S06.E10: START

[SWLinPHX]

On 5/30/2018 at 8:41 PM, mattie0808 said:

Kudos to whoever called U2/With or Without You

Yes, and it was a hit song from that same year, 1987, so all the better.

[SWLinPHX]

On 5/30/2018 at 8:45 PM, skippylou said:

Stan is the only person who knows that Paige knew for years.  

How soon you forget about Pastor Tim.

[Superpole2000]

45 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

I do tend to wonder if Paige was intentionally playing dumb in order to get closer to her mom and Claudia.  She had to buy into what they were selling in order to be accepted.

I just can't wrap my head around the idea that Paige was taking classes at GW, and at the same time have no sense of history.

I think this is at the core of why the show wasn't as good for me these past few seasons as it was for the first few. Paige willfully became a spy for the Soviet Union, but that never made sense. This finale just proved how much it didn't make sense because Paige cringed at the thought of fleeing to the very country she was spying for.

One of the other things about this episode that bothered me was the lack of urgency. Seconds are precious, but Philip and Elizabeth were moving about as if they had all of the time in the world. I was so excited for this episode after that warning phone call in the prior episode. Everything seemed suitably frantic, and then, not so much.

[Bannon]

3 hours ago, Kokapetl said:

I think Marilyn did the driving for Elizabeth. 

Not on the warehouse whacking

[Milburn Stone]

I loved it.

[Ellaria]

8 hours ago, Erin9 said:

@dubbel zout I thought it was decently set up that Paige might stay. Paige never seemed receptive to going to Russia...

...For a girl that feared loneliness, I also don’t think she wanted to leave Henry without any family. She kept talking about him. That was a deciding factor too. That also made her decision less shocking. 

Furthermore, Paige joined a church knowing her parents would hate it. She was always capable of making her own choices. It’s what Philip told her to do a long time ago. Be herself. So she did. 

 

I agree. Scenes/dialogue can be interpreted a variety of ways, particularly once we have seen the finale. In hindsight, her comment about loneliness takes on different meaning. Some of it is about Henry. Some of it may be about going to a country that she doesn't understand and doesn't belong to. Being there with her parents doesn't necessarily address a feeling of being alone and out of her element.

She is also the one that asks if Stan can be trusted. That may have informed her decision to leave the train and probably is indicative of what her next step will be.

In that final phone call, didn't Philip also tell Henry to "be himself?" If so, she heard that advice and took it to heart.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Ellaria Sand

[queenanne]

6 hours ago, ThisIsMe said:

I thought the series finale was excellent.  Instead of trying to tie up the loose ends of the peripheral characters or plot lines, the show focused on the Jennings and Stan ... because the family dynamics, the agony of their "double life," feelings about duty/loyalty to their country, and the friendship with Stan was really at the heart & soul of this series.

Loved the garage scene.  It was just one of those moments when the script and the actors were transcendent.  I almost felt them in my living room instead of on the TV screen.

This show has always been about nuances -- so it makes sense to me that Stan let them go.  Would that have happened with a real life FBI agent?  Probably not, but if I wanted to watch a documentary about the FBI and Russian spies, I would.  "The Americans" was never about what really happened/happens ... but rather "what if?" ... which is where most of the magic happens in fiction.

IMO, I would've liked such an outcome if I had any even-vague idea it would happen, or hoped that Philizabeth would get off scot free.  One of the show's strengths over the years, IMO, has been the use of individuals like Gabe and Claudia to render a background impression of "Mother Russia" as an unforgiving looming punitive monolith to folks (Philizabeth) without the same level of direct contact; who are themselves set adrift and dependent upon secondhand information, and cold impersonal coded messages for instructions.  As well as showing us an Elizabeth partially deluded in her worship of The Cause, and The Ideals, and well, basically everything.  Hell, I spent at least a season thinking that we had ourselves a setup where Philip/Mikhail loved America, to the point where he'd unquestionably opt to stay here if the choice came down to it, regardless of his feelings for Elizabeth.  You could, in fact, write a different type of story a la Margaret Atwood no problem using a fictive country, where "Gabe and Claudia type figures as representatives of said government, lie about higher government orders and feelings to get personal aims met, all the while saying that the Motherland commands it."

3 hours ago, companionenvy said:

My answer on whether Paige winds up in trouble or not is based on essentially the same reasoning as my answer on whether the fall of the USSR is going to mean a family reunion or whether Oleg is getting out of prison any time soon.

If the show had wanted to suggest that Paige was going to wind up in prison, they had any number of ways to do it. Leaving us with a scene of her, after voluntarily getting off the train, sitting alone at an empty safe house drinking vodka, combined with P&E's apparent unconcern with the possibility, is not one of them. Weisberg and Fields, IMO, deliberately selected against the Paige in prison ending, just as they selected for the Oleg in prison ending, and the Jenningses permanently separated ending. As readers/viewers, I think there's only so much liberty we have for going beyond the narrative without slipping into fanfic territory; it is one thing to imagine Oleg getting released in ten years or P&E and the kids having a one-time meeting far in the future, as those things wouldn't substantially affect the tone of the finale. But if we had a sad ending for someone, we don't get to turn it into a slightly delayed happy ending. If this were real life, Oleg getting released in the next few years thanks to influence from a grateful Gorbachev government would be a realistic possibility. But it wouldn't be by any means a sure bet, and the show ending his story as it did argues strongly that that isn't how they see his future.

I partly agree with you, and yet, I simultaneously think the show has done pretty well over the years putting forward the theme that "Concepts such as Rightness or Wrongness have much to do with whomever is currently in power". 

We can't assume if we don't know, but it's not illogical, because we do know what happened in history.  To some extent we can say and assume anything, because unless I'm dense, I completely missed where Arkady Ivanovich, etc. in their discussions, knew and spent years in their scenes specifically referring to the actions of Philizabeth as an embedded couple.  Thus one of the primary failings for me, in retrospect, has been that we never really knew what "Mother Russia" as an entity, thought about Philizabeth, or "at all", precisely because of their isolation.  We only knew whatever "Gabe and Claudia said" about the matter (potentially biased to get them to Do Things); and for all we knew, Mother Russia at large considered Philizabeth's respective defections to be major flaws.  We can have and cherish these pre-baked opinions of dire outcomes, partly because we know such dire outcomes existed.  It's especially difficult to envision and get behind a benign outcome after, as others have pointed out, some truly gruesome and heinous murders completed by Elizabeth over the course of this season.

Edited June 1, 2018 by queenanne

[SunnyBeBe]

What I want to know is how in the world did the stories get out prior to the finale that insinuated that Paige and/or Henry were killed.  They never were even close to being killed. Especially, Henry.  So bizarre.  I guess those that started those rumors were just doing it as some sick joke. I don't get it. 

[Erin9]

8 hours ago, Cardie said:

There's already an Americans In Memoriam montage up on YouTube; I accessed it through vulture.com.

One other factor in Stan letting the Jennings go, I think, was that they made it clear they would never surrender themselves. They would not get down on the ground. He was going to have to shoot them. With all the other playing on his emotions Philip was doing, killing his best friend was absolutely a bridge too far.

Oh absolutely. There was so much to this episode that it’s hard to comment on everything. Lol But it was notable that they refused to comply with Stan’s repeated demands to get on the ground. It was not going to happen. That limited Stan’s options.

[shura]

6 hours ago, ThisIsMe said:

This show has always been about nuances -- so it makes sense to me that Stan let them go.  Would that have happened with a real life FBI agent?  Probably not, but if I wanted to watch a documentary about the FBI and Russian spies, I would.  "The Americans" was never about what really happened/happens ... but rather "what if?" ... which is where most of the magic happens in fiction.

That's pretty much how I have come to think of the writers' choices on this show. They are not showing the most probable real-life course of action; if they were, Pastor Tim would have never been allowed to live after Paige's call, Philip would have never been allowed to stay in the US when he started cracking under pressure, etc. Instead, the writers chose to show things that were simply not impossible. It's not impossible (just improbable ;)) that someone in the KGB would make a judgement call to let Pastor Tim live and see how it would play out, or decided that Philip's value staying is greater than the risk of him breaking down and giving away everything he knows. And it's fine with me. I notice the improbable things and mention them, but they don't ruin anything for me.

I loved the finale. When they started talking about calling Henry, I was hoping against hope they wouldn't. I knew I was going to lose it if I had to watch that scene. And then they go and show them looking at Henry's Canadian passport and discarding it...

3 hours ago, Aulty said:

In Russian if the emphasis in a word is on an O it is spoken as an A.

It's actually the other way, the unstressed O is pronounced as A (or, rather, as "ah") except in some regional dialects. It's just that the emphasis in Oleg is on the E the way Russians pronounce it. And when the G is not followed by a vowel, it often sounds as K. That's how you get from Oleg to Alec.

[Chaos Theory]

If anything I think Paige would want a simple uncomplicated and most importantly truthful life.  The exact opposite of what she has lived.  My guess is once the dust settled (and her part of what her family did either got answered or lied about because there really is no proof.  She might do time but I doubt it more likely face months and years of questioning). she would slowly work for that.  Maybe meet a simple guy and just live the American Dream.  

Henry is the real question mark.  He did really know nothing about his family but he is essentially guilty by suspicion.  However he does have Stan to protect him so my guess is that he will be ok but ok with a much harder road.

[Bannon]

As far as Paige's future, it should be noted that the FBI is not done with Pastor Tim, either. He is going to get a face to face interview, even if it means agents flying to South America. They are going to sit him down, tell him that he gets one chance to be truthful, and that it is a felony to lie to them, show him the murder scenes suspected to be the Jennings work, and then ask them everything he knows. If he refuses to answer questions, he'll be told a Grand Jury appearance is on the horizon, unless he intends to never enter the United States again. The choice will be accept immunity and talk about what you know about homicidal criminals, or risk your own future, to protect them. Maybe Pastor Tim is the ultimate example of towering selflessness, but that isn't the way to bet. More than likely he tells all.

It really irritates me what the writers did with Phil and Liz in the final scenes, turning these two people, who have mostly been devoid of sentiment for six seasons, into Panglossian nitwits, with their, "Oh the kids will be fine" yammering. Good grief.

19 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

Oh absolutely. There was so much to this episode that it’s hard to comment on everything. Lol But it was notable that they refused to comply with Stan’s repeated demands to get on the ground. It was not going to happen. That limited Stan’s options.

What a FBI agent is trained to do in that situation is shoot one of the suspects. These aren't requests. Of course, years of training are nothing when the writers want a specific outcome.

[Erin9]

8 hours ago, jjj said:

About the phone call preparation:  Philip and Elizabeth telling Paige, "you have to sound normal, and you can't let him think anything is wrong."  Then Philip gets on the phone: "I love you son, and we are all so very, very proud of you, we need to be sure you know that."  Henry, "You drunk?"  Good job sounding normal, Philip. 

Yeah. But there was no way Philip was going to have one last conversation with his son without saying what he felt was most important for him to say and for Henry to hear. And there’s no way to really say that- fast- without Henry at least noting something. there was no point to the call  if Philip didn’t SAY- he loved his son, was proud of him- and very significantly-to be himself. There was no way for that to come across like a garden variety phone call. No time to lay groundwork for that.

He knew what Henry didn’t know then- he’ll be replaying that call in his head forever. Hopefully they’ll see each other again- but that call is it for a long time no doubt. He had to get certain things said. 

The key was to not fall apart. Henry thought his dad was a bit drunk.  He could have drawn other conclusions from the call. Philip could have said other things, started rambling. Philip did really well under the circumstances. Elizabeth could only get out one sentence and said she agreed with what Philip had said.  Paige couldn’t even get on the phone. And - Henry was ultimately so unconcerned he clearly did what they needed him to do- go about his regular evening plans. Because his only take away was his dad drank too much wine. Not that they were saying good bye. They did well enough. 

[Erin9]

23 minutes ago, Bannon said:

 

What a FBI agent is trained to do in that situation is shoot one of the suspects. These aren't requests. Of course, years of training are nothing when the writers want a specific outcome.

Of course, as an FBI agent  he was supposed to shoot him. That’s who he started out trying to be. Just an FBI agent. That is what he was trained for.  But as a man- he couldn’t do it. Too much emotional baggage there. This was way too personal for him to be involved in. NE sold it all for me. Both he and MR were outstanding. 

This show was about relationships. It was perfect to me. 

Edited June 1, 2018 by Erin9

[Bannon]

2 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

Of course, as an FBI agent  he was supposed to shoot him. That’s who he started out trying to be. Just an FBI agent. That is what he was trained for.  But as a man- he couldn’t do it. Too much emotional baggage there. NE sold it all for me. Both he and MR were outstanding. 

This show was about relationships. It was perfect to me. 

Yes, because the emotional baggage of his partner being murdered, which was such heavy baggage that it caused Stan to commit cold blooded murder himself, was conveniently tossed off the relationship train, because the writers wanted their outcome.

I know I'm the minority opinion, but the scene, to me, just just reeked of cheap outcome driven writing. As always, Stan is whatever the writers need him to be, at any given moment. I was not surprised at that, because it is what they always did with Stan. They even did it with Phil and Liz in this episode, which bugged me more. The acting was really, really, great, however, making it a worthwhile finale.

[Uncle JUICE]

3 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Yes, because the emotional baggage of his partner being murdered, which was such heavy baggage that it caused Stan to commit cold blooded murder himself, was conveniently tossed off the relationship train, because the writers wanted their outcome.

I know I'm the minority opinion, but the scene, to me, just just reeked of cheap outcome driven writing. As always, Stan is whatever the writers need him to be, at any given moment. I was not surprised at that, because it is what they always did with Stan. They even did it with Phil and Liz in this episode, which bugged me more. The acting was really, really, great, however, making it a worthwhile finale.

I liked the overall tenor of the scene in the garage, but it ended with a bit of a thud for me (the scene, not the episode). First of all, how that garage doesn't have an internal stairwell access point to a building to which it's attached seems...odd. There's a lot of ways to go with that scene, I just felt like the took the easiest one. If, for example, there's an internal access point to the garage, and Paige wants to go back upstairs and grab one last whatever, you can have Stan confront Phillip and Elizabeth in the garage without Paige there, then have Paige show up and shoot Stan in the back. That's a lot more emotional weight for Phillip (seeing his daughter murder his friend as trained by his wife) and for Elizabeth (cracking her idealism faced with her daughter now being a killer, not a bystander) and for Paige, AND they can get away. I know that has ripple effects on the rest of the episode, but there's just no way I thought Stan was going to let them go as he did. Shoot Phillip in the leg. 

[AzraeltheCat]

I was finally able to watch the finale.  Still processing it and what I think of the overall storyline endings.  But for me, the little moments stood out.  The scene in the garage where Paige says “you have to take care of Henry, he loves you” to Stan.  Oleg’s father wondering sadly how to tell his wife that she has lost another son [to jail rather than death this time] and later the look on his face while watching Oleg’s baby. Phil's expression  and tone of voice when tell Stan "You were the only friend I had in my whole shitty life."  Elizabeth’s face when she realizes Paige got off the train -- there is this little chin quiver as she tries to not to cry…Keri’s Russell’s face is just amazing in this scene. 

[Erin9]

15 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Yes, because the emotional baggage of his partner being murdered, which was such heavy baggage that it caused Stan to commit cold blooded murder himself, was conveniently tossed off the relationship train, because the writers wanted their outcome.

I know I'm the minority opinion, but the scene, to me, just just reeked of cheap outcome driven writing. As always, Stan is whatever the writers need him to be, at any given moment. I was not surprised at that, because it is what they always did with Stan. They even did it with Phil and Liz in this episode, which bugged me more. The acting was really, really, great, however, making it a worthwhile finale.

He didn’t know Philip did that. I know you think he should have. I don’t. It was laid at Gregory’s feet IIRC. Which worked then and now for me. 

Stan simply shouldn’t have pursued them on his own. It was too personal. They’d been friends for 6 years. But he needed to know. Now he does. And he will have to live with that comes with that. And what he chose to do with that knowledge.,

He couldn’t shoot them. Philip handled the situation perfectly. 

[suomi]

6 minutes ago, AzraeltheCat said:

Elizabeth’s face when she realizes Paige got off the train -- there is this little chin quiver as she tries to not to cry…Keri’s Russell’s face is just amazing in this scene. 

Elizabeth's hands, when they smack the window. She involuntarily reaches for her daughter but is stopped by a glass barrier. She sees her daughter but cannot reach her, cannot touch her one last time, as she longs to do.

[Ellaria]

15 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

He didn’t know Philip did that. I know you think he should have. I don’t. It was laid at Gregory’s feet IIRC. Which worked then and now for me. 

Stan simply shouldn’t have pursued them on his own. It was too personal. They’d been friends for 6 years. But he needed to know. Now he does. And he will have to live with that comes with that. And what he chose to do with that knowledge.,

He couldn’t shoot them. Philip handled the situation perfectly. 

Well said.

A few weeks ago, I posted that I wanted Stan to learn that Philip was responsible for Amador's death and Martha's tragic turn. I also wanted him to confront Philip with those realities. That didn't happen and its OK with me. What I saw from those two in that scene worked. 

That was a personal moment for Stan; a moment where he felt deep personal betrayal. For me, it was consistent with who Stan was at that point in time. As @Erin9 says, this was about Stan confirming his worst fears about the man that he called his best friend. He made a choice in that garage that he probably would not have made 5-6 years ago. He reacted as a flawed human and will have to live with the consequences of that choice.

I agree that the character of Stan was written without consistency over the years. Perhaps - towards the end - the writers did abandon the character that they had created at the start of the show. I certainly have been critical and disappointed in his development. However, I still feel that the moment between Stan and Philip - friends, adversaries, liars, killers - was true.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Ellaria Sand

[Dev F]

4 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

He didn’t know Philip did that. I know you think he should have. I don’t. It was laid at Gregory’s feet IIRC. Which worked then and now for me.

Agreed. Especially since Stan wasn't like, "Lalala, I bet they never killed anyone." He does confront them over a horrific murder that was unusually personal for him, it's just not that particular one. And I never got the impression that he believed them when they insisted they'd never been involved in the deaths of Sofia and Gennadi and the numerous others "killed by Soviet agents here in Washington." He was moved more, I think, by Paige's incongruous apology for all the murder, and by Philip's insistence, largely the truth, that he doesn't do that sort of thing anymore.

And it's not like Stan just concluded that these horrible murders didn't matter and that's why he let them go. His decision was bound up in so much else -- Paige's plea for him to take care of Henry, the fact that they were going to make him shoot them, the geopolitical concerns raised by Philip that echoed his earlier conversation with Oleg -- that I absolutely believe the weight of all of it could've motivated him to make the choice he did.

[sadie]

I’ve read all these posts while processing. I will miss this board as much as I will miss this show.

The Americans will go down with me as all time equal favorite show ever along with Breaking Bad. I loved the ending and thought it encapsulated what this show was always about: relationships and how we often overlook our own internal warning signals in favor of the closeness we desire. They set it up in Ep1 where Stan has a moment of doubt about the Jennings, searches their garage and then pushes his feelings about it down over the entire series until his last confrontation with them.  The garage scene was what I wanted, a conversation between these people with no violence but just dripping with sadness, regret and well - manipulation. We know some of what Phillip said to Stan to be true it was also laced with enough self preservation that you have to (if you’re Stan) doubt all of it. Stan will go thru the rest of his life haunted by whether his wife is who she says she is. It’s relatable to us all on some level - can we really ever know anyone else? While most of us will never be friends or married to spies we can all relate to feeling like we didn’t know those closest to us once a betrayal surfaces. It’s what made this compelling tv. It wasn’t about spies, it was about relationships - Phillip and Elizabeth; Stan and Phillip; The family relationship; etc etc. It also had one of the best storylines and acting of anything I’ve ever watched and I’m a true tv junkie in all aspects of the word. 

I will miss not following these people around anymore. Farewell my Americans. Sniff. 

[benteen]

The FBI would definitely talk to Henry and keep an eye on him but he's under 18 and knows nothing about what his parents did.  That would be realized pretty quickly.  I think he's fine.

Paige probably gets protected because of Stan, who has to cover his own ass.  I'm not sure what she has to give up...the location of Aunt Helen?

[sadie]

Oh I forgot: was anyone waiting for Stings song “Russians” to come up. It does fit “I hope the Russians love their children to.”. I’m an 80’s survivor, best music ever. 

[Clanstarling]

6 hours ago, renatae said:

I agree it's dangerous for her to be in Russia, so I imagine somehow Arkady will help them. They all seem to be in the same boat.

As I recall, Arkady is the second in command of DirectorateX now, so he does have some means (though, unfortunately the head guy is on the other side).

53 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

Of course, as an FBI agent  he was supposed to shoot him. That’s who he started out trying to be. Just an FBI agent. That is what he was trained for.  But as a man- he couldn’t do it. Too much emotional baggage there. This was way too personal for him to be involved in. NE sold it all for me. Both he and MR were outstanding. 

This show was about relationships. It was perfect to me. 

I agree. After thinking about this a lot today, I realize the reason I think the garage scene worked, is that the show is about relationships and family. Over and over again the debate has been about choosing between family and country and what we give up when we choose one over the other - or sometimes choose one to save the other. We've seen it with almost every character who's been developed to any degree. Oleg stands out because he's the most recent, but the theme has woven through them all - Claudia, Nina, William, Martha, even Gaad to some extent. I forget them all.

I think it is no mistake that Stan confronts a family - Philip, Elizabeth, and Paige - and not the two illegals on their own. As he's holding the gun on them - he's confronting a family he loves and considers himself, at least tangentially, part of. They are not just enemies. He is not driven, at this moment, by the murders he knew they committed, as much as he is by his sense of betrayal, his anger at himself, his confusion and anguish over growing to love people he personally vetted when he first met them. He let them in. Stan doesn't let many people in.

So it wasn't surprising to me that he wasn't acting like an FBI agent, that he wasn't reacting like an agent (if he had, he wouldn't have confronted them without back-up in the first place). He's reacting as a human being who is in the middle of suffering a devastating loss - and also who is struggling to act like the agent he is supposed to be - because he's losing that part of himself as well during this confrontation.

So for me, this was excellent writing in terms of portraiture.

On a different topic - about halfway through reading the initial 15 pages (which is what it was when I got to the forum), I realized I was hitting the like button so often that some of you were going to be inundated with notifications. I also realized that this is why there was a limit on the TWOP forums. So I slowed down my "likes" as I moved through the rest of the pages. Which means there were a number of posts I didn't "like" - but did, in fact, like.

[Bannon]

34 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

He didn’t know Philip did that. I know you think he should have. I don’t. It was laid at Gregory’s feet IIRC. Which worked then and now for me. 

Stan simply shouldn’t have pursued them on his own. It was too personal. They’d been friends for 6 years. But he needed to know. Now he does. And he will have to live with that comes with that. And what he chose to do with that knowledge.,

He couldn’t shoot them. Philip handled the situation perfectly. 

For years now, because Martha's landlord has provided a sketch and description of Clark, I've been waiting for Stan to figure out that Phil is likely Clark, once Stan figured out that Phil was KGB. From there, any trained investigator who could beat my dog at checkers would think it a very strong likelihood that Phil was involved in Amador's murder, because A. Amador was murdered in reasonably close proximity to Martha's apartment, and B. Stan knew of Amador's romantic/sexual interest in Martha. How many KGB illegals does Stan think there are in D.C., with a resemblence to the sketch the landlord provided?  And the Amador murder isn't some distant case; it is the most emotionally impactful crime that Stan has experienced! He committed a cold blooded murder in response!

Then we toss in the centrality of the Martha's destruction, and Gaad's murder, to Stan's life, and what that would mean. All that emotional baggage is rendered moot, since Stan, who has been approaching nearly 100% certainty of Phil's KGB identity for days now, apparently can't add two plus two, except to worry that his son may have had an inauthentic dating experience with Paige! While he has a weapon trained on our Killin' KGB Kouple! While Phil waxes maudlin about his shitty homicidal life!  Good freakin' grief, every time I think about that garage scene, I hate it more! The only way it would have been worse is if they started playing that crappy old hit song "Feelings", and they probably would have, except I think that dreck hit the charts in the 70s!

Sorry for the rant, and I know most think I'm dead wrong. Ya' think I'd be over it by now! It's only a t.v. show! 

[Dev F]

4 minutes ago, Bannon said:

For years now, because Martha's landlord has provided a sketch and description of Clark, I've been waiting for Stan to figure out that Phil is likely Clark, once Stan figured out that Phil was KGB. From there, any trained investigator who could beat my dog at checkers would think it a very strong likelihood that Phil was involved in Amador's murder, because A. Amador was murdered in reasonably close proximity to Martha's apartment, and B. Stan knew of Amador's romantic/sexual interest in Martha.

No one knows where Amador was murdered, though. He was stabbed outside Martha's apartment, but then Philip threw him in his trunk and took him to a safe house, where he died some time later. Gregory's people then dumped his body in an alley somewhere. The only thing connecting him to Martha is that the two of them once dated, which is a whole long series of logical leaps away from "I bet he was stalking his ex-girlfriend and came upon her KGB lover and he murdered her and framed one of his agents for it."

[sistermagpie]

11 hours ago, J-Man said:

I'm unclear about one thing with respect to the train scenes: We never saw any interaction between the Border Patrol officers and Paige. Do we know whether or not she got off the train before they reached her?

How could Philip have said ANY of this without raising all kinds of red flags with Henry? It was just supposed to be a casual phone conversation.

 

If Paige was getting off at that stop there was no need for her passport to be checked. She didn't cross the border literally or metaphorically. 

Philip's phone call really wasn't too weird.  He even set it up as they all went out to dinner and were talking about him. He said similar things to Paige too. He's a loving parent who says stuff like that especially with wine in him. More reason Henry's going to spend the rest of his life trying to understand him.

11 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

 

It wasn't her mission, though. She was never in charge, and the spy stuff we saw her do seemed pretty basic: tailing marks, surveilling, driving. I'm curious when she would have been "promoted," as it were, to someone who is given her own missions.

None of that matters. If she's acting as lookout it's her mission.  Her lack of knowledge as to protect the mission and not her. The opposite of Philip's plan for Henry here. This is a bit like when people used to argue that Martha wasnt really a spy because she didn't care about the cause. She was a big spy.

10 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

Ah, I misread. I wonder if they feel more like Philip and Elizabeth or Nadia/Nadezhda and Mischa/Mikhail. I don't think they'll be able to shake the American part as easily as Elizabeth, especially, thinks they will. Twenty-two years is a long habit to break.

Also with names that's what they know each other as. From now on it will be their private name just for each other. 

10 hours ago, Erin9 said:

@dubbel zout I thought it was decently set up that Paige might stay. Paige never seemed receptive to going to Russia. I can’t remember the episode, but Paige freaked about the idea of going when it was broached as a possibility. And she was no more receptive in the finale. She might have spied a bit for the Soviet Union, but it wasn’t home. Which was made abundantly clear this season, despite all the lessons.

Absolutely.  She'd always reacted to the idea of living in Russia like living on Mars. It wasn't just something she didn't want it was absurd. That's how American she was. She even thought the idea of speaking Russian was absurd. 

10 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

 

The most romantic thing I've ever heard Elizabeth say. For some reason it reminded me of Doctor Zhivago - there was a meeting on a train, but I think it might have been his daughter (unbeknownst to her).

I agree.

Nitpick but Elizabeth had them meeting on a bus. Even less romantic ostensibly. But not for her.

10 hours ago, Dev F said:

 

It seems to me that one of the main reason Paige is such a follower is because she's so desperate to normalize all the shitty things in her life, to convince herself that what she's going through is just the regular stuff that everyone goes through. She joins a church group because a girl she met on a bus tells her that's what kids with screwed-up families do. She gloms on to Pastor Tim and Alice because they strike her as the attentive, socially responsible family she wants her parents to be. Even when she embraces her parents' profession, it's because she imagines it as this incongruously domestic institution where she'll find herself a nice husband just like her mom did.

 

Yes! I used to say something very similar a lot when she was in the church.  She was drawn to the conservatism.  Not of politics but of life. She wanted to know the truth because she thought it would make it smaller and it could fit into her life. Instead it was beyond comprehension. 

She tried to make it like politics at the church just a little more but it was always a lie. Elizabeth finally lays that out in her speech.  Paige isn't in their world and really doesn't want to be.  She finds ordinary life too crazy to handle at times. She doesn't long for the unusual. Even with the little we know about Philip's past we know it was always like this. Always scary and dangerous edge of survival. Of course he wasn't afraid of a hard life.

Everytime she tried to get truth from her parents to help her own life make sense instead it made their life devour hers. Season five she makes the decision to try to be her Mom as the only solution but it's a fake version of her Mom. Ultimately she embraces the life Philip encouraged her to accept.One that that was uncertain but free and herself. The first was a false solution that wasn't true to herself and was really a surrender. 

 

7 hours ago, Kokapetl said:

Whenever a Russian speaker said Oleg it always sounded like Alec to me. Oleg Baldwinov. 

Properly pronounced it does sound more like Alek. Or more like aLEYK. Always feel bad for him with that ugly Anglicized pronunciation. 

7 hours ago, numbnut said:

Poor Henry. If he's not already scarred for life, he will be when his new surrogate dad murders his new surrogate mom for being a spy.

 

I don't think Henry's ever going to care about Renee. He's not getting new parents. He's already on his own.  Stan is there to be a support and a protector of him as a young man. He was raised by Philip and Elizabeth and they made him who he is. Elizabeth was right when she said Henry was doing everything Philip wanted because what he wanted was for him to be himself. 

 

1 hour ago, Bannon said:

 

It really irritates me what the writers did with Phil and Liz in the final scenes, turning these two people, who have mostly been devoid of sentiment for six seasons, into Panglossian nitwits, with their, "Oh the kids will be fine" yammering. Good grief.

 

Totally in character for them. When they're faced with an impossible situation they can't do anything about they state that it will work and move on. They'll get used to it. If they can't do anything about it they don't wallow. 

51 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

I mple, there's an internal access point to the garage, and Paige wants to go back upstairs and grab one last whatever, you can have Stan confront Phillip and Elizabeth in the garage without Paige there, then have Paige show up and shoot Stan in the back. That's a lot more emotional weight for Phillip (seeing his daughter murder his friend as trained by his wife) and for Elizabeth (cracking her idealism faced with her daughter now being a killer, not a bystander) and for Paige, AND they can get away. I know that has ripple effects on the rest of the episode, but there's just no way I thought Stan was going to let them go as he did. Shoot Phillip in the leg. 

Paige is not a murderer tho. That's a big part of her story. You can't just expect anyone to shoot someone. Sure ordinary people do but a big part of Paige is her realizing she's never existed in that realm. It's not in her nature even in this situation. 

It is in her parents. They weren't ruling it out. When Stan shouted to Philip to stop moving it was because he was totally angling to fight back. I think he might have even killed Stan if it was the only way despite all his torment over not wanting to kill. Just like he chopped up Marilyn when he saw the axe. They would not surrender. They were ready to die. Paige really wasn't.

They are very literally children of war. When Henry hit the hitchiker guy he stunned him and ran. Like Philip's experience but not. Philip beat someone to death when he was 10.

3 minutes ago, Bannon said:

For years now, because Martha's landlord has provided a sketch and description of Clark, I've been waiting for Stan to figure out that Phil is likely Clark, once Stan figured out that Phil was KGB. From there, any trained investigator who could beat my dog at checkers would think it a very strong likelihood that Phil was involved in Amador's murder, because A. Amador was murdered in reasonably close proximity to Martha's apartment, and B. Stan knew of Amador's romantic/sexual interest in Martha. How many KGB illegals does Stan think there are in D.C., with a resemblence to the sketch the landlord provided?  And the Amador murder isn't some distant case; it is the most emotionally impactful crime that Stan has experienced! He committed a cold blooded murder in response.

Nobody knows where Amador was killed! His body was dumped after dying in a location to which Philip drove him after wounding him near Martha's. Nobody's ever had any reason to connect his death to Martha. Not even Martha at the time.

[Bannon]

1 hour ago, Dev F said:

Agreed. Especially since Stan wasn't like, "Lalala, I bet they never killed anyone." He does confront them over a horrific murder that was unusually personal for him, it's just not that particular one. And I never got the impression that he believed them when they insisted they'd never been involved in the deaths of Sofia and Gennadi and the numerous others "killed by Soviet agents here in Washington." He was moved more, I think, by Paige's incongruous apology for all the murder, and by Philip's insistence, largely the truth, that he doesn't do that sort of thing anymore.

And it's not like Stan just concluded that these horrible murders didn't matter and that's why he let them go. His decision was bound up in so much else -- Paige's plea for him to take care of Henry, the fact that they were going to make him shoot them, the geopolitical concerns raised by Philip that echoed his earlier conversation with Oleg -- that I absolutely believe the weight of all of it could've motivated him to make the choice he did.

He doesn't do that sort of thing anymore? He just murdered FBI agents  in Chicago, and Stan knows it! Stan, if he was a human being, and not simply a writer's device, should have become more enraged by that lie, and told them they would all be shot dead if they were not on the ground in 1 second, then he should have shot Phil if he wasn't.  Mind you, I would likely not have liked that scene either. I really just dislike the possible outcomes to be drawn from a conversation heavy confrontational scene of a solitary Stan confronting Phil, Liz,and Paige, with weapon drawn. It's a t.v. and movie cliche I really dislike, the kind of thing that inspires a lot of parody, and wish it had been avoided.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Bannon

[Bannon]

8 minutes ago, Dev F said:

No one knows where Amador was murdered, though. He was stabbed outside Martha's apartment, but then Philip threw him in his trunk and took him to a safe house, where he died some time later. Gregory's people then dumped his body in an alley somewhere. The only thing connecting him to Martha is that the two of them once dated, which is a whole long series of logical leaps away from "I bet he was stalking his ex-girlfriend and came upon her KGB lover and he murdered her and framed one of his agents for it."

Murder investigations don't usually entail possible romantic entanglements as paths of inquiry? Especially once it becomes known that a possible romantic rival is an illegal, homicidal,  KGB agent who generally fits a sketch provided of the possible romantic rival? In the crime that had the utmost emotional impact on a criminal investigator?

Again, I know my view is the minority, but it just stretches too far to me, in terms of Stan's writing.

[ThisIsMe]

56 minutes ago, sadie said:

I’ve read all these posts while processing. I will miss this board as much as I will miss this show.

It wasn’t about spies, it was about relationships - Phillip and Elizabeth; Stan and Phillip; The family relationship; etc etc. It also had one of the best storylines and acting of anything I’ve ever watched and I’m a true tv junkie in all aspects of the word. 

I will miss not following these people around anymore. Farewell my Americans. Sniff. 

So well said!  

They did become "our Americans" ... or at least Phillip and Henry did.  

That last scene and line where Elizabeth says to Phillip "we'll get used to it."  That is SO Elizabeth.  She has wavered, that woman, but never broken.  That scene on the train with her lip quivering and her reaching out to the window upon seeing Paige on the platform - that was beautiful.  But then she rallies herself to forge on.  It's what she knows -- self-survival, her homeland -- those are her motivators.

But Phillip was always more complex ... more like one of us.  He realizes it's been a "shitty life" and now it's going to be even worse living in Russia.  His kids gone, a wife who doesn't really "get" him, no best friend, no country joint for line-dancing.  He and Oleg have been brought to "justice" and are serving their time ... one in a jail cell with bars, one in a country he did not choose.

[kikaha]

5 hours ago, SWLinPHX said:

How soon you forget about Pastor Tim.

True, but he can't admit that without admitting he, too, knew. 

[Bannon]

13 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

If Paige was getting off at that stop there was no need for her passport to be checked. She didn't cross the border literally or metaphorically. 

Philip's phone call really wasn't too weird.  He even set it up as they all went out to dinner and were talking about him. He said similar things to Paige too. He's a loving parent who says stuff like that especially with wine in him. More reason Henry's going to spend the rest of his life trying to understand him.

None of that matters. If she's acting as lookout it's her mission.  Her lack of knowledge as to protect the mission and not her. The opposite of Philip's plan for Henry here. This is a bit like when people used to argue that Martha wasnt really a spy because she didn't care about the cause. She was a big spy.

Also with names that's what they know each other as. From now on it will be their private name just for each other. 

Absolutely.  She'd always reacted to the idea of living in Russia like living on Mars. It wasn't just something she didn't want it was absurd. That's how American she was. She even thought the idea of speaking Russian was absurd. 

Nitpick but Elizabeth had them meeting on a bus. Even less romantic ostensibly. But not for her.

Yes! I used to say something very similar a lot when she was in the church.  She was drawn to the conservatism.  Not of politics but of life. She wanted to know the truth because she thought it would make it smaller and it could fit into her life. Instead it was beyond comprehension. 

She tried to make it like politics at the church just a little more but it was always a lie. Elizabeth finally lays that out in her speech.  Paige isn't in their world and really doesn't want to be.  She finds ordinary life too crazy to handle at times. She doesn't long for the unusual. Even with the little we know about Philip's past we know it was always like this. Always scary and dangerous edge of survival. Of course he wasn't afraid of a hard life.

Everytime she tried to get truth from her parents to help her own life make sense instead it made their life devour hers. Season five she makes the decision to try to be her Mom as the only solution but it's a fake version of her Mom. Ultimately she embraces the life Philip encouraged her to accept.One that that was uncertain but free and herself. The first was a false solution that wasn't true to herself and was really a surrender. 

 

Properly pronounced it does sound more like Alek. Or more like aLEYK. Always feel bad for him with that ugly Anglicized pronunciation. 

I don't think Henry's ever going to care about Renee. He's not getting new parents. He's already on his own.  Stan is there to be a support and a protector of him as a young man. He was raised by Philip and Elizabeth and they made him who he is. Elizabeth was right when she said Henry was doing everything Philip wanted because what he wanted was for him to be himself. 

 

Totally in character for them. When they're faced with an impossible situation they can't do anything about they state that it will work and move on. They'll get used to it. If they can't do anything about it they don't wallow. 

Paige is not a murderer tho. That's a big part of her story. You can't just expect anyone to shoot someone. Sure ordinary people do but a big part of Paige is her realizing she's never existed in that realm. It's not in her nature even in this situation. 

It is in her parents. They weren't ruling it out. When Stan shouted to Philip to stop moving it was because he was totally angling to fight back. I think he might have even killed Stan if it was the only way despite all his torment over not wanting to kill. Just like he chopped up Marilyn when he saw the axe. They would not surrender. They were ready to die. Paige really wasn't.

They are very literally children of war. When Henry hit the hitchiker guy he stunned him and ran. Like Philip's experience but not. Philip beat someone to death when he was 10.

Nobody knows where Amador was killed! His body was dumped after dying in a location to which Philip drove him after wounding him near Martha's. Nobody's ever had any reason to connect his death to Martha. Not even Martha at the time.

Really disagree that it was in Phil and Liz's character to lie to themselves about practical realities. They stayed alive by being hyper realists. You don't have to wallow to avoid lying to yourself.

You're right about Amador's body. I still think it would have occurred to Stan that Phil was likely Clark, and that implied that Phil had involvement in Amador's murder, to say nothing of Martha's and Gene's demise. 

[txhorns79]

Quote

That last scene and line where Elizabeth says to Phillip "we'll get used to it."  That is SO Elizabeth.  She has wavered, that woman, but never broken.  That scene on the train with her lip quivering and her reaching out to the window upon seeing Paige on the platform - that was beautiful.  But then she rallies herself to forge on.  It's what she knows -- self-survival, her homeland -- those are her motivators.

Yes, it reminded a little bit of Elizabeth's look of guilt and sadness when she got that last tearful phone message from Young Hee wondering what happened to Patty and what was going on.  Elizabeth was momentarily devastated, but then immediately moved on with her life to the next challenge.  

[solarfire]

Finally got a chance to watch this.

I loved how this ended and how they got away with it.  Yes, they killed lots of people but I saw them as KGB Soldiers in a War.  To me, that’s different than randomly killing people for no reason.  So I was fine with Philip and Elizabeth “retiring” back in the Motherland.  I cried my eyes out when they had to leave their American children back in America.  How crazy is that? Lol.

I was as shocked as P/E when Paige got off the train.  I totally didn’t see that coming!  I’m guessing she’s at Claudia’s place waiting for her to give her a new identity and a new assignment.  Whether that’s absurd, we’ll never know because we don’t know what Claudia did after Elizabeth’s admission (other than finishing her dinner, lol).  She’s a lifer, so I don’t think she’d quit until she’s forced to, either dead or in prison.

Why didn’t Aderholt recognize Philip in the photo he was showing Father Andrei?  He should have instantly identified Philip, especially since Stan told him earlier he suspected Philip and Elizabeth.  That made ZERO sense.  And then the Father says he only knew their Russian names, not their American names. I get it about him, but freaking Dennis knew Philip’s American name!! That part of the scene was totally ridiculous.

That garage scene was incredible.  I think I held my breath throughout.  Would it be wrong to say I was hoping Elizabeth had killed Stan? lol. But I was fine with no one getting killed too! I felt the only thing holding E back (by a bare thread) was Philip.  IOW, if Philip had given E the “go ahead” she would have killed Stan in an instant, Paige being there or not. 

Philip was a Master Manipulator in that scene.  I’m sure he did consider Stan his best friend, and he loved him like a brother but he had to get out of there with his family, so he played the friend he loved like a fiddle.  Especially the part where he brings up EST, as if he was saying, “Stan, if you had stayed in EST the way I did, you would have a heart and let us go.” Guilt trip, much?  Lol.

I do think Philip was telling the truth about Renee.  Philip recognized one of his own and has suspected Renee since Day 1.  The horror on his face when Stan told him she had an interview with the FBI proved it. Then she confirmed it for me when I saw the “disgusted” look on her face when she turned away from the Jennings house and was like “damn, you idiots got caught?”

I agree with P & E, the kids will be fine, and probably will eventually visit them in Russia.  I think Oleg will become an exchange prisoner, but at least he’d be home and hopefully, his family can visit.

All in all, a fantastic series that hooked me from the beginning and I’m glad I stuck with it.  In the end, so many loose ends and it almost felt like seeds were being planted for a spin off series.  I would totally watch that!

[Marianna]

17 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Really disagree that it was in Phil and Liz's character to lie to themselves about practical realities. They stayed alive by being hyper realists. You don't have to wallow to avoid lying to yourself.

You're right about Amador's body. I still think it would have occurred to Stan that Phil was likely Clark, and that implied that Phil had involvement in Amador's murder, to say nothing of Martha's and Gene's demise. 

Eventually, Stan will work it all out and possibly regret his decision. I think, though, by then, Renee will be gone and Henry will be very, very important to him. I don’t think it is strange that he didn’t have it all figured out in the garage. I’m with the J’s in the Vox interview. It’s not that he believes they didn’t kill Gennadi and Sophia. He just can’t process it all in the moment. That said, I think the Js hit too hard on P’s truthtelling in that scene.  They call P’s statement about not being a murderer “the last lie” - but everything else was real. I’m more with Nussbaum. P was incredibly manipulative in that scene. Bet E loved it. 

17 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

Yes, it reminded a little bit of Elizabeth's look of guilt and sadness when she got that last tearful phone message from Young Hee wondering what happened to Patty and what was going on.  Elizabeth was momentarily devastated, but then immediately moved on with her life to the next challenge.  

I do think E will not allow herself to think/talk of the kids too much and P will not be able to get on board. I think the show envisions them staying together, but I’m not sure they will be able to. It helps that he loves her more than the reverse, in that sense. He’ll have to decide if she’s worth it. 

Edited June 1, 2018 by Marianna

[Bannon]

4 minutes ago, solarfire said:

Finally got a chance to watch this.

I loved how this ended and how they got away with it.  Yes, they killed lots of people but I saw them as KGB Soldiers in a War.  To me, that’s different than randomly killing people for no reason.  So I was fine with Philip and Elizabeth “retiring” back in the Motherland.  I cried my eyes out when they had to leave their American children back in America.  How crazy is that? Lol.

I was as shocked as P/E when Paige got off the train.  I totally didn’t see that coming!  I’m guessing she’s at Claudia’s place waiting for her to give her a new identity and a new assignment.  Whether that’s absurd, we’ll never know because we don’t know what Claudia did after Elizabeth’s admission (other than finishing her dinner, lol).  She’s a lifer, so I don’t think she’d quit until she’s forced to, either dead or in prison.

Why didn’t Aderholt recognize Philip in the photo he was showing Father Andrei?  He should have instantly identified Philip, especially since Stan told him earlier he suspected Philip and Elizabeth.  That made ZERO sense.  And then the Father says he only knew their Russian names, not their American names. I get it about him, but freaking Dennis knew Philip’s American name!! That part of the scene was totally ridiculous.

That garage scene was incredible.  I think I held my breath throughout.  Would it be wrong to say I was hoping Elizabeth had killed Stan? lol. But I was fine with no one getting killed too! I felt the only thing holding E back (by a bare thread) was Philip.  IOW, if Philip had given E the “go ahead” she would have killed Stan in an instant, Paige being there or not. 

Philip was a Master Manipulator in that scene.  I’m sure he did consider Stan his best friend, and he loved him like a brother but he had to get out of there with his family, so he played the friend he loved like a fiddle.  Especially the part where he brings up EST, as if he was saying, “Stan, if you had stayed in EST the way I did, you would have a heart and let us go.” Guilt trip, much?  Lol.

I do think Philip was telling the truth about Renee.  Philip recognized one of his own and has suspected Renee since Day 1.  The horror on his face when Stan told him she had an interview with the FBI proved it. Then she confirmed it for me when I saw the “disgusted” look on her face when she turned away from the Jennings house and was like “damn, you idiots got caught?”

I agree with P & E, the kids will be fine, and probably will eventually visit them in Russia.  I think Oleg will become an exchange prisoner, but at least he’d be home and hopefully, his family can visit.

All in all, a fantastic series that hooked me from the beginning and I’m glad I stuck with it.  In the end, so many loose ends and it almost felt like seeds were being planted for a spin off series.  I would totally watch that!

They made the photo of Phil in the park fuzzy enough to avoid Aderholt identifying Phil, so they could have the garage scene. You can't have a conversation heavy confrontational scene of solitary Stan, weapon drawn, vs. Phil, Liz, and Paige, in a garage, if the entire FBI knows that Paige's apartment/dorm room needs to be staked out.

[companionenvy]

35 minutes ago, Bannon said:

He doesn't do that sort of thing anymore? He just murdered FBI agents  in Chicago, and Stan knows it! Stan, if he was a human being, and not simply a writer's device, should have become more enraged by that lie, and told them they would all be shot dead if they were not on the ground in 1 second, then he should have shot Phil if he wasn't.  Mind you, I would likely not liked that scene either. I really just dislike the possible outcomes to be drawn from a conversation heavy confrontational scene of a solitary Stan confronting Phil, Liz,and Paige, with weapon drawn. It's a t.v. and movie cliche I really dislike, the kind of thing that inspires a lot of parody, and wish it had been avoided.

That's an excellent point. The whole thing that tipped him off was the fact that both Elizabeth and Philip rushed out on a Thanksgiving emergency that coincided with the events in Chicago. While we know that Philip has, comparatively speaking, been retired for most of the past three years, there's no reason for Stan to believe that, or to care, given that Philip was obviously recently involved with a major operation. 

The frustrating thing for me is that I actually think there were ways of writing that scene effectively. Namely, by having Stan be unable to kill them, and maybe even letting them escape when he realized this -- if he can't bring himself to kill them, and they call his bluff and refuse to surrender, there's not much else he can do -- but then immediately call it into Aderholt and give him an edited version of the truth that makes it seem that he simply couldn't subdue two trained KGB officers on his own while trying to avoid killing possible innocent Paige. That would be enough to show that Stan was putting the personal above the professional without totally discrediting him as an officer and making him look like an idiot for having that kind of loyalty to the Jenningses after what he's learned. 

I agree with those who don't think Stan should have connected Philip to Amador, but he should have connected him to Martha. In addition, as he knows that the Jenningses are killers operating in the DC area, he has to at least consider them suspects in any presumed KGB murder in the area.

[sistermagpie]

19 minutes ago, ThisIsMe said:

 

But Phillip was always more complex ... more like one of us.  He realizes it's been a "shitty life" and now it's going to be even worse living in Russia.  His kids gone, a wife who doesn't really "get" him, no best friend, no country joint for line-dancing.  He and Oleg have been brought to "justice" and are serving their time ... one in a jail cell with bars, one in a country he did not choose.

I'm really not seeing that big of a contrast between them them. They just seem stunned to me. Philip smiles at Elizabeth's bus story.  They both agree to say the kids will be okay. He just says it feels strange and Elizabeth implicitly agrees with the feeling by saying they'll get used to it. Philip said something similar to her after the Connors murders. Elizabeth is the one leading the way a bit more but that's appropriate.  He's often relied on her for that sort of inspiration and now it's finally not being used to get him to do evil. He's the one who prioritized the kids more.

Elizabeth actually seems to not have her ultra patriotic glasses on there. If she did she'd sound more like the flashback to when they got to the US and she claims she can feel the weakness in the people there.

15 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Really disagree that it was in Phil and Liz's character to lie to themselves about practical realities. They stayed alive by being hyper realists. You don't have to wallow to avoid lying to yourself.

 

I think they did it all the time in situations like this. Like with Pastor Tim. Gabriel said they were living in a burning house and Philip said what else is new.  Or the guy Elizabeth allows to live in the warehouse.  Philip just says he won't tell anyone because it's done. It's the only way they could exist a lot of the time. 

5 minutes ago, solarfire said:

 I’m guessing she’s at Claudia’s place waiting for her to give her a new identity and a new assignment.  Whether that’s absurd, we’ll never know because we don’t know what Claudia did after Elizabeth’s admission (other than finishing her dinner, lol).  She’s a lifer, so I don’t think she’d quit until she’s forced to, either dead or in prison.

Why didn’t Aderholt recognize Philip in the photo he was showing Father Andrei?  

No, Paige never got assignments from Claudia and even if she didn't know Claudia was also gone she knew her own spying was over. Even if she wanted it, which she realized she didn't,  the FBI would be all over her. She's blown too.

The photo was blurry enough that Aderholdt could miss it I think. His eyes were hidden. He didn't consider them suspects like Stan did.

[solarfire]

Yeah, but that's some heavy major hand waving.  I was yelling at the tv.  If I recognized Philip, Dennis should too since they were personal friends.  it's not like he only knew him from the sketches.  I'll give them a pass because the whole episode was great, but that scene drove me nuts because it was ridiculously unbelievable.  They should have still had the drawings, or something. lol.

Edited June 1, 2018 by solarfire

[sistermagpie]

12 minutes ago, Marianna said:

do think E will not allow herself to think/talk of the kids too much and P will not be able to get on board. I think the show envisions them staying together, but I’m not sure they will be able to. It helps that he loves her more than the reverse, in that sense. He’ll have to decide if she’s worth it. 

Elizabeth was talking about the kids in the last scene and had just had a dream about how she does want them with the pictures symbolizing how she let them in. I think their shared grief is absolutely something they'll always be open about with each other. They probably won't even have to speak about it to communicate about it. 

Elizabeth is almost doing the opposite of shutting down in that laat scene. Philip's always loved her more but in the last moments the romantic gestures were hers. She grabbed the rings. She gave his to him She talked about the life she would have had in Russia with him. 

[solarfire]

On another point, I thought it was incredible how Stan was all too willing to blame everything on Philip.  Like he totally disregarded Elizabeth as being a killer or a spy.  Most likely because in the 80's women were still standing up for themselves.  IOW, I guess he thought E only "helped" P but that P was the real spy.  E used that against him and went with the "he's out the spy business" now. lol.  I mean Stan didn't consider that E would still be in it even if P wasn't.  That's why I thought E might kill Stan in his tracks.

[Bannon]

8 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

 

I think they did it all the time in situations like this. Like with Pastor Tim. Gabriel said they were living in a burning house and Philip said what else is new.  Or the guy Elizabeth allows to live in the warehouse.  Philip just says he won't tell anyone because it's done. It's the only way they could exist a lot of the time. 

 

I guess I don't understand how Phil acknowledging they are living in a burning house involves lying to himself. Phil always more willing to go down that path than Liz, I'll grant you that.

[scartact]

I think at the time Stan was more betrayed by Philip than Elizabeth. Philip is the one Stan is best friends with and he was kind of the equivalent of bowled over when he turned out correct about his suspicions. That being said, I could decently imagine a scenario where as Stan is distracted by Philip, Elizabeth would go in for the kill. Liz was on guard the whole time.

[Marianna]

8 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Elizabeth was talking about the kids in the last scene and had just had a dream about how she does want them with the pictures symbolizing how she let them in. I think their shared grief is absolutely something they'll always be open about with each other. They probably won't even have to speak about it to communicate about it. 

Elizabeth is almost doing the opposite of shutting down in that laat scene. Philip's always loved her more but in the last moments the romantic gestures were hers. She grabbed the rings. She gave his to him She talked about the life she would have had in Russia with him. 

Because it literally just happened. But Elizabeth is not given to that kind of introspection over the long haul. 

[Clanstarling]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

Nitpick but Elizabeth had them meeting on a bus. Even less romantic ostensibly. But not for her.

Thought bus, meant to type bus, but the fingers went with train. I found it romantic for her.

[EtheltoTillie]

3 hours ago, Bannon said:

What a FBI agent is trained to do in that situation is shoot one of the suspects. These aren't requests. Of course, years of training are nothing when the writers want a specific outcome.

I have to disagree with this a bit.  He was not trained to go alone into such a situation!  Also, they are not brandishing arms or threatening to shoot.  That's not to say that Stan's choice is fully believable . . .  Both sides have been discussed, and you have to accept what the show set up to accept Stan's actions. 

16 minutes ago, scartact said:

I think at the time Stan was more betrayed by Philip than Elizabeth. Philip is the one Stan is best friends with and he was kind of the equivalent of bowled over when he turned out correct about his suspicions. That being said, I could decently imagine a scenario where as Stan is distracted by Philip, Elizabeth would go in for the kill. Liz was on guard the whole time.

Yes, on rewatch I really paid attention to Elizabeth's reaction shots.  She could have killed Stan by jumping him, even though he held a gun, as she did with Renfill.

[Bannon]

16 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

 

I agree with those who don't think Stan should have connected Philip to Amador, but he should have connected him to Martha. In addition, as he knows that the Jenningses are killers operating in the DC area, he has to at least consider them suspects in any presumed KGB murder in the area.

I mean, that's square one for what Stan should be, if he isn't just a writer's tool of convenience. He knows with absolute, 100% certainty, that Liz and Phil are involved in the very recent murders of FBI agents in Chicago. He remarks himself on the KGB murders in D.C., since Stan moved in next door. How many homicidal, unconnected, KGB agents does Stan think are running around D.C., slaughtering people? If Stan is an actual human being, he has to strongly suspect Phil and Liz are connected to EVERY D.C. based KGB murder since Stan moved to D.C.. Amador, Gene, all of it, and he has to have had that suspicion ever since he began to see Phil and Liz's sudden Thanksgiving trip as suspicious. Instead of that reality, we get Stan talking about his son's dating relationship with Paige, and Phil's rumblings about the existential reality of travel agency ownership!

Yes. I know I have a problem, and should seek help!

[Erin9]

15 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Elizabeth was talking about the kids in the last scene and had just had a dream about how she does want them with the pictures symbolizing how she let them in. I think their shared grief is absolutely something they'll always be open about with each other. They probably won't even have to speak about it to communicate about it. 

Elizabeth is almost doing the opposite of shutting down in that laat scene. Philip's always loved her more but in the last moments the romantic gestures were hers. She grabbed the rings. She gave his to him She talked about the life she would have had in Russia with him. 

Exactly. Elizabeth isn’t who she used to be. She’s more open. 

Elizabeth sees them going through life together. That’s what the rings- getting them and giving his to him were about. She may as well have asked him to marry her again when she gave him the rings. She wanted the marriage. After all the lies, anger, disappointments, different povs of life. She chose him. 

She talked about what might have been- and it still ended with them together. Very romantic for her. And he liked it. That’s really more of a Philip thing to say. And her final words were that they would adjust- together. As a couple and the team they have always been. And it needed to be her that did and said all of that.

We knew what we needed to know from Philip’s POV. It’s why he remembered the wedding and told her the truth. He did it for her as a person, their country, and for their future as a couple. No lies. 

I think Philip will also take solace that his kids are being themselves. Henry was already doing that. Staying in America allows that to continue. Paige staying in America allows her to be herself. That’s what he wanted for them. And they both know it. He told Henry that on the phone, which Paige heard. He’d also said that to her directly years ago. And he’ll remind Elizabeth of that too if she needs to hear it. 

[Bannon]

7 minutes ago, GussieK said:

I have to disagree with this a bit.  He was not trained to go alone into such a situation!  Also, they are not brandishing arms or threatening to shoot.  That's not to say that Stan's choice is fully believable . . .  Both sides have been discussed, and you have to accept what the show set up to accept Stan's actions. 

 

Well, I don't want to be too harsh, here, because very few shows or movies get this right, because writers just love having characters having drawn out confrontational  conversations, with at least one character with weapon drawn. 

Folks, if an FBI agent ever points a weapon at you, and tells you to get on the ground? Do it immediately, even if he or she is your bestest buddy, and you have no weapon. Otherwise, there's a really good chance of you getting a slug put right in the center of your chest, in about 3 seconds.