Let's have a do-over! How The Americans might have been written better...

hellmouse · May 14, 2018

I just re-watched Season 5, and having done so, I am shocked by where Philip & Elizabeth are at the beginning of Season 6. Not shocked as to "oh wow how could they have gotten to this point" but shocked by the writers choosing such a lazy option of telling, not showing.

Literally at the end of Season 5, Philip and Elizabeth were closer than ever. They were sharing concerns and ideas. They got married. They decided to go back to the USSR. They both seemed to understand the toll that murder and manipulation were taking on them (both of them) and they both seemed to value their partnership. Elizabeth explicitly says to Tuan that this job is too hard to do alone and he will fail without a partner. Philip tells Elizabeth that she cannot do the job without him, that it's "us", not just her.

So WTF happened over the past three years to make them so cold and miserable and distant? Are we meant to believe it just happened gradually and they've only noticed it now, three years in? That doesn't make sense given where they were at the end of Season 5. Was it a conscious decision to just pretend things were fine and normal? Did they both fall on their heads and lose their memories? It doesn't make sense that the two people we see at the end of season 5 would make decisions over a three year period that would put them where they are at the beginning of Season 6. But if they did, then show us! At least give us some flashbacks! Let us see them deciding how to divide up responsibility for Paige & Henry. Let us see them acknowledging that they're growing apart - or let us see them not realizing that it's happening. Something! These writers are usually so good - I think they could have done a lot with a few flashbacks. But so far, nothing.

I may just have to decide that they did both fall and hit their heads and have some rare form of amnesia that caused them to forget things that happened three years ago in their relationship, but nothing else. IDK. /end rant

Umbelina · May 14, 2018

That part made sense to me.

Elizabeth, in her mind, generously thought of Philip, and allowed him to get out, while still doing what she felt she must to, which is to stay in. That was done out of love and concern for him.

However, the day-to-day reality of that choice began to really piss her off, understandably. She had much more work, she'd lost her trusted partner in that work, each operation was more dangerous and stressful without him, etc.

It's kind of like a husband quitting his job and deciding to go back to college and become a dancer or some other non-money making job. In the beginning, the wife (or visa versa) might be very willing to help pay those school and living expenses, and to stick with her drudge of a job, but after a few years? It gets OLD. In Elizabeth's case? It's her country, it's her very life, all those things are on the line because Philip wants to do *in her mind* frivolous and useless things, like go to EST, line dance, be a capitalist.

Lot's of things that seem good and worth it in the beginning don't look quite as cools and shiny and pretty after living with the reality of those choices.

Bannon · May 15, 2018

3 hours ago, Umbelina said:

That part made sense to me.

Elizabeth, in her mind, generously thought of Philip, and allowed him to get out, while still doing what she felt she must to, which is to stay in. That was done out of love and concern for him.

However, the day-to-day reality of that choice began to really piss her off, understandably. She had much more work, she'd lost her trusted partner in that work, each operation was more dangerous and stressful without him, etc.

It's kind of like a husband quitting his job and deciding to go back to college and become a dancer or some other non-money making job. In the beginning, the wife (or visa versa) might be very willing to help pay those school and living expenses, and to stick with her drudge of a job, but after a few years? It gets OLD. In Elizabeth's case? It's her country, it's her very life, all those things are on the line because Philip wants to do *in her mind* frivolous and useless things, like go to EST, line dance, be a capitalist.

Lot's of things that seem good and worth it in the beginning don't look quite as cools and shiny and pretty after living with the reality of those choices.

Yeah, but if you are going to have a development like that, you need to SHOW it, not just just have it there, after a 3 year time jump. For the life of me, I cannot figure out the showrunning. What the hell!?

sistermagpie · May 15, 2018

4 hours ago, hellmouse said:

Literally at the end of Season 5, Philip and Elizabeth were closer than ever. They were sharing concerns and ideas. They got married. They decided to go back to the USSR. They both seemed to understand the toll that murder and manipulation were taking on them (both of them) and they both seemed to value their partnership. Elizabeth explicitly says to Tuan that this job is too hard to do alone and he will fail without a partner. Philip tells Elizabeth that she cannot do the job without him, that it's "us", not just her.

It seems like S5 ended with everyone making a decision and then that decision would completely define them in S6. In earlier seasons we saw everything move slowly and people would start to move one way and then there would be curveballs thrown in or characters would react to stuff and that would make the other person react.

But here it was just a straight line for everyone. Stan's not in counterintel and he's married to that random woman. Philip retired so he's a travel agent and that's it. Elizabeth is working alone so she's bitter and resents him but can't ask him to come back and has regressed to pre-S1 emotionally. Paige punched a bag so now she's punching people and a spy. (She's even going to the one college she mentioned thinking about in S4.) Henry went to boarding school so he's all about boarding school.

hellmouse · May 15, 2018

12 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

It seems like S5 ended with everyone making a decision and then that decision would completely define them in S6. In earlier seasons we saw everything move slowly and people would start to move one way and then there would be curveballs thrown in or characters would react to stuff and that would make the other person react.

But here it was just a straight line for everyone. Stan's not in counterintel and he's married to that random woman. Philip retired so he's a travel agent and that's it. Elizabeth is working alone so she's bitter and resents him but can't ask him to come back and has regressed to pre-S1 emotionally. Paige punched a bag so now she's punching people and a spy. (She's even going to the one college she mentioned thinking about in S4.) Henry went to boarding school so he's all about boarding school.

Yes! Exactly! I would believe it if you told me the show had new show-runners as of Season 6. The change was that extreme. The curveballs and slow changes were a huge part of what made this show feel real. The flat linear path each character took over the past three unseen years is not only NOT real, it is even more unreal because the show has always been so good at those nuances before. Then you put that on top of what feels like some wasted time in Season 5 and it's baffling. They said they planned Seasons 5 and 6 together but it doesn't feel that way.

sistermagpie · May 15, 2018

1 hour ago, hellmouse said:

Yes! Exactly! I would believe it if you told me the show had new show-runners as of Season 6. The change was that extreme. The curveballs and slow changes were a huge part of what made this show feel real. The flat linear path each character took over the past three unseen years is not only NOT real, it is even more unreal because the show has always been so good at those nuances before. Then you put that on top of what feels like some wasted time in Season 5 and it's baffling. They said they planned Seasons 5 and 6 together but it doesn't feel that way.

Yes, the showrunners said something about how they liked the time jump because they could show how "incremental changes" added up in a marriage and I was like...yeah, but these aren't incremental changes. They're just taking that last scene in The Soviet Division (get it??) and taking them to the extreme.

Erin9 · May 15, 2018

16 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Yes, the showrunners said something about how they liked the time jump because they could show how "incremental changes" added up in a marriage and I was like...yeah, but these aren't incremental changes. They're just taking that last scene in The Soviet Division (get it??) and taking them to the extreme.

Yeah. I get what you’re saying. But I find the marriage breakdown to be a very believable consequence of Philip mostly retiring. It’s easy to see how him being out of the loop regarding Elizabeth’s missions and Paige’s spy training would create a huge chasm and a boatload of resentment.

And honestly- I have NO DESIRE to have seen Philip as a full time travel agent any more than I already have- which is still entirely too much. Just the thought of having to watch more of that....

hellmouse · May 15, 2018

16 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Yes, the showrunners said something about how they liked the time jump because they could show how "incremental changes" added up in a marriage and I was like...yeah, but these aren't incremental changes. They're just taking that last scene in The Soviet Division (get it??) and taking them to the extreme.

One change that would have been interesting to explore is what it felt like for them when both their children were out of the house. That happened sooner than expected, with Henry at boarding school. Did they like not having kids around? Did they miss them? Is that part of what drove them both to focus more on their work, because there was no one at home they had to put on an act for? Is that when they stopped paying attention to the late nights that Stan Beeman might have noticed?

The showrunners talk about how this is a marriage story and I think the empty nest could have been an interesting and pretty universal topic to explore.

Also, how do they both feel about the fact that Elizabeth is continuing to sleep with people outside the marriage but Philip is not? Does it cause problems with their own sex life? I could see that happening - see them feeling uncomfortable with that disparity but never talking about it and gradually having less sex and losing that intimacy. And of course, that intimacy was a big part of how they expressed their feelings to each other.

I just read an interview that made it pretty clear that the showrunners did this intentionally. AV Club: The Americans showrunners picked an ending early, and they stuck with it

Quote

AVC: How did writing this time jump compare to writing the one from season four? And how much are we going to learn about what happened in the interim?

JW: Oddly enough, I thought this one was easier. ... This one was relatively easy. But it also provided us a tremendous ability to do what we wanted to do: One, show how the marriage had developed over these years, after Philip left his spying job—we wanted to have all the time passed to see what it had done to the relationship. And two, we wanted to jump forward to a time when history is taking all of these dramatic turns, so we’re in the midst of Glasnost and Perestroika—which is historical, but would have a real impact on Philip and Elizabeth.

...

JF: I think in a way, it’s more about the marriage, and more about—you know, we were talking a little bit about the history and the changes in the Soviet Union, how those would impact Philip and Elizabeth, and just seeing it’s been a very complicated road for the two of them over the years of this series, with ups and downs and growing much closer. And now we’re seeing that, during this time jump, they’ve been driven further apart by him leaving the work. And now trying to see what are the effects on the marriage of that. And then the further impact of these changes in the Soviet Union. It always comes back to the same thing, which is the marriage and what’s the most that we can explore there. And this seemed like very, very fruitful territory.

The fact that it was intentional is just frustrating. This whole show has been about the slow burn. It's been like watching a cooking show that happens in real time. "And now we put the roast in the oven and let it cook for three hours" and so we watch an oven for three hours. But with this time jump, they hopped from a kitchen counter with ingredients to a fully prepared meal on the table. It's so unlike this show. We wanted to watch them stir and chop and slowly simmer! I did, anyway.

sistermagpie · May 15, 2018

47 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

Yeah. I get what you’re saying. But I find the marriage breakdown to be a very believable consequence of Philip mostly retiring. It’s easy to see how him being out of the loop regarding Elizabeth’s missions and Paige’s spy training would create a huge chasm and a boatload of resentment.

Oh, I agree. It makes sense to me, it just doesn't really come across as incremental because it's so obvious. Like if you imagined any surprises there, there are none.

One thing they also don't really seem to be highlighting, which goes to hellmouse's point about the empty nest, is that if this were a normal family without the spying it seems like Philip would be the family member who'd be considered the glue. He's the one who's making an effort with everyone. When Henry went to school he started calling him regularly while Elizabeth and Paige seem to barely think about him at all. Paige never says a single word about or to him this season that I remember. When he calls the two of them pretend they're not there. Philip might be annoying Paige, but that's because he won't just let her live in her big dumb bubble with Elizabeth. And of course he's trying to be there for Elizabeth or find out about her even while she shows no interest in anything going on with him despite the fact that it's painful. Eventually he chopped up a body for her.

Umbelina · May 15, 2018

The only surprise for me is that the showrunners have decided that after 3 years of training, Paige is OBVIOUSLY not cut out to be KGB.

Could they have done it on screen, showing each moment of training and failure? I wouldn't have wanted to watch so much Paige.

The time jump works for me as far as character moving to the places they are in now. All of it works for me. Philip overplayed being a great capitalist and failed, as many do. Paige is a fuck up at spying, has no clue, still, after intense one-on-one training with one of the premier soviet spies ever--Elizabeth. Elizabeth's burn out is also logical to me, as is her growing resentment of Philip. Henry has excelled in his new life, and has his head on straight, is willing to do the work to keep that life going.

What doesn't work for me is season 5. The entire theme of that season was, as I said then? SPYING SUCKS. Each spy on the show went through how much that is true. Repetitively, and boringly. Oleg, Gabe, Philip, Elizabeth, and most of the guys at the FBI as well as the randoms in the USSR. We got it the first few dozen times, they wasted that season.

For what? So Philip would quit. Yes, we got a bit more, but the characters weren't really fleshed out, other than Oleg, and even his story was murky.

It was basically all so Philip would quit, the Jennings marriage this season would be strained, and Paige would be a fuck-up as a spy this season.

I get it, I just think it could have been done so much better in season 5.

sistermagpie · May 15, 2018

24 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Could they have done it on screen, showing each moment of training and failure? I wouldn't have wanted to watch so much Paige.

Yes, this part I think works better that way. Though in general if they wanted to get them to this point it was really impossible without a time jump. They weren't going to waste time on any period where the major characters weren't in play--Philip, Stan and Oleg took three years off so it makes sense we come back when they're back in. Just like we skipped over the time Elizabeth was recovering from being shot. If we were going to see Paige gradually brought around to Elizabeth's way of thinking (which wouldn't have taken that long--she was desperate for it once she got rid of Pastor Tim--in fact maybe she saw spying on Pastor Tim and asking them to get rid of him as what her mother was asking her to do) it would have to be a side story while other interesting spy things were going on.

But still, it makes the season feel like an epilogue to me.

Plus, if Paige was going to be bad at this they almost had to do it this way. You wouldn't want too much time spent on Paige failing and Elizabeth not caring. If you're going to do that you might as well make it more dramatic by having her failing on the job where there's dramatic stakes and she's already had too much training for it to be excusable.

28 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

For what? So Philip would quit. Yes, we got a bit more, but the characters weren't really fleshed out, other than Oleg, and even his story was murky.

It was basically all so Philip would quit, the Jennings marriage this season would be strained, and Paige would be a fuck-up as a spy this season.

Yes, one of the frustrating things about that too was that really they just got the characters from a place they were almost at at the end of S4 to that place at the end of S5. They just didn't have that far to go, any of them. So all of season 5 was just giving them stories to say it again, louder this time.

Umbelina · May 15, 2018

Maybe we'll be surprised and the Misha story will have a great pay off after all.

I just put it in the ending thread...

Still, a season spent with Oleg in shadows walking through Moscow, people digging holes and watching wheat grow, and all the rest of the time wasting, no pay off crap? It's sad.

I liked Tuan, thought he was complicated and interesting in his mini-me Elizabeth role. I liked the Russian couple too, and would much rather have spent more time with them than with wheat. Bad teeth woman did recur this season and did with a bang, so I was glad of that at least, and that story definitely carried through.

It was all the rest that bugged me. That Russian wife being blackmailed to spy on the Moscow STATION CHIEF? Oh please, that was pure idiocy. So many things like that ruined season 5 for me. It's the only season I've never watched again. I'm hoping that more pay offs come (Misha!) though. It will be hard to completely judge until we see this show through to the end.

hellmouse · May 15, 2018

The major plot lines in Season 5 were all like dud firecrackers given how Season 6 is playing out. If the Jenningses had actually moved to Russia, then it would have felt like Season 5 was laying the groundwork for what it was like to live there. The food is not great and hard to get. There is lots of corruption. It's hard to travel out of the country. If you speak against the gov't you will be imprisoned. Meanwhile in the US they are trying to make pest-resistant wheat and they have plenty of food. Look at how hard it is for the defector family to be in a new country - even the father who wanted to defect. Look at how eager the young couple are to have better things for her son. Look at how bitter Tuan is about how people don't appreciate their homeland.

All of that would have been kind of interesting as a precursor to a Season 6 where they were living in Russia. Maybe Philip and Elizabeth had to go back to the US to do special operations, but in general the family would be in Russia with the green walls and gray skies. I remember people wondering if they would actually go to Russia at the end of Season 5. It felt like they were building up the Russian side of the story for a reason.

But instead, they stayed in place and all of that table setting about food and corruption and defection and the meaning of home was just kind of pointless. There are some good moments in Season 5, but in general, I agree with @sistermagpie that they didn't have that far to go from S4 to S5.

Sarah 103 · May 15, 2018

On 5/14/2018 at 12:43 PM, Carolyn Marie said:

The worst lost story of the time jump, to me, was--the accident at Chernobyl.

I agree. I was looking forward to seeing how Oleg reacted, especially since it seemed like he was the most worried about the potential for an accident with the biological/chemical weapons. During that storyline they made it clear that Oleg thought the Soviets were playing around with stuff that they did not have the ability to handle properly. It was one of the reasons he went to Stan.

On 5/14/2018 at 12:43 PM, Carolyn Marie said:

Speaking of Poland, I grew up in NYC and while I'm mostly Irish and grew up in a mostly Latino/black boro, even I knew refugees from Communist countries whose stories were not exactly secret.

There's a massive, giant difference between growing up in a major metropolitan city (where you grew up) and growing up in a suburb/bedroom community (where Paige and Henry grew up). Tuan's school did not strike me as being especially diverse, nor did where Henry and Paige went to school.

TimeTraveler · May 31, 2018

Everyone seems to love the final episode. I, like usually, seem to conjure up what I feel would have been better or more realistic versions. I just can't make the leap others seem to make in forgetting all the innocent decent people they killed with no hesitation. Even some of Stan's best associates and people he cared about. How does he simply forget all of that in their final scene together and let them drive away. The only real feelings of contradiction someone in his place would and should have had were to kill them all on the spot or arrest and take them in. And don't give me that "but they were friends" defense. He would have been even more insinst due to their use of him as a cover for their horrendous deeds. I am sorry, I just never seem able to buy into the "hollywood endings" they always come up with. I prefer life to be real. If they did nothing else but participate in the slaying of the agents in Chicago over Thanksgiving, that would have been enough for any fellow FBI agent to blow Phillip away the moment he said, "but we don't kill people, or we never killed anyone"... whatever he actually said during their final conversation. I don't guess any ending that didn't have Elizabeth dead for all the evil she did would not have been satisfying to me. I waited all these years to see how she finally got hers. And for it to end with her back in her beloved motherland is simply to little for me to stomach. A lot of times we don't get real justice in our real lives. They could at least give us some sense of it in the final of such successful TV series.

I have to give the finale a resounding B, for BOO.

Edited May 31, 2018 by TimeTraveler

JZL · June 1, 2018

6 hours ago, TimeTraveler said:

A lot of times we don't get real justice in our real lives. They could at least give us some sense of it in the final of such successful TV series.

I have to give the finale a resounding B, for BOO.

Their justice was that they were forced to go live in the shithole that their beloved motherland had become by the late 80's.

SunnyBeBe · June 2, 2018

Whenever, I think of ways the story could have been written better, I always come back to Paige. I know it's been done to death, but, I really think the show might have been perfect, if it had really addressed her role differently. To me, it never worked that they had her so immeshed with Pastor Tim and the church. It was unnatural to me. Then, they had her temper tantrums work with her parents and they spilled the beans to an emotionally unstable, untrustworthy teen. That never worked for me. Then, they wrote it so that Pastor Tim was understanding and kept his mouth shut. (His wife too.) Just too convenient.

Then, they continued with absurdity by having Paige dump her religion and suddenly calling that life too churchy. I never bought it. Then, they take it to the relationship with Matthew, which I struggled with too. So, she is obviously so ill equipped for spy work, but, E, Claudia and others don't do anything to warn The Centre that she is likely NOT spy material and is going to get herself and others killed or arrested. It's ironic that in the end, it wasn't her, but, P and E's actions that got them discovered.

Which takes me to the next part that I never could buy. While beautiful and touching, I never bought that E, who was not religious at all, would have a religious type wedding. Marriage yes, but not a religious type ceremony. The entire time, I felt like it was a joke. And then to see them continue to meet with Father Andrei, a man who was very naive and didn't even follow any measures to avoid detection, on a regular basis for years.....boggles the mind.

Other than those things, I loved it. I would have handled Paige differently for sure, either having her stay naive and in the dark or have her become much more savvy and with promise to be a second generation illegal.

SusanSunflower · June 2, 2018

yes, I wasn't sure with the "real marriage" that Elizabeth wasn't "servicing" Phillip .... one for you, one for me ... E.'s happy participation was a really big "gift" to Phillip (not to be forgotten), because she knew he was the "sentimental" one, because it mattered to him. Which doesn't mean that she wasn't moved by his devotion to her ... just that, no, it wasn't something she would have initiated in a million years. My dislike and mistrust of Elizabeth (initially for bad-mouthing Phillip to Claudia and Gabriel because she needs to be the "best girl") really led me to pretty much never see the "oh they love each other so much" story line that many others have expressed. Her remorseless killing spree led me to see her like vampire bad or a feral cat whose tolerance for "affection" was limited and conditional, because, of her really deep need to avoid questioning her own righteousness. I did not understand why she did not react more strongly to realizing she had been lied to, used and betrayed wrt to the anti-Gorbachev plot. Maybe now, back in Moscow, she'll have that nice nervous breakdown she's been putting off for decades, but I doubt it .... people with her sense of righteous superiority just "move on."

She will never have to reconcile herself to Paige's defection or inadequacy as an operative or to the fact that she really could not relate to the young man Henry grew into ... her marriage ... useful for the timebeing.

Edited June 2, 2018 by SusanSunflower

sistermagpie · June 2, 2018

On 5/31/2018 at 11:40 PM, JZL said:

Their justice was that they were forced to go live in the shithole that their beloved motherland had become by the late 80's.

What's Arkady being punished for then? ;-)

2 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Which takes me to the next part that I never could buy. While beautiful and touching, I never bought that E, who was not religious at all, would have a religious type wedding. Marriage yes, but not a religious type ceremony. The entire time, I felt like it was a joke. And then to see them continue to meet with Father Andrei, a man who was very naive and didn't even follow any measures to avoid detection, on a regular basis for years.....boggles the mind.

It's funny because I buy this wedding *so much.* It's practically the only kind of wedding I can imagine them having because I can't imagine Elizabeth doing a private ceremony in the house just for them where they write their own vows or whatever, and going to a justice of the peace in the US in disguise also just seems too elaborate for either of them to really think of because that's not quite the way they're romantic.

Father Andrei (who I think they just had to meet with as an operative) seemed like the only natural way for them to have a wedding because first, he fell into their lap. It was like the equivalent of them doing a job in Vegas and stepping into a wedding chapel (which I guess I also would have bought for the same reason). It had to be something that presented itself because I couldn't imagine either of them actually planning a thing. It's like the caviar they eat--a spontaneous gesture inspired by something that fell into Philip's lap.

Father Andrei has a ready ceremony that's set, which Elizabeth would imo much prefer. This is just the words everyone says to be married. A lot of the most religious stuff is even chanted in Old Slavonic I think. I don't know exactly how understandable that would be to them but it makes it very different than, say, the kind of thing Pastor Tim says at his church. When he's preaching it's very much about God being right there in the modern world and doing stuff that you need to believe. This is more just like mystical language.

And then, of course, there's the fact that, most importantly, he's Russian, the ceremony is uniquely Russian, it's in Russian, they get to use their Russian names. (In the alternate Vegas scenario maybe they tell the minister their names are Michael and Hope?) Even if they never had anything to do with this church, all these images would be known to them from Russian art and literature. (I think Tobolsk actually has a lot of churches.) I don't know much about non-religious ceremonies in Russia. I think they might be referred to as something like "signing the book" because it's like going to the Justice of the Peace? I don't know if there's a set ceremony or things that are said. But certainly if they'd met an official from the USSR who was able to do that for them I'd have bought that too, with them signing some papers without much talking.

Ultimately the important does seem to be that they got married as their Russian selves because they are going to be married as them for the rest of their lives. They did wind up returning. They don't need another ceremony, but they will file the paperwork.

There's two words for Russian in Russian. One refers to the culture, people, art etc. The other means the state. Father Andrei even says, "As for the state..." when he tells them to file paperwork. So it somehow seems even more right that their wedding was Russian in the cultural sense, even if it was a part of the culture that wasn't their personal culture, instead of Russian meaning the state, which is what their Russian-ness was in the US. (They were separated from the land and the culture but were working for the state--their marriage was a fake license given to them by the Russian state etc.)

SunnyBeBe · June 2, 2018

I appreciate your points on the ceremony. I wish I felt differently, because, I love the idea.

Chaos Theory · June 2, 2018

I honestly don’t think the show could have been written any better except if it focused more of Paige’s training. You know actually how Claudia and Elizabeth were actually training her but that would have meant more episodes and maybe another season arc.

Other then that I personally think this show was as close to perfect as a scripted television show can get.

sistermagpie · June 2, 2018

1 hour ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I appreciate your points on the ceremony. I wish I felt differently, because, I love the idea.

I totally understand that feeling. I've had that too but you can't change your own reaction!

58 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

I honestly don’t think the show could have been written any better except if it focused more of Paige’s training. You know actually how Claudia and Elizabeth were actually training her but that would have meant more episodes and maybe another season arc.

Other then that I personally think this show was as close to perfect as a scripted television show can get.

While I can definitely get behind the show not having the time jump so we saw things happening as they happened, given the way the story was really going I think training scenes weren't really what the story was about because Paige wasn't really being developed there. Elizabeth was in denial and Paige was trying to be into something that really wasn't who she was. It wouldn't really have been that revealing to see Paige learning things and catching on quick or slowly imo. It made just as much sense, imo, to show the result. We know Paige isn't at the level she should be from ep 1 when she gets the guy's name wrong. That gives us the whole situation, really. The season wasn't going to be about Paige improving from that moment but about Paige being the one who embraced that truth (not a truth about her skills but about who she was).

Her other scenes weren't really about Paige being a spy (despite how it was promoted by FX), they were about Paige being forced/forcing herself into a life that wasn't really her and being frustrated about it but not being able to really say so. All those stories with the sailor and Brian and the General and the fight in the bar were Paige being herself. Both she and Elizabeth tried to somehow fold these things into lessons for her spy career, but none of them really were. They were attempts by both of them to hold onto each other by Paige never really finding out who she was.

It's sadly ironic, really, how Elizabeth warns Paige about needing to know she really wants this by using Philip as an example because the thing Philip really felt like he missed--the same thing he explicitly told his children not to lose sight of--was knowing who he was. Yet that's exactly what Elizabeth is unwittingly telling Paige to do by trying to make her into someone she isn't in exchange for a feeling of approval and belonging.

hellmouse · June 2, 2018

2 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

It's funny because I buy this wedding *so much.* It's practically the only kind of wedding I can imagine them having because I can't imagine Elizabeth doing a private ceremony in the house just for them where they write their own vows or whatever, and going to a justice of the peace in the US in disguise also just seems too elaborate for either of them to really think of because that's not quite the way they're romantic.

Father Andrei (who I think they just had to meet with as an operative) seemed like the only natural way for them to have a wedding because first, he fell into their lap. It was like the equivalent of them doing a job in Vegas and stepping into a wedding chapel (which I guess I also would have bought for the same reason). It had to be something that presented itself because I couldn't imagine either of them actually planning a thing. It's like the caviar they eat--a spontaneous gesture inspired by something that fell into Philip's lap.

Father Andrei has a ready ceremony that's set, which Elizabeth would imo much prefer. This is just the words everyone says to be married. A lot of the most religious stuff is even chanted in Old Slavonic I think. I don't know exactly how understandable that would be to them but it makes it very different than, say, the kind of thing Pastor Tim says at his church. When he's preaching it's very much about God being right there in the modern world and doing stuff that you need to believe. This is more just like mystical language.

And then, of course, there's the fact that, most importantly, he's Russian, the ceremony is uniquely Russian, it's in Russian, they get to use their Russian names. (In the alternate Vegas scenario maybe they tell the minister their names are Michael and Hope?) Even if they never had anything to do with this church, all these images would be known to them from Russian art and literature. (I think Tobolsk actually has a lot of churches.) I don't know much about non-religious ceremonies in Russia. I think they might be referred to as something like "signing the book" because it's like going to the Justice of the Peace? I don't know if there's a set ceremony or things that are said. But certainly if they'd met an official from the USSR who was able to do that for them I'd have bought that too, with them signing some papers without much talking.

Ultimately the important does seem to be that they got married as their Russian selves because they are going to be married as them for the rest of their lives. They did wind up returning. They don't need another ceremony, but they will file the paperwork.

I also thought the wedding worked because Philip set it up as a surprise. Even though she says "You know I don't like surprises", which I'm sure is true! But he's essentially proposing to her "Do you want to make it official" and she accepts. He apologizes for the religious part of it, but she didn't seem to be upset by that. She seemed more touched and pleased that it was about making this commitment official, and as you say, a commitment in Russian between their Russian selves. It's a secret not only from those in their American life but also from those in their KGB life. This is just between them. It's very romantic. And the fact that she grabs those rings when she leaves the house for the last time, and that she's the one to offer the ring to Philip in the woods, is almost like her proposing back to him. I think he sees it that way.

Philip says "he didn't have many options," when he's explaining it to Elizabeth, but IMO If Father Andrei hadn't fallen into their lap, I don't think it would have happened.

sistermagpie · June 2, 2018

1 minute ago, hellmouse said:

And the fact that she grabs those rings when she leaves the house for the last time, and that she's the one to offer the ring to Philip in the woods, is almost like her proposing back to him. I think he sees it that way.

It just occurred to me that I think in the woods she gives him the ring and he puts it on and then looks over at her. She's looking very directly at him--they have this silent communication about basically exactly this, that they're now still married despite not having to do that as a cover, that their marriage is real, that they're committed to each other like they did that night.

Then there's a shot of Paige sort of looking sideways and down--it seems as if she's looking down at her mother's hand with the ring on it. Presumably every moment with Paige is about her coming to the decision she makes later and it seems like this would make some impression on her. Her parents are having this private moment between them, they seem to have "real" wedding rings they're putting on. They're going back to their real self.

While she is doing the opposite, following them to a country she feels no connection to but pretends to, and probably giving him her best chance of having a marriage like they do.

Umbelina · June 3, 2018

I believe I said way back somewhere in this thread that I wouldn't know how I felt about it as a whole until I saw the ending. Now that I have? These are the main things that didn't work for me.

I never gave a shit about Pastor Tim and the whole church bullshit. I still don't. No payoff at all really. It was a huge waste of time, and much too much reliance on the worst actor in the cast, Holly Taylor. She is "OK" at best, but certainly no where near the quality of the other amazing actors on screen.
Holly Taylor. They stuck with this story about Elizabeth and Paige even though it honestly wasn't working. They were all over the place about "who Paige was" for the entire run of the show. First she was smart and mature, then she was foolish and incapable, then she was devoutly religious and independent, then she hated religion and clung to her mother. She DID NOT HAVE "a Russian soul." All of it was crap. They should have capitalized on what they did have on screen, rather than keep trying to make something that wasn't happening happen.
Way too much focus on Elizabeth, her past, her motivations, which would have been FINE if they had done the same for Philip. Ditto all about Paige, and almost nothing about Henry.
Season 5 was wasted, except for the Russian scenes which didn't really work, since they didn't interact with cast members we knew, and the whole Oleg's new job crap was very confusing.
If this was the ending they planned, they should never have put so much separation between Philip and Stan, and they certainly should not have had Elizabeth with 3 times her normal kills, let alone the deaths of 3 FBI agents right before Stan was going to let them go.
Firing or separating most of the cast after season 4 was idiotic.
I don't care for the "no ending" ending. All of our characters could end up anywhere, including dead in a day, or could end up thriving. We have NO clue, none. It really was a "write your own ending" ending, which? Lazy and a cop out. Especially after a complete waste of season 5.
It required much too much fan wanking that Philip was allowed to "quit" the KGB and stay in the USA and alive.
Misha! What was that bullshit, and could you at least have managed to show him in the final season, a montage, something?

I cared about Philip, Stan, Elizabeth, Oleg, Arkady, Gaad,Tatiana, Nina, Martha, and Henry.

I honestly didn't care about Paige, she annoyed me to no end, probably because the actress simply could not pull of nuance. She read her lines, her eyebrows were the only emotion she had, and they were over the top. I'm not going to pretend to "like" the Paige portrayal because of the "don't be mean to the young actress!" stuff. She was basic. She can do something else besides acting and I'm sure she'll be great at that. Pretending she was good is honestly bullshit. She did have a couple of decent scenes this year, so kudos for that. Her completely blank (as usual) face worked in the scene outside of the train, and I did like her in the scene at Claudia's. Neither required lines.

Sometimes this show was brilliant, and many times it was not. I still love the show, but "what could have been" does bother me.

The acting was stellar (with one exception) and that, more than anything, kept me watching. The Martha and Nina plots were compelling, as was William's. So much of this show was so very good, but I can't help but imagine how it could have been truly great.

Erin9 · June 3, 2018

Over all, this was my favorite show ever. But, some improvements could have been made.

Here are my thoughts:

I liked some of the Paige/church story. There were some stellar aspects of it- only on this show would parents be upset about the kid embracing religion, and probably Paige did it a bit out of rebellion- she knew they’d hate it. Telling Pastor Tim worked for me. Within this story, Philip told Paige to be herself. That was so important.

But- I never much cared for the character of P Tim. He was annoying, full of himself, condescending most of the time. We saw too much of him. He was easy FF material on re-watches. He was usually not a compelling guy to watch.

There was way too much emphasis on only Elizabeth’s background. Not enough on Philip. They definitely over emphasized Elizabeth and Paige at the expense of other relationships.

Honestly- I never cared much about Paige and Henry in their own right. I cared how they related to their parents.

Given where Paige ended up in the end, I think we could have seen less of her and more of Stan/Philip and Henry/Philip and still achieved the same result.

I didn’t think Stan/Henry was handled that well. It’s something else that is pure FF material- except for the car scene. They were buddies, but I never fully bought into them just hanging out from time to time. Never thought it was a relationship worth my time to watch. It was very superficial.

Same thing with Henry’s boarding school- never fully bought into. I think the main point of it was so that P/E could more easily choose to leave him behind because living arrangements weren’t an issue. The writers wanted both American children to stay in America and so wrote the kids lives in a way to get there in different ways imo.

Too much emphasis on Philip the travel agent in S6. They could have given us his background instead. I don’t get it.

S5 could have been much better. Mischa’s arc I’m still not crazy about, though I’m sure Philip will reach out to him now. Then Philip could find out about Gabriel stabbing him in the back....

Edited June 3, 2018 by Erin9

companionenvy · June 3, 2018

To me, while there are other changes I might have made, especially with Paige, the one thing that really stopped this show from being quite at the level of the giants of the Golden Age of Television was the unbelievable level of violence. Even before Elizabeth's kill spree in S6, I think someone figured out that P&E had a combined 32 kills in the first five seasons. In the first place, it defies logic that the KGB would risk two spies who are most valuable for their ability to blend in with Americans and gather intel in subtle ways by having them double as contract killers, which is much riskier and doesn't require someone with P&E's highly specialized skill set. More than that, it was a fairly unsubtle way of raising the moral stakes - it was almost as if the show didn't trust us to realize how shitty a lot of what P&E were doing was without having them kill frequently sympathetic people on a regular basis. I think it ultimately would have been more interesting if the show had had P&E kill VERY rarely, and relied on the less violent ways they were ruining lives and exploiting people to drive home the cost of what they were doing. The fact that their job required of them to do what they did to people like Martha, Young Hee and the Russian family from S5 were far more emotionally resonant to me than the latest "oops, I guess I have to kill you now" murder.

Umbelina · June 3, 2018

Good point, and that was also the place where they strayed from reality the most too. I loved the danger and the tension, but no, they are not KGB assassins, they were the most valuable spies the KGB had. Honestly though, they wouldn't have been doing most of the break ins either. The KGB has specialized teams for killing, for abductions, and for break ins...

They would be used to seduce, and not just sexually, agents, like Martha or Jackson, and to blackmail people like Larrick. The only place they would be stealing plans would be places like the submarine plot, where they had to pose as real Americans. They wouldn't have broken into the mail robot place, for example.

They might have been sent to kill the "traitor" if only because they had to act like real Americans to make sure they had the right person before executing her.

Almost all of their kills were because they were in places they would never be, or because they were surprised and had no options...but still.

This past season especially it was ridiculous, especially since they planned this ending. I think it was a mistaken attempt at misdirection.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Umbelina

Bannon · June 3, 2018

5 hours ago, companionenvy said:

To me, while there are other changes I might have made, especially with Paige, the one thing that really stopped this show from being quite at the level of the giants of the Golden Age of Television was the unbelievable level of violence. Even before Elizabeth's kill spree in S6, I think someone figured out that P&E had a combined 32 kills in the first five seasons. In the first place, it defies logic that the KGB would risk two spies who are most valuable for their ability to blend in with Americans and gather intel in subtle ways by having them double as contract killers, which is much riskier and doesn't require someone with P&E's highly specialized skill set. More than that, it was a fairly unsubtle way of raising the moral stakes - it was almost as if the show didn't trust us to realize how shitty a lot of what P&E were doing was without having them kill frequently sympathetic people on a regular basis. I think it ultimately would have been more interesting if the show had had P&E kill VERY rarely, and relied on the less violent ways they were ruining lives and exploiting people to drive home the cost of what they were doing. The fact that their job required of them to do what they did to people like Martha, Young Hee and the Russian family from S5 were far more emotionally resonant to me than the latest "oops, I guess I have to kill you now" murder.

It was the cheapest, laziest, writing imaginable to constantly be trying to raise emotional impact on the audience via murder, while also avoiding examination of the logical consequences of murder, because doing so would have made it more difficult to get to the scenes the writers wanted to have. The garage scene in the final episode that has received such critical acclaim is a great example of that. The entire scene, as written, is basically impossible if the writers treat murder as a human behavior that has consequences.

It was always a problem for this show, but in the last season it became ridiculous. This show, to me, will always be one of squandered opportunity. It was good, not great, because the writers took a premise which was one of the best ever, along with a cast of actors, with tremendous talent,.....and then made lazy mistakes.

misstwpherecool · June 3, 2018

The final epi alone could've been different. When the Jennings minus Henry left the garage they should've comeout to waiting police and FBI. They could've done a Tarintino shoot out. Just wounding one of them could've lead to some interesting dialogue and debate when it came to surrender, cooperation or defection. They could've simply surrendered realizing times up.

If I want art work I'll go to a museum, not a tv set.

Edited June 3, 2018 by misstwpherecool

sistermagpie · June 3, 2018

8 hours ago, Erin9 said:

Over all, this was my favorite show ever. But, some improvements could have been made.

Here are my thoughts:

I liked some of the Paige/church story. There were some stellar aspects of it- only on this show would parents be upset about the kid embracing religion, and probably Paige did it a bit out of rebellion- she knew they’d hate it. Telling Pastor Tim worked for me. Within this story, Philip told Paige to be herself. That was so important.

Yeah, I can't really have a problem with the story of telling Pastor Tim because it went right to the heart of what the show was about. Paige had to tell the secret and then learn the consequences of that. Having him keep quiet so she had to learn to lie to him and spy on him seemed exactly right for the show even if I wasn't always loving the actual story.

8 hours ago, Erin9 said:

There was way too much emphasis on only Elizabeth’s background. Not enough on Philip. They definitely over emphasized Elizabeth and Paige at the expense of other relationships.

This I will never understand, particularly since it does seem like the finale was so planned in advance. And I really don't get how they decided that it really was a good idea to just present Philip as a man with no past, especially since in the last season they were struggling to find ways to keep him onscreen since his storylines didn't lend themselves to much screentime or interaction with other people. They knew they were leading up to Philip choosing country over marriage in an important instance and also didn't seem to get how much "Philip would rather die than leave the US he's come to see as the best" would be the default for so many people. If you don't show people loving their non-US country people expect them to defect. Even Oleg was constantly predicted to defect.

8 hours ago, Erin9 said:

Given where Paige ended up in the end, I think we could have seen less of her and more of Stan/Philip and Henry/Philip and still achieved the same result.

I didn’t think Stan/Henry was handled that well. It’s something else that is pure FF material- except for the car scene. They were buddies, but I never fully bought into them just hanging out from time to time. Never thought it was a relationship worth my time to watch. It was very superficial.

Seriously. I get why they loved Elizabeth/Paige but why so much to the exclusion of so many other people?

I think that's why it's hard not to start thinking about Hank Schrader on Breaking Bad. Hank and Walt had a very different relationship than Stan/Philip but that's the thing, the show made their unique relationship very clear. There was never any temptation, iirc, for viewers to flatten and simplify either Hank/Walt or Hank/Walt Jr. It was leading up to a confrontation that was completely true to what their relationship was. And Walt Jr. and Hank also had a unique and interesting relationship that was specific and I bought. It was what it was and didn't need to hold a ton of sudden sentimental weight at the end based really just on the fact that these characters were shown in scenes together one on one.

5 hours ago, companionenvy said:

To me, while there are other changes I might have made, especially with Paige, the one thing that really stopped this show from being quite at the level of the giants of the Golden Age of Television was the unbelievable level of violence.

This so much. Also thinking about BB I realized there was less violence. What are you doing wrong when the elite spies who are supposed to be spying have a stack of bodies so much higher than the drug dealers warring with other drug dealers? (Maybe I'm not literally correct there because there are some mass shootouts, but the violence was always very memorable and often had a real impact.) On this show it really became a joke which was exactly what they didn't want. And it really did feel like they couldn't figure out any way to raise the stakes even though the times they didn't murder were always more dramatic.

I don't mind them doing break ins they wouldn't do since that's in the sneaky spy realm but my god, why were they always so bad/unlucky at it? If they'd broken into Stan's house like he broke into theirs they no doubt would have run into Matthew and had to whack him!

SusanSunflower · June 3, 2018

I remember thinking that Elizabeth HAD to notice that she was being used less and less as a crack "operative" and more and more as an assassin (and short term honeypot) .... that the quality of her assignments was declining -- almost as if -- this was discussed -- she was being prepared for "retirement" perhaps due to or enhanced by unease about Phillip. That as the #1 illegal asset, she was being used for errand work.

There was a noticeable decline in number of support characters and the appearance that the KGB mission was similarly suddenly skeletal. The phone person and the clean-up crew and the trio of younger operatives to supplement stakeouts seen in early seasons seemed to vanish without explanation. (?? The better for Paige to know-nothing about them?? adding to the list of things kept from Paige's knowledge? or part of evidence that "someone" knew she was a security risk?)

We didnt even get to see the aftermath of Elizabeth killing Tatiana ... on the summit (or the Washington or FBI community) or the intra-KGB civil war ... and it turned out the Summit had less to do with the final identification of P&E than that (oh, so unAmerican) Thanksgiving trip to Chicago to try to rescue Harvest. Lots of plates left spinning when the show's light went out ... revealing them, like Erica, to be .... really just smoke and mirrors?

Umbelina · June 22, 2018

Elizabeth is never honest with Claudia about not killing the Russian diplomat, she simply tells her there was surveillance, and she'll do it tomorrow. This would completely eliminate the need to kill a KGB officer, and thwart any chance Claudia gives a head's up to the Coup people that Elizabeth has gone rogue and against them

Elizabeth kills Claudia.

Claudia is the ONLY one that can expose and endanger Elizabeth and Philip. She's the only Coup member who knows they went against the Coup. If Elizabeth killed her? Philip and Elizabeth might have a chance to live out their lives. Oleg, Arkady, and Philip certainly aren't going to tell. Claudia breathing is a clear and present danger to their lives.

There isn't a single logical reason why expert Elizabeth wouldn't immediately know that, and act accordingly. Zip. None. If not to protect herself, at least to protect Philip and Paige.

Had they stayed in the US, the Coup would have come after them, to protect themselves, and for revenge. Now that they had to go to the USSR? They will be in even more danger.

You want to have a fake sappy ending or the possibility that they survive? Kill Claudia immediately.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Umbelina

Sarah 103 · July 2, 2018

On 6/2/2018 at 9:00 PM, Umbelina said:

Way too much focus on Elizabeth, her past, her motivations, which would have been FINE if they had done the same for Philip.

I wish they had spent equal time on Elizabeth and Philip's backstories over time. It would have been great if we ended knowing just as much about Philip's background as we did Elizabeth's.

On 6/22/2018 at 4:22 PM, Umbelina said:

Now that they had to go to the USSR? They will be in even more danger.

I don't understand why this is true. You have country X. People in the intelligence of Country X are plotting to kill their own leader. Spies who work for Country X stationed in Country Y learn of the plot and are able to stop it. The spies saved the leader of their country. There were two factions (the people who wanted to kill the leader and the people who wanted to stop it). Their side won (the people who wanted to stop the assassination). Plus Arkady isn't exactly an errand boy with zero power. They had his support and he's a pretty high ranking person within the organization.

Umbelina · July 2, 2018

55 minutes ago, Sarah 103 said:

I wish they had spent equal time on Elizabeth and Philip's backstories over time. It would have been great if we ended knowing just as much about Philip's background as we did Elizabeth's.

I don't understand why this is true. You have country X. People in the intelligence of Country X are plotting to kill their own leader. Spies who work for Country X stationed in Country Y learn of the plot and are able to stop it. The spies saved the leader of their country. There were two factions (the people who wanted to kill the leader and the people who wanted to stop it). Their side won (the people who wanted to stop the assassination). Plus Arkady isn't exactly an errand boy with zero power. They had his support and he's a pretty high ranking person within the organization.

Because it's not just people in "intelligence." It's also leaders, and the military, remember the General Elizabeth met and can identify? They can also identify Granny, and Arkady's boss is one of them.

Revenge or to shut them up, your choice.

The coup really did happen by the way, just a few years later. Gorbachev wasn't powerful enough to take them on.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Umbelina

Umbelina · July 2, 2018

OK, things I would change overall in the story. First, given the ending we got, and second, with a different ending.

With the ending we got:

Don't imply Renee is a spy (Stan was left without enough problems thanks)
Elizabeth never warns Granny she's betraying her
Elizabeth kills Granny to protect herself, Paige, Henry, and Philip from reprisals
Paige isn't in the garage in that final scene (so she can't spill that Stan let them go if Stan decides to lie) OR, just kill Paige which would have been as effective as her getting off the train
Henry is of age, not a minor
Henry has a full boat scholarship, so will be able to continue with school. As a matter of fact, approve him for a similar college scholarship.

In past seasons:

At least have Arkady and Oleg meet up during the USSR scenes, instead of having Oleg endlessly wandering Moscow streets just because they were filming there for a week and they wanted "atmosphere."
Drastically pare back the entire Pastor Tim story, we didn't need that much church all the time, just so Paige could bore us silly moping around
Kill the Pastors because honestly, anything else is a ridiculous risk the KGB wouldn't take. Philip and Liz didn't have to do it or approve it.
Much more Henry, and much less Paige
Much more Philip backstory and much less Elizabeth backstory, or at least even them out

Given all that happened previously and not changing anything except the final episode?

Do a montage of the future to a great song and end the fucking story. For example, show a future scene where Elizabeth and Philip somehow escape nearly certain death, and absolutely certain chaos when the Soviet Union falls. Show them watching the wall come down on a tiny TV with their drab flat and baked potatoes in winter Moscow. Then, with some kind of well-known scenery far from the USSR, show them, and Misha enjoying dinner in Rio at their beach place or something. Paige arrives in a nurse's uniform and brings in the mail, handing them a photo of Henry graduating, then sits down next to Misha and playfully punches his arm. In the montage, we see Renee arrested (ala Zinaida) and Aderholt stopping by Stan's new job (Carwash, whatever) and shake his hand. Show Claudia with a bullet hole in her forehead and dead (earlier in the montage.
For a huge bonus and not needed, but I would love it? Show Arkady greeting Oleg as he arrives back in the USSR, and his wife rushing forward to hug him, along with their 5 year old son.

Or do something else, but finish the damn story if you are deliberately going to put everyone in peril and say "finished!"

Nash · July 5, 2018

On 13/04/2018 at 6:50 PM, Bannon said:

Can most of us agree that it would have been perfectly possible to write a very interesting show about KGB illegals in the U.S. in the '80s, without having them rack up a body count appropriate for a major battle in the Civil War?

Absolutely.

On 13/04/2018 at 8:04 PM, Erin9 said:

I agree with that. It’s not a big issue to me though. Most of the people they killed I didn’t know well enough to really care. The big heartbreaker was in S3 when she killed the elderly woman Betty after talking to her over a period of time. Maybe Gene the guy Philip killed to try and save Martha. And the Russian couple from last season. Those are the ones that come to mind immediately anyway.

There will be a ton to talk about when the show ends because we’ll know just exactly what did and did not matter.

Over all, I’d say this has been this one of the most engrossing, fascinating and thought provoking shows I’ve watched. But, of course, mistakes get made or things the writers thought were brilliant, we don’t.

“Didn’t know well enough to really care”....you’ve just passed Dept S school part 1. Please remain at your location and the welcome team will arrive shortly.

Nash · July 5, 2018

The things I’d change, in no particular order are:

Less Paige, more Henry. Possibly no spy Paige and a realisation that Henry is the one to recruit.

Less Pastor Tim and possibly an ambiguous but sad demise

A long game played with Stan’s gradual suspicions about P&E conflicting with his friendship with P.

More Rezidentura, Arkady, Oleg, the good bad guys playing mind games with the Feds.

Gaad not getting killed or if he did that it meant something

A swifter end to the Nina plotline in Russia

Misha - either a plot that went somewhere or not written at all

Renee - give stan a break; how many illegals are there? Come on, at this rate one of us is one. Not me, I didn’t go to Cambridge.

Less bodycount more tradecraft, more FBI gradually building the case around the network.

E chopping Claudia

I’m firmly on side with those who think that P&E were just too valuable for a lot of the missions and that the KGB would have shipped in a team to do the dirty “wet jobs”. These two were STRATEGIC assets, not TACTICAL. The USSR had a very clear school of operational art (maskirova and provokatsiya being two concepts we’ve got used to hearing about). Using elite, well placed officers to burgle and kill while they could develop assets in the Govt was not part of it; they played a longer game. They might not have been able to turn or recruit a western agent but they only had to make the FBI think there was a mole and the ensuing mole hunt would wreak chaos - in which they might pick up a disaffected potential mole.

And you should all watch “the sandbaggers”.

sistermagpie · July 19, 2018

For some reason I started thinking today about S5 and whether we could do without it. I don't think I can say whether my thoughts on it would actually work if anyone tried to write it, but it made me wonder if it could. I know there's plenty of good arguments for things that were good in S5, but I was imagining if you had to just cut the whole thing how you'd still get where you were going and these were my thoughts.

So they main thing you'd need to set up is: Philip retiring, Stan transferring, Paige following Elizabeth and Henry at boarding school. And Gabriel leaving. My thoughts were this. In S4 they already have a time jump, during which time they can jump start a lot of stories. There's like 5 eps after the time jump. What I was thinking about the characters was this:

Stan's pretty easy since he doesn't have to actually transfer. We just have to see some disillusionment. That can come from Oleg's sacrifice, especially if the CIA immediately talks about wanting him to leverage him to work for them. We wouldn't have to see the stuff in Moscow for that. Also in the eps after the time jump he picks up the Tea Cups so we know this one couple he's still running in the future. We spend a lot less time on Sophia etc., but we don't really need much. We could pick up after the time jump with Sophia already on board and just see her bring in her hockey player boyfriend, for instance.

With Paige, a lot of her S5 arc just gets compressed into S4. She's already bummed about spying on the Tims. The Ethiopia thing and the mugging can still happen in S4. (The post-time jump part will just seem to take place over a long period of time than it does now, probably.) The Tims still have their baby, but Paige can have her first babysitting job at the end of S4. She can search the house and read the diary in part because she's freaked out by Alice's threat, even with Tim coming back. Plus the mugging has also made her afraid. That can still get Elizabeth to teach her self-defense--maybe she has her first lesson in S4 and Elizabeth even tells her about her rape. We just don't get a whole series of self-defense sessions where she's slowly improving. Paige can read the damning pages in the diary herself on that first job. We don't need the Darkroom scene, but Philip and Elizabeth still need to offer to get rid of Pastor Tim, so they could still do the darkroom thing, just now it's happening closer to the Ethiopia scare. Iirc, Paige mentions reading his diary for the first time fairly early in S5. Rather than having a whole arc where she's told not to read it and does anyway and then photos the pages etc., she just either tells them or quickly photographs the pages right after they make the suggestion.

Her relationship with Matthew still basically starts after the time jump as well, with her still realizing that she feels like she can't be honest and so can't have a relationship around the time she's dumping the Tims.

For Philip, give him a job parallel to Elizabeth's with Young Hee. In the first part of the season it's just started so we don't need much if any time spent on it--this is while he's running around with Martha. Afterwards, though, use that storyline as the thing that pushes him over the edge rather than giving him a break. This storyline could also be used to trigger the memories and revelation about his father. This job would just be the thing to lead him to do something that makes Elizabeth want to relieve him of the work.

This could also be the thing that triggers Gabriel leaving. Since we wouldn't have the Mischa story, which makes him leave because he doesn't like lying about it, it could just instead be tied to something else he's keeping from Philip. For instance, if Philip is realizing his father's connection--and so his own connection--to the labor camps, we know that Gabriel was once the person who might drag people away to said camps. Gabriel's leaving could still trigger Philip meeting Father Andre, which gives him the idea about the wedding, which would still happen before Elizabeth's offer to quit and move back to Moscow that's then taken back because Kimmy.

With Henry, right now, we see him start to "see" the weirdness in his family after the time jump in S4. He's got 2 moments: one after the time jump and once after the near-mugging. During the time between S4 and 5 (which technically is really not that much time from a Watsonian perspective) he becomes very interested in school etc. Right now that's played as a drawn-out mystery, but it could also just be a thing on screen. His parents could still get a call from the school, be pleased at his grades--that might even be earlier on, I guess. Rather than the throwaway comment from his brother that Philip was the smartest kid in the school there might be a conversation where Henry is pleasantly surprised at his father's understanding of something he's doing in school. Philip might mention liking school and even getting a scholarship. We know he's referring to the KGB recruitment, but in saying this he might unwittingly give Henry the idea for boarding school himself. This might also tie the two things together in the viewer's mind--Henry starting to notice some odd things and Henry getting the idea for living at school far away.

Like I said, I would never say that this would or work really well. It's not even something actually written, after all! But I found myself thinking of it as sort of a challenge and it actually seemed very do-able. It gets everyone close enough to where they are at the end of S5 that their places in S6 are just as logical results. The biggest issue is it maybe puts a lot more plot in S4, of course. Any movement that does happen in S5 gets squashed into the last 5 eps of S4. That's unavoidable. But I still think it's possible to do if you're starting out S4 knowing where you need everyone to be.

Renee could still be there, in fact. She's just introduced as already with Stan in S6 after the time jump. She'd still come across like a weirdo to the audience and we could still see Philip suspicious of her. It's not like she doesn't seem to send up red flags in every scene she's in.

Umbelina · November 30, 2018

Aside from everything else I've said in this thread, which I stand by?

The most massive problem with the finale is that the writers deliberately tripled the murder rate (IN A SHORT SEASON!,) including two of Stan's agents, military personnel, AND FBI agents right before Stan lets Philip and Elizabeth go.

Why?

Runner ups?

Renee no resolve bullshit, cutesy writing beneath the normal quality of this show.
One guard who stayed outside on the Teacups, when we've already seen what FBI protection actually looks like in other episodes. So lame.
Not killing Claudia, knowing she would inform on them, Elizabeth putting her entire family's lives at risk as a blabbermouth.

So very much wrong, but for finale, those are my major annoyances.

Roseanna · December 1, 2018

On ‎14‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 12:52 AM, Umbelina said:

They shouldn't have split so many characters into different countries, and if they were going to do that, they should have done it MUCH BETTER.

To me, the scenes in Russia didn't simply seem genuine. No doubt the writers had read a lot but it didn't help: they were in a foreign country.

Roseanna · December 1, 2018

On ‎16‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 5:51 AM, sistermagpie said:

because Elizabeth is being so contemptuous of all that every day stuff.

That's a very "Bolshevik" trait - in fact a trait of all any ideologous people: they are so keen to create a better future that they forget to live in the present. All little things are sacrified for the Big Cause.

That's one of the themes in a novel (now translated to French) by Sirpa Kähkönen that describes Finnish Reds who either fled after our Civil War or later moved to Petrograd to create an Utopia and were arrested or killed in Stalin's purges. In the end the husband is grateful for his wife's fondness for "every day stuff".

However, the most horrible aspect is how "street children" who are learned to trust nobody are taught to become NKVD workers.

https://www.amazon.com/Ville-pierre-Denoël-dailleurs-French-ebook/dp/B075TDLVJ5/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1543659589&sr=1-1&keywords=sirpa+kähkönen

Roseanna · December 1, 2018

On ‎16‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 11:53 PM, Umbelina said:

Nina was a huge success, the first KGB agent inside the Residentura ever recruited, and because of Nina's information, several other successes.

Nina's recruiment was good professionally (although morally wrong), but then Stan begin an affair with Nina and couldn't see her objectively as an only asset to whom one must promise anything to keep her going even if there was no guarantee that promises could be kept.

I think Aderholt was a better agent because he never let personal feelings prevent what he had to do professionally. He also had the patience to order the enormous work that finally lead to evidence.

Roseanna · December 1, 2018

On ‎18‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 2:48 AM, SlovakPrincess said:

Her lack of feeling toward the country and culture she grew up in is kind of puzzling.

It would have been understandable if she had become passionately interested in such issues like supporting sandinistas in Nicaragua and anti-aparthed movement in South Africa and therefore growing to oppose her own country's foreign policy. But the only time she did something political was in the demonstration against nukes with Pastor Tim.

Roseanna · December 1, 2018

On ‎17‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 7:41 PM, sistermagpie said:

No problem! I meant that we're told that Stan is trying to integrate back into his family after years undercover and he feels alienated from his family. That part we saw. But for those 3 years Stan would have become another character, one who was part of a white supremacist gang. He'd have gotten used to the norms of that world. He would have had to encourage all the elements of his own personality that could inhabit that personality. Or even just reprogram himself about what was normal behavior. For example, I knew somebody once who mentioned that her husband, who'd recently returned from Iraq, was always hopping up to check sounds that he claimed to have heard. That made sense--he was on hyper-alert for threats. He's back at home, but he can't just stop acting like a soldier.

If Philip and Elizabeth went back to Russia they might come across as American because they got used to smiling more so they would fit in in the USA. In Russia they'd look strange without realizing it because that would have become more normal to them even if they themselves always still felt like they never got used to the smiling.

I have read a book about "the closed town" in Soviet Estonia", Sillamäe, of Andrei Hvostov which began as an imaginery journey to the past and the author said that his son couldn't just make it because he couldn't behave like a Soviet person - he wasn't afraid of officials etc.

Now, P&E were of course always afraid of being caught - but that was a different sort of fear.

Roseanna · December 1, 2018

On ‎10‎.‎5‎.‎2018 at 10:29 PM, hellmouse said:

3. Paige becomes less believable as she becomes more important. In the first few seasons, she is a catalyst, and in that role, she is interesting. In the pilot, Elizabeth is adamant that the children never know what they do, while Philip thinks they should know the truth. By the end of Season 2, their roles are reversed. By end of Season 3, Paige has put the entire family at risk by telling Pastor Tim. Up to that point, she is a believable young teen. She gets anxious when her parents separate. She notices her mother's odd behavior - doing laundry in the middle of the night, taking them to the movies then dropping them off, with strange explanations - and she gets curious. She pokes around the house. Believable - teens do that. She looks for something to belong to (the church). Believable. But then somewhere in Season 3/4, she becomes less believable. Her world narrows. Her personality contracts. She doesn't have any church friends - just the Pastor and his wife. Not believable IMO. She has no school friends and that is never explored in any meaningful way. She likes Matthew but then decides she probably has to be alone. She drops the church in favor of being a spy like her mother. She becomes a single-note character. She works as a catalyst for other characters but she is not developed enough to be interesting on her own. IMO she would have benefited form having at least one teenage friend and at least one teenage plot, something that let us see her as an individual without her parents or other adults. IDK - maybe the writers are pleased with Paige as a character but I feel like she's been a weak link since sometime in Season 3.

Also Elizabeth's reactions: she asks Philip "how can we live like this" and is worried how the children will survive after she and Philip are caught which she believes will happen sooner or later, estimating Paige as "fragile". She breaks her promise to Leanna and doesn't give Jared his mother's letter, revealing that his parents were Russian spies, her motive evidently being that he is better off spending a normal life as an American (well as normal as a boy can whose whole family has been murdered). Then, after the horrible truth about Jared and how Kate has used him had been revealed, she accepts Claudia's "the second generation" program for Paige, even though she has enough reasons not to trust her, saying to Philip "wouldn't it bad if she become like us" (as if she doesn't know it is very bad indeed).

Of course Elizabeth's reactions change also otherwise but then there is always an external reason for the change: Reagan's speech makes her afraid of the safety of her country, Kimmy's father gets a new position that can give Philip even more useful information.

But in Paige's case there is no external reason why Elizabeth suddenly forgets her own question "how can we live like this" and her own estimation that Paige is "fragile". Therefore, it seems to me that the writers have first planned this and made Elizabeth act accordingly.

sistermagpie · December 1, 2018

7 hours ago, Roseanna said:

That's a very "Bolshevik" trait - in fact a trait of all any ideologous people: they are so keen to create a better future that they forget to live in the present. All little things are sacrified for the Big Cause.

Absolutely. And with Elizabeth that conflict is there from the beginning. She's not only so focused on the better future she forgets the present, she feels guilty for enjoying the present. With Gregory she makes it work by both of them bonding over how the Cause is most important but Philip won't do that. It's like she thinks every time she loves or likes something it must be sacrificed to the Cause for purity. It never occurs to her that nobody would ever want to live in a world created by someone like that.

By the last season she's really betraying people on a whole new level, too. No wonder in one of her last moments she has a dream where she's basically killing her child and not personally caring.

7 hours ago, Roseanna said:

Nina's recruiment was good professionally (although morally wrong), but then Stan begin an affair with Nina and couldn't see her objectively as an only asset to whom one must promise anything to keep her going even if there was no guarantee that promises could be kept.

Not only does Stan not want to promise her anything while knowing there's no guarantee, Nina herself uses that guilt to make him more protective of her. Like when she reveals to him that she got promoted and can now maybe get him the Illegals. Stan says she didn't have to tell him that and Nina says she "can't lie to everyone" because it's too dangerous. She's making a point of telling Stan that she's choosing to trust *him* over everyone else and Stan responds to that. It's a strategic move not unlike Philip de-wigging with Martha.

7 hours ago, Roseanna said:

It would have been understandable if she had become passionately interested in such issues like supporting sandinistas in Nicaragua and anti-aparthed movement in South Africa and therefore growing to oppose her own country's foreign policy. But the only time she did something political was in the demonstration against nukes with Pastor Tim.

Yes, we hear she wrote a letter about Apartheid under Pastor Tim, but both those issues are more things Pastor Tim and the parents know are factors it seems.

On one hand, I get why people feel this would have been more compelling, but ultimately I think I'm glad they didn't have Paige be that motivated by politics. For one thing, it was just never who she was or what the story was about. I think they wanted to make it all the more obvious how much this was about Paige desperate for intimate relationships rather than truly being emotional about specific injustices or liking to feel part of a movement. She wanted to belong to the church but what we saw was her wanting to belong to Pastor Tim with the church and other people in it just being window dressing. Most interestingly, maybe, is she never makes *Jesus* the one with whom she has that relationship, which for many people is the idea. Jesus is supposed to be that person who knows you completely and loves you.

A truly radical Paige might have been really insufferable and gone a little off-point too, trying to out-radical Elizabeth. Plus in a way it might be even less believable that a Paige who was doing her own research was working for the USSR. Surely that version of Paige would have problems with the USSR also. She might have taken more interest in people her own age who were motivated by problems in the world in a very 1987 way. Her, Elizabeth and Claudia are all wanting to turn back the clock. This version of Paige would have been more independent and less about her mother.

7 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I have read a book about "the closed town" in Soviet Estonia", Sillamäe, of Andrei Hvostov which began as an imaginery journey to the past and the author said that his son couldn't just make it because he couldn't behave like a Soviet person - he wasn't afraid of officials etc.

I can believe that. I always thought that was something that explained a lot of Philip's actions, too. Like he may have been able to understand Americans better than Elizabeth but he never stopped being a Soviet person. Things like EST were not experienced by him the way they were by the other people in the group. Things that seemed natural to a lot of viewers would never have entered his head or seemed possible. I think often people could see that otherness with Elizabeth because it was so in-you-face but not with Philip.

5 hours ago, Roseanna said:

But in Paige's case there is no external reason why Elizabeth suddenly forgets her own question "how can we live like this" and her own estimation that Paige is "fragile". Therefore, it seems to me that the writers have first planned this and made Elizabeth act accordingly.

Yeah, the one way I guess this is addressed is through Elizabeth simply being in denial--but that denial never gets truly challenged. She is trying to protect Paige from the stuff she doesn't like, lying to her about murdering and sex. Sex being a part of the job Elizabeth always had more difficulty with than Philip even if she did it without complaint. Maybe that's why the climax of it is Paige calling her a whore--Elizabeth was trying to protect her and Paige really hurts her by hitting her in that sensitive area?

I mean, this isn't the first time Elizabeth responds to doubts about how she's treated by the Centre by doubling down on her loyalty. She obviously is trying to have it both ways by imagining a PG-rated version of spying for Paige. And once she starts lying to herself about that maybe it becomes easier to ignore all the many other signs that Paige is not her--that she can't ever be a Soviet person, that she doesn't take this seriously, that she doesn't have the skills or the focus/drive to get them, that she's not afraid when she should be. It's just hard to imagine someone being that careless about their child--she's just telling herself it'll work out when everything says it won't. But she has a lot of practice not seeing what's in front of her face, I guess.

There are many things Elizabeth is shielding Paige from but even when she does plainly say things like "You could have gotten someone killed" Paige just rolls her eyes so I think they're two separate issues. That is, Elizabeth's shortcomings as a trainer aren't directly related to Paige's shortcomings as a student that we were seeing in S6 except in that Elizabeth keeps doing it. They wound up cancelling each other out. They're both acting out their own issues in that story. Elizabeth does probably rely on her training to feel strong and at least there maybe wants to think the same training will fix the fragility she sees reflected in Paige.

Edited December 1, 2018 by sistermagpie

Umbelina · December 1, 2018

2 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

I can believe that. I always thought that was something that explained a lot of Philip's actions, too. Like he may have been able to understand Americans better than Elizabeth but he never stopped being a Soviet person. Things like EST were not experienced by him the way they were by the other people in the group. Things that seemed natural to a lot of viewers would never have entered his head or seemed possible. I think often people could see that otherness with Elizabeth because it was so in-you-face but not with Philip.

Well EST was all about honesty, something Philip obviously could not engage in, so he got what little he could from EST, while at the same time, necessarily subverting the entire process. For example, he couldn't tell them he'd murdered another kid, or that he was living a double life, or that he was from the soviet union and spying on the USA, killing people routinely, or that they wanted his kids to be KGB too, and his wife objected to anything he liked about the USA.

Would he have needed EST if all of that wasn't true? Probably not. EST helped him in some ways anyway, but ...

12 hours ago, Roseanna said:

To me, the scenes in Russia didn't simply seem genuine. No doubt the writers had read a lot but it didn't help: they were in a foreign country.

Because they went there for a week and mostly filmed Oleg walking around the streets gloomily, then patched a story into that. Also, there was never any resolve to any of the issues he was facing, so it was pointless. ZOOM, three years ahead, he's not in prison, he's married one of the fix ups, he has a kid, and we have no idea how the whole food thing worked out, just know that he's in daddy's division now.

Chaos Theory · December 2, 2018

I think the show is next to perfect but the only think I would have done a little differently was make Paige more advanced in her training. I know alot of people complain about her and I do understand that being said no one can stop me from loving the character and just wishing she just a little better written.

sistermagpie · December 3, 2018

On 12/1/2018 at 4:05 PM, Umbelina said:

Well EST was all about honesty, something Philip obviously could not engage in, so he got what little he could from EST, while at the same time, necessarily subverting the entire process. For example, he couldn't tell them he'd murdered another kid, or that he was living a double life, or that he was from the soviet union and spying on the USA, killing people routinely, or that they wanted his kids to be KGB too, and his wife objected to anything he liked about the USA.

I always thought the biggest thing about EST for Philip was that it was about how you are a person outside of the roles that you play, since Philip often seemed to lack exactly that--he didn't know who he was. He couldn't be completely honest in the group but I think he was trying to do that privately to figure that out.

8 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

I think the show is next to perfect but the only think I would have done a little differently was make Paige more advanced in her training.

But she was advanced. She was working alongside Marilyn etc. It's what they mostly do. She was working jobs.

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