S06.E07: Harvest

[SunnyBeBe]

1 minute ago, CaliCheeseSucks said:

I'm laughing at the very thought. 

"Paige, we have some questions for you..."

"Listen Mr. Beeman, I know WAY more about the world than you do! Your speech at Thanksgiving made me sick. You don't care about the USSR. I've watched movies and eaten peasant stew. I know things!"

Right! She may so absolutely ignorant, that they find her belief that she's a spy laughable.  I mean, smart spies like P & E would NOT go there, right?  I mean, it is pretty incredible. 

[Bannon]

29 minutes ago, jjj said:

Okay, but they did not know Marilyn was from D.C.   

Yes, but the FBI is engaged in a massive search  for illegals' cars, used in operations, by the pattern of registration.  Searching for the pattern around the D.C. area will be a high priority. If  those cars are found, all the DNA will be  collected, to see if it matches the DNA of the headless corpse. Anybody else's DNA in the car, if that person comes under suspicion, can then be linked to the headless corpse.

[Bannon]

40 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

I have got to stop reading the anti-Paige stuff.  It ruins the show for me.  Its no ones fault that you don't like Paige and I do.   But reading peoples post and how much people hate Paige comes close to making me avoid wanting to post on groups.  I keep coming back because I have things to say but.....I love the character and I just don't get the hate.  And I am close to being offended by the hatred.  But that is on me and the show is almost over so whenever I start reading someones post that starts dissing on Paige I stop reading it.    But I would love to see her go on to be spy for Russia.   I am not sure that is the way the story would unfold.  It is just as likely that her signing up for the State Department is the irony that gets her family found out.  But I would honestly love to see that part of the plan actually work.  Her parents disappear into the darkness and Paige go on to spy for Russia.  That would be the ultimate ending for me.  

I don't "hate" or "love" characters. I want characters to be well written. In my opinion, it is ridiculous to have a character who attends George Washington University, and has planned for years now to eventually get a State Department internship, while being so utterly ignorant of 20th century history. It would be like writing a 7 foot tall character as a jockey in the Kentucky Derby. It's crappy writing, because it makes no sense.  Same as Paige's utter incuriosity regarding the murder spree happening around her. That has nothing to do with "hating Paige".

Edited May 10, 2018 by Bannon

[TaurusRose]

9 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

I think the time jump messed things up a bit editorially (if you get what I mean), but having some experience in fieldwork was always part of the Plan for Paige. That way she would understand how things worked on that side, and maybe could pitch in if necessary. Or even do something herself under the right circumstances.

I disagree. Paige is interested, but for all the wrong reasons.

I knew people would remark on this, ha! I cut Stan a lot of slack because a) if Stan put the pieces together any earlier, there would be no more show, b) he was nosy at the very beginning of the show, looked around, and found nothing, so I can see him thinking everything was okay, and c) it's only about now that the FBI is getting information it can put together in a meaningful way. The noose is finally tightening around Philip and Elizabeth, and I am here for it!

Interesting interview with Keidrich Sellati. He thinks Henry was used the perfect amount.

 

Interested as in Paige doesn't have any stakes in this cause.  There is no reason whatsoever that Paige should be invested in being a Russian spy.  She does not have the life experiences of either Claudia or Elizabeth to want to be a spy, not to mention that the Russia they're so bullish on will not exist very soon.  Someone said Paige is smug and self-righteous but in addition to those traits, she is being willfully stupid and ignorant.  There are so many ways she could get a better picture of the political situation if she was as smart as she thought she was. I hope she does manage to get herself killed.

[jjj]

5 hours ago, Bannon said:

Yes, but the FBI is engaged in a massive search  for illegals' cars, used in operations, by the pattern of registration.  Searching for the pattern around the D.C. area will be a high priority. If  those cars are found, all the DNA will be  collected, to see if it matches the DNA of the headless corpse. Anybody else's DNA in the car, if that person comes under suspicion, can then be linked to the headless corpse.

DNA was rarely used in the late 1980s; in a case where they had one person and one DNA sample from a crime, it would be used as evidence, but not as broad searches of thousands of cars around the country bought for cash.  There just was not a DNA repository at that time, like there is now.  Fingerprints were the main evidence, and that is what Philip took care of -- even without knowing whether there were fingerprints of Marilyn on file.  I think the illegals would have had a very hard time these days, with so many requests for fingerprints and thumbprints for so many types of activities, even TSA pre-checks!  (Why yes, thank you, I was just signed up for TSA precheck at work, and they need my fingerprints! No, it is not required that I get TSA precheck.)  Or iPhone fingerprint ID!

By the way, when Elizabeth was drawing on the plane (okay, let's call her "Edith" because she is a retiree), I wondered why she was drawing an iPod.  It was not until I saw the clouds at the artist's home that I realized it was the window! 

Edited May 11, 2018 by jjj

[Umbelina]

1 minute ago, jjj said:

DNA was rarely used in the late 1980s; in a case where they had one person and one DNA sample from a crime, it would be used as evidence, but not as broad searches of thousands of cars around the country bought for cash.  There just was not a DNA repository at that time, like there is now.  Fingerprints were the main evidence, and that is what Philip took care of -- even without knowing whether there were fingerprints of Marilyn on file.  I think the illegals would have had a very hard time these days, with so many requests for fingerprints and thumbprints for so many types of activities, even TSA pre-checks!  (Why yes, thank you, I was just signed up for TSA precheck at work, and they need my fingerprints! No, it is not required that I get TSA precheck.)  Or iPhone fingerprint ID!

By the way, when Elizabeth was drawing on the plan (okay, let's call her "Edith" because she is a retiree), I wondered why she was drawing an iPod.  It was not until I saw the clouds at the artist's home that I realized it was the window! 

It was an airline window.

I thought that was a stupid mistake, even though Elizabeth covered by saying "I saw it in a magazine."  Will it play out?  Maybe so.

[jjj]

1 minute ago, Umbelina said:

It was an airline window.

I thought that was a stupid mistake, even though Elizabeth covered by saying "I saw it in a magazine."  Will it play out?  Maybe so.

I was going, "huh, she saw it in a magazine?" until I realized why she was covering for it being a real airline window.  On the other hand, the real Elizabeth, whatever that means, was supposedly on a plane to Houston.  I did notice that her drawing pads were kept with her nursing costume, last week when Philip went through her stash at the garage.  

[Umbelina]

2 minutes ago, jjj said:

I was going, "huh, she saw it in a magazine?" until I realized why she was covering for it being a real airline window.  On the other hand, the real Elizabeth, whatever that means, was supposedly on a plane to Houston.  I did notice that her drawing pads were kept with her nursing costume, last week when Philip went through her stash at the garage.  

Exactly, and the "real" Elizabeth is not a nurse with red curly hair.

The FBI is investigating everything around the summit as well, remember?

Edited May 10, 2018 by Umbelina

[jjj]

2 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Exactly, and the "real" Elizabeth is not a nurse with red curly hair.

The FBI is investigating everything around the summit as well, remember?

Oh, I know -- I was keeping track of:  Elizabeth 1 was on a plane to "Houston", Elizabeth 2 was most definitely NOT on a plane to Chicago (except she was) and Elizabeth 3 was not on any plane to anywhere, nope, just sitting at home looking at pictures of airplane windows.  Elizabeth 4 was prowling theatres with French films, no airplanes involved.   

[MisterBluxom]

11 hours ago, MissBluxom said:

You must have a much stronger constitution than I do if you will be able to stand all the awful music. I must admit there were some really excellent choices - especially "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac in the very first episode. I think that was what got me hooked in the first place. Then watching Keri Russel and  Matthew Rhys sealed the deal for me. They are so great in these roles.

But what was that horrible dirge they played towards the end of this episode? All I remember is that it was played during the time P & E drove to that body of water (maybe Lake Michigan?) where E dumped that bag containing the body parts. I had never heard that music before and I'll be happy if I never hear it again. I'd just like to know what it was.

 

Oh the Horror!

To think the very first album I ever bought was "Horses by Patti Smith". I really loved that album for about 3 years.

But the dirge played during Elizabeth's trip to the lake (I assume it was a lake) and the dumping of the body parts was

Broken Flag by The Patti Smith Group

Yuck!

At least I discovered this site which I can use to find any music played during a TV show. That was a real good find.

https://www.tunefind.com/show/the-americans/season-6/63453

Edited May 11, 2018 by MissBluxom

[dubbel zout]

25 minutes ago, jjj said:

There just was not a DNA repository at that time, like there is now.

Exactly. They could collect and process all the DNA they want, but if there's nothing to compare it to, it's not going to do much good. They'd know it's Marilyn's DNA, but they wouldn't know it's Marilyn.

[Umbelina]

https://slate.com/culture/2018/05/the-americans-insider-podcast-for-episode-607-harvest.html

Here's the podcast for this week about Harvest.

First, she talks with Sarah Nolen, who wrote Episode 7, “Harvest,” about why she sees Philip’s actions in the garage as “romantic”; why Philip and Elizabeth involved a random day laborer in the Chicago operation; and her career path from assistant to writer. Then we hear snippets from conversations with Noah Emmerich, H. Keith Melton, and Ian McLaughlin about key moments in this episode.

[Dev F]

Where Paige is concerned, count me as still on team "It's a feature, not a bug." To me it's not at all weird and frustrating when the writers fail to portray Paige as well-informed or ideologically motivated, because I've never gotten any sense that we're supposed to think of her as either of those things. But I do think this episode showed us another facet of Paige's deep and tragic dysfunction, where she's come to see the Soviet system as uniquely truthful and everyone around her as brainwashed by Western falsehoods, despite the fact that she can only discuss the phenomenon in shallow cliches for two sentences before just giving up and appealing to her external authority: "It's like what you and Claudia say . . ." Because that's what it's really about -- how she put her faith in all-American, God-fearing Pastor Tim, only to discover that he was lying to her about how broken he thought she was, and now her mother and Claudia are the only people she trusts to be honest with her.

So here she is, this poor girl who mistrusts everyone around her and the only society she's ever known, but is terrified of being alone? That's horrifyingly awful. But it's also very much in keeping with the theme of the episode, if Elizabeth is hinting desperately to her daughter that she doesn't have to follow this terrible, lonely path, but Paige is oblivious, because the seeds of her destruction were planted years ago, and now there's nothing left to do but reap the result.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Dev F

[tennisgurl]

1 hour ago, CaliCheeseSucks said:

"Listen Mr. Beeman, I know WAY more about the world than you do! Your speech at Thanksgiving made me sick. You don't care about the USSR. I've watched movies and eaten peasant stew. I know things!"

Hahahaha! I can totally see something like that happening! Its really not that I hate Paige, I even like her pretty frequently, but her total, hilarious naivete is becoming actually comical at this point. I dont think that makes her awful or anything, but it does make her pretty irritating. Normally in a 19 or so year old, I would be alright with that. Tons of people that age, just out of their homes and entering the "real" world are convinced that they now knowing everything, are totally worldly because of that semester abroad in Spain they took, and are the 80s equivalent of Woke, and while its annoying, its kind of just a right of passage for a lot of people, who eventually find more balanced views, and grow out of it. But, most people arent getting Soviet Spy lessons from their Soviet spy mom! 

The sadder thing is, I think that even if she didnt spill the beans instantly, out of either panic or to lecture on how what she is doing is totally right and awesome (even though she knows nothing about the USSR besides what you could learn in an International Club meeting, told from obviously biased sources), she could pretty easily be flipped if Stan or whoever showed her some pictures of Gulags or some facts about good things America is doing. Really, as I've said before, Paige is a follower, and she is desperate for a purpose in life, and will latch onto anyone who is willing to give her one. Really, its sad, and I think its something the show is setting up deliberately.

Edited May 11, 2018 by tennisgurl

[jrlr]

41 minutes ago, MissBluxom said:

Oh the Horror!

To think the very first album I ever bought was "Horses by Patti Smith". I really loved that album for about 3 years.

But the dirge played during Elizabeth's trip to the lake (I assume it was a lake) and the dumping of the body parts was

Broken Flag by The Patti Smith Group

Yuck!

At least I discovered this site which I can use to find any music played during a TV show. That was a real good find.

https://www.tunefind.com/show/the-americans/season-6/63453

 

Thanks for posting the tunefind link!  "Horses" drove me crazy when it was used in Ray Donovan while Abby was dying, but the dirge didn't bother me as much here.

Edited May 11, 2018 by jrlr

[MisterBluxom]

4 minutes ago, jrlr said:

Thanks for posting the tunefind link!  "Horses" drove me crazy when it was used in Ray Donovan while Abby was dying, but it didn't bother me as much here.

You're very welcome. But maybe I wasn't clear. The music played in the episode was not from the Horses album. I assume it was some more recent piece of music.

I still like Horses by the way. It was a great album when it first came out and I still enjoy it. Especially the line, "Jesus died for somebody's sins. But not mine."

[hellmouse]

12 minutes ago, Dev F said:

Where Paige is concerned, count me as still on team "It's a feature, not a bug." To me it's not at all weird and frustrating when the writers fail to portray Paige as well-informed or ideologically motivated, because I've never gotten any sense that we're supposed to think of her as either of those things. But I do think this episode showed us another facet of Paige's deep and tragic dysfunction, where she's come to see the Soviet system as uniquely truthful and everyone around her as brainwashed by Western falsehoods, despite the fact that she can only discuss the phenomenon in shallow cliches for two sentences before just giving up and appealing to her external authority: "It's like what you and Claudia say . . ." Because that's what it's really about -- how she put her faith in all-American, God-fearing Pastor Tim, only to discover that he was lying to her about how broken he thought she was, and now her mother and Claudia are the only people she trusts to be honest with her.

So here she is, this poor girl who mistrusts everyone around her and the only society she's ever known, but is terrified of being alone? That's horrifyingly awful. But it's also very much in keeping with the theme of the episode, if Elizabeth is hinting desperately to her daughter that she doesn't have to follow this terrible, lonely path, but Paige is oblivious, because the seeds of her destruction were planted years ago, and now there's nothing left to do but reap the result.

I hope for Paige's sake that the Soviets are prepared to manage her for the rest of her life. Otherwise she will end up like that poor man in Season 1 who was desperate to talk to his handler (the original KGB Rezident) but couldn't do so. He was lonely and vulnerable. And then there's William, who had the Soviet connection via Gabriel. He was lonely and miserable. 

I see Paige as being extremely vulnerable emotionally because she is trying to hard to not be vulnerable. I can't help but picture her getting in to a bad relationship and then being afraid to leave because she doesn't want to be alone. She is unlikely to be as lucky as Elizabeth was with Philip. 

[Bannon]

1 hour ago, jjj said:

DNA was rarely used in the late 1980s; in a case where they had one person and one DNA sample from a crime, it would be used as evidence, but not as broad searches of thousands of cars around the country bought for cash.  There just was not a DNA repository at that time, like there is now.  Fingerprints were the main evidence, and that is what Philip took care of -- even without knowing whether there were fingerprints of Marilyn on file.  I think the illegals would have had a very hard time these days, with so many requests for fingerprints and thumbprints for so many types of activities, even TSA pre-checks!  (Why yes, thank you, I was just signed up for TSA precheck at work, and they need my fingerprints! No, it is not required that I get TSA precheck.)  Or iPhone fingerprint ID!

By the way, when Elizabeth was drawing on the plan (okay, let's call her "Edith" because she is a retiree), I wondered why she was drawing an iPod.  It was not until I saw the clouds at the artist's home that I realized it was the window! 

You don't understand what I am writing. I am not saying that the DNA in thousands of cars is going to be examined. I am saying that once the car search determines a few cars that were used by illegals. THEN those few cars will be searched for DNA to see if any of it matches the headless corpse.

[ArizonaAdmirer]

5 hours ago, zibnchy said:

The reason Paige doesn't have any friends likely has to do with the fact that she was raised by Soviet spies (and cold blooded killers). You think Elizabeth was busy planning play dates for Paige? Seems like E&P were hardly ever home (esp at night) and they likely expected her to grow up faster to help with her little brother. E&P didn't mirror positive behaviors for her to emulate, other than sneaking around and lying.

Honestly, can you imagine Elizabeth as mother of a toddler?

Also, both Elizabeth and Phillip didn’t have anything close to “normal” childhoods themselves. They were forced to endure extreme deprivation and poverty while growing up in Russia after WWII and had to take on adult responsibilities early in life. Remember when Elizabeth was talking to her mentor and mocking Americans because they simply watched their children play instead of giving them chores? No matter how American Elizabeth and Phillip pretend to be, the traumas of their childhoods would undoubtedly influence how they raise their own children.

n

Edited May 11, 2018 by ArizonaAdmirer

[Bannon]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

Exactly. They could collect and process all the DNA they want, but if there's nothing to compare it to, it's not going to do much good. They'd know it's Marilyn's DNA, but they wouldn't know it's Marilyn.

Yes.  but if they find the DNA of a headless corpse, that belonged to a KGB operative who worked an exfiltration operation in Chicago, in a car that they know was used for KGB operations in D.C. , then any person in D.C.they might have suspicions about, who they then get a DNA sample from, can be linked, if they also have DNA in the car. It helps strengthen the evidence of Paige, for instance,  was working in concert with people who killed Americans in the Chicago operation.

[SlovakPrincess]

2 hours ago, Anela said:

I don't hate her, I hardly ever comment about her, and defended her before. I just don't buy that however much they want to protect their kids, that they'd let Paige be THAT naive about this kind of work. Elizabeth already told Henry that he didn't need to be shielded anymore, but for some reason, she keeps doing it with Paige. I guess it's because they don't want her to know that they're murderers. 

I think in her heart of hearts Elizabeth knows this is an ugly thing to get her daughter into and doesn’t want to spook Paige.  And on some level, subconsciously, she must know Paige is not really suited to this work — she just can’t admit it to herself.  Philip pushes Paige a bit because he wants her to wake up and realize what she’s really getting into.  

Weird that the Center has so far steered clear of Henry — did I miss an explanation as to how they decided Paige would be groomed and Henry would be left to live a normal life?

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, Dev F said:

Where Paige is concerned, count me as still on team "It's a feature, not a bug." To me it's not at all weird and frustrating when the writers fail to portray Paige as well-informed or ideologically motivated, because I've never gotten any sense that we're supposed to think of her as either of those things. But I do think this episode showed us another facet of Paige's deep and tragic dysfunction, where she's come to see the Soviet system as uniquely truthful and everyone around her as brainwashed by Western falsehoods, despite the fact that she can only discuss the phenomenon in shallow cliches for two sentences before just giving up and appealing to her external authority: "It's like what you and Claudia say . . ." Because that's what it's really about -- how she put her faith in all-American, God-fearing Pastor Tim, only to discover that he was lying to her about how broken he thought she was, and now her mother and Claudia are the only people she trusts to be honest with her.

So here she is, this poor girl who mistrusts everyone around her and the only society she's ever known, but is terrified of being alone? That's horrifyingly awful. But it's also very much in keeping with the theme of the episode, if Elizabeth is hinting desperately to her daughter that she doesn't have to follow this terrible, lonely path, but Paige is oblivious, because the seeds of her destruction were planted years ago, and now there's nothing left to do but reap the result.

Well said. Particularly how she expresses her holy cause in two cliched sentences before giving up and appealing to external authority--something she did with Pastor Tim as well. She hasn't internalized the beliefs to express them in her own way. I thought that scene was amazing in how nakedly screwed up Paige was in it--and hopefully that was intentional because if it wasn't, that would be seriously bad writing. Paige as a train wreck is a perfectly good story--in fact, one thing that I think would make it even better is if it felt like a building train wreck. The problem with an ending where Paige is actually a spy for Russia is that we've had an entire season showing us that she's bad at it and isn't committed to it both on the larger level and the smaller level. She makes mistakes and never is shown appreciating the actual meaning of the mistake.

Meanwhile Elizabeth keeps randomly telling people she's good at this and learns from her mistakes...at least that's what she did say. As time's gone on we got the "Maybe she's not good at this" and then this episode's "it's okay if you don't want to do this..." This is what Elizabeth does when she has a feeling that she thinks she shouldn't have or doesn't want to have. She hopes Philip will decide on his own to come to Chicago (like she hoped he'd decide on his own to come home in S1), hopes Paige herself will change her mind, hopes Philip will judge her not good enough. I think she showed in this ep part of her wants Philip to stop what she's doing at work too.

The Russia lessons are shallow and never written to show Paige engaging with the material at all. It's just used to let the two older women talk for the younger one.

Elizabeth continues to lie to her or tell half-truths and platitudes to make things sound better. Paige defends Elizabeth's false version of the truth even against the real version coming from Philip.

This seems like much worse than any failures of Pastor Tim.

This scene seems like the first one that's actually had Paige express what's going on in her head and she says she has no friends, says her greatest fear is being alone and expresses a faith that one day her own Philip will come into her life because she's doing this. Those things are far stronger in the scene than anything regarding her actual job.

The other question is about her naivete and there on one hand it seems to be intentionally doing exactly what you said. But at the same time they have made her surprisingly naive just for a human being alive in that time and place. It's like Claudia and Elizabeth didn't even have to rewrite anything she knew about history in the past because she just dumped it and started fresh when she took on her new mentors.

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

Really, as I've said before, Paige is a follower, and she is desperate for a purpose in life, and will latch onto anyone who is willing to give her one. Really, its sad, and I think its something the show is setting up deliberately.

If they're not they've spent *a lot* of time building that case and forgot to put in anything else!

45 minutes ago, ArizonaAdmirer said:

No matter how American Elizabeth and Phillip pretend to be, the traumas of their childhoods would undoubtedly influence how they raise their own children.

But not in any way that would make it hard for the kids to have friends. Tons of kids are children of immigrants with harsh backgrounds. Henry and Paige actually avoided a lot of that because their parents were taught to fit in. There's no reason Philip and Elizabeth's parenting would lead to Paige not being able to make friends, particularly compared to, say, any random child of immigrants whose parents were much stricter and expected the kid to conform to that rules of the culture they left.

37 minutes ago, SlovakPrincess said:

I think in her heart of hearts Elizabeth knows this is an ugly thing to get her daughter into and doesn’t want to spook Paige.

One problem is that Elizabeth can't admit to herself that anything ugly was done to her because it would spook Elizabeth!

37 minutes ago, SlovakPrincess said:

Weird that the Center has so far steered clear of Henry — did I miss an explanation as to how they decided Paige would be groomed and Henry would be left to live a normal life?

Nope, not at all. It's like we're just supposed to forget that all this started as a KGB order.

Edited May 11, 2018 by sistermagpie

[SlovakPrincess]

Since I’ve been griping about this forever - and they seem to be fixing this now - yay! Stan is finally getting suspicious of his neighbors!

[Cardie]

4 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I don't know why they didn't show Harvest taking the pill out and putting it in his mouth.

Because the writers trust their audience to make inferences and not be led by the hand. Episodic television often runs long and cuts need to be made to stuff originally scripted or even filmed. I expect something like this had them decide to imply rather than show that Harvest had taken his pill. We see Philip noticing that the necklace is open and meeting Harvest's eyes. Harvest then met his gaze. I took that as acknowledgment that he had taken the pill; then Philip stopped compression. 

[Midnight Cheese]

My husband told me the Decider’s recapper perceived a switch finally being flipped, when Phillip hugged Stan after saying his agency’s failure explained the crazy travel and dumping Henry on Thanksgiving.   The theory is that it reminded him of when he, Stan, hugged Gennady.   For Gennady, Stan was his closest friend; for Stan, Gennady was a subject.   When Philip hugs Stan, Stan instinctively realizes the inequity in his friendship with Philip.   (And don’t Stan and Gennady have an uncanny physical resemblance?   Maybe echoed by Harvest and William’s passing physical resemblance, similar deaths, and death-rattle, unburdening conversations with Phil and Stan?)

Paige was conceived in loneliness, and reared in a lonely household, and it makes sense that her duty-bound blinkered nature doesn’t see the prison she’s always lived in- after all, Elizabeth doesn’t have much self-awareness, or recognition of other natures until it’s much too late. And she knows about every chopped-off hand and suitcase-crammed corpse. 

Edited May 11, 2018 by Midnight Cheese

[Clanstarling]

9 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

I think stuffing Annaliese into a suitcase was more disturbing, but to each his own. Also, why did they leave her feet attached? Couldn't law enforcement identify her with footprints?

I agree. I thought Annaliese was worse. When Philip looked at the axe, my husband wondered how it would help. "To cut off the hands and head," I said matter of factly. As for footprints, I don't think anyone was recording baby's footprints at the time Marilyn would have been a baby. I think that started happening in the 80's, maybe late 70's.

4 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

It used to be that people did not get a Social Security card until they started working. I don't think Social Security numbers were issued at birth until sometime in the 1970s or the 1980s. For someone of Philip and Elizabeth's generation getting a Social Security number as a teenager or as an adult would have been the norm. 

I got mine in the mid-70's when I went to college. When my first child was born in the late 80's, we were given a form to fill out whenever. When my youngest was born 4 years later in the 90's, the hospital made us fill it out then. For some time soldiers didn't get them (they had a different system). I'm not sure when that changed, sometime during my father's military career. So before the 1970s. Of course, that has nothing to do with Philip.
 

2 hours ago, Umbelina said:

It was an airline window.

I thought that was a stupid mistake, even though Elizabeth covered by saying "I saw it in a magazine."  Will it play out?  Maybe so.

I thought that was an oopsie myself, and though she covered it up, I wondered if it might play out.

When Philip went for the axe, my husband wondered how that would help "to cut off the hands and head" I said, like a cold blooded killer. Watch too many shows, I guess.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Clanstarling

[Bannon]

41 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Well said. Particularly how she expresses her holy cause in two cliched sentences before giving up and appealing to external authority--something she did with Pastor Tim as well. She hasn't internalized the beliefs to express them in her own way. I thought that scene was amazing in how nakedly screwed up Paige was in it--and hopefully that was intentional because if it wasn't, that would be seriously bad writing. Paige as a train wreck is a perfectly good story--in fact, one thing that I think would make it even better is if it felt like a building train wreck. The problem with an ending where Paige is actually a spy for Russia is that we've had an entire season showing us that she's bad at it and isn't committed to it both on the larger level and the smaller level and then never actually being shown to feel the real meaning of the mistake.

Meanwhile Elizabeth keeps randomly telling people she's good at this and learns from her mistakes...at least that's what she did say. As time's gone on we got the "Maybe she's not good at this" and then this episode's "it's okay if you don't want to do this..." This is what Elizabeth does when she has a feeling that she thinks she shouldn't have or doesn't want to have. She hopes Philip will decide on his own to come to Chicago (like she hoped he'd decide on his own to come home in S1), hopes Paige herself will change her mind, hopes Philip will judge her not good enough. I think she showed in this ep part of her wants Philip to stop what she's doing at work too.

The Russia lessons are shallow and never written to show Paige engaging with the material at all. It's just used to let the two older women talk for the younger one.

Elizabeth continues to lie to her or tell half-truths and platitudes to make things sound better. Paige defends Elizabeth's false version of the truth even against the real version coming from Philip.

This seems like much worse than any failures of Pastor Tim.

This scene seems like the first one that's actually had Paige express what's going on in her head and she says she has no friends, says her greatest fear is being alone and expresses a faith that one day her own Philip will come into her life because she's doing this. Those things are far stronger in the scene than anything regarding her actual job.

The other question is about her naivete and there on one hand it seems to be intentionally doing exactly what you said. But at the same time they have made her surprisingly naive just for a human being alive in that time and place. It's like Claudia and Elizabeth didn't even have to rewrite anything she knew about history in the past because she just dumped it and started fresh when she took on her new mentors.

If they're not they've spent *a lot* of time building that case and forgot to put in anything else!

 

The reason I think it is seriously bad writing is that the writers have consistently stated that they think they are writing the character of Paige as an intelligent person. Apparently they think intelligent people with serious aspirations of a career in the State Department never open a book on 20th century history by the time they are deep into college. They think intelligent people can not have any reaction to being in the midst of what is a tidal wave of homicide.

Paige as a trainwreck could have  been so much better written by giving her some flashes of potential competence. It's been way too much one-note.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Bannon

[sistermagpie]

12 minutes ago, Midnight Cheese said:

When Philip hugs Stan, Stan instinctively realizes the inequity in his friendship with Philip.

I don't understand what inequality he's supposed to be recognizing. Which one is Gennady? Seems to me that Stan very much considers Philip a real friend (he calls him his best friend in the scene) and Philip considers Stan one too. I think Stan was simply surprised at Philip hugging him because they don't usually hug--Philip was hugging him because he thought he might be saying good-bye forever and didn't even get to hug his son. If there's inequality it's in that, that Philip knows the seriousness of this and Stan doesn't.

15 minutes ago, Midnight Cheese said:

Paige was conceived in loneliness, and reared in a lonely household, and it makes sense that her duty-bound blinkered nature doesn’t see the prison she’s always lived in- after all, Elizabeth doesn’t have muxh self-awareness, or recognition of other natures until it’s much too late. And she knows about every chopped-off hand and suitcase-crammed corpse. 

I have a hard time looking at the family we met in S1 as a lonely household or a prison. There are so many more toxic households probably even in Falls Church in terms of what the kids experience. Paige and Henry Jennings grew up in paradise compared to Don Draper or Pete Campbell on Mad Men and both of them are regular Americans with non-immigrant parents.

3 minutes ago, Bannon said:

The reason I think it is seriously bad writing is that the writers have consistently stated that they think they are writing the character of Paige as an intelligent person.

This is the thing that worries me too. I'm hoping that's just about them trying to make the story sound like a cool spy story but it's troubling to hear someone literally described as intelligent and curious and then have them being literally the opposite.

[duVerre]

3 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

As for footprints, I don't think anyone was recording baby's footprints at the time Marilyn would have been a baby. I think that started happening in the 80's, maybe late 70's.

 

My hospital birth certificate has my footprints on it. It's hanging on the wall and I'm looking at it now. I was born in 1951.

Granted, I was born in Ontario, Canada, and I don't know if this applies to the U.S.  But the two countries are fairly alike in these things.

I've been googling around, and the record-keeping of such prints seems to change depending on the hospital involved. Apparently, prints are taken both as keepsakes for the parents and to use as hospital i.d., should other methods of i.d. (e.g. plastic wrist and ankle bands) fail. 

[Pink-n-Green]

I have a question for the Russian speakers in this group.  "Harvest" was the only character on the show whose first language was Russian and he spoke English without any accent.  Characters like Oleg, Tatiana, Arkady, etc.  are native Russian speakers but they have accents.  It sounds like the actor who played Harvest is a native English speaker who learned Russian at one point.  Can anyone comment on how good (or not) his Russian is?

Also, what song was playing when Elizabeth threw that duffle bag into the water?  It was pretty.

[Umbelina]

Some of them don't speak English with a Russian accent in real life, for example Annet Mahendru.  Just Youtube her, she can speak perfect English as well as Russian.

[whiporee]

Phillip should have just said E was in love with someone else, that she had been seeing him for a long time and now that the kids were grown she was planning on leaving, and Phillip was trying to talk her out of it. Or, if he were really quick about realizing Stan might have seen their comings and goings, said they were swingers. The travel-agent emergency was never going to hold even a smidge of water. 

In reality, it was really stupid of the Center to leaven them in such close proximity to someone who they knew to be working counhter-intelligence. 

I'm kind of hoping Phillip gets out of this and ends up somewhere warm. Even Cuba would be fine. If he just vanishes, I think the kids could be all right. Paige hasn't really DONE anything yet, and Henry's doing his best. E can't live unless she gets a sex change and becomes Putin. 

Very good, very tense, very sad episode. 

[Pink-n-Green]

22 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Some of them don't speak English with a Russian accent in real life, for example Annet Mahendru.  Just Youtube her, she can speak perfect English as well as Russian.

That never entered my mind, but it makes sense.

[Anela]

2 hours ago, Umbelina said:

https://slate.com/culture/2018/05/the-americans-insider-podcast-for-episode-607-harvest.html

Here's the podcast for this week about Harvest.

First, she talks with Sarah Nolen, who wrote Episode 7, “Harvest,” about why she sees Philip’s actions in the garage as “romantic”; why Philip and Elizabeth involved a random day laborer in the Chicago operation; and her career path from assistant to writer. Then we hear snippets from conversations with Noah Emmerich, H. Keith Melton, and Ian McLaughlin about key moments in this episode.

Dismembering a body is romantic? :/

[Umbelina]

14 minutes ago, Anela said:

Dismembering a body is romantic? :/

That writer lost me completely when she said she's the one who has been writing for Paige for three years, but it was interesting just for that reason.  Not a shocker she speaks "valley girl" during interviews, and not sardonically.

1 hour ago, Midnight Cheese said:

My husband told me the Decider’s recapper perceived a switch finally being flipped, when Phillip hugged Stan after saying his agency’s failure explained the crazy travel and dumping Henry on Thanksgiving.   The theory is that it reminded him of when he, Stan, hugged Gennady.   For Gennady, Stan was his closest friend; for Stan, Gennady was a subject.   When Philip hugs Stan, Stan instinctively realizes the inequity in his friendship with Philip.   (And don’t Stan and Gennady have an uncanny physical resemblance?   Maybe echoed by Harvest and William’s passing physical resemblance, similar deaths, and death-rattle, unburdening conversations with Phil and Stan?)

Paige was conceived in loneliness, and reared in a lonely household, and it makes sense that her duty-bound blinkered nature doesn’t see the prison she’s always lived in- after all, Elizabeth doesn’t have much self-awareness, or recognition of other natures until it’s much too late. And she knows about every chopped-off hand and suitcase-crammed corpse. 

I just read that one and posted it in the Media thread.  It's good.  Several recappers discussed Stan this week, how realistic it all was, and the reasons why, now that his personal life is settled down, everything began to click for him.

I don't think I posted any last week, they didn't impress me much, but this week, there are several great points made in the recaps/reviews.

[sistermagpie]

29 minutes ago, whiporee said:

Phillip should have just said E was in love with someone else, that she had been seeing him for a long time and now that the kids were grown she was planning on leaving, and Phillip was trying to talk her out of it. Or, if he were really quick about realizing Stan might have seen their comings and goings, said they were swingers. The travel-agent emergency was never going to hold even a smidge of water. 

That's an elaborate lie that's easily checked and would require like a 5 act play to do over the coming weeks/months. Philip told him the truth, the same truth they'd always used and that the kids would back up.

30 minutes ago, whiporee said:

I'm kind of hoping Phillip gets out of this and ends up somewhere w

He likes the cold! It's like one of the only things he's ever said about his past! :-)

31 minutes ago, whiporee said:

Paige hasn't really DONE anything yet,

She acted as lookout for a break in and multiple murder, for one thing.

[J-Man]

The rules about SSNs changed when the IRS started requiring a valid SSN for every dependent claimed as an exemption.  So at that point, all children who were being claimed as dependents (which would be virtually everyone) had to obtain an SSN. This was done to avoid the widespread problems with duplicate, ineligible, or fraudulent dependent claims on tax returns. Supposedly after the law took effect, millions of children miraculously "disappeared," at least for tax purposes.

5 hours ago, JennyMominFL said:

I didn't get one for my youngest son until he was 10.....in 2005

So how were you (or someone else) able to claim him as a dependent without an SSN?

Quote

Either that, or she is an illegal for Amway. Stan'll get suspicious when she asks if they can add a very large storage shed to the backyard, and when he asks Renee why she wants one, Renee will say. "Oh, I dunno, maybe we'd like to have a couple of tons of cleaning products and vitamins on hand. Do you want to hear of a great opportunity?"

I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I'd much prefer living next door to some enemy spies than an Amway distributor. (Well, maybe not Elizabeth.)

[jjj]

Remember that the original Thanksgiving plan was for Philip to be in Greece.  So, Henry did a little better than Elizabeth had planned for his Thanksgiving.  How would they have explained that to Stan! 

I don't see how Stan could be  held accountable for not picking up that this night owl neighbors were KGB. It's not like they were giving Renee recipes for Russian stew and borrowing axes.

Edited May 11, 2018 by jjj

[Milburn Stone]

On 5/9/2018 at 10:16 PM, Chaos Theory said:

I did also like the conversation Elizabeth had with Paige.  Elizabeth willing to give Paige an out if she wanted one.

The thing I don't get is, how is there any "out" for Paige at this point? Paige "knew too much" from the moment Philip and Elizabeth revealed themselves to her. If she were to say she wants out, how can The Centre possibly let her live? (Unless they spirit her to Russia, I guess.)

[Anela]

1 minute ago, Milburn Stone said:

The thing I don't get is, how is there any "out" for Paige at this point? Paige "knew too much" from the moment Philip and Elizabeth revealed themselves to her. If she were to say she wants out, how can The Centre possibly let her live? (Unless they spirit her to Russia, I guess.)

Right, I don't remember there being an "out" for her. I really need to re-watch the entire series somehow, before the finale. I started on Amazon last year, last January. 

[hellmouse]

1 minute ago, Milburn Stone said:

The thing I don't get is, how is there any "out" for Paige at this point? Paige "knew too much" from the moment Philip and Elizabeth revealed themselves to her. If she were to say she wants out, how can The Centre possibly let her live? (Unless they spirit her to Russia, I guess.)

I think she could stop being actively involved in training and stop planning for getting greater access to information for the USSR. But she would never truly be out. Someone would always have to keep an eye on her. Once you know the secret, you can never be left alone. Which, maybe, would be a good thing for Paige since she does not want to be alone. She may feel differently when she's 35, who knows.

[Umbelina]

Paige would not, even under the mildest FBI questioning, stand up to that.  Not a chance in hell.

She's an accessory to murder, one she knows about, and one she doesn't know about, both military.  She's committed treason.  She has no "out" of this, even if they round up Granny and every other agent of KGB officer she's met, she'd be blown, the KGB would have no further use for her and she'd be eliminated if needed.  They might try, if it wasn't too difficult, to get her to Russia to live out her useless life there, because of her parent's sacrifices and excellent work. 

Here?  The ONLY realistic answer is life in prison.

I'm not sad about that, I really don't care for idiotic zealots much.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Umbelina

[crgirl412]

I just got to watch this tonight due to my dumb work schedule!! 

The more I watch this season and see now that they are going to cram everything into the last 3 episodes, I get more and more annoyed that last year was such a waste and that we are seeing so much of Paige.  There are a 100 more things that they could've done but all of this mess is the worst!  

Edited May 12, 2018 by crgirl412

[Umbelina]

This season has been pretty good, but I will never get over my anger at last season.  At this point, I don't think there is enough time left to make season 5 worth anything but growls and scowls.  What a waste.

This episode was wonderful though, back to it's early brilliance.

[Cardie]

2 hours ago, SlovakPrincess said:

Weird that the Center has so far steered clear of Henry — did I miss an explanation as to how they decided Paige would be groomed and Henry would be left to live a normal life?

I doubt the show would actually do this but I can see the Centre intervening to place Henry in that school and get him access to the rich and elite, hoping to recruit him as an adult but keeping mum on their plans to the parents.

[jjj]

I don't think the Centre made any decision about Henry yet -- the plan was for Gen2 to get a good education and later infiltrate government. Paige accelerated the process by asking questions.  Not sure at what point the children were supposed to be brought into the Centre operations.  

[Cardie]

2 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

I don't think anyone was recording baby's footprints at the time Marilyn would have been a baby

Mine were recorded when I was born in 1949.

[Umbelina]

Center wanted them to start grooming their kids right away, so Paige was what?  15?  Henry has passed that age.  It's possible the USSR is thrown by how long it's taking Paige, or they are distracted by going broke and the Arms Treaties.

Either way, it's a joke that Elizabeth is now suddenly "giving Paige a choice" because, yeah, hon, it's not up to you, and you've made it so it's no longer up to Paige.

[whiporee]

4 hours ago, Umbelina said:

https://slate.com/culture/2018/05/the-americans-insider-podcast-for-episode-607-harvest.html

Here's the podcast for this week about Harvest.

First, she talks with Sarah Nolen, who wrote Episode 7, “Harvest,” about why she sees Philip’s actions in the garage as “romantic”; why Philip and Elizabeth involved a random day laborer in the Chicago operation; and her career path from assistant to writer. Then we hear snippets from conversations with Noah Emmerich, H. Keith Melton, and Ian McLaughlin about key moments in this episode.

Just on a  sidenote, I HATE how everything is a podcast now. Why won't they just let us read?!?

[Cthulhudrew]

They really cranked the Stan-i-meter straight to 12, huh? Seems like a bit too rushed, as we approach the endgame. I wish there had been a more gradual realization, or that they at least gave him a better lightbulb moment than suddenly realizing Phillip and Elizabeth's disappearances were really suspicious, especially given the very plausible explanation of Phillip's (backed by Henry's confirmation of work trouble).

That last scene kind of made me laugh: 

Elizabeth: "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Paige: "It's the only thing I've ever wanted to do."

E: "Then you need to apply for an internship at the State Department."

Paige walks away.

E: "... um. You don't have to do it right now?" (Paige keeps walking.) "No, seriously. What about dinner? I don't even think the State Department is open; it's kind of late."

(Paige disappears back into the dorm.)

E: "Okay. I guess I'll see you next time, then?" (Looks around awkwardly as a tumbleweed rolls by and crickets chirp.) "Good talk, Paige..."

35 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Either way, it's a joke that Elizabeth is now suddenly "giving Paige a choice" because, yeah, hon, it's not up to you, and you've made it so it's no longer up to Paige.

Heh, heh. "I'm so glad you decided to 'choose' to stay in the spy life, honey. Of course, I'd have had to kill you otherwise, but still. Really, really glad I don't have to kill you. Hug?"

Edited May 11, 2018 by Cthulhudrew