S05.E13: The Soviet Division

[RedHawk]

I have not liked certain episodes in previous seasons but found more to like on second viewing.

[dubbel zout]

Just because we don't see Philip and/or Elizabeth active in an op doesn't mean nothing's going on. I imagine they still have to monitor things. Granted, that's not as taxing as spending the weekend in Topeka, for instance, but it's a time suck nonetheless. There's also keeping the travel agency running, and the day-to-day duties of being parents. It's a cumulative affect, and they're feeling burned out, so even a small addition can feel like a lot. Obviously, mileage varies. That's fine!

Edited June 3, 2017 by dubbel zout

[MaryPatShelby]

On 5/30/2017 at 10:36 PM, SlovakPrincess said:

Who do I have to pay to see a different hairstyle - any different hairstyle - on Paige next season?  I can't take it anymore!

No kidding!!  I mentioned this a few episodes ago, asking if it was a thing in this time period that a girl chose a hairstyle and never ever ever changed it (because I'm old and don't remember so good). At least one commenter thought it was supposed to indicate to us that, because of what Paige learned about her parents, her life was so upside down that she no longer had an interest in her appearance.  

But I don't know if I buy that, since she always wore makeup, earrings, and decent clothes, so obviously there was some care taken with how she looked.  But in any event, I'm with you on paying someone to get rid of that ponytail!!

[jww]

Still puzzled by the Tuan/Pascha timeline.  If I recall the opening scene is Pascha in the school cafeteria for the first time; he sits down at a table by himself and is joined by Tuan who sympathizes with him about how unfriendly the school is and the problems he had when he was new.  So did the Center know ahead of time where Pascha family was moving to and plant Tuan  in the  neighborhood school to be ready to receive Pascha in the hope they would become friends which would lead to their  parents becoming friends?  That is pretty efficent !

I was surprised they could afford  to play almost the entire Yellow Brick Road.  Mad Men had to pay $250k for Don to play like 20 seconds of a Beatles song before he turned it off in disgust.  Elton John's catalog  might be cheaper, but I doubt it is that much cheaper. I imagine it may be edited out when the dvd come out.   Very few  period  shows actually show the characters listening to real music, have we even seen a stereo in anybodies house ?  Henry should be blasting out the Beastie Boys.   WKRP's dvd release was delayed for years until they replaced all the real music with elevator music.

[Canada]

Ugh, stupid DVR.  It cut off just as Elizabeth and Paige were sparring.  I guess, from comments here, that more stuff happened after that.  Can anyone enlighten me?

From what I saw, this was a boring finale to a boring season where nothing really happened.  This show used to be must watch for me.  Now... meh.

[sistermagpie]

1 minute ago, jww said:

Still puzzled by the Tuan/Pascha timeline.  If I recall the opening scene is Pascha in the school cafeteria for the first time; he sits down at a table by himself and is joined by Tuan who sympathizes with him about how unfriendly the school is and the problems he had when he was new.  So did the Center know ahead of time where Pascha family was moving to and plant Tuan  in the  neighborhood school to be ready to receive Pascha in the hope they would become friends which would lead to their  parents becoming friends?  That is pretty efficent !

I don't think it was Pasha's first day--he'd been there for a bit. Tuan may have actually come later. He wasn't talking about being new to the school, but new to the country.  Either way they didn't so much hope the kid would be friends but create a kid to befriend him.

4 minutes ago, jww said:

I was surprised they could afford  to play almost the entire Yellow Brick Road.  Mad Men had to pay $250k for Don to play like 20 seconds of a Beatles song before he turned it off in disgust.

They used more than that--the first verse and then the whole thing in the credits! But the Beatles are notorious about making their originals difficult to get. It might actually be a lot cheaper to get this song. And maybe they blew their whole music budget for the season on it.

[Shades of Scarlet]

Wow.  What a crushing disappointment for a once-great show. 

The Martha scene was adorable.  Everything else was filler or - and this is shocking for a show of this caliber, or I guess I should say of the caliber of previous seasons - actually boring.  The anticipation was wondering what was going to happen at the end.  And the answer was . . . nothing.  I think we all knew that they weren't going to leave the U.S.  And the fact that they had to go back to one of their previous ops - and Kimmy, no less - to justify staying just illustrates how completely pointless their missions were this season. 

I really, really, really hope we're done with Tuan.  Was I the only one rooting for Elizabeth, the soulless killer, to shoot him when he mouthed off to them?  I'm sure that Crack CIA Guy Sitting in the Car wouldn't have found that suspicious at all. 

Not having Oleg in the finale was borderline criminal. 

With the exception of "Dyatkovo," which was a masterwork, I can't imagine rewatching any of this season.  They really blew it. 

[jnymph]

1 hour ago, Shades of Scarlet said:

Wow.  What a crushing disappointment for a once-great show. 

The Martha scene was adorable.  Everything else was filler or - and this is shocking for a show of this caliber, or I guess I should say of the caliber of previous seasons - actually boring.  The anticipation was wondering what was going to happen at the end.  And the answer was . . . nothing.  I think we all knew that they weren't going to leave the U.S.  And the fact that they had to go back to one of their previous ops - and Kimmy, no less - to justify staying just illustrates how completely pointless their missions were this season. 

I really, really, really hope we're done with Tuan.  Was I the only one rooting for Elizabeth, the soulless killer, to shoot him when he mouthed off to them?  I'm sure that Crack CIA Guy Sitting in the Car wouldn't have found that suspicious at all. 

Not having Oleg in the finale was borderline criminal. 

With the exception of "Dyatkovo," which was a masterwork, I can't imagine rewatching any of this season.  They really blew it. 

Completely agree with this assessment. 

 

Dyatkovo was fantastic; but I'm pissed for wasting my time on all other episodes.  I was so patient in this finale thinking the payoff would be big. Uh, wrong !

 

I'm so glad House of Cards is back.

[Clanstarling]

4 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

They used more than that--the first verse and then the whole thing in the credits! But the Beatles are notorious about making their originals difficult to get. It might actually be a lot cheaper to get this song. And maybe they blew their whole music budget for the season on it.

It hasn't been the Beatles making it difficult, as they don't own their own music. It's been quite a saga. McCartney is in the middle of a lawsuit to get the rights back. The last two owners were Michael Jackson and Sony (co-owners at the time of Jackson's death).

Billboard's concise history of the ownership

Edited June 3, 2017 by Clanstarling

[Sarah 103]

5 hours ago, jww said:

I was surprised they could afford  to play almost the entire Yellow Brick Road.  Mad Men had to pay $250k for Don to play like 20 seconds of a Beatles song before he turned it off in disgust.  Elton John's catalog  might be cheaper, but I doubt it is that much cheaper. I imagine it may be edited out when the dvd come out.   Very few  period  shows actually show the characters listening to real music, have we even seen a stereo in anybodies house ?  Henry should be blasting out the Beastie Boys.   WKRP's dvd release was delayed for years until they replaced all the real music with elevator music.

In this day and age when they negotiate music rights, DVD/streaming rights are included. WKRP (and most shows before roughly 2010) had issues because when the music rights were negotiated they only included first broadcast and reruns, because home video and streaming didn't exist. When they wanted to release WKRP on DVD, they had to go back and renegotiate. By that point the songs were far more expensive to license than they had been in the 1970s-1980s when the series was in first run.

5 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

And maybe they blew their whole music budget for the season on it.

This theory makes sense to me. 

4 hours ago, Shades of Scarlet said:

Not having Oleg in the finale was borderline criminal. 

This is so true. I don't understand what they were thinking not having at least a single scene with him. 

1 hour ago, Clanstarling said:

It hasn't been the Beatles making it difficult, as they don't own their own music. It's been quite a saga. McCartney is in the middle of a lawsuit to get the rights back. The last two owners were Michael Jackson and Sony (co-owners at the time of Jackson's death).

Billboard's concise history of the ownership

This is accurate. 24 hours after Michael Jackson died I remember thinking, I wonder what's going to happen to his ownership of Beatles music. 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Sarah 103

[willco]

6 hours ago, jww said:

Still puzzled by the Tuan/Pascha timeline.  If I recall the opening scene is Pascha in the school cafeteria for the first time; he sits down at a table by himself and is joined by Tuan who sympathizes with him about how unfriendly the school is and the problems he had when he was new.  So did the Center know ahead of time where Pascha family was moving to and plant Tuan  in the  neighborhood school to be ready to receive Pascha in the hope they would become friends which would lead to their  parents becoming friends?  That is pretty efficent !

I was surprised they could afford  to play almost the entire Yellow Brick Road.  Mad Men had to pay $250k for Don to play like 20 seconds of a Beatles song before he turned it off in disgust.  Elton John's catalog  might be cheaper, but I doubt it is that much cheaper. I imagine it may be edited out when the dvd come out.   Very few  period  shows actually show the characters listening to real music, have we even seen a stereo in anybodies house ?  Henry should be blasting out the Beastie Boys.   WKRP's dvd release was delayed for years until they replaced all the real music with elevator music.

I wondered about the song as well. I remember years back, Letterman wanted to play a song on his show as part of a bit, then found out the price & it became an ongoing thing where he expressed how dumb he thought it was. I couldn't believe the price, I think he said $250,000 also. Can't remember who he wanted to play, seems like it was The Eagles maybe. Perhaps Elton John is a fan of The Americans and they got a bargain rate !

[sistermagpie]

3 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

It hasn't been the Beatles making it difficult, as they don't own their own music. It's been quite a saga. McCartney is in the middle of a lawsuit to get the rights back. The last two owners were Michael Jackson and Sony (co-owners at the time of Jackson's death).

Interesting! I had known a little of that but thought that that only applied to the Beatles songs themselves rather than the actual original recordings. So, like, MJ could let a commercial use "Revolution" as a sort of jingle with different singers, but the actual recording of the Beatles singing the song needed Beatles approval. Is that not right? That's why I thought hearing the Beatles themselves was so rare. But this was just a vague notion I had--I'd never really followed it.

[Clanstarling]

2 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Interesting! I had known a little of that but thought that that only applied to the Beatles songs themselves rather than the actual original recordings. So, like, MJ could let a commercial use "Revolution" as a sort of jingle with different singers, but the actual recording of the Beatles singing the song needed Beatles approval. Is that not right? That's why I thought hearing the Beatles themselves was so rare. But this was just a vague notion I had--I'd never really followed it.

Good question. I'm not sure, but I think whoever owns the rights owns all the rights. I only know this much about the Beatles rights because this caused quite a riff between Michael Jackson and Paul, who were friendly until Michael bought the rights before Paul could, as I recall.

[RazzleberryPie]

On 6/1/2017 at 2:30 PM, ChromaKelly said:

I just kept waiting for *something* to happen. Pastor Tim and wife to get a bullet in their heads as they exit the plane in Ecuador. Tuan to get a bullet or at least a smackdown. Henry to blurt out he knows about the spying. Something! Ugh, it just felt so anticlimatic. Wow, Martha gets an orphan as a thank you for your service. That was the most exciting thing to happen.

Those two got off way too easily. They have to be spies or have some storyline next season, or that bit of writing was just pathetic.

[sistermagpie]

3 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

Good question. I'm not sure, but I think whoever owns the rights owns all the rights. I only know this much about the Beatles rights because this caused quite a riff between Michael Jackson and Paul, who were friendly until Michael bought the rights before Paul could, as I recall.

This just happened to come recently because I've been listening to all the commentaries on Mad Men and I know MW made some reference to it. It's in the ep here they use a cover version of "Do You Want To Know A Secret" and I think he said something about wanting to song but the Beatles had no interest. Which was interesting because of course I knew that in the next season they (or somebody) would be interested enough to give them a song off Revolver.

4 minutes ago, RazzleberryPie said:

Those two got off way too easily. They have to be spies or have some storyline next season, or that bit of writing was just pathetic.

You picture them years in the future looking at each other and going, "Remember that time we were covering for that Russian spy couple? Did that actually happen or did I get high and see that on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. back in the 60s?"

[scowl]

On 6/1/2017 at 3:13 PM, Umbelina said:

You missed quite a bit if you won't read subtitles.  Oleg and his parents were about the only interesting thing on the show all season long.

I paid some attention to it, but it seemed superfluous to what was happening to P&E who I thought the show was about.

[scowl]

14 hours ago, willco said:

I wondered about the song as well. I remember years back, Letterman wanted to play a song on his show as part of a bit, then found out the price & it became an ongoing thing where he expressed how dumb he thought it was. I couldn't believe the price, I think he said $250,000 also. Can't remember who he wanted to play, seems like it was The Eagles maybe.

It was "We Are the World". He found that he could use the first three notes for free, so he repeatedly sang, "We are the..." until an "angry" Paul Shaffer yelled at him to stop.

[Dev F]

On 6/2/2017 at 6:06 PM, Umbelina said:

My personal problem with the reactions to Tuan is that we are looking at Elizabeth really, he's a magnification of her, so if you can't stand him, why stand Elizabeth?  The easy answer is that we never got to see more sides of Tuan, because they show really didn't bother, while we've seen Elizabeth in all kinds of scenes as she is a lead. 

True, Tuan didn't have the life experience that only comes with age, to see the complexities of human emotions that might result from actions he takes.  However, I still think he is an excellent agent, for his age, and I do think every single thing he did was to accomplish the task set for him.  I don't think he's evil, or mean, or vicious, he's simply a spy, and spies do awful things to people.

We may have seen other sides to Tuan if they bothered to show him anywhere but with Philip and Elizabeth, but unfortunately, they didn't.  With them, of course he was striving to look as competent and professional as possible.  After he was criticized by them for the phone about his sick foster brother, he doubled down to prove he could do the job. 

I think the key to this aspect of Tuan's character is that he's not just an exaggerated reflection of who Liz is -- "What if Elizabeth but too much?" -- he's a reflection of who she would be without Philip. That's why it's so significant that his arc ends with Elizabeth telling him he's not going to make it and he needs a partner, because what she's really doing to recognizing her own tendencies toward the same cold-hearted partisanship, and accepting that she couldn't have survived without Philip's counterbalancing sense of basic decency.

You see similar ideas reflected elsewhere in the episode, most notably in the musical montage, when Philip leaves the racquetball court, leaving Stan to play with Renee. It's not just about Phil being sad that he won't be able to play racquetball with his buddy anymore; it's about Phil worrying that he's leaving Stan in the hands of another Soviet agent whose covert intentions aren't counterbalanced by genuine affection and concern. (As Elton John starts to sing "Maybe you'll get a replacement / There's plenty like me to be found . . .")

Stuff like this is why I can't quite agree with the general consensus regarding this season. Do I think it was a disappointment in a lot of ways? Sure I do. But I hardly think it was some kind of clumsily written, meaningless amateur hour the way other viewers seem to. It's still doing the same deep character work and weaving the same thematic throughlines that it always has. The difference this season, I think, is that they're almost entirely in the service of character portrait rather than character evolution.

By that I mean that folks aren't wrong when they complain that almost nothing happened this season.  In prior years, there were always a number of major events in the characters' lives -- tragedies that befell them, secrets that were revealed, etc. -- that served as important dramatic touchstones. The characters were changing, and we were encouraged to delve into the character work and the underlying themes to understand how they were changing. This year, the characters were basically standing still, so the only motivation for delving deeper was to learn a little bit more about who they've always been.

The reason I'm not as down on the season as some is because I still think that can be rewarding. But it's certainly not as rewarding as what the series has done in the past. Here's a telling example. After the episode "IHOP" aired, I started to think about the meaning of the title. I realized that it was it was actually pretty significant that the episode was named after the place to which Philip and Elizabeth tracked Tuan, which P&E thought was some covert meeting spot but Tuan insisted was just somewhere he ducked into to escape a tail. I realized that a lot of the episode was about that question: Why do we end up where we do? Because it's where we really want to go, or because we're running from something that's troubling us? That's what the Jenningses are reckoning with when it comes to Henry -- whether he really wants to go to this boarding school, or he's just trying to escape their troubled family. It's what Philip muses about at the end of the episode, whether Tuan engineered the whole escapade to get out of his espionage work, but Elizabeth insists that, no, he's not like that, and she's really talking about Philip himself . . .

And I was mulling all this over, and I started to compose a post about it in my head for the episode thread, but I never got around to finishing it. In fact, it was one of several episode threads that I stopped following after a few pages, because it just didn't seem super urgent to work through all the ups and downs of the episode. It's not that the writers had stopped trying to do deep dives into the characters or themes; it's that they'd failed to make me care as much when they did.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Dev F

[Clanstarling]

@Dev F I love the insights you shared, and all of your post. In particular:

40 minutes ago, Dev F said:

I think the key to this aspect of Tuan's character is that he's not just an exaggerated reflection of who Liz is -- "What if Elizabeth but too much?" -- he's a reflection of who she would be without Philip. That's why it's so significant that his arc ends with Elizabeth telling him he's not going to make it and he needs a partner, because what she's really doing to recognizing her own tendencies toward the same cold-hearted partisanship, and accepting that she couldn't have survived without Philip's counterbalancing sense of basic decency.

and this:

41 minutes ago, Dev F said:

The difference this season, I think, is that they're almost entirely in the service of character portrait rather than character evolution.

Not to mention noticing a deeper meaning to a particular lyric when it comes to the story.

Glad you got around to finishing this one.

[Umbelina]

Agree, that whole post is genius, including the Yellow Brick Road comment.  Well done.

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, Dev F said:

That's what the Jenningses are reckoning with when it comes to Henry -- whether he really wants to go to this boarding school, or he's just trying to escape their troubled family. It's what Philip muses about at the end of the episode, whether Tuan engineered the whole escapade to get out of his espionage work, but Elizabeth insists that, no, he's not like that, and she's really talking about Philip himself . . .

I loved this whole post, but this part made me go off on a little tangent, because as I've said before I feel like there are these little hints that there's some parallels with Henry and Philip's past there. Henry insists when asked that it's not about him not wanting to live at home, and to me that doesn't seem to be quite it. It's not that he sees his family as troubled and is escaping from it (although the problems of his family may very well be contributing to his feelings without him knowing it). I feel like there's a parallel of escaping himself-something that the spies--especially Philip--do all the time. That is, Henry complained that his parents were surprised because they see Paige as "the smart one." It's hard for me to not see Henry as reinventing himself here, finding people who know him as someone else, and ultimately wanting to be part of a world where a certain kind of people live so he'll be one of them.

This goes along with Philip's EST-advice to Paige that you don't have to be who you were when you were a kid, and Paige's fears about Pastor Tim's diary seeming, at least in her parents' eyes and she doesn't correct them--to be a fear that the girl in that diary passage is her. But at the same time Philip is seeing the downside of the wrong kind of self reinvention. The guy who started the show wondering why they couldn't just become who they were pretending to be now says he misses his old name even while the new one seems real, who is the most anxious at keeping his family together at the same time we learn that his own family is severed, and the one who completely left behind who he was as a kid, only to feel as if he's spent his whole life being who he was as a kid. 

Iow, as with Paige, change isn't about changing how others view you, it's about how you feel about yourself. In Elizabeth's case, she's almost working at it from the outside in. She feels herself changing from the person she was before, recognizes that that person would not have survived, accepts changes she would have just denied in the past (like her liking of her lifestyle). In fact, she and Paige were kind of in a similar place in this ep that way, recognizing what things were truly them and which weren't. Elizabeth has changed, but she still knows she can't leave behind the head of the Soviet Division. Paige isn't into "the churchy stuff" anymore but does want to work at the soup kitchen. Neither of them is completely self-aware (Elizabeth's probably wrong that she could do the spy stuff all on her own, for instance) but there is some forward movement.

It feels like neither Philip nor Henry has really reached that kind of even halfway enlightenment. Paige projects onto Henry some perfect idea of knowing what he wants and where he belongs that she feels she herself lacks, but this was just the way she was about the church at his age. When Gabriel asks Philip what he asked about the past when he joined the KGB he says he didn't ask anything. Iow, he just saw the opportunity. Much as Stan says to Renee, he didn't really understand what he was getting into. Henry's boarding school isn't like becoming an Illegal, but I think it's not completely unlike it either. It seems fitting, for instance, that for Chris St. Edwards is following in her family's footsteps. It's who her family is. For Henry's it's like being part of this other family, something he sort of did with Stan.

So I do think he is searching for something he's not getting at home--underneath it all I really do think that he feels that Something's Wrong thing that Paige did. But in him it's maybe more sensing an emptiness rather than the lie. Like where Paige saw the tissue of lies as something underhanded and criminal she had root out, I think Henry might somehow sense the performance and think there's nothing behind it and is looking for something solid. I think he believes his parents are who they pretend they are, but can also feel that those people aren't as deep as the other families he sees. I don't think that Chris's dad being an alumnus of the school was done just to contrast with Henry's own parents having no past, but it works really well. It's just so fitting that Henry's looking at one of those super traditional schools with rituals that are all about emphasizing foundations in the past when his own family history, in the words of the fake FBI agent, get "fuzzy" past 1965.

[ahpny]

Quote

Aside from Martha's chance at happiness (yeah!) this episode was a flop.

Seeing Martha smile was a welcome respite from the heaviness of the rest of the episode. Maybe we can work on getting Paige some Prozac or something.

Quote

My question is about Stan - does her reaction to his desire to leave his job make him suspect something?  Or is that giving Stan too much credit?

Sex (and love?) do powerful and strange things even to intelligent guys trained to be suspicious of everyone. Indeed, Stan’s not heeding his own advice, which he relayed so well to Henry in a prior episode about not being able to trust anyone. Nevertheless, Stan has been scrupulously careful about avoiding any particular details, so far. We’ll see how long that lasts, though merely the knowledge that he’s burnt out and considering leaving is some worthy intel – Stan must know that – but you know, blinded by the sex.

Quote

Was Henry working on a computer at his desk? That's an anomaly if it was.

Quote

Why? It's 1984. A home computer in 1984 would have been expensive and a luxury, but not unheard of or out of the question. WarGames came out the year before. 

Quote

I had a PC in 1984, and the Center bought the PC for them. So it doesn't stand out to me.

I had a personal computer in 1984 (Apple II+ with 48 K of RAM and no hard drive!). That was uncommon then, but not shockingly so. This computer (and its associated devices – green screen CRT, 5.25” disc drives etc) cost around $3000 then. I didn’t recall the Centre supplying this while watching the episode, but now remember something about that and Gabriel. It would seem a little extravagant for the Jennings’ budget.

Quote

Why would two spies be more concerned with Pasha dying than their mission?

Because they were projecting that situation onto their own, with their own children, who are also facing parallel problems with the possibility of moving to the USSR (though the kids don’t know that, and by the end of the episode that risk seems to have abated for the moment).

Note the continuity of Philip putting his hands on Pasha’s wrists to stop the bleeding, and then during his heartfelt discussion with Paige later ("you should have had a dog..."), essentially repeating the same move, grasping her wrist in just about the same way. How easily P & E can imagine a similar situation arising for them with their own children is what seems to have generated some atypical compassion and sympathy.

Edited June 4, 2017 by ahpny

[Sarah 103]

On June 3, 2017 at 10:24 PM, sistermagpie said:

Interesting! I had known a little of that but thought that that only applied to the Beatles songs themselves rather than the actual original recordings. So, like, MJ could let a commercial use "Revolution" as a sort of jingle with different singers, but the actual recording of the Beatles singing the song needed Beatles approval. Is that not right? That's why I thought hearing the Beatles themselves was so rare. But this was just a vague notion I had--I'd never really followed it.

After Michael Jackson bought the rights (which he co-owned with Sony), the Beatles had no say over how most of their music was used. Using the Beatles version of the song is crazy expensive. Having another artist sing a Beatles song is slightly less expensive. To put it another way: You have a Beatles song, and if another group wants to record a Beatles song, their record company has to pay Michael Jackson/Sony for the rights to record the song commercially. If an ad or TV show wants to use a Beatles song, they might decide that they can't afford the original Beatles version, but they may be able to afford the other group's version of the same song. 

On June 3, 2017 at 10:28 PM, Clanstarling said:

Good question. I'm not sure, but I think whoever owns the rights owns all the rights. I only know this much about the Beatles rights because this caused quite a riff between Michael Jackson and Paul, who were friendly until Michael bought the rights before Paul could, as I recall.

That is correct. The funny thing about Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, is that McCartney at the time, had started buying the rights to songs as investments. McCartney bought the rights to Buddy Holly's songs. The version of the story that I heard was that McCartney advised Jackson that music rights were a good investment. Jackson said he was going to buy The Beatles' songs, and I guess McCartney thought he was kidding or didn't think Jackson would actually be able to afford them. 

4 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

underneath it all I really do think that he feels that Something's Wrong thing that Paige did. But in him it's maybe more sensing an emptiness rather than the lie. Like where Paige saw the tissue of lies as something underhanded and criminal she had root out, I think Henry might somehow sense the performance and think there's nothing behind it and is looking for something solid. I think he believes his parents are who they pretend they are, but can also feel that those people aren't as deep as the other families he sees. I don't think that Chris's dad being an alumnus of the school was done just to contrast with Henry's own parents having no past, but it works really well. It's just so fitting that Henry's looking at one of those super traditional schools with rituals that are all about emphasizing foundations in the past when his own family history, in the words of the fake FBI agent, get "fuzzy" past 1965.

That's a really interesting point. It points out a big difference between Paige and Henry. Paige sensed there was something wrong and tried to look into. She wanted to know the truth. Henry senses there's something off, but isn't interested in finding out what it is. He wants to get far away from it and not even think about it. I thought the family history would be fuzzy pre-1965. After 1965, wouldn't there be scores of people who could talk about Philip and Elizabeth, and later their children as real people (because they actually knew them and met them). I would think that before 1965, anyone who claims to remember Philip and Elizabeth in the U.S would have been planted as part of a cover story. 

[dubbel zout]

With music rights, it also depends on how much of the song is being used, where it's being used, will people be singing along with it, if you see them sing onscreen, etc. It's pretty crazy how specific the usage gets.

[Clanstarling]

7 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

With music rights, it also depends on how much of the song is being used, where it's being used, will people be singing along with it, if you see them sing onscreen, etc. It's pretty crazy how specific the usage gets.

It is pretty crazy. My favorite story about rights was when they wanted to use Jimi Hendrix's version of All Along the Watchtower in Battlestar Galactica, but his estate refused. Finally someone realized that it was actually Bob Dylan's song, so they went to him, he said yes, so they used his version instead.

[stitcher73]

On 5/31/2017 at 1:39 AM, kikaha said:

The suicide scene shows how absurd The Americans can be.  After Pasha attempted suicide, I  think the US government would be all over P, E and T -- as friends, witnesses and (coincidental?) helpers in the attempt to save the young boy.  Their cover would quickly get blown, and their whole lives as spies in America could come to a screeching halt.  Instead, they skate away with hardly a glance. 

Maybe....but maybe not.  Maybe the Fed-guy will investigate them?

[SunnyBeBe]

Can someone tell me what Stan's primary job description is?  When he was talking about filling itty to Renee, he said he would just leave his current position. Has his job description been to recruit Soviets to provide information to the FBI only? Or was he also expected to investigate and prosecute people for espionage?  I thought both. 

How much time in years has progressed since the first day we were introduced to Stan in THEIR time? 

Edited June 5, 2017 by SunnyBeBe

[Ina123]

For computer questioners. I had this in 1982. The monitor was my TV. (Anyone remember the A/B switch?) I wrote DOS programs on it. After the Timex Sinclair, computers took off like a rocket. A friend who lost interest gave me this that same year: 

 

 

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Can someone tell me what Stan's primary job description is? When he was talking about filling itty to Renee, he said he would just leave his current position. Has his job description been to recruit Soviets to provide information to the FBI only? Or was he also expected to investigate and prosecute people for espionage?  I thought both. 

Stan is a special agent in the counterintelligence group. His job has been to do all of what you mentioned; what he does when depends on what's needed at the time. I think "leaving his current position" means he joins another group, like white collar crimes, for instance.

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, SunnyBeBe said:

How much time in years has progressed since the first day we were introduced to Stan in THEIR time? 

The show started sometime in 1981 and that's when they met Stan. I had assumed we were now in late spring 1984. 

[Inquisitionist]

On ‎6‎/‎1‎/‎2017 at 0:36 PM, kay1864 said:

Well that was my point, that if Martha adopted her, the toddler wouldn't be learning Russian at home (where most children learn to speak),  Even a year or so later, not with the right accent, and likely not with a very full vocabulary.

 

On ‎6‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 9:57 AM, Helena Dax said:

I'm not sure I'm understanding the conversation, but here are my two cents. The toddler doesn't need Martha. She seemed to be about three years old, which means she's already pretty fluent in Russian. She'd learn the rest at school; if Martha taught her English, the girl would become bilingual in one year. I mean, I work in a school and I've seen dozens of foreign kids learning Spanish (I'm from Spain) in weeks. It's simply amazing how fast they learn new languages. And the younger they are, the faster they learn.

Amen.  I'm the child of immigrants.  I learned English from the English-speakers around me, without an accent.  What I rejected was my parents' language, but it helped that they had become pretty fluent in English (at least from an understanding POV) by the time I was 8.

[SunnyBeBe]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

The show started sometime in 1981 and that's when they met Stan. I had assumed we were now in late spring 1984. 

I'm just trying to figure out what Stan has accomplished since 1981.  He unearthed Martha (she escaped), caught William(suicide), but that was due to Oleg throwing him a bone. He gets Nina killed by her own people. He's shot a couple of people, but, has he actually charged anyone and had them go to prison? Just trying to get an honest assessment of how effective he is.  People around him seem to die or disappear, but, he's still standing.  I just wonder how that seems to the FBI higher ups.  AND he's admitted to improperly  killing someone.   So, is all okay, since he got this lady and her hockey player finance?  

Also, can someone tell me how the CIA wants to use Oleg?  He's in deepinvestigation and suspicion with the KGB.  HOW would the CIA use him under those conditions? 

Edited June 5, 2017 by SunnyBeBe

[sistermagpie]

22 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I'm just trying to figure out what Stan has accomplished since 1981.  He unearthed Martha (she escaped), caught William(suicide), but that was due to Oleg throwing him a bone. He gets Nina killed by her own people. He's shot a couple of people, but, has he actually charged anyone and had them go to prison? Just trying to get an honest assessment of how effective he is.  People around him seem to die or disappear, but, he's still standing.  I just wonder how that seems to the FBI higher ups.  AND he's admitted to improperly  killing someone.   So, is all okay, since he got this lady and her hockey player finance?  

 

Spying is a pretty slow business. I think comparatively Stan's probably done pretty well. After all, it's not like we've seen somebody else in his department scooping up spies left and right? Stan worked Nina and got intel from her (she threw him that guy who was trying to assassinate someone, even if it was part of a plan to try to turn him), he got a huge win with Oleg. That's not Oleg throwing him a bone, it's Stan working a contact within the KGB to the point where the guy gave him up information. That's exactly what Stan's supposed to be doing. The lady and her hockey player finance would absolutely be considered an accomplishment. As would getting Oleg on tape. The CIA didn't know there was any suspicion on Oleg when they started going after him. They were going to try to get him to give them inside info on the KGB. The whole reason Stan earlier got special treatment was because they loved the tape he got on Oleg. He also was the one who caught Zinaida.

Not that all this means he's so valuable that the FBI would never let him go or anything. He does seem like he's more trouble than he's worth. But his years there haven't been without any value to the bureau, especially since they don't know that he compromised himself or that he's bffs with a KGB officer without knowing it.

[magemaud]

When the FBI surveillance guy in the car outside Alexei's house stared at Philip, I thought he might be saying to himself, "Where have I seen that guy before? Was that face in a sketch artist's drawing at the agency? But now maybe he's disguised wearing a BAD WIG? Wait, he IS! I've seen him coming and going at all hours down the street wearing an airline pilot's uniform but it doesn't have any kind of identification on it! Hmmmm" 

[Umbelina]

Stan's also the one who busted the Russian mole Zenaida or whatever her name was.  He's actually had a pretty high success rate for a spy.  He's not incompetent, he just went off the reservation with Nina, but even that paid off for the FBI in a huge way. 

[SunnyBeBe]

Thanks for the info on Stan.  I also found that he was almost fired in Season 3.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_(season_3)

And what happened to Zenaida?  She was going to be traded for Nina, right? Was she killed or sent back to Russia? 

[sistermagpie]

12 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

And what happened to Zenaida?  She was going to be traded for Nina, right? Was she killed or sent back to Russia? 

She was never going to be traded for Nina--that was a pipe dream of Stan's. She was just sent back to the USSR and traded for some other actual American spy we don't know.

[SunnyBeBe]

47 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

She was never going to be traded for Nina--that was a pipe dream of Stan's. She was just sent back to the USSR and traded for some other actual American spy we don't know.

Okay.  I'm looking for a pattern as MissBluxom talked about.  The pattern with Stan seems to be that the subjects, which are his target, are either killed or returned to Russia.  So, may be presume that P & E will receive a similar fate?  We haven't seen any people actually go to prison in the USA, due to Stan's hard work. 

Edited June 5, 2017 by SunnyBeBe

[Umbelina]

This has been discussed in the Stan thread.

[Milburn Stone]

I liked the episode, and the season. But I'm glad I came here to understand the significance of the tape, and why Philip wanted to throw it in the river, because I just wasn't getting it. I think what stood in the way of my getting it was that I never felt that Philip really want to go back to Russia. For Philip to want to throw the tape in the river, he needs to see the tape as the obstacle in the way of all his hopes and dreams of returning to Russia. But he's so conflicted about the morality of the work Russia makes him do--and he's so conflicted about the burdens being placed on Paige--and he's so conflicted about having to dash Henry's dreams--and he has so many qualms about making his children settle in Russia--that it would have made just as much sense for him to jump up and down in gleeful excitement when he heard the tape, and to run as fast he could to play it for Claudia: "Oh boy," he'd be saying to himself,  "this gives me the perfect excuse for us to have to stay in America!!!"
 

Edited June 6, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[millennium]

So the big cliffhanger was did Stan ever add the garlic to the chicken?

I think it may have been the same chicken the writers have been choking all season.

When Elizabeth was gazing at her clothes and shoes I thought it would be great if she started dancing around to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."   Wasn't Cindy Lauper breaking through at just about that time?

Had to laugh (but not with humor) when Philip said near the end "We're allowed to have a life."   This from the guy who snuffed what, three people, this season?   And one by accident?

Seeing Martha miserable and looking like a refugee from the old Wendy's "Soviet Fashion Show" commercial was not very uplifting.  Giving her a consolation prize orphan doesn't make anything better.   I wish we had a more intimate sense of where Martha's at in her head, how she's coping with knowing she betrayed her country and lost her whole life.

This was an awful season.  I may need to confess that I sat through every terrible episode at my next EST meeting.  

Edited June 6, 2017 by millennium

[BlackberryJam]

I don't think this season was a hot, steamy garbage. I really enjoyed it. I wish there had been more action in the finale, like a bullet to Pastor Tim's head, but I wasn't disappointed.

I was actually wondering if we are going to end up with Phillip going back to the USSR and reuniting with Martha, raising a new family.

I would have liked more depth to Henry, but I understood that we were seeing both of Phillip's sons, trying to make their way in the world, and Phillip struggling with losing Henry, although he's already lost Mischa. In fact, he was close to having Mischa but didn't even know it.

Claudia has totally gone from a total, secretive witch that I didn't trust in S1 to a woman who in frank and honest with P&E. It's like that year off they had really made the Centre value them. I thought we were much closer to 1985 or 1986 because of the time off from spying P&E took.

Seeing Elizabeth reading Space and being halfway through, I was thinking, "When does she read?" I suppose on the flight from Topeka and back. They weren't running a lot of operations but the ones they were running were pretty intense. Carrying on relationships in Kansas, the happy families with Tuan, the Kimmy tapes (maintaining the relationship and listening to them), training Paige, running a travel agency, maintaining a friendship with Stan, parenting their own kids, when do they breathe?

I am worried for Oleg, but I love how he just fell into the Russian look, walk, mannerisms, everything. Just fantastic acting. 

[BlackberryJam]

19 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

I don't think this season was a hot, steamy garbage. I really enjoyed it. I wish there had been more action in the finale, like a bullet to Pastor Tim's head, but I wasn't disappointed.

I was actually wondering if we are going to end up with Phillip going back to the USSR and reuniting with Martha, raising a new family.

I would have liked more depth to Henry, but I understood that we were seeing both of Phillip's sons, trying to make their way in the world, and Phillip struggling with losing Henry, although he's already lost Mischa. In fact, he was close to having Mischa but didn't even know it.

Claudia has totally gone from a total, secretive witch that I didn't trust in S1 to a woman who in frank and honest with P&E. It's like that year off they had really made the Centre value them. I thought we were much closer to 1985 or 1986 because of the time off from spying P&E took.

Seeing Elizabeth reading Space and being halfway through, I was thinking, "When does she read?" I suppose on the flight from Topeka and back. They weren't running a lot of operations but the ones they were running were pretty intense. Carrying on relationships in Kansas, the happy families with Tuan, the Kimmy tapes (maintaining the relationship and listening to them), training Paige, running a travel agency, maintaining a friendship with Stan, parenting their own kids, when do they breathe?

I am worried for Oleg, but I love how he just fell into the Russian look, walk, mannerisms, everything. Just fantastic acting. 

Edit to add that I'm almost curious to see if Claudia is running a longer game on them and she's got me fooled too...

[Dev F]

Thanks, guys, for the kind words on my previous post! I'm always happy when I can get the analytical forces going . . .

On 6/4/2017 at 5:02 PM, sistermagpie said:

Elizabeth has changed, but she still knows she can't leave behind the head of the Soviet Division. Paige isn't into "the churchy stuff" anymore but does want to work at the soup kitchen. Neither of them is completely self-aware (Elizabeth's probably wrong that she could do the spy stuff all on her own, for instance) but there is some forward movement.

It feels like neither Philip nor Henry has really reached that kind of even halfway enlightenment. Paige projects onto Henry some perfect idea of knowing what he wants and where he belongs that she feels she herself lacks, but this was just the way she was about the church at his age. When Gabriel asks Philip what he asked about the past when he joined the KGB he says he didn't ask anything. Iow, he just saw the opportunity. Much as Stan says to Renee, he didn't really understand what he was getting into.

Lots of great stuff in this whole post, but I'm not sure I would draw such a hard divide between Elizabeth/Paige and Philip/Henry. I think the association of each child with the corresponding parent is dead on (that's something the show has been suggesting since way back in season one, when Elizabeth tells Philip that she doesn't really worry about Henry because "he's like you" but does worry about Paige because "she's delicate somehow"). But I also see moments that suggest that the pairs skew in the opposite direction. For instance, Henry might be deluding himself into thinking he knows what he wants, but he's at least trying to blaze a path for himself, so in that sense you could argue that he's the one showing some forward momentum. And on the other hand, Pastor Tim's diary raises the possibility that Paige can't move forward in the same way -- that she's been so screwed up that her parents' deception is inevitably going to taint the rest of her life.

In fact, I might argue that this is one of the central tensions of the season for all our characters, the question of whether they can transcend their past or whether they're doomed to be buried with it like Hans. There are definitely moments in the season that seem to suggest No you can't, whether it's "Immersion" showing that Philip and Elizabeth are still struggling with the same issues they were back in the pilot, or "Dyatkovo" suggesting that the whole system is irreparably tainted and there's no way to escape it. And in the end, I'm not sure that the season offers a counterargument so much as a synthesis -- our heroes may indeed be chained by their individual histories, but they can rely on each other to supplement their respective weaknesses and rise above, the way Philip keeps Elizabeth from becoming like Tuan. Or the way, oh, say, crossbreeding two different strains of wheat creates a stronger, more resilient strain?

I realize, too, that you see the same idea at work in Philip's story. In the final episode, he's torn between doing his duty and reporting Breland's promotion to the Center, or throwing the tape away so he finally can go home. He's truly broken, and he doesn't know what to do. But just as Elizabeth is bolstered by his sense of decency, he's bolstered by her sense of duty:

"Maybe that's what he wants. . . . To be pulled out of this shit. Start over."
"That's not who he is."

It's not an answer he could've reached on his own. But I'm sure in that moment he had Elizabeth's voice in his head, reaching it for him.

Which is all well and good, but once again it points out the weakness of this season. As I mentioned, I had started to parse that moment at the end of "IHOP," but gave up halfway through because it was hard to see what the point of it all could be. Now I'm realizing that it's kind of critical to understanding the entire season -- something that would've been impossible to determine until I'd seen the subsequent four episode. A narrative that included more touchstones along the way might've given me reason to parse the scene earlier, so that when it came time to fit it into the overarching narrative, I would've already had at least a preliminary reading at hand. It's a lot to ask that we develop complex interpretations of thematic and character beats just in case they end up being important later!

[sistermagpie]

8 hours ago, Dev F said:

Lots of great stuff in this whole post, but I'm not sure I would draw such a hard divide between Elizabeth/Paige and Philip/Henry.

I think you're right there--I was oversimplifying to make too neat a contrast. Such a temptation! But then, it often works on the show where something is one thing and also completely the opposite.

8 hours ago, Dev F said:

For instance, Henry might be deluding himself into thinking he knows what he wants, but he's at least trying to blaze a path for himself, so in that sense you could argue that he's the one showing some forward momentum. And on the other hand, Pastor Tim's diary raises the possibility that Paige can't move forward in the same way -- that she's been so screwed up that her parents' deception is inevitably going to taint the rest of her life.

And more evidence for that is maybe the way that in Paige in some ways seems to have regressed. Again, I don't think it's black and white--in some ways she's matured. But Paige at 14 was looking outside the house for who she was, defining herself against her parents. And that was a normal sign of her growing up. That's what Henry's doing now. But after finding out the truth her world actually seems to have gotten smaller. At least she has said things that show she believes this to be true, even as Philip assures her that no, it's not.

Where as Henry actually seems like a very healthy kid. As I've said before, where many people see his wanting to go to boarding school as him running away from a terrible home, to me he's just impatient for bigger things. I think he basically considers his home life secure and that's why he's not afraid to leave it and come back. Underneath I think there's something else also going on as well, but I don't think Henry is consciously running. 

8 hours ago, Dev F said:

It's not an answer he could've reached on his own. But I'm sure in that moment he had Elizabeth's voice in his head, reaching it for him.

 

That's a great point--I really like finally understanding that line of Elizabeth's. I knew at the time that Philip was projecting on Tuan, and I wasn't sure all the ways that Elizabeth's rejection of that idea could play. Tuan himself reflects both sides of both characters. Elizabeth can look through his hardliner pose and see that underneath he does love others. But she's also seeing strength in Philip/Tuan that Philip can't see in himself. 

It's really fitting, actually, when you remember that Elizabeth started out saying Philip was "weak" because he liked America too much. During the course of the show that's probably the main thing she's come to believe about him, that he *isn't* weak, he isn't a coward, isn't somebody who just takes the easy way out. His loyalty doesn't look exactly like Elizabeth's, but it's still there. In the end he isn't the guy who throws away the tape so that he can go back. As he told Gabriel "The Centre made a good match." 

And maybe that brings us back to Henry and Paige as well. Both kids need to find the same balance where they have closeness with their parents but also aren't too dependent on them. Even just looking at it superficially it seems like there'd be something out of whack to have one sibling who feels the only people she can be close to are her parents because of the secret vs. another kid who doesn't know who his parents are and leaves home completely. Philip's "This family stays together!" is one of those moments where some feeling is just bursting out of him when it's not really appropriate, and that's maybe because he hasn't found the balance in himself yet.

Like he's now maybe thinking like Irina who says "I chose the wrong life." He's focusing on all the parts of himself he repressed to do his job and thinking of all the things he's missed. But that's never been entirely who he was. He does draw strength from Elizabeth's faith and he is motivated by larger concerns. Paige and Philip are both projecting on Henry in the opposite way. Paige sees all the things missing in her life because she knows the secret and thinks it's better for Henry to run from it. Philip is thinking of all the things missing in his life because of the choice he made to be an Illegal (which involved leaving home and maybe started with the idea that he had the gifts to make a difference) and thinking Henry doesn't know what he's getting into.

The fact that Elizabeth feels so confident about him is really striking considering where she started. Not only because she was a hardliner but we know from that one flashback that she's possibly had this spectre of her father being a deserter hanging over her head all this time. Philip telling her about the tape is kind of a parallel to the scene in the pilot where he talks about defecting. Back then Elizabeth seemed to lose a lot of hope at the idea of him deserting her--enough that she told him to take Timoshev to the Americans. But then he chose not to do so. And here he's basically made the same choice. He had this personal desire for the tape not to exist, he could have tossed it without telling her, but instead he brought it to her knowing what she'd say, surely. 

[Juliegirlj]

Cringeworthy scene with Phillip and Kimmy's friends doing a circle back massage thing... 

i laughed when Tuan called P & E bourgeois... 

I think Elizabeth knows deep down that her family would be miserable in their homeland. 

It seemed almost prophetic that Elizabeth told Tuan he needs a partner to be successful and that he should insist on one, and then amping up on Paige's self defense training. ( Tuan and Paige - Americans part 2 ??!) 

[TimWil]

One thing the writers introduced and then never followed up on was the sister Tuan had who was supposedly coming in the near future for a visit to the US from South Africa. Tuan mentioned her in, I think, the third episode of the season. Maybe they had trouble casting her? I suspect it was just that the writers decided to go in a different direction.

Claudia's function in this season was very disappointing given how fantastic Margo Martindale has been in the first few seasons. This season Claudia struck me as being all too reminiscent of the DA character on Law & Order, specifically the one as played by Dianne Wiest, where all she got to do was say stuff like "Look into so and so about so and so and get back to me." Wiest was apparently mortified when it became clear that this was all pretty much she'd get to play and she justifiably got the hell out of there after one season. Damn, she'd be great as an illegal on the final season, wouldn't she? But I digress. I hope Claudia is much more active, even if its just in a vocal sense, in the final season.

Edited June 11, 2017 by TimWil

[sistermagpie]

45 minutes ago, TimWil said:

One thing the writers introduced and then never followed up on was the sister Tuan had who was supposedly coming in the near future for a visit to the US from South Africa. Tuan mentioned her in, I think, the third episode of the season. Maybe they had trouble casting her? I suspect it was just that the writers decided to go in a different direction.

It wasn't Tuan who had a sister coming. It was Hans. We were never going to see her, it was just something Elizabeth was mentioning as sad because Hans was dead. He hadn't seen his sister in years and then he died before he was going to finally see her again.

[TimWil]

6 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

It wasn't Tuan who had a sister coming. It was Hans. We were never going to see her, it was just something Elizabeth was mentioning as sad because Hans was dead. He hadn't seen his sister in years and then he died before he was going to finally see her again.

Really? I could swear it was Tuan who mentioned a sister. I know Hans was South African. I distinctly remember noting how interesting it was that Tuan's sister would be living in South Africa and wondering if she was a Vietnamese operative there, as well.

[UncleChuck]

Quote

"They can find someone else to get the information from Kimmie"

Good idea.  If only they knew of some 17 year old girl who could blend in better with Kimmie and her friends...oh, wait.