i-am-abassin-zadran-review

Meanwhile, the issues with Paige continue to offer some terrific drama. The Jennings are now very worried their daughter will, basically, ruin their lives and are essentially following her around as a result.

 

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/americans-i-am-abassin-zadran-218124

Because Paige is more than Philip and Elizabeth’s daughter now—knowing what she knows, she’s become a KGB asset. And in a development that might bode well for her future in espionage, she’s asking a lot of questions, pulling at loose threads like “Aunt Helen” and a supposed cousin who accompanied the Jennings to Sea World. The search for this sort of truth is a recognizably adolescent impulse, one that dovetails elegantly with The Americans’ intentions for Paige. Exposed to the tiniest inkling of How Things Really Work, teenagers launch into all sorts of fact-finding missions. (Paige started with nuclear disarmament, I had post-9/11 surveillance programs like Total Information Awareness. Clearly, one of us was on to something.) But this is identity-rocking stuff, and The Americans treats it as such—thrillingly so, in a way that’s kept Paige’s storylines this season as interesting as anything Philip and Elizabeth are going through.

 

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/the-americans-recap-abassin-zadran/
 

Товарищи, пристегните ремни.
(Comrades, fasten your seatbelts.)

“Clark.” Peeling. Off. His. Wig. Martha watches as if he were a hideous alien pulling away the false skin that allows him to masquerade as a member of her species (and to mate with her). The scene is excruciating and fascinating. Clark looks as serious as we have ever seen him, and by the time he has loosed every bobby pin and pried the sandy hairpiece from his head, he has assumed a wild-eyed Randle McMurphy expression, or maybe it’s just the asymmetrically disarrayed natural (or so we believe) hair underneath.

 

http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/review-the-americans-i-am-abassin-zadran-philips-wigs-dont-come-off

As a rule, I tend to be biased against secrecy in the shows I watch. Too much conflict on television — both dramas and comedies — is driven by people keeping things to themselves for reasons that don't make sense outside the context of writers who need to prolong tension. Rare is the show that's more interesting when secrets are being kept than when they're out in the open.

"The Americans" is a different story, of course. The premise makes layer upon layer of secrecy job requirement number one for Philip and Elizabeth.

 

It's entirely possible that "worse" is exactly what Philip has in mind here: that he's doing Martha the courtesy of showing her who she was really married to before she gets the Annelise treatment. After all, we saw with poor old Betty a few weeks ago what happens when civilians see our protagonists in action without their disguises. But I don't think that's what this is. Philip doesn't see Martha as his wife, but he does care for her, and he feels protective of her, and after all they've been through — particularly in light of what happened to Annelise — I suspect he intends to do everything in his power to keep her alive. And if that means going to the extreme step of de-wigging in order to get her to trust him, then that's what he'll do.

 

Perhaps he's drawing inspiration from what's happening on the homefront with Paige, who's understandably fixated on learning which pieces of her life are real and which were invented by the KGB. Like Martha, she feels a prisoner of circumstance, and ugly scenes like Philip and Elizabeth closing the garage door like the bars on a jail cell, or Elizabeth's attempt to clamp her hand over her daughter's mouth are not helping her view it as anything else. But when Philip shares photos of genuine moments in their lives, he finally starts getting through to her, which at least leaves her open to the possibility of traveling to Russia with Elizabeth to meet her grandmother. She asked for none of this situation, but now that she's stuck in the middle of it, she at least wants as much truth as she can get, and both her parents are playing into that.
 

Plus a cool panel video!

 

http://www.vulture.com/2015/04/americans-recap-season-3-episode-12.html
 

Spying is largely a profession about knowledge — stealing it, knowing it, and sometimes transforming it into lies. Not everyone does very positive things with the knowledge they've been given this week, and sometimes it's downright terrifying.

 

Martha's been having a pretty tough time beneath the strain of the investigation over the bug, so it's especially nerve-racking when Stan Beeman shows up unannounced at her apartment at night. He makes some small talk about the novel Shogun and proceeds to ask friendly but somewhat leading comments that act like something's wrong: "If there's on anything your mind, you can always come to me." To Martha's credit, she really keeps it together, but the second she closes the door, there's nothing but fear on her face.

 

http://observer.com/2015/04/the-americans-3x12-recap-wigging-out/

Paige Jennings has an album of family photos that aren’t. Her cousin Roger, her Aunt Helen—they’re not relatives, they’re operatives. She suspects that her neighbor, FBI Agent Stan Beeman, is more a target than a family friend. For all she knows, she’s no more Philip and Elizabeth’s biological daughter than she is Pastor Tim’s. When she flips through the pictures in her parents’ bedroom, the lies add up, each polaroid a little rectangular void of untruth. With mounting panic and anger, she gets louder and louder, until her mother reacts in a way that’s both aggressive and almost involuntary: She leaps up and tries to cover Paige’s mouth with her hand. It’s not lies that are unbearable to her—it’s the truth.

 

http://www.tv.com/shows/the-americans-2013/community/post/the-americans-season-3-episode-12-i-am-abassin-zadran-review-142911505984/

Well now someone certainly likes slitting the throats of traitorous infidels. Crazy ass Abassin Zadran, I'm looking in your direction. Forget bed bugs, the next time I stay at a Travelodge, I'm going to demand proof that the room I've booked has not been the scene of any family executions, corpses being stuffed into a suitcase, or disloyalty-fueled “cuttings.” The third episode of The Americans' third season to feature a title involving a character's name, “I Am Abassin Zadran” saw the Jennings losing control of their own home (two homes, if you count Clarktha's!), while completing their job duties with the usual expertise. And as Season 3's penultimate hour (I never miss an opportunity to use the word "penultimate"), the episode hinted at new directions for the spy couple who are finding themselves to be more and more at odds with the cause they serve.

 

http://www.vulture.com/2015/04/martha-the-americans-dread.html

For a while there, I thought The Americans' central concept was deception — that, at its purest level, the show was driving at ideas of lies and construct and performance. (The Wire's central concept is rot, for example; the intensity and action of the show rely on an atmosphere of entropy and decay.) In The Americans' first two seasons, the emotional thesis of the show was, "yes, you can fake it," and all the jazzy spycraft was there to show us the tools of artifice (namely wigs and enthusiasm). In season three, though, the show has become richer and more affecting because now the driving force isn't deceit: The overwhelming sensation of The Americans is dread. And Martha is at the center of that dread. Oh, Martha. Oh, Martha.
In season one, Martha was TV's saddest character, and now things seem more dire than that: Every second she's onscreen, I'm wondering if the person she's talking to is about to kill her. (And hats off to Alison Wright for playing Martha as smart and self-possessed, only as vulnerable to targeted psychological manipulation as anyone else would be.) Could Clark kill her? Yes. I thought for a second Agent Beeman might, because everyone has a darkness, as this show reminds us. Even the mail robot could go rogue and take her out. Every part of Martha's existence elicits an "oh God, something bad is going to happen" response from the audience.

That dread is the densest around Martha, but it exists in the entire show. We know how the Cold War ends and what happens to spies who are captured, and we know there's nothing too wonderful waiting for Philip and Elizabeth, no matter what they do. (Have fun moving back to Russia in the early '90s?)

 

Edited by Umbelina
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The fact that Paige divulged her parents’ secret to Pastor Tim doesn’t necessarily mean the Jennings are doomed. I still think he might be a KGB operative in disguise. This is what makes The Americans so gripping: It allows you to experience the crazy paranoia that Elizabeth and Philip feel, always second-guessing the motives of every new person you meet. For me, it doesn’t make sense that Claudia and Gabriel would allow Philip and Elizabeth to take the massive risk of revealing who they really are to Paige if the higher-ups hadn’t already safeguarded that secret from leaking. And Pastor Tim’s cover is perfect. Who would suspect a Jesus-loving pastor of being a godless Communist? What better way to recruit teenagers for “the cause” than by staging anti-American protests in the name of peace?

 

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/22/americans-season-three-finale-review

 

Poor Paige. Yeah, I know, it’s easy to villainize her and I’m sure some already are for calling Pastor Tim and telling him her parents were Russians (though we never heard her tell him they were spies, did we?). But moments before, as she lay in her bed crying, I jotted down in my notes, “This is too much to ask of her,” as we felt the weight of all she’d discovered and what it was her parents wanted from her. Because not only was she being asked to now lie to every single person in her life, including her brother (as she noted to Elizabeth), but it was clear that her visit to see her grandmother was also turning into a bit of a recruitment for her. “You would never have to do anything like that, okay?”, Elizabeth told her, as they talked about Elizabeth’s mom letting her go away forever… but with that came the implication that she’d have to do some things. Things she wouldn’t like. And so she turned to the guy who, over two seasons, has become another, and in many ways more dependable, parental figure for her. And who now may need to be taken out.

 

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/23/the-americans-march-8-1983-review

 

 

"They're Russians!" -Paige

"March 8, 1983" demonstrated all the ways in which "The Americans" has grown into an emotional powerhouse that's the best drama on television at the moment. And we will get to all of those shortly, because every single thing in the episode was extraordinary, to the point where I had to remind myself to breathe a time or three.

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As to the flaws, I spent much too much of the hour waiting for Martha follow-up — and, after Philip murdered Gene the computer tech to serve as her patsy, thereby confirming her survival, waiting for her actual appearance — to at times fully engage with what was actually happening. That scene at the end of last week's episode felt too big to not get some glimpse of Martha dealing with its aftermath, rather than just hearing Philip and Elizabeth discuss how she's on board for now, but might not be once she learns of Gene's death.

---

Weisberg said he was surprised that anyone thought Philip was showing Martha his true face as a prelude to killing her. But if that's the case, I don't know why the episode was structured this way, where things are left seemingly ambiguous until Gene's murder two-thirds of the way through the hour. If you want to leave the audience guessing about Martha's fate — and don't mind that those guesses may overwhelm their thinking about what's on the screen — then that's how you put the episode together. And if you assume people will understand that he took off the wig and glasses as a way to calm her down and get her to trust him, I think you need some glimpse of Martha, however brief, dealing with her new world order, and you probably need to put that in pretty early in the hour, especially while Philip's other wife is out of the country.

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But the trip has the opposite effect from what was intended. The enormity of her mother and grandmother's sacrifices doesn't give Paige newfound respect for the cause, but only deepens her dismay that Elizabeth works for people who would ask someone to do this. And witnessing Elizabeth in full counter-surveillance mode in the streets of Western Berlin clearly unsettles her, even though no one seemed to actually be tailing them. There's no telling how Paige would have reacted to actually seeing Russia itself, which was in a state by 1983 that wouldn't seem the least bit appealing to an American girl, even one as grounded and thoughtful as this one. But getting within spitting distance of the Iron Curtain, and seeing Elizabeth's pain over saying goodbye to her mother forever, finally drives her to place what I fear will be a very damaging phone call to Pastor Tim.

 

 

Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/how-the-americans-is-tvs-best-drama-even-when-its-messy#c5sdjCm7OB7YYEAY.99

 

This Is the Ronald Reagan Speech That Just Showed Up on The Americans

 

His uncompromising rhetoric unsettled members of the Washington establishment, who warned that it would reheat the arms race and threaten peaceful coexistence with the Soviets. But Reagan managed to touch the hearts and minds of those who mattered: the rebels behind the Iron Curtain who ultimately brought it down. Nathan Sharansky read Reagan’s speech in a cell in Siberia. Knocking on walls and talking through toilets, he spread the word to other prisoners in the Gulag. “The dissidents were ecstatic,” Sharansky wrote. “Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth — a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.”

 

http://time.com/3831400/ronald-reagan-the-americans-speech/

 

Before the FBI’s most unfortunate IT guy meets his fate, Rhys stares down one of Gene’s robots as if Philip is bonding with the plaything. It’s been a recurring theme throughout season three, and “March 8, 1983” really drives it home: Philip sees a little bit of himself in the robot. His interactions with Gabriel make him feel like a child, but they also make him feel like a machine. As emotion and self-awareness continually override his training, Philip recognizes—and is terrified by—his lack of free will. He’s empowered by EST because it’s grounded in the double-edged American ideal of purging the contents of your heart and mind whenever, wherever, and however you feel. It’s naïve to think that such radical honesty will make Philip feel any better (it hasn’t done the trick for his daughter), but wanting to speak more openly isn’t an unreasonable demand to make.

 

And just like their daughter, the Jennings have found small ways to push back and disobey orders. After learning about Elizabeth and Paige’s travel itinerary in “March 8, 1983,” Gabriel sternly responds “This is not how we do things.”

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/americans-march-8-1983-218402

 

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http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/the-americans-season-3-finale-recap/
 

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“When you try to separate sex from intimacy and honesty, it always goes wrong,” the EST group leader tells the “graduate sex seminar” participants.

No one has more experience at that than Philip. Are we all assuming that he got to go skip to the graduate level because of his traumatic advanced-placement sexual training in Russia? Philip’s eyes are shadowed. He appears wounded, damaged even.

 

And is it a coincidence that Philip and Sandra Beeman are both there? Which of Philip’s many discontents possessed him to go back to EST after attending a few sessions as a buddy to Stan?

 

Philip seems to be a broken man in this episode, ready to go rogue or worse. It was clear he was angry for much of the season, but it’s his vacant look in this finale that is most chilling.

Was it the near-miss with Stan at Martha’s apartment that is haunting him? Or does it go back to the discovery of the bugged pen and the knowledge that the suspicion would fall on Martha?

 

Or was it Gabriel telling him, “You can’t see 10 feet in front of you” and cutting him down to size with two words: “Grow up”?

 

Sandra catches sight of Philip at the EST meeting, and, in a sort of impromptu speed-sharing session, tells him baldly, “I’m not sure anyone in my life has ever known me.” This pops out as she warms up to proposing that they become confidential EST buddies who tell each other everything. This is the ultimate open-ended plot development. If he accepts, anything might happen. And he looks like a guy who needs a friend.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/04/22/the-americans-season-3-finale-recap-march-8-1983/

 

“Do you give a s— about the bureau, Stan?” Gaad asks before questioning if Stan planted the bug. Of course Stan didn’t, but Gaad is the second colleague to confuse his actions with treason. We’ve never gone in depth on Stan’s time embedded with Neo Nazis, but his actions of late hint at his lone wolf mentality. He betrayed Oleg by handing over the tape. He betrayed Nina by letting her be shipped off to a gulag. And he’s consistently betrayed the FBI by killing Vlad, sleeping with Nina and now conducting his own missions. As the EST speaker told Philip’s group, “The feelings in your gut are just as important, more important, than all of the s— in your head.” That’s the way Stan is doing things, with his gut.

 

Edited by Umbelina
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In "March 8, 1983," 48 minutes that come as near to perfection as television can, it turns out that the phenomenology of evil and the doctrine of sin are inadequate hermeneutics for the dark night of the soul.

In the crack of a corpse's bones and the melody of a church-pew hymn, in death by fire and rebirth by water, The Americans, not unlike HBO's The Leftovers, understands that in the wrong hands, belief, whether ideological or supernatural, may be no more than a kissing cousin to the violence it justifies, and "March 8, 1983" is nothing if not a test of faith. To trust one's family, one's country, one's God, the episode suggests, isn't only to find sustenance, but also, as Paige (Holly Taylor) and Philip (Matthew Rhys) come to realize, to become vulnerable to unimaginable pain. "Yousaf," Philip explains, after the asset (Rahul Khanna) reports on the cancellation of the mujahedeen meeting with U.S. officials, "I feel like shit all the time."

 

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/the-americans-recap-season-3-episode-13-march-8-1983

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I am going to miss my weekly dose of Matthew Rhys + Keri Russell....

Apparently, they been dating IRL as well?

Yep, they apparently have been. Since at least the beginning of April, 2014 (last year), as near as I can find.

From what I could also find (I Googled), Keri & her now ex-husband apparently split up, after almost 7 years of marriage & 2 kids, during the Summer of 2013. But the separation wasn't announced until early December, 2013, when it was also in the news that Keri had been awakened in the middle of the night by a burglary in progress at her house (all the stuff was recovered; nobody was hurt). I don't know if her kids were home with her, at the time, or not. But the news items about the burglary also (belatedly) confirmed the marital separation.

Then, after Christmas, 2013, a local NY paper gossip item wondered if they were dating. In early 2014, magazines like People started publishing pics & articles of them doing things--like shopping & going to a play--together around NYC, & apparently looking very cozy & "couple-y" while doing them. Around April, People published an article outright calling them a couple. But nobody really confirmed it--there was a quote from Matthew calling it a rumor. I haven't really seen any updates since around the end of 2014, when I think they were both at a party FX Networks held, in LA, as part of the Television Critics Association's Winter Meeting (an annual thing in the TV industry), so I'm honestly not sure if they're still together offscreen, or not.

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Langella returning for S4. (Someone has to deal with Paige, right?)

Right, since her parents--at least Elizabeth--don't seem to be getting through to her. I figured it would probably happen, but I still couldn't believe when Paige called Pastor Tim almost as soon as she got home, & actually at least told him her parents are Russians.

Anyway... If they wanted & could get Langella back for S4 they probably snagged him as soon as they could, to make sure they had a "lock" on him so they didn't have to create another new "handler" character for S4. Especially since Margo Martindale's in a Pilot for the 2015-2016 season which hasn't been picked up, or passed on, yet, & her availability to play Claudia again may be limited to 1 or more guest shots, like in S3, if her Pilot's picked up (even for midseason, since I'm guessing that's about when S4 will either be in production or actually airing).

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I would kind of love it if Gabriel tells P&E that Paige spilled the beans because the Centre has their phones tapped. Though I guess if that happened the Centre might have just moved in and killed the pastor immediately. Or no--maybe they wouldn't. Because they might not be listening in real time, but going over later tapes and hearing the call, so they'd have to figure out if he told anyone else.

Edited by sistermagpie
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Matthew Rhys was recently named a "brand ambassador" for Penderyn Whisky. This is apparently made in Wales, Matthew's homeland. Matthew recently took his Brothers & Sisters sibling/castmate, Dave Annable, & Dave's actress wife, Odette Annable, to the Penderyn Distillery in Wales for a tour & a tasting... or so it appears:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/matthew-rhys-introduces-penderyn-whisky-9108529#ICID=sharebar_twitter

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So, when does the next season air?

Next year (2016), I'm pretty sure. But the season premiere date isn't known yet. It'll probably be around the same time of year as this season ran (around midseason for the non-cable networks).

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(edited)

Keri is attending the annual Met Gala tonight in NYC, & she looks fabulous! (No sign of Matthew--he might be working, I'm not sure) Anyway, here's the link to the pic of Keri that showed up on my Twitter awhile ago.

https://twitter.com/zannarassi/status/595371000319053825

And here's a link to the Wikipedia page for the Met Gala, for those who may be unfamiliar with it. Briefly, though, it's a big deal charity fundraiser & dinner held in conjunction with the opening of the Costume Institute's Annual Fashion Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC--which the Gala attendees also get to view as part of the evening's events.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Met_Gala

Edited by BW Manilowe
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(edited)

Keri is attending the annual Met Gala tonight in NYC, & she looks fabulous! (No sign of Matthew--he might be working, I'm not sure) Anyway, here's the link to the pic of Keri that showed up on my Twitter awhile ago.

https://twitter.com/zannarassi/status/595371000319053825

And here's a link to the Wikipedia page for the Met Gala, for those who may be unfamiliar with it. Briefly, though, it's a big deal charity fundraiser & dinner held in conjunction with the opening of the Costume Institute's Annual Fashion Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC--which the Gala attendees also get to view as part of the evening's events.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Met_Gala

 

Here's an interview with Keri and the designer of her dress, Joseph Altuzurra on the red carpet at the Met Gala.

Edited by bjork
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Margo Martindale's CBS pilot Sneaky Pete hasn't been picked up. Dare we hope that Claudia becomes a regular character again?

According to this, which was posted to The Hollywood Reporter's Twitter/website earlier today, Amazon Prime Video's picked up the Sneaky Pete Pilot & will start airing it on amazon.com on August 7th (I think you have to be an Amazon Prime member--& probably in the US--to be able to see it). They've apparently *only* picked up the Pilot, so far; it looks like there will be some sort of vote taken, involving the people who watch the Pilot, to determine if the Pilot actually goes to series or not (which they also apparently did with other programming they air).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/amazon-officially-picks-up-bryan-811828?utm_source=twitter

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*Cute* pic of Keri & Matthew with their doppelgängers, Michael Ausiello from TVLine.com & Hanh Nguyen from TVGuide, who presented The Americans with the TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Drama Saturday night, August 8th (also see my post in the Awards and Nominations thread). The pic was Instagrammed & Tweeted by TV Line.com.

https://instagram.com/p/6Jh9XILxLV/

HitFix.com's critic, Alan Sepinwall, also Retweeted it & said, "Rhys' reaction is his best moment since 'Martial Eagle'."

https://mobile.twitter.com/sepinwall/status/630259384241664004?p=v

Edited by BW Manilowe
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http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/08/27/quick_hits_page

 

August 27, 2015
 

ChiComs Use Female Cheerleaders to Motivate Male Workers

RUSH: Speaking of the ChiComs, I wasn't gonna mention this, but it kind of fits now.  From the UK Daily Mail: "Chinese Tech Companies Hiring 'Pretty' Women to Motivate Male Employees by Chatting, Playing Ping-Pong and Buying Them Breakfast -- "Chinese companies appear to be hiring women to motivate male workers."  The ChiComs are realizing what it is that motivates and energizes men, and they're hiring women -- beautiful women, as beautiful as they can find.

They're bringing them in there scantily clad as will be permitted and they're using these women to chat up the guys, to tease them, to motivate them, to inspire them in the office, "play ping-pong." And Chinese ping-pong, it may not be what you think ping-pong is.  There's all kinds of different versions here ping-pong when we're talking about the ChiComs.  So you got ping-pong, buying them breakfast.

"They have been dubbed 'programming cheerleaders.'" They bring these babes in for the code guys, the high-tech guys that write code.  The code guys at any company, they're the ones that never leave. They're in the basement; they're working 24/7. If they want 25 pizzas, they get it, whatever.  The ChiComs are bringing in girls.  "Their role is to create a 'fun work environment' for the men." These are the ChiComs.  Remember, now, the Russians, the Soviets, this is true.

Have you seen the TV show "The Americans"?  It's true.  Nelson DeMille... I forget the title of the book. He had a great, great book about this, a novel. But the Soviets actually had Soviet citizens -- they were found as result of their connections to families with KGB and the Politburo, the party leadership -- that were sent to academies in the Soviet Union where they learned everything American.  They learned English.  They learned to speak it without a trace of an accent.

They learned customs.

They learn traditions.

They learned the Constitution.

They were taught to be more patriotic Americans than many native Americans, and then they were shipped to the United States.  And they lived in suburban Washington and other places around the country.  They were spies.  They had kids; the kids went to school, but they were spies.  Some of them ended up working in the defense industry, some of them worked government, some of them were plumbers, whatever. They were just well-disguised spies.  And they were honey traps, many of the women.

They sent single women over; they were honey traps.  This is what the ChiComs are doing, except they're not exporting it.  They're using it on their own male employees.  They say the girls have greatly improved the job efficiency and drive of the men at these various businesses where the ChiComs are trying this.  Who said there wasn't a career path for cheerleaders?  I mean, the ChiComs have actually turned "cheerleaders," here, into an actual corporate gig!

And of all people! The ChiComs engaging in raw, pure sexism in order to get the most productivity out of their male employees.  How long's it's gonna be before we hear that the people that run the New Republic decide to try this, 'cause it's working so well in a communist country?  "The 'pretty, talented' girls are hired to 'create a fun work environment' for employees of internet companies across the country, according to social media website Trending in China. 'Their job includes buying programmers breakfast, chitchatting and playing ping-pong with them.'"

Believe me, there's a hell of a lot more going on than just that.

Edited by gwhh
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The TVShowsonDVD.com website reports that amazon in Canada (amazon.ca) has a release date for the S3 DVDs as January 12th. This would likely be the same release date, or close, for the US because US & Canadian DVDs share the same Region, as far as playability/compatibility of media & players is concerned.

They also show the possible cover design for the set, which is the illustration/whatever of Keri & Matthew's faces & necks painted with various kinds of Soviet/Russian & US iconography (for lack of a better term) on a black background.

ALL of this information is subject to change, however, since that wasn't necessarily an *official* release date from those who'd know it. But at least we may have a ballpark figure on a release date & an idea of the packaging design we should be looking for in stores/online on the S3 DVDs.

http://tvshowsondvd.com/n/21763

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I know this is becoming a broken record, but where can I legally stream S3? Comcast's OnDemand and the FX app have clips but no full episodes. The only place I can find it is to purchase individual episodes from Amazon Prime for $1.99 each, which I'd rather not do for various reasons. I know that FX made the Amazon deal for factors that probably helped the show stay in production, but it's a huge reason why it's having such a hard time attracting new viewers -- especially now when it's appearing high on so many top 10 lists.

 

I really wish I hadn't deleted most of last season from my DVR. At least I still have "Stingers" and the season finale on there. *sigh*

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We have our first promo of the season!!!

 

Finally. This show has been gone for too long. I can't wait for the premiere. Sadly, I can't even remember details from the Season 3 finale. I'll have to go back and watch it. 

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http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-moms/news/keri-russell-is-pregnant-expecting-baby-with-matthew-rhys-w160820

http://www.tvguide.com/news/keri-russell-pregnant-with-matthew-rhys-baby/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3387037/Keri-Russell-expecting-baby-Americans-costar-boyfriend-Matthew-Rhys.html

 

Keri Russell is supposedly pregnant! Do you think they will write it into the show? Or possibly write it in & then have her miscarry, since babies don't really have a place on any shows, IMO? This would be a very interesting storyline I think, since Elizabeth & Philip are now actually in love & may "want' this child instead of feeling obligated to have children as with Paige and Henry. 

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http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-moms/news/keri-russell-is-pregnant-expecting-baby-with-matthew-rhys-w160820

http://www.tvguide.com/news/keri-russell-pregnant-with-matthew-rhys-baby/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3387037/Keri-Russell-expecting-baby-Americans-costar-boyfriend-Matthew-Rhys.html

Keri Russell is supposedly pregnant! Do you think they will write it into the show? Or possibly write it in & then have her miscarry, since babies don't really have a place on any shows, IMO? This would be a very interesting storyline I think, since Elizabeth & Philip are now actually in love & may "want' this child instead of feeling obligated to have children as with Paige and Henry.

Since the media's saying she's more than 4 months pregnant, & multiple sources are posting/publishing the same thing, I'd think it's more than "supposedly".

And I think it's cool; now we'll get to see what a child really conceived by Matthew & Keri/people who look like them really looks like, instead of seeing a casting director's idea of what a kid/kids conceived by them/people who look like them looks like--not that the actors who play Paige & Henry aren't physically believable as kids who were conceived by Keri & Matthew/people who look like them. I'm just making an observation here.

I suppose the "creatives" behind the show, perhaps in consultation with Matthew & Keri, will do whatever they think is best for the storyline & Keri's pregnancy/health, whether it's to write it in, camouflage it & not write it in, or find some way of believably writing Keri/Elizabeth out of some episodes when she's closer to her due date (like when Elizabeth was shot & recovering in a KGB safehouse at the end of S1 & the beginning of S2, only actually writing Keri/Elizabeth out a bit instead of us still seeing her as we did, if I remember right, while Elizabeth was recovering in the safehouse).

Having said that, I'd kind of like to see them write it in because, as you said, now that Elizabeth & Philip are really in love Elizabeth getting pregnant could be an interesting storyline because they'd actually "want" this child instead of (at least at the beginning) "having" to have it to make their "cover" as an average American couple/family more believable. Not that they don't love Paige & Henry, but Paige & Henry weren't "born of their love" like a potential new child would be; Paige & Henry were born of "duty"... A "lie back & think of England" kind of conception, if you will (&, if I'm also remembering correctly, there was a flashback scene, early on, where Elizabeth was talking to 1 of her superiors/her mentor about recently learning she was pregnant [with Henry], but she was thinking about not having that baby).

And having said *that*, I follow the show, & Matthew, on Social Media. So far, the only thing I've seen posted about the pregnancy is the media reports, on Twitter; nothing official from Matthew or the show/the "creatives", or from the show/the "creatives" about how the show plans to deal (or not) with the pregnancy in the storyline. Guess we'll see... Probably sometime in the next 4-5 months-ish (by late Spring/early Summer, maybe May or June if I figured right), if not sooner. If anyone connected to the show posts on Social Media about it, before that, I'll link it here if nobody's done it first.

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There's absolutely no reason to write it into the show. They're filming ep 7 now in S4--presumably with no pregnancy in it. Elizabeth being pregnant just means Elizabeth being stuck out of the action and then probably both of them babysitting.

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There's absolutely no reason to write it into the show. They're filming ep 7 now in S4--presumably with no pregnancy in it. Elizabeth being pregnant just means Elizabeth being stuck out of the action and then probably both of them babysitting.

I actually think your last few sentences are what intrigue me the most about a pregnancy storyline rather represent negatives.

The fact that they're in love would not be an interesting reason for them to write in the pregnancy for me. That's nice and all but what interests me more is how it might affect their outlooks. They may be in love but we left them seemingly with a chasm in how they feel about the work that they do. How would Elizabeth cope with her desire to do her work and the fact that pregnancy would make it harder? Will Philip have even greater misgivings?

Even though they already have children, this is one of the few TV situations where a baby could be a catalyst for plot and character change in the parents' lives.

But the season likely has already been mapped out and winter 80's fashions will undoubtedly help hide the pregnancy should they go that route.

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I don't think there will be much on Twitter regarding the pregnancy. KR doesn't have a Twitter & MR posts very sproadically, his account isn't even verified. Will be interesting to see if Dave Annable or the writers/procedures Joel Fields etc say anything about it though. 

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