S06.E10: START

[Umbelina]

7 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

I don't remember Gregory saying a word about thinking the USSR being racist. He'd have a lot of explaining to do if that was his impression--why on earth is he working for them?  It sold itself as less racist than the US (not true, but that was the idea) and Elizabeth clearly believed that PR.

Gregory said it with a definite LOOK at Elizabeth more than with the actual words, the words were something like "Someone like ME...THERE?  Come on now."

The USSR was definitely racist, and I think Elizabeth knew that but always hoped it had improved.  She knew for sure nothing has changed there with the South Africa freedom fighter than trained in the KGB for a year told her that. 

She would certainly be aware of the attitudes toward Jewish people as well.  She didn't really question Gregory about that once her nixed her "you will be a hero, honored" naiveté.

[SusanSunflower]

My memory is that as an African American, Gregory was not going to abandon HIS struggle here in the USA.   He would rather die a martyr (and example to his people) in the USA than live a long life in the USSR where he had nothing and no one. 

[Sentient Meat]

24 minutes ago, SusanSunflower said:

My memory is that as an African American, Gregory was not going to abandon HIS struggle here in the USA.   He would rather die a martyr (and example to his people) in the USA than live a long life in the USSR where he had nothing and no one. 

I think that was part of it... but part of him also knew that his vision of the Soviet Union was a Wakanda like fantasyland.  Maybe he preferred dying with that utopian vision intact.

[Umbelina]

http://collider.com/the-americans-ending-explained#dream

This was in the media thread.

Anyone want to count how many times the writers say they wanted to leave it up to the viewers to decide what something meant, or what their ends were? 

They even praise themselves for being brave and "tough" to not write an ending...to, like anything.

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, Sentient Meat said:

My point was that Kimmy, although a sweet sympathetic character was always at the mercy of Philip.  I'm sure if this wasn't a major cable network show, he would have slept with her when she was 15... and he did so at 18 for equally egregious reasons.  Philip alone kept her relatively safe... it wasn't through any actions of her own... and naturally so considering we are talking about a wealthy, suburban latchkey teenager and not a worldly adult.

I agree she was sweet and sympathetic and at Philip's mercy. (Though I don't agree about him not sleeping her because the type of show it was constrained them. The whole story was about Philip not wanting to sleep with her and trying to be more of a friend/father figure instead--it wasn't just a cheat to keep the network out of trouble.)

I do agree that she's an unwitting victim. But so is everyone Philip or Elizabeth deal with as spies and some of them are men. She's not harmed because Philip chooses not to harm her as much as he could. She comes to him as a young girl desperate for the attention of an older man. She's a bunny rabbit and he's a wolf. But in the context of talking about the female characters on the show I wouldn't say that Kimmy's scenes are just about her inability to protect herself. We see her loneliness, see her showing some real insight at times and the last time we see her she's genuinely grown up.

She's younger and therefore brings more vulnerability to things, but there are male characters who are also duped. Kimmy doesn't come out, imo, that much more vulnerable than Brad, the guy Elizabeth manipulates with her rape story. Certainly not more than poor Don, Young-Hee's husband. Or Jackson the intern. In those stories it's Elizabeth who's the predator and the men who are the prey.

1 hour ago, Sentient Meat said:

Maybe I brought too much of my personal knowledge as I am a huge European football fan... but I thought Gregory implied pretty clearly that he wouldn't blend like someone such as Martha might.

I rewatched the conversations about it and imo there's really nothing about specific problems he'd have in Moscow because he's black. Elizabeth says they've talked in the past about exfiltrating him the USSR. He says, "Moscow, Elizabeth? I mean, can you really see me there?" which I guess could be taken as asking her to picture a black man there, but seems to be much more about him in general. He's never been out of the US. To Claudia he says, "I won't take to Moscow." Elizabeth says they have a whole new life ready for him and he says he doesn't want a new life, that he "lived here" and "fought here" (meaning the US).

Claudia later warns Elizabeth that, "Moscow can be a frightening prospect for someone who hasn't seen the world." Not that it's necessarily fear that keeps him home, but it's like Stan in the garage. He knows what he can and can't do. He's not ready to move to the USSR and try to learn Russian and build a life there. He sees his life as naturally ending when he's no longer useful to Elizabeth and the Cause in the US.

1 hour ago, Umbelina said:

Gregory said it with a definite LOOK at Elizabeth more than with the actual words, the words were something like "Someone like ME...THERE?  Come on now."

Yes, that's one of the scenes I just watched and the look really isn't, imo, specifically or exclusively about him being black. He's a monolingual American English-speaker who potentially hasn't even lived in too many different types of neighborhoods in his life. If this had all been about race or if that had been at the heart of many things I honestly think somebody would have addressed it openly at some point. Gregory was a Civil Rights activist after all. He wouldn't be afraid of that part. Nor would the Russian characters be afraid to discuss it with each other, imo.

1 hour ago, Sentient Meat said:

I think that was part of it... but part of him also knew that his vision of the Soviet Union was a Wakanda like fantasyland.  Maybe he preferred dying with that utopian vision intact.

I'm sure he did know that too, but to bring it back to the original context I don't think Martha is presented as more of a victim than Gregory when it came to moving to Moscow. It as an incredibly big challenge for both of them and if Martha had the advantage of having white skin Gregory had the advantage of being a genuine Soviet supporter with a ready-made purpose there. If the genders were reversed one could argue that Gregory was a woman choosing to die rather than make a life away from her true love while Martha the man was able to make it in Moscow.

Edited June 7, 2018 by sistermagpie

[Dev F]

13 hours ago, qtpye said:

This will probably win all the acting Emmys. However, if this show beats Better Call Saul for writing, I will hurl my TV out the window. It is like the critics have all drank the kool-aid that the Americans is a smart and amazing show that only an "elite few" can understand and they desperately all want to be in that club, so no one has the balls to scream out the Emperor has no clothes.

Or they just disagree with the naysayers and genuinely like it?

There are plenty of legitimate reasons people ended up not appreciating where The Americans ended up going. Some didn't buy where the writers chose to take the characters, or simply thought other avenues would've been more interesting. Some could never get on board with the show's half gritty and realistic, half sexed-up spy-thriller level of reality. I'm sure some people didn't appreciate the heavily thematic storytelling, finding it either needlessly obscure or pretentiously wanky. And with any show that radically shifts gears partway through its run, there are certainly viewers who were happier with what the show was doing originally and resentful that the writers messed with a good thing.

But faulting the creators' artistic choices is not the same as invalidating the care and consideration that went into dramatizing those choices. If you're arguing that a show as carefully and intricately constructed as this one resulted not from misdirected effort but from lack of effort, that it was lazily slapped together by hacks and lauded by critics who didn't notice that it was a house of cards, that's both absurd and insulting.

2 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

I honestly didn't see it as magically repaired at all. The people we see at the start of the season aren't really either of them being themselves. They've turned themselves into people who aren't quite right and have lost exactly the thing the other person has too much of now. Both of them have also just become a lot worse due to circumstances.

My read on their relationship this season is sort of right in the middle of these two takes, I think. To me, one of the main points of season 5 was Philip and Elizabeth realizing that a) they do have truly irreconcilable differences, and b) that's exactly why they need each other, to provide them with the things they can never provide for themselves. I didn't see this season as a major breach in their relationship like what we saw way back in season 1; to me this season was more about them trying to balance -- sometimes pretty well, sometimes disastrously -- the need to be their own people with the need to be there for each other.

That's also why I wasn't bothered by the suddenness of Elizabeth's final face turn at Philip's prompting, because it's actually the end result of a long development process for the character, one that echoes in particular Liz's advice to Tuan at the end of last season, when she insisted that his cold, ideological ass is doomed to fail unless he gets a partner to keep him in balance. Indeed, I'm starting to wonder if Elizabeth's whole arc for the season is better viewed as the slow integration of that lesson in particularly extreme circumstances, rather than some all-new test for the character. After all, it's a little silly to have an arc that amounts to Elizabeth has always been a killer . . . but how will she deal if she has to do much more killing? If, on the other hand, the increased murder and mayhem is just a way of focusing on that aspect of her work so that she can finally reckon with what she's been doing all along? Then it's a potentially more interesting issue that doesn't just drop out of nowhere.

[scartact]

27 minutes ago, Dev F said:

To me, one of the main points of season 5 was Philip and Elizabeth realizing that a) they do have truly irreconcilable differences, and b) that's exactly why they need each other, to provide them with the things they can never provide for themselves. I didn't see this season as a major breach in their relationship like what we saw way back in season 1; to me this season was more about them trying to balance -- sometimes pretty well, sometimes disastrously -- the need to be their own people with the need to be there for each other.

I agree with this take and I was trying to formulate it in a way that made sense, but you said it so much better. To me and by what the show has led me to believe about their relationship and marriage to one another, I think this season reinforced also that marriage and long term relationships take work, and the creators talked about this idea of how you can be married with someone and sometimes be in completely different places than one another. I think Philip and Elizabeth were definitely at different places, but them fighting and arguing with one another didn't negate the fact that they're it for each other. They've never not been it for each other, but even so they still have to work at it. There's no magic resolution, and no one is ever always wholly in sync with one another.

I would rather have watched them go through what they went through this season, than sat through them never in conflict with one another; no conflict is not good story writing. Speaking of the writing on this show, to each their own, but I absolutely believe this show was exceptionally well-crafted and ended perfectly. I loved the ambiguity of the ending and I didn't think it was a cop out for the creators to end it the way they did.

[kokapetl]

It’s Thursday, and it’s like all of my TV friends are dead. ??????

I can’t switch to Westworld, that show is utter crap. 

Edited June 7, 2018 by Kokapetl

[FormerMod-a1]

We've given you a lot of leeway since this was the series finale.  But please remember you have lot of places to discuss American related topics that are not about this episode.

• Character threads
• The Americans Retrospective for discussions series long arcs/growth/etc
• Real Life Spies - for discussion of real spy operations
• The Politics of the 80s - tread lightly here, of course
• Small Talk for off-topic discussion 
• And, of course, past episode threads in this and in the Past Seasons subforum

[cincivic]

I was up to the early hours binging seasons 5 and 6 so if this was already discussed, I apologize. With Elizabeth not going through with the killing of the one guy and killing a KGB agent, why go home to Russia at the end? Wouldn't they be in serious trouble with the Center back home? Wouldnt the Center want them dead for not going through with an assignment as big as that one? I thought Claudia was going to kill Elizabeth on the spot with the hot soup and ladle. 

[companionenvy]

53 minutes ago, cincivic said:

I was up to the early hours binging seasons 5 and 6 so if this was already discussed, I apologize. With Elizabeth not going through with the killing of the one guy and killing a KGB agent, why go home to Russia at the end? Wouldn't they be in serious trouble with the Center back home? Wouldnt the Center want them dead for not going through with an assignment as big as that one? I thought Claudia was going to kill Elizabeth on the spot with the hot soup and ladle. 

Here's my understanding, although I agree the show could have made it clearer: The elements within the Center fomenting the coup were actually working against the current government, and also against other, opposing interests within the Centre, hence the fact that Elizabeth's mission re:the Summit was so top secret that only a select few KGB agents knew about it. By getting the message to Arkady Philip and Elizabeth are ensuring that the hardliners in the KGB -- including Claudia and a lot of top people in the Center -- are going to get purged/arrested/whatever. The pro-Gorbachev faction is now in control

At the end of the episode, of course, the message exposing the plot against Gorbachev still hasn't gone past Philip and Elizabeth and Arkady - although Tatiana's murder should have given the Gorbachev camp a good idea of what had been afoot. Even without that, however, crucially, Claudia didn't know that Oleg's original message hadn't gone through. That means that, after the conversation in the safe house, Claudia's the one who thinks she has to immediately hide from the KGB. Any anti-Gorbachev person at the Center who knows what Elizabeth has done also believes that the game is up and that their only chance of avoiding trouble, other than trying to get out of Dodge, is to hope that they haven't been fingered as one of the conspirators; they're not going to put out a kill order on the Jenningses, who have wound up on the winning side in the schism. 

[Bannon]

9 hours ago, Dev F said:

Or they just disagree with the naysayers and genuinely like it?

There are plenty of legitimate reasons people ended up not appreciating where The Americans ended up going. Some didn't buy where the writers chose to take the characters, or simply thought other avenues would've been more interesting. Some could never get on board with the show's half gritty and realistic, half sexed-up spy-thriller level of reality. I'm sure some people didn't appreciate the heavily thematic storytelling, finding it either needlessly obscure or pretentiously wanky. And with any show that radically shifts gears partway through its run, there are certainly viewers who were happier with what the show was doing originally and resentful that the writers messed with a good thing.

But faulting the creators' artistic choices is not the same as invalidating the care and consideration that went into dramatizing those choices. If you're arguing that a show as carefully and intricately constructed as this one resulted not from misdirected effort but from lack of effort, that it was lazily slapped together by hacks and lauded by critics who didn't notice that it was a house of cards, that's both absurd and insulting.

My read on their relationship this season is sort of right in the middle of these two takes, I think. To me, one of the main points of season 5 was Philip and Elizabeth realizing that a) they do have truly irreconcilable differences, and b) that's exactly why they need each other, to provide them with the things they can never provide for themselves. I didn't see this season as a major breach in their relationship like what we saw way back in season 1; to me this season was more about them trying to balance -- sometimes pretty well, sometimes disastrously -- the need to be their own people with the need to be there for each other.

That's also why I wasn't bothered by the suddenness of Elizabeth's final face turn at Philip's prompting, because it's actually the end result of a long development process for the character, one that echoes in particular Liz's advice to Tuan at the end of last season, when she insisted that his cold, ideological ass is doomed to fail unless he gets a partner to keep him in balance. Indeed, I'm starting to wonder if Elizabeth's whole arc for the season is better viewed as the slow integration of that lesson in particularly extreme circumstances, rather than some all-new test for the character. After all, it's a little silly to have an arc that amounts to Elizabeth has always been a killer . . . but how will she deal if she has to do much more killing? If, on the other hand, the increased murder and mayhem is just a way of focusing on that aspect of her work so that she can finally reckon with what she's been doing all along? Then it's a potentially more interesting issue that doesn't just drop out of nowhere.

"Carefully and intricately constructed"?! The final episode features, as the central scene, that lazy ass trope of television and movie drama, the conversation heavy, weapons drawn confrontation, where the major characters go on and on about their feelings and motivations!  And to get to that scene, that the writers so desperately wanted to have, the audience is asked to accept one ridiculous improbability after another, so it can be Stan alone who faces down our Killin' KGB Kouple and daughter in the garage! 

This may as well be an episode of Matlock!

[Dev F]

1 hour ago, Bannon said:

"Carefully and intricately constructed"?! The final episode features, as the central scene, that lazy ass trope of television and movie drama, the conversation heavy, weapons drawn confrontation, where the major characters go on and on about their feelings and motivations!  And to get to that scene, that the writers so desperately wanted to have, the audience is asked to accept one ridiculous improbability after another, so it can be Stan alone who faces down our Killin' KGB Kouple and daughter in the garage!

That's actually the perfect example of what I'm talking about. You didn't think the garage scene worked -- fair enough. But the idea that it was just dashed off half-assedly by writers willing to coast on easy cliches is simply untrue. As the showrunners have mentioned in multiple interviews, they labored over the garage confrontation for months, spending "more time writing that scene than we've ever spent on a scene in the show."

They describe how they endlessly workshopped every detail of the standoff to get it where they wanted it to go: "Will Stan let them go, and how? And will that be real? And what will get him there? We felt it was emotionally true, so we knew we believed it, but then it was a question of making that work, going back to the issues of all the things these people had to work out and say to each other, and putting those things in the right order so they got to the right emotional place." And, sure, you could argue that if it was so tough to get the scene there, maybe they should've rethought the whole premise. But, again, criticizing them for working really, really hard to put across a doomed premise is exactly the opposite of accusing them of being lazy hacks.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Dev F

[SusanSunflower]

A lot of the argument about the exquisite care and vision taken in crafting this ending would be more convincing if Season Five had been more coherent in advancing the narrative and finishing the characters.  Frustrating to feel very rushed (with plot lines simply left dangling in the imagination) in season six after the languorous season five (and it's aborted plot lines) to whit the P&E bug-out plan (that Paige seemed to know nothing about after 6 years "undercover") as well as Paige's apparent utter ignorance about the need to STFU when talking to the FBI (even when it's Uncle Stan).  They did a lot of things for dramatic effect that make little sense (again Paige inexplicably returning to Claudia's safe house, if you think about it).  See also Elizabeth's unholy easy access to the TeaCup's apartment (under FBI Protection). 

Moffatt and Gattis have been insulting their nay-sayers for years .... many of whom stuck with them gladly through secret ninja assassin Mary (John's wife) who appeared more interested in Sherlock (shades of Stan), although previously unknown Sherlock sister (thought dead and forgotten entirely by infant Sherlock) secreted away in protective custody by Mycroft because she's a psychopath (or something like that) ... was a bridge too far for many (but certainly not all) 

The audience loved the fast pace, the characters and the cinematography, the wigs and costumes -- so much to love -- and so much reason to have very high expectations .... nuf. 

Edited June 7, 2018 by SusanSunflower

[Bannon]

3 minutes ago, Dev F said:

That's actually the perfect example of what I'm talking about. You didn't think the garage scene worked -- fair enough. But the idea that it was just dashed off half-assedly by writers willing to coast on easy cliches is simply untrue. As the showrunners have mentioned in multiple interviews, they labored over that scene for months, spending "more time writing that scene than we've ever spent on a scene in the show."

They describe how they endlessly workshopped every detail of the scene to get it where they wanted it to go: "Will Stan let them go, and how? And will that be real? And what will get him there? We felt it was emotionally true, so we knew we believed it, but then it was a question of making that work, going back to the issues of all the things these people had to work out and say to each other, and putting those things in the right order so they got to the right emotional place." And, sure, you could argue that if it was so tough to get the scene there, maybe they should've rethought the whole premise. But, again, criticizing them for working really, really hard to put across a doomed premise is exactly the opposite of accusing them of being lazy hacks.

So they are saying that they labored meticulously to put forth a hackneyed cliche of t.v. and movie drama? By having the audience jump through ridiculous hoops? Good grief, that's even worse, even if it renders the charge of laziness moot. These people are completely inept. I'll say it again. The writers of this show should have been sending the actors half of the writer's paychecks.

What is kind of irritating is to read critics, like in the recap of the episode at this site, give the writers credit for not fully descending into the dreck in that scene, by having Phil yammering overtly to Stan about how the two of them aren't so different. To me, that is akin to to complimenting a chef for only making the omelette taste like styrofoam, instead of cat puke.

[Inquisitionist]

20 hours ago, Bannon said:

It would have been better writing for the final rift between Liz and Claudia to take place when Liz says, "Claudia, of all the dumb fucking ideas the Centre has ever given us, whacking a former hockey player and his wife, because they are going to say awful things about our government, is the most stupid. Tell those numbnuts in Moscow to purchase a goddamned clue, and come up with more intelligent ideas for our work. And what's your excuse, ya' hapless halfwit? You've lived outside the USSR for decades, you know that murdering a famous athlete is a far worse propaganda than having him whine about life in the Motherland, so why aren't you pushing back on what those imbeciles send us! FUCK YOU, and I'm going home to take a nap, because I haven't slept in 3 weeks!!"

I'd have paid money to see that scene alone! Even though the entire last two seasons really need rewriting!

I am eternally grateful that posters on this site were not writing this show. 

[Bannon]

14 minutes ago, Inquisitionist said:

I am eternally grateful that posters on this site were not writing this show. 

No doubt. That was tongue in cheek, by the way.

[Umbelina]

3 hours ago, cincivic said:

I was up to the early hours binging seasons 5 and 6 so if this was already discussed, I apologize. With Elizabeth not going through with the killing of the one guy and killing a KGB agent, why go home to Russia at the end? Wouldn't they be in serious trouble with the Center back home? Wouldnt the Center want them dead for not going through with an assignment as big as that one? I thought Claudia was going to kill Elizabeth on the spot with the hot soup and ladle. 

Yes.  Also, several Generals in their Armed Forces, and several highly placed political figures.  We've been discussing this in depth in THE AMERICANS PART TWO thread.

55 minutes ago, Dev F said:

 

They describe how they endlessly workshopped every detail of the standoff to get it where they wanted it to go: "Will Stan let them go, and how? And will that be real? And what will get him there? We felt it was emotionally true, so we knew we believed it, but then it was a question of making that work, going back to the issues of all the things these people had to work out and say to each other, and putting those things in the right order so they got to the right emotional place." And, sure, you could argue that if it was so tough to get the scene there, maybe they should've rethought the whole premise. But, again, criticizing them for working really, really hard to put across a doomed premise is exactly the opposite of accusing them of being lazy hacks.

 

For me, and I've said this before, that was an amazing episode, and I loved that scene in the garage.  It's one of my favorite episodes ever from this show that I have loved for years now, if not the all time favorite.

It does fail for me as a series finale though.  It's not just the "no ending ending" with all of our characters left in mortal peril.  It's that what they did leading into this episode (as a finale!) makes no sense to me.   WHY have Paige as an accessory to murders, and then leave her fate just dangling, the girl who "can not lie" holding Stan's future in her hands, as well as her own on those charges, and on treason charges?  WHY have Philip be broke, and Henry's school fees unpaid starting the next semester, which would probably be right after Christmas?  Instead, why not have the scholarship paying it all, or Philip having pre-paid it?  The whole Renee "spy" crap, adding even more impetus for Stan to confess, thus losing his life's work, etc?  WHY have Elizabeth increase her season murder rate so dramatically?  WHY the finale rush, and wasted time of season 5?

As an episode?  A.  As a series finale, especially considering the stories they chose to tell leading into this finale?  C.

Does that take away from the greatness of START as an episode?  No, just as a finale.  For me, anyway.

45 minutes ago, SusanSunflower said:

A lot of the argument about the exquisite care and vision taken in crafting this ending would be more convincing if Season Five had been more coherent in advancing the narrative and finishing the characters.  Frustrating to feel very rushed (with plot lines simply left dangling in the imagination) in season six after the languorous season five (and it's aborted plot lines) to whit the P&E bug-out plan (that Paige seemed to know nothing about after 6 years "undercover") as well as Paige's apparent utter ignorance about the need to STFU when talking to the FBI (even when it's Uncle Stan).  They did a lot of things for dramatic effect that make little sense (again Paige inexplicably returning to Claudia's safe house, if you think about it).  See also Elizabeth's unholy easy access to the TeaCup's apartment (under FBI Protection). 

Moffatt and Gattis have been insulting their nay-sayers for years .... many of whom stuck with them gladly through secret ninja assassin Mary (John's wife) who appeared more interested in Sherlock (shades of Stan), although previously unknown Sherlock sister (thought dead and forgotten entirely by infant Sherlock) secreted away in protective custody by Mycroft because she's a psychopath (or something like that) ... was a bridge too far for many (but certainly not all) 

The audience loved the fast pace, the characters and the cinematography, the wigs and costumes -- so much to love -- and so much reason to have very high expectations .... nuf. 

 

God.  The Teacup murders.  She just climbs a fire escape.  WHY HER?  Why not an assassination squad?  They didn't need an embedded agent posing as an American for that.  Also, protective custody means agents IN THE HOUSE, and securing all access points, not one guy with a gun obviously standing at the sidewalk watching people come and go from a large apartment building.

That's kind of what I am trying to say above.  For a FINALE, you have to take everything that leads up to the finale into account.  As a stand alone episode, you don't.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Umbelina

[dubbel zout]

15 hours ago, SusanSunflower said:

I also wonder how Elizabeth will explain "Where's Paige?" 

I think Elizabeth could honestly say, "I don't know. She got off the train and it was too late for us to do anything about it." Whatever Elizabeth says would likely be checked out anyway, so she doesn't have anything to lose by telling the truth.

11 hours ago, scartact said:

I loved the ambiguity of the ending and I didn't think it was a cop out for the creators to end it the way they did.

Same here. It's impossible to please everyone, so they might as well please themselves.

[SusanSunflower]

Elizabeth was responsible for the care, feeding training and indoctrination of Paige (with I presume considerable investment by the KGB)  -- with her goes the next generation -- my feeling is that Paige's decision to opt-out will be laid at Elizabeth's feet. 

[sistermagpie]

13 hours ago, Dev F said:

My read on their relationship this season is sort of right in the middle of these two takes, I think. To me, one of the main points of season 5 was Philip and Elizabeth realizing that a) they do have truly irreconcilable differences, and b) that's exactly why they need each other, to provide them with the things they can never provide for themselves. I didn't see this season as a major breach in their relationship like what we saw way back in season 1; to me this season was more about them trying to balance -- sometimes pretty well, sometimes disastrously -- the need to be their own people with the need to be there for each other.

That's also why I wasn't bothered by the suddenness of Elizabeth's final face turn at Philip's prompting, because it's actually the end result of a long development process for the character, one that echoes in particular Liz's advice to Tuan at the end of last season, when she insisted that his cold, ideological ass is doomed to fail unless he gets a partner to keep him in balance. Indeed, I'm starting to wonder if Elizabeth's whole arc for the season is better viewed as the slow integration of that lesson in particularly extreme circumstances, rather than some all-new test for the character. After all, it's a little silly to have an arc that amounts to Elizabeth has always been a killer . . . but how will she deal if she has to do much more killing? If, on the other hand, the increased murder and mayhem is just a way of focusing on that aspect of her work so that she can finally reckon with what she's been doing all along? Then it's a potentially more interesting issue that doesn't just drop out of nowhere.

That's a much better way of putting it! And I do think the point of murders--while I think they were still unnecessary, especially since a lot of the killing wasn't something she was doing under orders but just her covering herself after different crimes--was to get her to be able to listen to Philip when he says there's been one thing after another and instead of just doing that next thing she should think about it. After all, it's not like Philip hasn't killed himself. He's on the Chicago job where people get killed. But he knows what he's doing there. Neither of them will ever be pacifists. 

I also agree this was never a breach like in S1 back when they weren't even sure the relationship could work. It's not even just that when a crisis happens they naturally snap back to each other's sides. It's also that through the season they *are* together, they're just irritated by each other. Philip wants to tell Elizabeth about Oleg right away, but fails to because of her attitude when he starts to do it. (Shades of him not telling about Irina.) Elizabeth tries to reach out to Philip via their shared memories of home with the stew and talking about the War, but it fails because it's too tainted with the work rather than just being them, like back when they shared the caviar. But they're both trying and they're still talking, even if there's things they're not telling each other. 

The one time one of them really isn't there for each other is when Philip blows up the Kimmy plot and that brings their anger to the surface so they can argue about it--it's then quickly followed by Philip running to her side in Chicago, so showing that he *is* still there for her personally, he's just not there for anything the Centre needs just because it's coming through her. Even before it always struck me that Elizabeth was being nasty to Philip (shades of her cold rejection in S1), but that was the only real emotion she was able to show the whole season. He was the only person who saw clearly what she was feeling--except for the moment when Henry can hear it.

But it's not like they don't value the things the other person is standing for completely. Elizabeth's not focused on the family, but she calls Henry. Philip's not living for the Motherland, but he rents the movie. And in the last episode it's brought home how despite being very different people they are the only people who understand their experience and feelings without even having to talk about it. When Paige gets off the train Philip breaks protocol to just sit beside Elizabeth and be there even if they can't talk. On the plane they're sitting far away from each other but can look and be reassured the other person is there. Driving in Europe they're still not talking, just sitting next to each other. When Arkady's driving and they can finally relax they're still not talking, but they're resting against each other, finally able to be close.

It's only when they get out alone they can talk, and even there they don't have to finish sentences or make it clear exactly what they're talking about to each other. They're just starting to try to make sense of where they are and where they'll go next and they're working it out with each other. They end the show with a repeat of something they've said before and can refer to many things, and they even switch languages because they can both understand either one.  

3 hours ago, companionenvy said:

 That means that, after the conversation in the safe house, Claudia's the one who thinks she has to immediately hide from the KGB. Any anti-Gorbachev person at the Center who knows what Elizabeth has done also believes that the game is up and that their only chance of avoiding trouble, other than trying to get out of Dodge, is to hope that they haven't been fingered as one of the conspirators; they're not going to put out a kill order on the Jenningses, who have wound up on the winning side in the schism. 

But Claudia, too, says she's going back to the USSR. Even when Elizabeth explicitly tells her she's in danger there.

 

1 hour ago, SusanSunflower said:

 Frustrating to feel very rushed (with plot lines simply left dangling in the imagination) in season six after the languorous season five (and it's aborted plot lines) to whit the P&E bug-out plan (that Paige seemed to know nothing about after 6 years "undercover") as well as Paige's apparent utter ignorance about the need to STFU when talking to the FBI (even when it's Uncle Stan).  They did a lot of things for dramatic effect that make little sense (again Paige inexplicably returning to Claudia's safe house, if you think about it).  See also Elizabeth's unholy easy access to the TeaCup's apartment (under FBI Protection). 

 

Re: the bug out plan I don't think there's any reason to think Paige was unaware of it. They talked about the possibility when Alice was threatening them with the tape. She didn't have a code word to make her bolt like her parents did--which would have made more sense because that way she could make her own way somewhere--but she did know they might have to bug out.

At least, she knew intellectually. The thing about Paige is whatever problems people might have with the logic of it, she's entirely consistently written as someone who is living in a fantasy world even more than Martha is with Clark. When Martha figured out about Clark she had really no illusions about what that meant even while she tried to put off facing all of them by not asking him who, exactly, he worked for. (When she did ask she already knew the answer--even knew he was Russian and not an American turncoat.) 

So clearly the writers know how to write that and know what an American reaction might be and knew that you'd expect someone with spy training to be able to bug out on their own. But Paige spends the whole season in a completely crazy fantasy that Elizabeth encourages with her own fantasy that Paige can be a spy without really getting hurt or having to get her hands dirty or ever find out that her mother does these things. She clearly doesn't understand the danger she's in by spying, especially not the legal danger. When her parents show up she understands that "We have to go home" means they have to go to Russia, but she clearly hasn't accepted this as a real possibility even to privately know that if it comes to it she's not going to be able to go, like Gregory. It's crazy to imagine someone allegedly working as a spy to be this dependent, but it's equally crazy to imagine the person we've seen Paige be all this season suddenly behaving in a ruthlessly pragmatic, capable way about it. She responds to it the way she's responded to everything for years: By fighting with her parents. (Ironically it's Henry Elizabeth thinks can get away from his school and meet them somewhere and she was no doubt right if the reason for his doing it was something that aligned with his actual best interests.)

1 hour ago, Bannon said:

So they are saying that they labored meticulously to put forth a hackneyed cliche of t.v. and movie drama? By having the audience jump through ridiculous hoops? Good grief, that's even worse, even if it renders the charge of laziness moot. These people are completely inept. I'll say it again. The writers of this show should have been sending the actors half of the writer's paychecks.

I think they rather meant that the writers labored over the part that they thought was important--the character stuff--and weren't bothered that they were using a cliche confrontation with guns to set it up. Arranged marriage is also a trope but they embraced it and went with it.

 

42 minutes ago, SusanSunflower said:

Elizabeth was responsible for the care, feeding training and indoctrination of Paige (with I presume considerable investment by the KGB)  -- with her goes the next generation -- my feeling is that Paige's decision to opt-out will be laid at Elizabeth's feet. 

I honestly don't think they'll care. First, she didn't officially opt out. (But if she did that's her choice--she didn't shoot everyone so that's a step up from Jared.) The Jennings were blown and so Paige with them. The Soviets don't need Paige to be in Russia. She's not of much value to them there. She's an asset that's probably now in the hands of the FBI but they know that and can act accordingly about the things she knows. The network is already in greater danger thanks to the intel they got from Harvest. It was through him that Father Andrei and so Philip and Elizabeth officially got burned with probably more to come.

Edited June 7, 2018 by sistermagpie

[jrlr]

17 hours ago, crgirl412 said:

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

Thank you!

[Sentient Meat]

4 hours ago, aquarian1 said:

We've given you a lot of leeway since this was the series finale.  But please remember you have lot of places to discuss American related topics that are not about this episode.

• Character threads
• The Americans Retrospective for discussions series long arcs/growth/etc
• Real Life Spies - for discussion of real spy operations
• The Politics of the 80s - tread lightly here, of course
• Small Talk for off-topic discussion 
• And, of course, past episode threads in this and in the Past Seasons subforum

Thanks for the leeway... a good show will often inspire conversation that veers far beyond the scope of a specific episode.  It's demoralizing on any message board when moderators stymie discussions by locking threads and deleting comments or sending them off to the Siberia of a topic where no one ever visits.  I get that you don't want a complete free for all, but almost all the thoughts here were directly triggered by watching the episode.  Anyway... just wanted to let you know that it was appreciated.

[companionenvy]

3 hours ago, Bannon said:

So they are saying that they labored meticulously to put forth a hackneyed cliche of t.v. and movie drama? By having the audience jump through ridiculous hoops? Good grief, that's even worse, even if it renders the charge of laziness moot. These people are completely inept. I'll say it again. The writers of this show should have been sending the actors half of the writer's paychecks.

What is kind of irritating is to read critics, like in the recap of the episode at this site, give the writers credit for not fully descending into the dreck in that scene, by having Phil yammering overtly to Stan about how the two of them aren't so different. To me, that is akin to to complimenting a chef for only making the omelette taste like styrofoam, instead of cat puke.

As you know, I'm in total agreement with you about the garage scene, But I think, while of course there's the possibility of  an "Emperor has No Clothes" scenario in which, because the Americans is supposed to be Big Prestige Drama, the critics ignore obvious mediocrity, there are also cases in which perceptions are just going to differ. I recently read a book with an ending twist that, on paper, should have been a major step too far, and I wouldn't blame anyone who decided it was. For me, however, the author had totally earned it, and something I might have hated if handled with an iota less care wound up, in my eyes, as a brilliant grace note to an excellent novel. 

I don't think the Americans achieved that in the garage scene. It simply didn't work for me on multiple levels, which I've discussed at length already on this thread. But I can see how someone else might be willing to take the leaps required to get over these issues, especially if you went in with a slightly different view of Stan's character and the relative merits of the KGB and CIA. 

Except for the EST line. I maintain that that was pretty objectively terrible writing. 

[Bannon]

7 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

As you know, I'm in total agreement with you about the garage scene, But I think, while of course there's the possibility of  an "Emperor has No Clothes" scenario in which, because the Americans is supposed to be Big Prestige Drama, the critics ignore obvious mediocrity, there are also cases in which perceptions are just going to differ. I recently read a book with an ending twist that, on paper, should have been a major step too far, and I wouldn't blame anyone who decided it was. For me, however, the author had totally earned it, and something I might have hated if handled with an iota less care wound up, in my eyes, as a brilliant grace note to an excellent novel. 

I don't think the Americans achieved that in the garage scene. It simply didn't work for me on multiple levels, which I've discussed at length already on this thread. But I can see how someone else might be willing to take the leaps required to get over these issues, especially if you went in with a slightly different view of Stan's character and the relative merits of the KGB and CIA. 

Except for the EST line. I maintain that that was pretty objectively terrible writing. 

Oh, sure. I am by no means saying that anyone who differs with me is a dummy. It is the near unanimity of the positive critical response to that scene that suggests to me that quite a bit of group think is going on. I think the people in this forum are a pretty sharp group, by and large, and although I think we are in the minority, there are several of us who find that scene pretty bad. Among the critics? It resembles a North Korean election.

Man, that EST line was funny, albeit unintentionally. Throughout the show, but especially the last season, there would occasionally be clunky dialogue. Stan's patriotic Thanksgiving toast, and Renee and Stan's career guidance talk at the kitchen sink made me chortle, too.

[hellmouse]

23 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Throughout the show, but especially the last season, there would occasionally be clunky dialogue. Stan's patriotic Thanksgiving toast, and Renee and Stan's career guidance talk at the kitchen sink made me chortle, too.

It's funny because I agree about Renee and Stan's career talk being really clunky, but I thought it was because Renee's sudden dream of being an FBI agent seemed so bizarre and Stan didn't really know how to respond to her bizarre comment. I assumed the conversation was clunky because it was a strange conversation. it made me think Renee was weird and suspicious and Stan was married to someone who he really didn't know very well. But YMMV of course.

[Plums]

5 minutes ago, hellmouse said:

  34 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Throughout the show, but especially the last season, there would occasionally be clunky dialogue. Stan's patriotic Thanksgiving toast, and Renee and Stan's career guidance talk at the kitchen sink made me chortle, too.

I actually agree that the Thanksgiving toast was totally weird. I fanwanked it well enough as Stan being pretty socially awkward, and also still pissed off about the Teacup murders, but it was still such a wtf moment for a Thanksgiving toast, lol. 

 

8 minutes ago, hellmouse said:

It's funny because I agree about Renee and Stan's career talk being really clunky, but I thought it was because Renee's sudden dream of being an FBI agent seemed so bizarre and Stan didn't really know how to respond to her bizarre comment. I assumed the conversation was clunky because it was a strange conversation. it made me think Renee was weird and suspicious and Stan was married to someone who he really didn't know very well. But YMMV of course.

And this I really agree with. That moment was intentionally written as bizarre. Definitely a record scratch moment for Stan. Like he just had no idea how to react or what to make of it because it was such an unexpected, bizarrely ditzy thing to say, and it wasn't a joke either. Like, how is it even possible she seriously doesn't realize that "FBI Agent" is not just a random government job anyone can apply for? It's actually one of the main scenes that affirm for me my 100% belief that Renee is definitely shady and almost definitely a spy, if she isn't just a shady person with a screw loose. She wasn't seriously expecting him to help her become an FBI agent, but to do exactly what he did, which was to look for a way she could get a job there, like an administrative role. All she'd want is access.  

[qtpye]

1 hour ago, Bannon said:

Oh, sure. I am by no means saying that anyone who differs with me is a dummy. It is the near unanimity of the positive critical response to that scene that suggests to me that quite a bit of group think is going on. I think the people in this forum are a pretty sharp group, by and large, and although I think we are in the minority, there are several of us who find that scene pretty bad. Among the critics? It resembles a North Korean election.

Man, that EST line was funny, albeit unintentionally. Throughout the show, but especially the last season, there would occasionally be clunky dialogue. Stan's patriotic Thanksgiving toast, and Renee and Stan's career guidance talk at the kitchen sink made me chortle, too.

Bannon, I want to thank you for championing the opinion of what appears to be a very small minority. I will happily sit with you at our very tiny table of "those who hated this" and raise my glass to what a good show this used to be.

[Penman61]

20 hours ago, SusanSunflower said:

I also wonder how Elizabeth will explain "Where's Paige?" 

 

This is a very good question.  If Moscow wanted defecting hockey player/wife killed, why wouldn't they be all over a young woman with 5-6 years' worth of spying secrets?  Please, someone, allay my fears (and deepest wishes) that Paige is now in danger!  Of course I shouldn't worry because, after six years of training under Russia's most elite super-spy, she'll be able TO PHOTOGRAPH THE APPROACHING ASSASSIN WITH HER SUPER-SECRET SPY-CAMERA-PURSE...

Seriously, wouldn't Moscow order Paige to be..."taken care of"?

ETA:  Early in the ep, when Philip is telling Liz they'll have to leave Henry behind, she says something like "They will tear him to pieces."

Well, what does Liz think "they" will do to Paige, who actually knows things?  Why is Liz sounding so sanguine about their futures in the final scene?

Edited June 7, 2018 by Penman61

[companionenvy]

50 minutes ago, Penman61 said:

This is a very good question.  If Moscow wanted defecting hockey player/wife killed, why wouldn't they be all over a young woman with 5-6 years' worth of spying secrets?  Please, someone, allay my fears (and deepest wishes) that Paige is now in danger!  Of course I shouldn't worry because, after six years of training under Russia's most elite super-spy, she'll be able TO PHOTOGRAPH THE APPROACHING ASSASSIN WITH HER SUPER-SECRET SPY-CAMERA-PURSE...

Seriously, wouldn't Moscow order Paige to be..."taken care of"?

 

I actually don't think they would. Paige knows enough to cause damage, but not so much that I think that it would be worth going after someone who will obviously be on the FBI's radar. 

From what we've seen on the show, these missions take some time to plot out, and that's after P&E have gotten the assignment, which is presumably several steps into a process that starts with the higher ups. Even if the Center wanted to go after Paige, the chances that they'll be able to get to her before she spills whatever she's gonna spill to the FBI are nil.

If they killed her after that, it would be in revenge, but I think her case is too unique for them to kill her as a message to other traitors. The problem with Gennady is that he was a potential propaganda tool. Paige was a second-gen, American raised illegal who will, in this scenario, have given some amount of information to the Americans under duress. There just wouldn't be much to gain from it. 

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, Penman61 said:

This is a very good question.  If Moscow wanted defecting hockey player/wife killed, why wouldn't they be all over a young woman with 5-6 years' worth of spying secrets?  Please, someone, allay my fears (and deepest wishes) that Paige is now in danger!  Of course I shouldn't worry because, after six years of training under Russia's most elite super-spy, she'll be able TO PHOTOGRAPH THE APPROACHING ASSASSIN WITH HER SUPER-SECRET SPY-CAMERA-PURSE...

 

No, I don't think they would. Gennadi was a PR problem and that's why they killed him. Ridiculous, but that was the reason. Paige certainly has information that the FBI would want but based on the show's past she doesn't have so much that they'd have to mount a big assassination plot for her when she's already with the FBI. Her handlers are gone. The safe houses and garages are already in trouble due to Harvest. Sometimes they do just leave the low-level operatives out to dry. They intentionally compartmentalize things so somebody like Paige isn't going to bring everyone down. (Harvest was a much bigger risk, obviously.)

 

1 hour ago, Penman61 said:

ETA:  Early in the ep, when Philip is telling Liz they'll have to leave Henry behind, she says something like "They will tear him to pieces."

She means the FBI will tear Henry to pieces trying to figure out if he was in on it. They will tear Paige to pieces and Elizabeth knows that. That's why Paige was supposed to come with them. But now that she's there all Elizabeth can do is tell herself Paige will survive. The danger for both kids, in Elizabeth's mind, was for themselves not for the KGB. If Paige had some single important piece of information maybe but nobody was handing her anything like that. 

Edited June 7, 2018 by sistermagpie

[dubbel zout]

5 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Paige was a second-gen, American raised illegal

Paige isn't an illegal. She was born in the States.

[White Sheep]

Tatiana was killed in the middle of the day.  On the steps of a important government building in the heart of DC.  She was wearing a disguise and carrying that KGB gas gun.   And was killed in front of one Gorby top guys.  I mean she on diplomatic passport.  She should be well know to the FBI.  But no one talks about it during the rest of show.  It should be HUGE news at the FBI. Why isnt it talked about after it happens? 

[hellmouse]

In one of their interviews, the show runners discuss the garage scene between Stan and Philip and how they moved part of it in editing.  

Quote

Joel Fields: .... The other thing I think about with that scene is that we didn’t stop rewriting that scene even after we shot it. In fact, there’s a chunk of that scene that in editing we took and moved because as beautiful as the scene was on set, when we saw it in the cut, there was something about it that didn’t feel like it had quite the right dynamic, emotional flow to it. And by moving a section of the scene, suddenly, it all gained this clarity.

Todd VanDerWerff: What section was that?

Joe Weisberg

It was when [Stan] was saying, “It was you who killed [Gennadi and Sofia].” It had initially come a little bit earlier.

(Vox interview: The Americans series finale’s greatest secrets, explained by its showrunners)

So I re-watched the scene and I am trying to figure out where Stan would have said it, and how much of what comes after that was moved as well.  The scene has a few big components. In the first section, Stan questions Paige; tells them it's over and tells them to lie on the ground, then Philip says "we had a job to do". That starts the second section, which I put in the quote box. Then the third section is Philip explaining everything, and the final section is them driving away. 

I think that the Gennadi and Sofia chunk that was moved might be the whole part in bold, and it might have originally come right after Philip tells him "We had a job to do."

Quote

How the scene aired:

STAN: Lie down on the ground. All of you. 

ELIZABETH: Stan

PHILIP: What are you going to do, shoot us?

STAN: On the ground, face down, keep your hands where I can see them. Move slow. 

ELIZABETH: Stan, we're not lying on the ground. Not while you have that gun pointing at us. This is Paige, Stan.

STAN: Stop, Elizabeth. Just stop. It's over. It's all over. 

PHILIP: We had a job to do. We had a job to do. 

STAN: You were my best friend.

PHILIP: You were mine too. I never wanted to lie to you. Stan, what else could I do? You moved in next to me. I was terrified. And then we ended up as friends. 

STAN: Friends? You made my life a joke. 

PHILIP: You were my only friend. In my whole shitty life. For all these years, my life was the joke. Not yours. 

STAN: And Matthew? Was that part of this? My son...

ELIZABETH: She didn't know. She didn't know until...

PAIGE: I knew. They told me when I was 16. But Matthew, it had nothing to do with that. I just ... liked him. 

STAN: Henry? 

PHILIP: No. 

PAIGE: He doesn't know anything. 

STAN: All this time... I would have done anything for you, Philip. For all of you. 

PHILIP: I know. 

STAN: Did you... Gennadi and Sofia, that was you?

PHILIP: Who is that? We don't know who that is? 

STAN: You fucking liar. I saw it on your face. When I told you about them. Do you know how many people have been killed by Soviet agents here in Washington in the last year? Five years? Ten?

PAIGE: I'm sorry. 

ELIZABETH: We don't kill people. Jesus. 

PHILIP: We wouldn't. 

ELIZABETH: He doesn't even do this kind of work anymore. He quit. He's a travel agent now. That's all. 

STAN: Get down. On the ground

(Philip sighs, looks down). 

STAN: Get down. 

PHILIP: I did all this stuff, Stan...

 

So I think it might have originally been in this order, with the bold section moved up. It's the only place that makes sense to me. Obviously I'm just guessing, but if this is the original flow of the scene, I think they were right to move it. It makes sense that he is angry, then hurt, then angry again, which then leads to Philip's "con man aria" as Emily Nussbaum called it. 

Quote

Possible original order

STAN: Lie down on the ground. All of you. 

ELIZABETH: Stan

PHILIP: What are you going to do, shoot us?

STAN: On the ground, face down, keep your hands where I can see them. Move slow. 

ELIZABETH: Stan, we're not lying on the ground. Not while you have that gun pointing at us. This is Paige, Stan.

STAN: Stop, Elizabeth. Just stop. It's over. It's all over. 

PHILIP: We had a job to do. We had a job to do. 

STAN: Did you... Gennadi and Sofia, that was you?

PHILIP: Who is that? We don't know who that is? 

STAN: You fucking liar. I saw it on your face. When I told you about them. Do you know how many people have been killed by Soviet agents here in Washington in the last year? Five years? Ten?

PAIGE: I'm sorry. 

ELIZABETH: We don't kill people. Jesus. 

PHILIP: We wouldn't. 

ELIZABETH: He doesn't even do this kind of work anymore. He quit. He's a travel agent now. That's all. 

STAN: You were my best friend.

PHILIP: You were mine too. I never wanted to lie to you. Stan, what else could I do? You moved in next to me. I was terrified. And then we ended up as friends. 

STAN: Friends? You made my life a joke. 

PHILIP: You were my only friend. In my whole shitty life. For all these years, my life was the joke. Not yours. 

STAN: And Matthew? Was that part of this? My son...

ELIZABETH: She didn't know. She didn't know until...

PAIGE: I knew. They told me when I was 16. But Matthew, it had nothing to do with that. I just ... liked him. 

STAN: Henry? 

PHILIP: No. 

PAIGE: He doesn't know anything. 

STAN: All this time... I would have done anything for you, Philip. For all of you. 

PHILIP: I know. 

STAN: Get down. On the ground

(Philip sighs, looks down). 

STAN: Get down. 

PHILIP: I did all this stuff, Stan...

What do other people think? Do you agree with my thought on where it might have been moved from? Do you think it matters? 

[Joe Hellandback]

1. I liked the Henry debate, shows Liz DID care for her son having seemed very cold to him for a long time. In retrospect Paige refusing to say goodbye has greater significance, she's planning to stay. The scene on the train platform still a shocker though. 

2. For a moment I thought they were going to pull a fast one and have their airliner to be KAL 007, the Korean Airlines plane shot down by the Sovs but that was earlier.

3. Love that their last taste of America was a McDonalds, also great use of Brother's in Arms and With or Without You. Why risk a train though? The border is huge and largely unguarded, ditch the car by the road and have a long snowy walk through the woods.  

4. Felt a shiver when Philip says to Stan 'We were just doing a job", even then I thought they'd try to keep bluffing but now the truth was out. Although of course they still lie to him, probably for the best.  

A very low key and realistic ending and maybe all the better for it. 

 

This was a great and fitting ending to one terrific series. 

[Milburn Stone]

On 6/6/2018 at 11:27 PM, Dev F said:

But faulting the creators' artistic choices is not the same as invalidating the care and consideration that went into dramatizing those choices. If you're arguing that a show as carefully and intricately constructed as this one resulted not from misdirected effort but from lack of effort, that it was lazily slapped together by hacks and lauded by critics who didn't notice that it was a house of cards, that's both absurd and insulting.

Thank you for writing this. I don't think there's a thread in the entirety of previously.tv that doesn't have some folks complaining of "lazy writing."

In truth, it takes an enormous amount of effort to write a bad television show, let alone a good one.

One may not like an episode, one may even consider the writing bad (lord knows, the airwaves are rife with shows the writing of which I consider bad), but lazy? Highly unlikely. Bad is not the same as lazy.

I hope no one takes offense, because my complaint is not aimed at any one poster in particular. How could it be? Seemingly hundreds of posters on this site traffic in the accusation.

[scartact]

20 hours ago, hellmouse said:

What do other people think? Do you agree with my thought on where it might have been moved from? Do you think it matters? 

Your suggested original order is interesting and I keep trying to think which one seems "better." On the one hand, the murder issue being called out right away the moment Philip says, "We had a job to do" makes sense to me if the show wanted to highlight Stan-as-FBI and to have him contend with the very real acts of violence (in this universe) that Philip and Elizabeth committed throughout the entire show. However, I think the aired order is more aligned with the creators and show's desire for people to contend with their relationships to and with one another first and for me it echoes a lot of VanDerWerff and company's (on Vox) post-show analyses, wherein they often talk about how the human element almost always took precedent over the spying and intrigue, and the show was often more invested in the emotionality of a scene or arc and its thematic underpinnings, rather than necessarily major gunfights and battles. Often, the most cataclysmic moments (to use VanDerWerff's phrasing) are what happens inward and the personal betrayals we feel to and from the people who know us best.

I also like the arc of Stan's feelings that you suggest, from anger to hurt to anger again, because it shows Stan internally trying to reconcile with the betrayal he feels with the job he has to do (AKA get the Jenningses into custody), and it makes Philip's sensibilities and manipulation of the moment even sharper (he also said he had to a job to do, just as Stan has a job to do in this scene). Just when Stan connects more dots, Philip makes the move to pull the unraveling thread of Stan's betrayal. The more I sit with Nussbaum and other users' interpretations of that scene, the more I see the ingenuity of it in terms of Philip masterminding it (presuming people buy into how Philip convinces Stan to let them go, which as this thread has shown, is quite a contentious plot point! Hey, I think it's a fair critique though).

[Also, to answer your final question, I totally think it matters! I studied rhetoric during my undergraduate and I think how form shapes content always informs meaning.]

[Plums]

To me, it's kind of wild that, according to the J's, they spent months writing and rewriting and refining the garage scene so that it would work, so that the emotions would ring true and the end result of Stan letting them go would be believable. And when they finally had their finalized form for the script and shot it, they still moved around entire pieces in editing to refine it! Like, lol. I guess sometimes something doesn't click until you see how it looks actually played out by the actors, no matter how long you think you've got it from just picturing it.

[Shades of Scarlet]

On 30/05/2018 at 10:14 PM, jjj said:

I'll post Holly Taylor's theories about Paige's future over in the Media thread.  But here also:  www.vulture.com/2018/05/holly-taylor-paige-jennings-future.html 

I was not thrilled by the show's ending at all, but actually they served up the best and most interesting possible fate for Paige.  Also, from that article Holly Taylor sounds like a classy, caring young person.  I love her take on helping returning veterans with horses and other animal companion therapy.  I hope to see her in another show again soon.  

[Milburn Stone]

On 5/31/2018 at 12:14 AM, jjj said:

I'll post Holly Taylor's theories about Paige's future over in the Media thread.  But here also:  www.vulture.com/2018/05/holly-taylor-paige-jennings-future.html 

Thanks for posting this. (And thanks, @Shades of Scarlet, for quoting it just now.) I always liked both Holly Taylor and Paige. Paige, because she did her best with an impossible situation, and Holly Taylor because she did exactly what she needed to do to help me understand this about Paige.

And that last paragraph in the piece is a beaut.

[Dev F]

On 6/7/2018 at 10:40 AM, SusanSunflower said:

A lot of the argument about the exquisite care and vision taken in crafting this ending would be more convincing if Season Five had been more coherent in advancing the narrative and finishing the characters.

 

I had a lot of problems with season 5, but particularly on rewatch it was clear to me that it, too, was very carefully constructed to bring the characters into their endgame formation: Philip out of the business, Elizabeth still working but aware how much she needs her husband to keep her centered, Paige committed to her parents' cause, Henry trying to make his own way without his family, Stan basically done with Counterintelligence but still connected to the division by a single ongoing case.

Indeed, I think the easiest way to lose the thread of the final season was to assume that it didn't follow naturally from season 5 -- to speculate, for instance, that Paige had become a committed pro-Soviet superspy when she was in fact still the screwed-up kid in her parents' darkroom, staring at her pastor's diagnosis that she was irredeemably broken.

Oh, and one interesting thing to note is that originally the showrunners intended for the final season to be only three episodes long, and they had to be persuaded that they'd need more room to wrap things up. So clearly they thought of season 5 as having taken the characters almost to the end.

On 6/7/2018 at 3:17 PM, Plums said:

I actually agree that the Thanksgiving toast was totally weird. I fanwanked it well enough as Stan being pretty socially awkward, and also still pissed off about the Teacup murders, but it was still such a wtf moment for a Thanksgiving toast, lol.

Yeah, I still maintain that the main problem was that it focused on "Yay, Reagan!" after Stan spent six years getting screwed over by the administration. If it had been more "Yay, Aderholt and his guys!" I don't think I would've found it so odd.

On 6/7/2018 at 5:11 PM, sistermagpie said:

No, I don't think they would. Gennadi was a PR problem and that's why they killed him. Ridiculous, but that was the reason. Paige certainly has information that the FBI would want but based on the show's past she doesn't have so much that they'd have to mount a big assassination plot for her when she's already with the FBI.

 

Exactly. Much more so than just being generally lazy or underwritten, this is the kind of writing issue the show tended to have. With a few small exceptions (like the aforementioned Thanksgiving speech), the emotional details are generally stitched up pretty tight. But when it comes to procedural details that don't have much of an emotional underpinning, the writers are more than happy to fudge it. Though even then it's usually only the broadest strokes that get fudged; proceeding from the ridiculous premise that Gennadi needs to get whacked, they'll be careful enough about establishing why that's the case so as not to suggest that the argument should apply to anyone but him.

Edited June 10, 2018 by Dev F

[sistermagpie]

5 minutes ago, Dev F said:

I had a lot of problems with season 5, but particularly on rewatch it was clearly to me that it, too, was very carefully constructed to bring the characters into their endgame formation: Philip out of the business, Elizabeth still working but aware how much she needs her husband to keep her centered, Paige committed to her parents' cause, Henry trying to make his own way without his family, Stan basically done with Counterintelligence but still connected to the division by a single ongoing case.

Indeed, I think the easiest way to lose the thread of the final season was to assume that it didn't follow naturally from season 5 -- to speculate, for instance, that Paige had become a committed pro-Soviet superspy when she was in fact still the screwed-up kid in her parents' darkroom, staring at her pastor's diagnosis that she was irredeemably broken.

Yes, if anything my problem with S5 is that I felt they had plenty of room to do more. Not in terms of more complications but more interesting digressions that went along with the main things they were doing because I felt like S5 moved the characters from a place that they almost were to a place where they were. Some of the ways they got them there I think could have been more interesting for me. Paige/Elizabeth seemed to get more of that than other characters and I wished they got more as well.

But for instance, the Paige story (which was the story I felt was most clearly laid out arc in S5) was completely telling us where she was in S6. I was absolutely afraid going into the season that she was a committed Soviet superspy--and I give the PR a lot of credit for that, since it did frankly often did talk about her in those terms, I mean, not that they were saying she was that, but it was very much talked about as if it was a straightforward story of Paige becoming Elizabeth II and that her spying was Paige leveling up--or maybe more accurately just that Paige's story was now also a spy story so espionage details and schemes were important. I think that was just easier as advertising, but the real story was way more interesting and completely different.

Instead Paige as a spy is laid out in that very first episode with the sailor incident. What's really the point is that last scene in S5 when she's punching the bag. That's Paige making a decision to follow her mother's lead and become "strong" to deal with fears. All these things--the self-defense, the spying, the disguises, the Cause--are pieces of ill-fitting armor she's wearing instead of building herself up more honestly from within. And along with that comes Paige committing to trying to understand her mother on her (Elizabeth's) own terms instead of honestly approaching her on her terms. (Her relationship with her father is also pretty interesting in that context and harder to pin down because she can't do that with him.)

 

5 minutes ago, Dev F said:

Oh, and one interesting thing to note is that originally the showrunners intended for the final season to be only three episodes long, and they had to be persuaded that they'd need more room to wrap things up. So clearly they thought of season 5 as having taken the characters almost to the end.

Wow, I didn't know that. Season 6 does feel to me like an epilogue even at 10 episodes. It's almost like the last gasp of the characters trying to cling to a false solution before accepting what they knew in their hearts at the end of S5.

5 minutes ago, Dev F said:

Yeah, I still maintain that the main problem was that it focused on "Yay, Reagan!" after Stan spent six years getting screwed over by the administration. If it had been more "Yay, Aderholt and his guys!" I don't think I would've found it so odd.

Exactly. Much more so than just being generally lazy or underwritten, this is the kind of writing issue the show tended to have. With a few small exceptions (like the aforementioned Thanksgiving speech), the emotional details are generally stitched up pretty tight. But when it comes to procedural details that don't have much of an emotional underpinning, the writers are more than happy to fudge it. Though even then it's usually only the broadest strokes that get fudged; proceeding from the ridiculous premise that Gennadi needs to get whacked, they'll be careful enough about establishing why that's the case so as not to suggest that the argument should apply to anyone but him.

Right. And I would actually consider some of Paige's conversion to Communism a bit of a procedural detail in this case. I understand psychologically what she was doing, but not the details of how she got there that would have helped me see it through eyes the way I did her entire arc with the church.

I am really considering a deep-dive rewatch after letting the finale sink in, making episode threads for those that don't exist yet on the site and particularly looking at the characters' patterns and issues, which I think are already there very clearly in S1. (Even Henry withdrawing.)

[Boilergal]

On 6/4/2018 at 11:40 AM, sistermagpie said:

That would imply that Henry needed a parent who wasn't a parent to him at all (Stan wasn't even actively parenting Matthew). Henry's grown and on his own now. He never lacked a father or lacked a good father. He loved his father and mother, even if he and his mother had problems as he grew up--many people have those kinds of issues with their parents. They parented him through his entire childhood. Stan was an adult friend and support he could talk to. Henry's now having to become an adult earlier than he should have and he no longer has parents in his life.

I can see what your saying about Stan being an adult friend.  But Stan took an interest in Henry his parents didn't, took the time to listen, played games with him and helped him through some of the issues his parents just weren't around to help him with.  

The strain with his parents was definitely noticed during the phone calls from school.  The conversations were small talk and not the kind you have with your child away at boarding school and you rarely see.   I believe Henry felt that he wasn't important to them, and said as much to Stan when he talked about them leaving during Thanksgiving dinner.

[txhorns79]

Quote

The strain with his parents was definitely noticed during the phone calls from school.  The conversations were small talk and not the kind you have with your child away at boarding school and you rarely see.   I believe Henry felt that he wasn't important to them, and said as much to Stan when he talked about them leaving during Thanksgiving dinner.

I thought the strain was related to the idea that the family's money problems might keep Henry from being able to return to school.  He and Phillip seemed to have a pretty good relationship otherwise. 

[sistermagpie]

3 hours ago, Boilergal said:

I can see what your saying about Stan being an adult friend.  But Stan took an interest in Henry his parents didn't, took the time to listen, played games with him and helped him through some of the issues his parents just weren't around to help him with.  

The strain with his parents was definitely noticed during the phone calls from school.  The conversations were small talk and not the kind you have with your child away at boarding school and you rarely see.   I believe Henry felt that he wasn't important to them, and said as much to Stan when he talked about them leaving during Thanksgiving dinner.

 

What you've described is exactly what I said: an adult friend. Not someone who was filling duties his parents should have been fulfilling and weren't. Certainly not someone who has more interest in the kid than his parents who love him dearly. When you're an adult friend who enjoys a kid's company on your own time, that's what you do. This is the only time you see the kid and you play games because you're hosting the kid. It's a novelty. Stan was also the person Henry talked to about girls. Parents deal with the kid all the time and do all sorts of invisible, tedious things for them. The friend gets to be fun and then that's it. If it's not enjoyable for both of them they just quit. Henry made things incredibly easy for Stan to be the hero. Of course Stan enjoys him.

We  don't often see Henry onscreen with his parents that much, but there are scenes or references to them playing games with him, talking to him, going on fun vacations with him, taking intense interest in his life and helping him with his homework. They're just taken for granted on the show and forgotten by viewers. 

Philip's conversations with Henry at school aren't small talk at all if by that you mean awkward, shallow conversations that you have with a stranger--that's only with Elizabeth, and his relationship with her is explicitly supposed to be strained (that happens with parents and children too). Henry calls his father to tell him when something good happened that he wants to share. Henry tells him about funny things that happened that day at school. He recognizes when his father seems down, Philip tells him the problem and Henry gives an insightful opinion. Later Philip has to call to tell him he's let him down (something Stan never has to do because Henry doesn't depend on him--Stan lets his own kid down) and they're both upset about it. None of this implies that Philip is not taking an interest in him, since they talk all the time. (Naturally Stan is not criticized for *not* talking to Henry regularly or going to see him play hockey at school but he gets 100x the credit for asking him over when he's home.)

On the trip to boarding school Henry complained about his parents' work always coming first. Many kids have that problem. Stan's son has this problem. Parent/child relationships--including on this show--are messy and sometimes painful. If Henry and Stan's relationship seems smoother and more perfect by contrast, that's a sign they're not father and son.  

Edited June 11, 2018 by sistermagpie

[Erin9]

3 hours ago, Boilergal said:

I can see what your saying about Stan being an adult friend.  But Stan took an interest in Henry his parents didn't, took the time to listen, played games with him and helped him through some of the issues his parents just weren't around to help him with.  

The strain with his parents was definitely noticed during the phone calls from school.  The conversations were small talk and not the kind you have with your child away at boarding school and you rarely see.   I believe Henry felt that he wasn't important to them, and said as much to Stan when he talked about them leaving during Thanksgiving dinner.

The only thing I recall Henry ever really talking to Stan about was girls. He hung out there occasionally. That’s about it. He was a friend. 

Philip was always interested in Henry.( So was Elizabeth until he went to boarding school, and she got overwhelmed. There was strain there.) They played and watched hockey over the years, helped him with his home work, we saw many family dinners, etc. Henry always seemed like an independent kid to me anyhow.

Then there were the phone calls and driving all the way up to his hockey games after Henry opted for boarding school. Philip definitely knew what was going on in Henry’s life. And they seemed close to me. 

Any strain between P/H this season was mostly over money problems. Otherwise, Philip and Henry got along fine. Which was the point of seeing the calls, visits. And Henry taking the time to call his dad just to talk. 

He did notice his parents were workaholics ( not really unusual), and he was understandably annoyed about Thanksgiving. (Stan was a workaholic too. He didn’t spend that much time with his own son. So, really, there’s no way he spent that much time with Henry either.)

But he also noted that his dad tried hard to spend time with him. Now- I think he may have felt Paige was more favored due to their parents having to manage the secret with her. But, that’s it. 

Edited June 11, 2018 by Erin9

[BetyBee]

Henry's parents loved him and were interested in him.  Stan had no obligation to be friendly to Henry, but he always was and genuinely enjoyed his company.  Stan didn't withhold a lifetime of secrets from Henry and is still available to him.  Sadly, Henry's parents did withhold information (which I believe was the right thing to do in this case) and they are no longer available to parent him.  I'm afraid Paige was correct in her assessment that Henry would hate them.  But I don't think he could hate them without loving them.  They are his parents, after all.  But that young man has to live with knowing that everything he knew about his life was a lie and that he's been left behind.  I'm glad he has Stan for a friend.  

[sistermagpie]

57 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

But he also noted that his dad tried hard to spend time with him. Now- I think he may have felt Paige was more favored due to their parents having to manage the secret with her. But, that’s it. 

Answering in the Henry thread.

[Erin9]

3 minutes ago, BetyBee said:

Henry's parents loved him and were interested in him.  Stan had no obligation to be friendly to Henry, but he always was and genuinely enjoyed his company.  Stan didn't withhold a lifetime of secrets from Henry and is still available to him.  Sadly, Henry's parents did withhold information (which I believe was the right thing to do in this case) and they are no longer available to parent him.  I'm afraid Paige was correct in her assessment that Henry would hate them.  But I don't think he could hate them without loving them.  They are his parents, after all.  But that young man has to live with knowing that everything he knew about his life was a lie and that he's been left behind.  I'm glad he has Stan for a friend.  

IA with a lot of that. 

But- When Paige said Henry would hate them for leaving him- not to mention questioning their love for him- she also wasn’t really hearing WHY they were doing it. They did it because it was in his best interests for him to stay. Just as it was in his best interests to not know the truth. No where do I think Henry won’t be very angry and hurt, but it wasn’t done without love and concern for him. They wanted him with them. 

I think Paige came to understand that. She got off the train because it was best for her- and I think one of those reasons it was, was for Henry. So, she can explain that and a lot of other things to Henry. I’m not saying he won’t be angry. Of course, he will. But I’d hope he would in time understand, they did what they did FOR him- in terms of lying and letting him stay in the US. 

Dealing with the fact he thought  his parents were boring travel agents, but turned out to be spies will be something he deals with forever though. 

I do agree- no matter what- Henry will still love his parents. 

[sistermagpie]

22 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

But- When Paige said Henry would hate them for leaving him- not to mention questioning their love for him- she also wasn’t really hearing WHY they were doing it. They did it because it was in his best interests for him to stay. Just as it was in his best interests to not know the truth. No where do I think Henry won’t be very angry and hurt, but it wasn’t done without love and concern for him. They wanted him with them. 

 

Also I think Henry would recognize how clear he himself made it that this was what was best for him. Philip was listening to him about that. He took his future seriously. It wasn't just a shot in the dark that maybe he wouldn't want to leave his life. He'd still be very hurt, of course, and hopefully wouldn't somehow blame himself for wanting what he wanted. But I think he'd connect his father's feeling terrible about letting him down about tuition to destroying his life even more than necessary with his lies.