The Americans - General Discussion

[sistermagpie]

14 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Philip and his children could have had a great life, and Philip would have found someone else, even though he doesn't believe it, and thinks this is true love.  

And yet when I imagine Oleg seeking out a Philip who had  left Elizabeth and was living a happy life with someone else more like Martha--or better yet, like Sandra Beeman--and was living a perfectly happy life with her and the kids in some kind of retirement in the US and Oleg giving him the same pitch as he gave him in S6, I think he'd do the same thing he did here, even if it destroyed that life. That's why they set up the last season as two independent spy missions hidden from each other, with Philip knowing he's potentially against Elizabeth.

24 minutes ago, Roseanna said:

I believe that every person has a right to act according to her own conscience. Of course, she must accept the consequences of her actions.

Just as an aside, I don't feel like Stan does let them go because he really thinks it's the right thing to do. At least, not for the world or any higher reason. It feels to me more like he just couldn't face turning on these people because they (especially a couple of them) were so important to him and he'd long ago considered them one of his "sheep" as a sheepdog. 

That's why all the things he does to catch them are kind of half-assed, like he's hoping to be proved wrong. Even when he tells Aderholdt his suspicions, I think that's the best he can do is hand the problem to someone else, still without really pulling the trigger by doing something like looking up their ss#s for death records. When he shows up alone it's because he needs to know, not because he's actually ready to stop them. He tries to go through the motions by pulling his gun, but Philip's the only one who's really ready to see it through. Stan was bluffing--and he was telling the truth when he said he didn't care who was the leader in the USSR. His only opinion about that, imo, was how he could imagine Philip being a good guy. 

[Umbelina]

2 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

And yet when I imagine Oleg seeking out a Philip who had  left Elizabeth and was living a happy life with someone else more like Martha--or better yet, like Sandra Beeman--and was living a perfectly happy life with her and the kids in some kind of retirement in the US and Oleg giving him the same pitch as he gave him in S6, I think he'd do the same thing he did here, even if it destroyed that life. That's why they set up the last season as two independent spy missions hidden from each other, with Philip knowing he's potentially against Elizabeth.

He might, to help make the USSR more like the USA at that time, so people there would be able to have basic things for a decent life, food, water, clothing, shelter, some kind of voice.  I can think of thousands of regular USA citizens, never having been KGB, or even Russian, who might have done the same.

The two things really aren't in handcuffs together.  He didn't NEED to be devoted to the USSR or especially to the KGB who was trying to stop all of that in it's tracks and murder Gorbachev to want a better life for his former home.

3 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I believe that every person has a right to act according to her own conscience. Of course, she must accept the consequences of her actions.

I have read many history books and novels and watched documentary films about Finns who spied for the enemy during the WW2. I have never felt any anger towards them because I understand that they acted as they saw right, just as the State Police did its job by trying to catch them. 

Therefore, dear @Unbelina, it's hard for me to understand your reaction to Stan as this show is fiction - these families and friends you speak of don't exist.

And even if they did exist - well, I find very odd if the FBI would have made this affair public. Not only because the agency failed miserably but most of all, it would damage the US interests, i.e. Reagan's foreign policy towards Russia. It would have been very stupid indeed.     

But it was all false.  

Stan's "conscience" would be a valid reason to make sure Gorbachev was warned and the modernization of the Soviet Union and increased safety of the world due to the nuclear arms treaty could have been accomplished without letting two people who had murdered dozens, if not hundreds of Americans over their decades in the USA.  I outlined how that could happen, but there are numerous other ways as well.

Philip or Elizabeth's presence in the USSR was not required for the message to get through.  A simple phone call would have done it.

My family was the victim of a cruel and painful murder.  The murderers got off because the police didn't do their job correctly out of "feelings."  My family has never got over the loss and horrifying murder of my brother, let alone the lax police involved who messed it up.  

Were I the wife/child/brother/sister/lover/friend of those people murdered by Elizabeth and Philip over the years?  I would be furious at Stan Beeman.

Indeed, he broke so many laws of both the land, and of morals that it makes me sick.  One of the most important things that we are suppose to have in the USA is that separation.  Police find and ARREST.  Lawyers defend in a court with a judge and often a jury.  The jury (or judge) is the one who decides and pronounces sentence.  It's not a vigilante system where the guy with the badge is judge/jury/executioner.  It doesn't ALWAYS work, but it's a founding principal of our country and legal system and it's there for a REASON, reasons Stan swore to uphold.

Of course it's fiction, but this show prided itself on being true to circumstances.  We discuss all of it as if it were real most of the time.  That's the way they tried to portray it (with the exceptions of their stars doing things they would never do, break ins, murders, etc.)  In this world?  No, I don't believe it was in any way OK for Stan to do what he did.  Not in any way, not ever.

I loved the show for a long time, but the final season wore me down in every way.  I tried rewatching it to see if my feelings would change and I would be able to accept it.  I could not.  I detest this no ending ending where the ONLY logical conclusion is terrible ends for all.  I think it blew.

Believe me I do get what you both are saying, as I said, we just disagree about this finale and the event leading up to it.  We disagree to a great level, but I still xoxo you guys and enjoy your posts.  

[VCRTracking]

When I think of the finale Phillip and Elizabeth have different points where they realize they've truly lost everything. Phillip's is at the McDonald's when he sees the happy family sitting at the booth and he knows he'll never have that or he did have some semblance of that but it's gone. Elizabeth's is after she sees Paige on the platform. Phillips is more resigned and sad while Elizabeth was a shocking blow for her.

[Umbelina]

I want to talk about The Americans that I loved, and asked everyone to watch.

What one scene or image comes to you when you think of great American episodes?

(Or go ahead and do a few.)

For me, it's always the same image that comes to mind when I think of this show, because it just encapsulated so much of what the show did so very well.  Tension.  It's just Elizabeth at a window, peeking through the drapes,  scared to death, watching the street.

They did SO much with things like that, those little moments that became huge were one of my favorite things.

[sistermagpie]

3 hours ago, Umbelina said:

He might, to help make the USSR more like the USA at that time, so people there would be able to have basic things for a decent life, food, water, clothing, shelter, some kind of voice.  I can think of thousands of regular USA citizens, never having been KGB, or even Russian, who might have done the same.

Thousands of regular US citizens would have risked prison, being separated from their children and wife forever, being murdered or sentenced to prison like Oleg to keep Gorbachev the head of the USSR instead of some other Russian guy?

3 hours ago, Umbelina said:

It's not a vigilante system where the guy with the badge is judge/jury/executioner.  It doesn't ALWAYS work, but it's a founding principal of our country and legal system and it's there for a REASON, reasons Stan swore to uphold.

And so rarely did! He loved being judge/jury/executioner and his thinking seemed to rarely go along with the priorities of his job. The only time I really remember him not crossing the line was when he didn't hand over Echo for Nina, but if it was somebody like Aderholdt it never would have gotten that far to begin with. Stan, otoh, is a guy who murdered a clerk, which derailed Gaad's career, and then went to Gaad's widow for her blessing in protecting Oleg because Stan didn't want to feel like an asshole by handing Oleg over after he'd done something to help the US. Stan never expressed the slightest interest in the USSR as its own country. Even if he couldn't have both passed on Oleg's message and taken in/shot Philip and Elizabeth (which he could have) I don't think he'd have taken them in. As I remember it, it's not like Stan's emotions shift significantly in response to the Gorbachev news. Is he even impatient with it? I don't remember.

2 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

When I think of the finale Phillip and Elizabeth have different points where they realize they've truly lost everything. Phillip's is at the McDonald's when he sees the happy family sitting at the booth and he knows he'll never have that or he did have some semblance of that but it's gone. Elizabeth's is after she sees Paige on the platform. Phillips is more resigned and sad while Elizabeth was a shocking blow for her.

You know, I wound up feeling like Elizabeth didn't even really have that moment yet. I agree about the moment on the train--she goes through the episode probably just clinging to the idea that if she just focuses on Paige and Philip everything's the same, so when she sees Paige on the platform it is a shocking blow in ways that it isn't for Philip. I mean, of course it's also a blow to him, but one he's way more emotionally prepared for and maybe even feels some relief about.

But once Elizabeth has that blow I think she's just starting the long journey of it fully sinking in. That dream on the train where she says she doesn't want kids anyway is probably just a hint of what she's going to have to start dealing with because she's been so good at putting off reality.

6 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

I want to talk about The Americans that I loved, and asked everyone to watch.

What one scene or image comes to you when you think of great American episodes?

(Or go ahead and do a few.)

For me, it's always the same image that comes to mind when I think of this show, because it just encapsulated so much of what the show did so very well.  Tension.  It's just Elizabeth at a window, peeking through the drapes,  scared to death, watching the street.

They did SO much with things like that, those little moments that became huge were one of my favorite things.

Good question!

There's probably a lot of things but one of the first that comes to mind is Clark's de-wigging. That scene just amazes me because we the audience know what Clark looks like under that wig. We've seen him take it off. The whole character's kind of amusing to us. The whole marriage has always been on the edge of humor.

And when he starts doing it to me the plays as really scary because I'm so in Martha's pov. The show managed to make me feel like this woman would feel seeing this for the first time and it's like Clark might as well be peeling his literal skin off and revealing he's a lizard person. The guy she's been with all this time just disappears before her eyes and the fact that he's arguable more attractive and younger now just makes him scarier!

[VCRTracking]

In the beginning as they really started to fall in love, Phillip always had that hope that Elizabeth would change and grow to love America, while Elizabeth had that hope that Phillip would be more devoted to cause and go back to his Russian roots. A lot of the As the years went on they realized how futile it was they transferred that hope to their kids. Phillip to Henry, Elizabeth to Paige. In the end Phillip having to abandon his son(when his first son already grew up without him) and Elizabeth seeing Paige choose to leave her.

The sad thing for me about the garage scene is Stan thinking Phillip killed the Brystovs. I wanted Elizabeth to fess up and go "No, that was me." That she didn't shows how little she really thought of that friendship.

28 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

What one scene or image comes to you when you think of great American episodes?

The tooth pulling scene.

Edited September 18, 2019 by VCRTracking

[Umbelina]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

Even if he couldn't have both passed on Oleg's message and taken in/shot Philip and Elizabeth (which he could have) I don't think he'd have taken them in. As I remember it, it's not like Stan's emotions shift significantly in response to the Gorbachev news. Is he even impatient with it? I don't remember.

No.  He didn't give a shit.  He let the people that murdered all those people, including his fellow FBI agents go for no reason at all.

He didn't have to kill them, he could have shot them both in the legs and called for back up.  

He had options.

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

But once Elizabeth has that blow I think she's just starting the long journey of it fully sinking in. That dream on the train where she says she doesn't want kids anyway is probably just a hint of what she's going to have to start dealing with because she's been so good at putting off reality.

Lucky for Paige that she finally grew almost a brain.  She'd be tortured and dead now if she'd gone, just like her parents.  The traitors to the KGB.  Because since the producers promised not to kill Claudia, she's told them ALL exactly who brought down their plan.

I'm sorriest about Oleg's family and Arkady though.  Their lives are over too.

Although the laws are certainly on the books in the USA to execute traitors and those who helped commit murder, you know, Paige.  She's unlikely to be tortured at least, and probably will just live her life in jail.

41 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

The tooth pulling scene.

Great one!

I'm just grabbing them out of what first pops into my head when I think "The Americans."  The next one is Arkady frantically marking cars with "the sign."  (Every single thing that comes after that too, from Claudia seeing it, to Philip nabbing Elizabeth off the street, the shots...GREAT scenes.)

Oh, I have another one.  Oleg and Tatiana BEEP...beep...BeeP and the subsequent sex, which honestly is pretty high up there of my favorite sex scenes on this show.  Very real...shhhhhh

Edited September 18, 2019 by Umbelina

[Roseanna]

11 hours ago, Umbelina said:

My family was the victim of a cruel and painful murder.  The murderers got off because the police didn't do their job correctly out of "feelings."  My family has never got over the loss and horrifying murder of my brother, let alone the lax police involved who messed it up.  

Were I the wife/child/brother/sister/lover/friend of those people murdered by Elizabeth and Philip over the years?  I would be furious at Stan Beeman.

Indeed, he broke so many laws of both the land, and of morals that it makes me sick.  One of the most important things that we are suppose to have in the USA is that separation.  Police find and ARREST.  Lawyers defend in a court with a judge and often a jury.  The jury (or judge) is the one who decides and pronounces sentence.  It's not a vigilante system where the guy with the badge is judge/jury/executioner.  It doesn't ALWAYS work, but it's a founding principal of our country and legal system and it's there for a REASON, reasons Stan swore to uphold.

Of course it's fiction, but this show prided itself on being true to circumstances.  We discuss all of it as if it were real most of the time.  That's the way they tried to portray it (with the exceptions of their stars doing things they would never do, break ins, murders, etc.)  In this world?  No, I don't believe it was in any way OK for Stan to do what he did.  Not in any way, not ever.

I am very sorry about your family's  tragedy and now I understand you better. 

There was a very bloody civil war in Finland in 1918, not because of fighting itself but terror. Althought it has been dealt for decades in history, novels and movies and most people now see it as a national tragedy, some descendants of Whites and Reds can still become very emotional and use heated arguments. Because no member of my family in maternal or paternal sider died (nor in the WW2), I watch it from outside and, while feeling empathy towards all offers, I am also critical of both sides. 

[Roseanna]

On 9/17/2019 at 9:33 PM, sistermagpie said:

Just as an aside, I don't feel like Stan does let them go because he really thinks it's the right thing to do. At least, not for the world or any higher reason. It feels to me more like he just couldn't face turning on these people because they (especially a couple of them) were so important to him and he'd long ago considered them one of his "sheep" as a sheepdog. 

That's why all the things he does to catch them are kind of half-assed, like he's hoping to be proved wrong. Even when he tells Aderholdt his suspicions, I think that's the best he can do is hand the problem to someone else, still without really pulling the trigger by doing something like looking up their ss#s for death records. When he shows up alone it's because he needs to know, not because he's actually ready to stop them. He tries to go through the motions by pulling his gun, but Philip's the only one who's really ready to see it through. Stan was bluffing--and he was telling the truth when he said he didn't care who was the leader in the USSR. His only opinion about that, imo, was how he could imagine Philip being a good guy. 

Yes, you are right about Stan. 

I speak generally.  

22 hours ago, Umbelina said:

He might, to help make the USSR more like the USA at that time, so people there would be able to have basic things for a decent life, food, water, clothing, shelter, some kind of voice. 

I don't think that the Russians want to be "more like the USA", they want their country to be the best Russia it can be. 

And although not denying the importance of material things,  if they really were most important in life, why would have any soldier suffered cold, hunger and fear in the front instead of  deserting and fleeing to the no-belligrent country? 

[Roseanna]

19 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Thousands of regular US citizens would have risked prison, being separated from their children and wife forever, being murdered or sentenced to prison like Oleg to keep Gorbachev the head of the USSR instead of some other Russian guy?

Of course not - unless there was some deep personal bond.

There have been wars where thousand volunteers from many countries fought, but then there have been some general ideal, like the Spanish Civil War.

[Domestic Assassin]

20 hours ago, Umbelina said:

What one scene or image comes to you when you think of great American episodes?

The opening chase scene in the pilot set to Tusk.  It's the first thing that always comes to mind.

[Umbelina]

1 hour ago, Roseanna said:

Yes, you are right about Stan. 

I speak generally.  

I don't think that the Russians want to be "more like the USA", they want their country to be the best Russia it can be. 

And although not denying the importance of material things,  if they really were most important in life, why would have any soldier suffered cold, hunger and fear in the front instead of  deserting and fleeing to the no-belligrent country? 

I am pretty sure that Philip said those words, and Elizabeth objected to it "being more like here."  

Back then, they wanted very basic things, and yes, those were things that average Americans had, and soviets did not.  Enough food, clean water, working electricity, choices about jobs/houses, being able to protest without being shot...

[sistermagpie]

26 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

I am pretty sure that Philip said those words, and Elizabeth objected to it "being more like here." 

But that conversation was about change as well. Change in Russia. Russia is still Russia with Pizza Hut. There's lots of ways I'd like the US to be like various other countries. Because I want the US to be better. Oleg made a similar point and also liked a lot of things about the US.

Another moment: Discovering the pen!

[sistermagpie]

6 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I don't think that the Russians want to be "more like the USA", they want their country to be the best Russia it can be. 

I went back and rewatched that convo between Philip and Elizabeth because it's really complicated what they're saying in the subtext. Philip brings up a potential future where the two countries weren't at odds and starts talking about what's going in in the USSR at that moment. He says, "Things are changing back home. Opening up. And it's not just politics. It's young people, it's music it's...different." Then he says they're talking about opening a Pizza Hut in Moscow to emphasize how different it is and says she's seen the papers.

Elizabeth scoffs at the idea of getting anything from the Washington Post, says the Americans eat stuff like Glasnost and Perestroika up because they want Russians to be just like them and she doesn't want to be just like them and neither do people back home. Philip says she hasn't talked to anybody back home in 20 years, she says neither has he.

Elizabeth's right in saying that Russians don't want to be just like Americans, but she's substituted her own view of Glasnost and Perestroika (that they're about making the USSR like the US) and then claiming that nobody in Russia wants them. But Glasnost and Perestroika are *Russian* things going on there and some parts are popular. Neither Philip or Elizabeth have talked to anybody back home (err, well, really they both just have!) but only Elizabeth is claiming to speak for them by rejecting the changes. Philip, otoh, is talking about things things that he's read about that are happening back home and approving of them. Elizabeth sees cultural changes like this as becoming less Russian, Philip as an evolution of Russia.

It seems fitting Philip specifically mentions young people, iow, Henry and Paige's generation. Paige is isolated from people her own age group; Henry is a leader in it. Elizabeth and Claudia are protecting the status quo, Philip and Oleg imagining a different future (to go back to that article).

[Umbelina]

Either way, Glasnost and Peristroika WERE making the USSR more like the USA, and part of the things the Soviet people wanted during their revolt very close to the timing of this finale?  WERE things already standard in the USA.

Another memorable moment from the show, or today's image that pops into my mind when I think of the great things in The Americans:

[Loandbehold]

22 hours ago, Domestic Assassin said:

The opening chase scene in the pilot set to Tusk.  It's the first thing that always comes to mind.

Me too. It pretty much became a signature of the show setting tense scenes to music of the day.

[sistermagpie]

40 minutes ago, Loandbehold said:

Me too. It pretty much became a signature of the show setting tense scenes to music of the day.

They used it in an ep of Mindhunter and it just made me honestly think those FBI agents were going to team up with Stan and the killers were actually P&E. 

Which reminds me, I also loved the use of The Chain in Walter Taffet.

[Umbelina]

11 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

They used it in an ep of Mindhunter and it just made me honestly think those FBI agents were going to team up with Stan and the killers were actually P&E. 

Which reminds me, I also loved the use of The Chain in Walter Taffet.

Yeah, that was great!  Perfection really.

Vulture did a great article about The Americans and best use of music in scenes.  https://www.vulture.com/article/the-americans-10-best-musical-moments.html

[Domestic Assassin]

I was blown away by the scene where "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" slowly drowned out the Russian dialogue while pushing in on Elizabeth's face (#2 on that Vulture list).  

Here's another list: https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/05/the-top-10-musical-moments-on-the-americans/full-post/

Edited September 19, 2019 by Domestic Assassin

[sistermagpie]

Also, gotta give a shout out to what was probably the most shocking moment of the series for me.

"We were born in another country."

[izabella]

The scene when Philip tells Kimmy he has a son he's never met and asks her to pray with him, instead of sex, was amazing.   It is intimate and honest while also being completely dishonest.  Added to that is the poignancy of Philip praying with Kimmy - and deepening their bond - while Paige has started praying alone and with her church - which creates even more distance between them.

[sistermagpie]

12 hours ago, izabella said:

The scene when Philip tells Kimmy he has a son he's never met and asks her to pray with him, instead of sex, was amazing.   It is intimate and honest while also being completely dishonest.  Added to that is the poignancy of Philip praying with Kimmy - and deepening their bond - while Paige has started praying alone and with her church - which creates even more distance between them.

Arrgh, so love that scene! The more you think about it the deeper it gets. It always seems like it contrasts especially with the scene after they meet Elizabeth's mother where Paige prays obviously to herself while Elizabeth sits next to her. Paige's whole posture is shutting her out. 

The two scenes feel like such a reflection of one of those central issues of the show, where there's both individual connections and connections through shared beliefs/causes/higher powers whatever. With people sometimes people letting one override the other. And it seems like some of the biggest problems come from people using the group connection to shut out others, making loyalty to the group not only necessary for inclusion but the whole definition of it. 

[sistermagpie]

Just watched Behind the Red door and this is another really interesting one with themes running through it in ways that don’t hit you over the head (at least imo).

The biggest theme is trust—people making themselves vulnerable, letting others in "behind the red door.” Larrick “confesses” to fake CIA agents and dares them to come after him, Philip and Elizabeth let Larrick know who they really are. Oleg demands a show of vulnerability from Stan in the form of surveillance reports. Stan comes to Gaad’s house and glimpses the interesting life he has at home (and Gaad’s like Jesus, Beeman, DON’T TELL ME ANYTHING I SHOULDN’T KNOW I HAVE TO TALK TO CONGRESS ABOUT YOUR SHENANIGANS!), Claudia tells Elizabeth she thinks she may have been the one to get Emmett and Leanne killed and she did it by revealing herself to somebody else, Paige talks to her mother honestly about liking the church after earlier being defensive and hiding things. A lot of these scenes pay off well for the people who reveal themselves—Claudia seems to gain Elizabeth’s sympathy and make Elizabeth feel like Claudia understands Elizabeth’s own conflicts about Philip and Paige definitely gets a good reaction from Elizabeth when she decides to be honest.

I guess we don’t know if Kate is supposed to be lying about what happened to the Connors here, whether she knows who killed them yet or not.

Two characters who aren’t really doing this are Stan, who has a stiff meal with his family where he seems like he doesn’t even know these people and who tries to hide his love for Nina from Oleg and Gaad, and Elizabeth (I guess Philip could count here too). Stan is just trying to maintain the status quo. His relationship with Nina seems to me to have made him more strategically vulnerable than emotionally so. That is, while he wants to protect her, he’s not opening up to her about himself or anything—so when she accuses him of not trusting her, it works. As for Sandra, she has to resort to asking Stan flat-out if he noticed she painted their door because he won't risk saying the wrong thing about it. He even seems wary of the FBI files all having copies on those new-fangled computers!

There’s a scene early on where Elizabeth and Philip have sex and after it’s over Elizabeth lies there naked while Philip is fully dressed. The image seems to suggest that Elizabeth is being honest and vulnerable and Philip is being guarded, and he is obviously uncomfortable in a lot of scenes. But I think this is really about Elizabeth and her approach. The naked scene is more showing the way she feels in that moment than any vulnerability Philip is aware of in her.

She’s recently spent the evening with Martha and learned about “animal” Clark. But rather than talk to him honestly about her insecurity, she does everything but. She looks like she’s trying to be a bit aggressive in the early love scene, maybe hoping he’ll “go Clark” in response. She teases Philip about what Martha said, pretends she’s just turned on and amused by the whole thing. Finally she badgers Philip into “being Clark” only to get hurt when he angrily complies, not expecting or wanting her to like it.

Elizabeth is also dealing with Lucia in this ep. The two are very different girls, but Lucia, like S6 Paige, resents Elizabeth telling her what to do while also wanting to impress her. But Lucia is definitely in this fight for her own reasons and has seen war—she’s a bit like Tuan, a younger version of Elizabeth the agent rather than Elizabeth the girl, like Paige is.

Elizabeth gives Lucia two assignments: have sex with Carl and kill him. Elizabeth has little problem ordering Lucia to kill. In fact, she warns her that her initial reluctance shows some problems and tells her about the first time she killed somebody. Elizabeth is not only not bothered by being a killer, I think it makes her feel more secure—this is, of course, exactly the route she will encourage Paige down. But when she’s listening to Lucia have sex with the guy in the next room, that’s where she looks pained.

It’s probably important to pay attention to Elizabeth’s consistent issues with sex on the job on the show. She gets really upset when she’s anything but 100% in control of sexual encounters. Her reaction to witnessing Lucia have sex with a source is laying the groundwork for the story with Paige. Elizabeth can’t talk about this aspect of the job with her, even while she’s hyper-sensitive about the subject. This is the thing she has to tell herself Paige won’t have to do and won’t know about even when Paige asks her point blank. It’s why that final blow out has to be about that and not killing. I don’t think Elizabeth is worried she’s a whore, like Paige says. That’s not the issue.

Speaking of Paige, two things about her in this ep. One's a nitpick. Paige goes down to talk to Elizabeth, having been reading her Bible in her bedroom. She turns the light off before going downstairs even though she's only going for a quick word. It's just so odd to me. I’m a person who reflexively turns out lights when I leave a room. But even I probably wouldn’t in this case! Is there a cut scene where they wanted the light off or something?

More importantly, there’s something in this ep that reminded me of an issue with the writing for Paige in general for me. This is the ep where her parents learn she quit volleyball. Philip gives a standard parent speech about not quitting mid-season; Elizabeth is disturbed that Paige who used to “love volleyball” is changing. Let’s note here that Philip and Elizabeth are completely aware of when volleyball season is and what Paige likes to play—they are involved in the activities and lives of both their children, who they are hands-on raising themselves.

What’s weird about it to me is that I just can’t imagine Paige ever playing volleyball at all.

It’s not that I have any particular idea in my head about who plays volleyball. I just feel like while the writers obviously imagined who Paige is wrt to her parents, the rest of her life as a girl never seems thought-through at all. So when a scene comes up where Paige needs to reference high school life they just toss something in without having a clear idea of what this girl would be doing with herself, what her interests would be, what friendships she would have or not. It’s not that there’s anything about Paige that would make me think this girl could never be on a volleyball team. It’s that I just don’t buy that this team exists beyond them needing it to alert her parents to her spending time at the church.

It’s totally different with Henry. Henry goes through a series of phases and while none of them are particularly unique they all completely fit the kid Henry is: Astronomy, magic, Eddie Murphy, sex, video games, computers, hockey, academics and elite prep schools. it’s eclectic, but not unbelievably so, and there’s nothing that surprises me given what we see of Henry. They don’t, halfway through season five, suddenly casually mention that he’s in a band we didn’t know about.

But Henry’s also often defined as a very mainstream kid in terms of 80s interests. Paige is somebody we see more of so it’s weird when they shove something in her mouth that feels like a placeholder for “something a girl her age might do as an activity” or “something another girl might have talked to her about.”

This comes up a lot in the church context where every time they need to have Paige be doing something they choose yet another church activity. Sure she’s been ordered to find a lot of stuff to do there, but it gets silly when she’s attending services, youth group, Bible study, political organizing and the food bank and then when Elizabeth needs a few spare minutes to talk to Pastor Tim alone they throw Paige into choir practice. Paige’s initial interest in the church made sense because it was written to be about her parents. The details beyond that are just like churchy packing material. It’s not that there ought to have been actual stories or plots about Paige’s school life, but details can do plenty of work here—they do with Kimmie and with Henry.

Kimmy is a girl who seems thought through as an individual. Even Paige's alleged music tastes are completely mismatched and in one case just wrong.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Julia Garner won an Emmy for her role on Ozark!

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Julia at the Emmys:

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Ruthie Ann Miles is a series regular on the new show All Rise:

Quote

ALL RISE is a courthouse drama that follows the chaotic, hopeful and sometimes absurd lives of its judges, prosecutors and public defenders, as they work with bailiffs, clerks and cops to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal process. Among them is newly appointed Judge Lola Carmichael (Simone Missick), a highly regarded and impressive deputy district attorney who doesn't intend to sit back on the bench in her new role, but instead leans in, immediately pushing the boundaries and challenging the expectations of what a judge can be.

[sistermagpie]

Just watched Arpanet. This ep seems like it’s mostly practically – a lot of table setting. The biggest development is the start of Nina/Oleg, who have had a lot of tense exchanges all season. Oleg slips into Stan’s role as protector, teaching Nina how to beat the lie detector in part by suggesting she imagine him standing there with him. Oleg sort of shares Stan’s view of Nina, marveling at how vulnerable she is, but he at least admires how she uses her brains to stay alive. Plus, let’s face it, Oleg really is able to come through for Nina in ways Stan never really does or can.

Also it’s a big contrast the way Nina and Oleg, whatever ulterior motives Nina might have for sleeping with him, are still a romance between two people who meet at work. Big contrast to the situation she has with Stan. Even where they're different they understand how they're different in ways Stan, at least, definitely doesn't seem to, and maybe Nina as well.

This ep is notable for more awkward metaphors—this loves to have characters explain things to other characters with metaphors that just make things more complicated. At least to me. Oleg explains how polygraphs work by talking about why wasps sting and why the asp killed Cleopatra. Nina’s just confused by these metaphors, so Oleg gives up and gives her the more practical advice of squeezing her anus.

The other metaphor is a long explanation of what the Arpanet (now the internet) is to Charles Deluth and a Mr. Kotter-styled Philip. It’s a cliché that a tech guy isn’t good at explaining stuff to people who aren’t computer literate, but it’s not that he uses technical jargon. Instead he asks them to imagine having a friend in a remote fishing village in Japan who doesn’t speak English who wants to send you a postcard (how did we become friends if we don’t share a language and don’t live near each other?) and it takes me a while to get that me and Hirohito (he even names the friend for some reason) are both computers. I think.

The Arpanet is now something probably most people in the audience could explain better than this guy. Which is presumably intentional since this is part of what leads to Philip’s frustration – he doesn’t understand what a virtual highway is and he just killed somebody over it. (Btw, did he really have to kill that guy? Yes, he saw the bug but couldn’t Philip have just gotten in and out before he told someone about it? Would they lose the ability to bug it if that happened?)

Now that we have the whole show, you have to pay attention to all the people working for P&E and all their red flags. First there’s Lucia who’s got a personal grudge against Larrick and reveals she was planning to go rogue on their mission and kill him, unable to consider his value longterm. (Unlike Philip who wants to kill him because he’s dangerous, but can hold off to get the info.) She gets Elizabeth to share that her father was a miner and talks about her own father, a journalist, being murdered. That’s interesting given that we now know that Elizabeth’s father might not be someone she’s always proud of. Interestingly, it’s Elizabeth who raises serious concerns about Lucia when alone with Philip and Philip who says she’ll be okay, despite clearly having trouble with her earlier.

Then there’s Charles Deluth, who Philip wakes up by pouring ice water on him and calls a drunk. Charles is so freaked out during their caper he sweats off the code he wrote on his hand—but luckily still manages to remember it. You can see here why you would want Philip on a mission because he’s really calm no matter what—he and Elizabeth both, really. Charles overcompensates once it’s over, claiming it was invigorating and addictive, but Philip’s not buying it. (In fact, he’s disgusted by the whole idea.) He’s also not buying Charles’ bluff that he’s drinking cranberry juice and seltzer, and he’s right—Charles is drinking vodka.

Finally, there’s Philip’s ongoing criticism of Kate. When the two meet in an empty parking lot he doesn’t seem happy that she doesn’t really understand what they’re doing, which is mostly his own issue of not knowing himself, but Kate probably takes it as purely personal. Even better, when she gets into the car he greets her by telling her she looks like a spy in an old movie. Kate probably even put the outfit on trying to look older, or more like Claudia.

Again, it’s hard to look at any American spy helpers without thinking of them as possible outcomes for Paige, although they’re very different. Charles isn’t like Paige in many ways, but Philip recognizes him as somebody too panicky to do jobs like this—watching his responses to Charles and Kate and Lucia I can’t help but wonder how he would have reacted to Paige if he was on the job with her. Charles sweats off the passcode he’s written on his hand but at least eventually manages to remember it, which puts him ahead of Paige who loses her fake KGB ID and gets both names wrong on a nametag she stared at for some time. She doesn’t share Charles’ drinking problem, but it’s easy to imagine her developing one if she had to live the kind of life she’s setting herself up for, isolated like Charles. And Charles obviously is obviously not only more genuinely committed to his cause, he doesn’t have the same issues with lying.

So we’ve got Charles reflecting her later inabilities under stress and Kate and Lucia, in Philip’s eyes, sharing her sloppiness about her cover. I don’t know how many details they’d planned to foreshadow Paige, but they certainly knew many ways to be unsuitable and used a lot of them with Paige.

This ep also sets up Henry’s Intellivision caper. Both sequences relating to it happen when one or both parents are present and talking to him and he’s uninterested in them. He’s not sitting there bereft until driven to his neighbor’s house by loneliness, he just wants to play the video games. Sort of like Philip genuinely wants that car he’ll be buying.

That said, they did come up with an interesting pattern of Henrytrying out different lives and houses—here the neighbors’, later Stan’s, then Chris’s, then St. Edwards. Paige tends to compare her parents to other people by suggesting they’re having affairs like the parents she hears about in the youth group, Henry seems to more look to other families just to imagine alternate lives or maybe find suggestions. (Except when comparing Elizabeth to his friend’s mom who seems to live only for him.)

This ep also continues the pattern of Philip and Henry reflecting each other without knowing it. (We already had Henry attacking the guy—though we don’t yet know about Philip doing the same as a kid.) Henry watches the neighbors through his telescope (that his father bought him), then breaks into their house. Philip watches Elizabeth’s meeting with Larrick through the scope on his rifle and picks the lock to Charles’ apartment. This is obviously very deliberate and it reaches far beyond little coincidences like these. I guess it’s also deliberate that the show keeps both characters ignorant of a lot of these connections and never has them have any moments where they explicitly recognize a similarity. The only time is really when Elizabeth says Henry’s like Philip back in S1.

I would say that it could be read as ironic—Elizabeth and Paige both try to push the idea they’re just like each other while Henry and Philip are just similar naturally. But it’s not that black and white. Both kids have traits of both parents mixed in different ways. Plus, Elizabeth tries and fails to recreate aspects of her life with Paige; Philip tries and fails to not recreate certain aspects of his life with Henry.

[BW Manilowe]

From TV Line: First Photo of Matthew Rhys as Perry Mason in HBO’s Limited Series

The photo is, of course, way towards the bottom of the page. The accompanying article includes further casting info. Matthew’s co-stars include such actors as John Lithgow & Tatiana Maslany (who won 1 of the Emmys Keri Russell deserved for playing Elizabeth). There’s still no premiere date for the show beyond a generic “(sometime in) 2020”.

[sistermagpie]

Just finished New Car.

This ep is the real start of the Arkady/Oleg relationship when they discuss the submarine explosion, Within the ep it's reflecting the Jennings' response to the sub accident. Oleg has a scene playing videogames with Nina and at an arcade with Stan where he talks about games in Gorky Park, paralleling Henry's story.

In the larger story it's laying the foundation for a lot of important things: Arkady learns that Oleg's family doesn't use their connections to get out of service, that Oleg has a brother in Afghanistan and that Oleg and his father will say when the Soviets screw up.

This is one of the rare episodes that have Henry story, with the foundation laid in the previous ep. Right from the start of the show, it seems, the show decided to present the Henry/Philip connection by having them unwittingly parallel each other rather than having them have scenes together even though they hang out. (At this point we don't yet know that Henry's attack on the hitch hiker in Trust Me echoes Philip's own childhood.)

Paige isn't in this ep, but she seems more present on rewatch because it’s the ep where Elizabeth chooses to let Larrick kill Lucia, her protégé. Elizabeth is clearly upset at what she did, explaining that Lucia didn’t understand “what they do” or what was important and if she didn’t understand that she didn’t understand anything.

Watching it now, it’s hard to not think of Paige as Lucia not just because she’s a younger protégé, but because understands and shares Elizabeth’s priorities even less than Lucia did. In fact, Elizabeth’s defensive speech in Jennings, Elizabeth is sort of a variation on this idea, where she's angrily explaining her priorities. Yet Elizabeth is far more sensitive and protective of Lucia than she is of Paige later, when she's walking dead.

Also, when Larrick kills Lucia he's holding her the same way Philip holds Paige in the final parts of their fight in Great Patriotic War.

On the Philip/Henry side, Philip buys the car he’s been wanting and Henry gets caught playing with the Intellivision he’s had his eye on. (Matthew Rhys does a really great job with his look when the salesman’s says the only thing that matters is how the car makes him “feel.”) Henry’s final breakdown is obviously more connected to Philip than Elizabeth--his defenses of his behavior are weaker than hers and he's painfully aware of his behavior making him appear a bad person despite his best intentions.

A whole day at least seems to go by in between finding out what Henry did and talking to him. The immediate distraction is Elizabeth's being distraught over Lucia's death, which Philip comforts her after. It's a subtle affirmation of the dynamics of the family. Philip and Elizabeth's primary relationship is with each other. (The kids do not mirror this by being similarly intensely close to or supportive of each other.)

Philip himself is feeling like a bad guy--he creates a cruel tape to manipulate Martha but winds up acting the caretaker instead. He's also reluctant to hurt Lewis, the truck driver, and insists on not killing him. Plus, he learns the plans he stole might have caused the death of 160 sailors, so maybe he's doing it for no reason (as he'll ultimately say to Stan in the garage). Both Philip and Henry wind up soured on the thing they wanted so badly and saw no reason they shouldn’t have. Neither of them will be put off of videogames or cars forever, but I think they both still carry the lessons of this episode.

Another conflict for Philip in this ep is stated by Martha in the first scene when she says some people manage to have important jobs *and* families--iow, he should be able to have a life outside of his work. That's partly what he's saying to Elizabeth when he tries to get her to admit she enjoys her stuff in the US.

Stan spends most of the ep chasing down leads to take down Oleg and protect Nina (who's touched at the risk he's taking for her), with a quick break for a stunningly thoughtless conversation with Sandra. When she reminds him she’s graduating from a seminar she’s taking it doesn’t occur to him to ask to attend the ceremony rather than generously assure her he can find dinner on his own. I think there's a real contrast between this and the Jennings' marriage in S6 where Elizabeth clearly misses Philip even while she's dismissing him. Stan's just accidentally making it clear how checked out he is.

Sandra and Stan's divergent paths really do seem different. Philip and Elizabeth, both here and later, are basically both searching for that same balance; Philip’s just the only one admitting it.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Town & Country interview with Keri Russell  (includes some talk about her role in the new Star Wars movie as well as The Americans and her Broadway play Burn This)

[SunnyBeBe]

I dropped by here after seeing a movie that reminded me of this series so much.  It brought back so many things we were told about how Philip and Elizabeth were taught.  Even after all these years......check it out if you get the chance.

[Chaos Theory]

On 9/17/2019 at 9:07 PM, Umbelina said:

I want to talk about The Americans that I loved, and asked everyone to watch.

What one scene or image comes to you when you think of great American episodes?

(Or go ahead and do a few.)

For me, it's always the same image that comes to mind when I think of this show, because it just encapsulated so much of what the show did so very well.  Tension.  It's just Elizabeth at a window, peeking through the drapes,  scared to death, watching the street.

They did SO much with things like that, those little moments that became huge were one of my favorite things.

If anything it would be the last few Martha episodes.   Where Martha is walking through the streets and the first time you watch it you are really not sure if she will turn herself in,  get killed by a jealous and paranoid Elizabeth or go back to Philip.   WhT made the show have so much tension was just how close The FBI were to finding her and the show would have been just as believable if they had.

[sistermagpie]

Just re-watched Martial Eagle. This is a heavy-hitter episode that sometimes seems to get forgotten except for Philip’s blow-up at Paige and her Bible. Watching it now, I got a lot more from it than I did the first time. (So this’ll be long.)

Plotwise, Stan, focused on protecting Nina from Oleg, turns his attention to the Connors’s murders. Even if one doesn’t think Stan’s actions make sense for him as an FBI man and former undercover agent, he’s certainly consistent. He’s almost never guided by the ideals of the job. It’s always personal. Great line from Gaad when Stan says he feels somewhat responsible for Gaad’s upcoming dismissal: “You *are* responsible.”

Sandra’s awesome in this ep. Stan comes home to find her packing and listening to Dr. Ruth (LOL), yet still doesn’t suspect she’s going away with a guy until she tells him she is. She points out the irony of how Stan’s a professional investigator who can’t see the people in his real life perhaps because he doesn't want to know (story of Stan’s life) and declares she’s not letting him be the good guy whose kooky wife left him for a guy in EST. She’s just not waiting around for him to get up the courage to leave.

Stan’s completely gobsmacked, somehow. He takes no responsibility (even a little, like with Gaad!), says nothing about his behavior, apologize, ask Sandra to go on. All his questions he has are about his position: Is she telling him she’s having an affair? Who is the guy he can beat up for this? Is she leaving him? He really never gets over his inability to see the women in his life as independent people.

This is the ep where we meet the Tims—and Tim is just as outrageous as I remember him. Imagine accepting $600 in 1981 money from a 14 year old and then acting like her father is being unreasonable for looking like he might pop you one and suggesting it would be better for Paige if he learned to control his anger! (Maybe it’d be better for Paige if you didn’t take all her money!)

This ep sets up Philip’s arc for the rest of the series. After all the deaths at the ME camp, including the truck driver he tried to spare, Philip sinks into self-loathing, seeming to decide to just be an aggressive spy. He encourages Fred to think about the dead on the submarine they were tricked into killing when he’s questioned by the FBI, drops by Martha to play her the cruel tape he didn’t play her last week and explain to her that the world is full of terrible people (meaning himself) and then goes to see Pastor Tim in an echo of both the scene in the pilot where he beat up the mall creep and his not-yet-related childhood story about his mom getting his money back from the greedy foreman. In between he appears to spend an entire night staring at the ocean.

His story is bookended by sermons from Tim, both of which are written to directly speak to Philip. In the first Tim talks about how people are put on the earth to be happy, and they only aren’t because they don’t see God’s intention—a sermon that of course means something very different to his comfortable middle class congregation than it would to someone w/bigger problems. But this is the very thing Philip will be trying to get in the future—a life. (Irina already said she was running for the same reason.) But he decides to do that after the closing scene where Tim preaches about everyone deserving compassion—iow, Philip isn’t beyond forgiveness.

Elizabeth starts working Karen, the alcoholic. Using her real life as fodder (like she did with Brad), she says she wishes she had a chance to show Philip she is “there for him” the way he was for her during her 3-month recovery. She gets the chance she’s looking for in S5 when she says he should quit, but resents him once the novelty of feeling like a good person wears off. She can’t not keep score when it comes to personal sacrifice. (Look how furious she got when the Center dared to consider her a possible mole in Trust Me.)

The first time I saw this ep, I was struck by the scene where Elizabeth tries to give Philip a pep talk after his blow-up with Paige, explaining that this is war, that Reagan’s crazy etc. Philip says he doesn’t need a speech. He knows it’s war, this is just easier for her. Elizabeth responds, “You think what I do is easy?”

Somewhere, maybe on the podcast, the showrunners described this moment as one partner unfairly taking out their mood on the other and getting called on it and I was really surprised by that reading, because I thought whether or not Philip was stating the obvious. Obviously Elizabeth wasn’t that bothered by the dead truck driver. Obviously she was able to justify herself with speeches about Reagan hen he wasn’t. So to me, she was almost comically making it about herself when he was upset and the showrunners cheering her on seemed bizarre.

But watching it now, the line reminded me of Philip telling her to act like a human in The Summit and I realized that while Philip’s “Am I A Monster?” story was more explicit, Elizabeth’s struggle with it is almost more difficult because it’s repressed and she's so ambivalent. That’s why she has that overreaction (imo) to the CIA agent telling her she has no soul etc. She’s so successful at acting cruelly people think she’s cruel, adding insult to injury. If all her ruthlessness isn’t a sacrifice for the greater good she’s just an evil person, so she has to keep doubling down on how good she is.

Philip cares about the way many people see him, Elizabeth really mostly cares about how Philip sees her. She cares about the kids too, but Philip is the only one, imo, that she believes can see and understand her, which is why his opinions are most important. She goes to his room trying to “be there for him” by showing sympathy, seeing herself as the stronger soldier bucking up the softer one. But instead of admiring her strength, he suggests it’s just easier for her to kill innocent people (and he sure seems to be right). I was more sympathetic to her this time and saw this more as part of her whole development.

Another small but telling moment is that after Philip rips up the Bible he storms out. Paige cries and runs out in the other direction. Elizabeth is left standing in the kitchen...and then she follows Philip. On many other shows OF COURSE the mom would run to the child to comfort her, but that is not the dynamic in this house. As Paige will say later, P&E look out for each other first.

Really the final arcs for all three characters in some ways start here, imo. When they go to church Paige looks over at her parents. Philip is glaring at Pastor Tim. Elizabeth gives her an indulgent smile. I think Paige sees Philip being closed minded and “not getting it.” Though ironically it's because Philip is actually listening. It’s Elizabeth who’s closed-minded and faking it. But it fits with Paige’s later view of Philip where she seems to always take his disapproval of what’s happening to her as a sign he doesn’t get it or apathy.

I guess there’s no explicit moment that tells us whether Paige eventually understood that her father actually was “into it.” Maybe that’s there in Elizabeth’s “including your father” response in Jennings, Elizabeth or in the garage, but who knows.

More importantly, Elizabeth is lying about her attitude here and Philip is not. Elizabeth always seems to be doing better as a mom in Paige’s eyes when she’s lying like she does at work—either by going with her to church or handling her as a spy. Paige rejects Pastor Tim when she thinks his private thoughts contradict what he says to her in person and will reject Elizabeth as a liar as well.

I think this is all meant to come crashing down when Paige confronts her mother in Jennings, Elizabeth and is there in the dialogue, but I don’t think it comes across as it should in large part because the performance

[VCRTracking]

So I just saw this movie, and I would recommend it to all fans of The Americans, Telefon(1977) starring Charles Bronson, Lee Remick and Donald Pleasance.

Synopsis: The United States and the Soviet Union are backing down from the Cold War, but not everyone is happy about it. Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence), a KGB agent, steals information regarding a secret Soviet operation that planted brainwashed intelligence agents all over America. When Dalchimsky uses those agents to blow up old military buildings, the Soviets send KGB operative Grigori Borzov (Charles Bronson) and a double agent (Lee Remick) to stop him before it's too late.

Looking through video stores as a kid I would always see the box for it with Charles Bronson holding up the telephone.

I saw the DVD in the library and decided to check it out and was pleasantly surprised. It's directed by Don Siegel(Dirty Harry, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and is sharp, taut suspense spy thriller. Some violence but not as much as Bronson's Death Wish.

You can watch it online on Youtube, Amazon and Google streaming video.

What made me post this was seeing how much Lee Remick resembled Keri Russell:

The big difference is instead of cold and dour like Elizabeth Jennings, Remick is warm and bubbly!

Tyne Daly also has a small but memorable role as a CIA computer analyst:

Trailer:

Edited December 16, 2019 by VCRTracking

[BW Manilowe]

From PRIMETIMER: The Son of Russian Spies Who Inspired The Americans Will Be Allowed to Become a Canadian Citizen

Edited December 20, 2019 by BW Manilowe
To add italics.

[Trillian]

9 hours ago, BW Manilowe said:

From PRIMETIMER: The Son of Russian Spies Who Inspired The Americans Will Be Allowed to Become a Canadian Citizen

I came here to post the same story. You best me to it!  Here’s the CBC article anyway:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russian-spies-children-supreme-court-1.5402096

[sistermagpie]

Just watched Yousaf.

In the middle of it I had this whole epiphany about season 6 and what I think is going on with Paige that made me want to go back into that ep thread and dive into an old conversation with @DevF, but alas, it is locked. Have to wait four years or so until I get to that season on my rewatch!

This ep starts with one of my favorite love scenes in the show, when Philip comes home after not using his murder gloves on Pastor Tim. Apparently it was originally supposed to go at the end of that ep, but it works better here, I think. A lot of the plot centers on Elizabeth and Philip trying to take burdens from each other. Elizabeth kills Yousaf’s boss so Philip doesn’t have to, then comes home and has a cigarette, emphasizing that Elizabeth smokes when stressed and trying to repress the part of her that isn’t a robot spy.

Philip can’t sleep with Yousaf in Elizabeth’s place, so he gets Annalise to do it. She’s obviously not somebody you'd want to trust with this sort of thing, but still, it’s fascinating watching Philip talk her down when she starts throwing things at him—though I think that scene is partly a performance on her part, actually. Philip uses some of his real feelings, telling Annelise how much he hates watching the woman he loves sacrifice herself, even if he knows it’s important. But it also fits his Scott persona and is the type of thing Annelise is looking for. So much of Philip’s storyline throughout the show involves handling the ever-evolving feelings of his longterm sources. Elizabeth can inspire a lot of loyalty as herself, but there’s a reason the show gives her no long-term sources like this.

In the last ep it was Martha’s connecting the Connors’ murder to Fred’s meeting that inspired Stan to investigate them. Now it’s ex-CIA Gaad who shows Stan they’re illegals. I really like seeing the FBI work as a team. Stan’s special skill is consistently his hunches and intuition, not detail stuff.

It’s also fun seeing the FBI and KGB working parallel to each other, so close that they’re often talking about the exact same things, but without being able to see each other, like there's a two-way one-way mirror between them.

Speaking of the Connors, Stan’s interrogation of Jared of course plays differently once you know what we know now. A lot of it suggests he’s very conflicted about what happened. When he says his parents were good parents, he seems to be seeing the truth in it. When he says he knew they “helped people” because “he lived with them” it’s ambiguous. On one hand, he’s presumably bitter at how little he knew his parents. Otoh, that phrase “helped people” is almost always associated with the Cause or something like it, so maybe he’s also speaking as a fellow traveller.

Stan says everyone has secrets and Jared basically killed his parents because of theirs, so when he demands to know whether his 14-year-old sister Amanda had any, he’s maybe accusing himself, even while throwing Stan off the scent. Stan assures him that yes, she did (a 14-year-old girl? Oh Jared, she had plenty of secrets!)—iow, Stan’s kind of defending his parents to him.

The other major thing in the ep is the battle of summer camp for Paige. Her parents' positions on this are pretty consistent with their later ones—Elizabeth thinks Paige should do what Elizabeth does; Philip thinks she should choose for herself. Then Elizabeth just unilaterally takes action. Shades of things to come.

Paige’s Christian camp is contrasted with Oleg and Nina’s talk about Young Pioneer camp. (Oleg bizarrely suggests that since he went away in the summers he was never a Young Pioneer. Of course he was one!) It's a nice look into their povs--Nina the poor girl from the middle of nowhere feeling valuable and inspired; Oleg feeling like everything he has is because of his father. Their conversation is way more balanced than the one between Nina and Stan.

It’s sad seeing Paige trying to get *away* from her parents to grow on her own for three months knowing how she's going to wind up in S6, even if she’s doing it by joining another group. She could have grown out of the church.

You get the feeling that both Paige and Elizabeth think Philip lets the other one walk all over him while also thinking he doesn’t do enough to support her. Philip is hilariously pathetic in how thrilled he is for Paige to start talking to him again—even if she’s doing it because she wants something and knows he’s the softer target. Well, really, it's not that he's soft. He genuinely supports what she wants for herself.

At first I thought it was funny how Paige seemed to even think she could go away to camp for 3 months based on one forged signature on an application form. Then I remembered Pastor Tim was involved so, yeah, he probably sneaks kids onto the bus and sends them off. Oh, and the camp’s in Guyana. He just assumed their parents knew that.

One other thing about the camp story that bugs me, and it’s not the only time they do it. Paige and Henry, like most kids in their circumstances, sometimes ask their parents for things that are expensive. But for some reason the show always has them claim they can pay for it themselves. With Henry it was a scholarship he didn't have yet that was just inconvenient the following season, but at least scholarships exist.

Here Paige tells Philip that a 14-year-old can go to summer camp for free for 3 months as long as they say they’re a CIT--wow, somebody should tell all those kids whose parents can't afford camp about this great deal! 3 months room & board, hiking, swimming & all camp activities absolutely free in exchange for...going to camp.

Why not just have her ask to go to camp and not bring up money like she probably wouldn't anyway? If you need Philip to schmoopily comment on her being grown-up, just have her say she’ll be learning leadership skills as a CIT (even if CITs are usually more like 16). We know it's not really about money ever. I don't get the impulse.

[SunnyBeBe]

I was a huge fan and avid poster around here for a long time. But I dropped by for something rather silly...I just watched an episode from the final season of Girls!! Lol I finally saw Matthew Rhys with his fake penis. Lol  I recall reading about it back then. So funny...but also such a treat to see Matthew.  Omg, I miss The Americans.

 

 

 

[sistermagpie]

Just finished Stealth. As ever a lot of interesting things going on, some seeds planted for the two kids. Plus plot stuff—Larrick kills Paul, destroys the phone system and then kills Kate. If this were Jaws, the shark music would be playing as he gets closer to the Jennings. Btw, I can’t help but wonder what Kate would have done if her toilet paper roll had been full. (Also Elizabeth wears a black knit cap, leather jacket and really skinny heels to check out Kate’s apartment.

We check in on Anton and Vasili for plot purposes. One thing I like about Anton is while I’m 100% sympathetic to him as the victim of a kidnapping and don’t blame him for it, I don’t like him much as a person, cheating on his wife and now being fine with faceless Soviet bedwarmers who are probably as coerced as he is. I don’t actively dislike Anton or anything, I just like that they don’t seem to make him out to be an all-around perfect victim.

Oh! And we meet Ted here, one of my favorite Philip personas. The John Skeevers character is so sad and perfectly cast. The first time I watched it I was really amused when he asks Ted if they know each other and Ted says, “Yeah, we met at the clinic” and then frowns for a second like that’s obvious. But that’s because I thought John was asking if they knew each other *before* the clinic because they hardly know each other just from that. But now I think maybe he genuinely doesn’t remember meeting him and Philip’s frown is genuine concern because the poor guy’s losing his short term memory.

I love how the show constantly pairs Philips with loners and misfits he understands. (He also accepts Stan’s offer of a beer, I think, because he can see Stan wants someone there with him.) It’s maybe one of the main ways Philip and Henry are different (though perhaps that will change post-series). Also Ted’s forced accent is just so funny. Philip sounds like he’s imitating some biker he saw in a movie. Somehow Philip just offering Skeevers money instead of trying to trick him gives the guy dignity.

Elizabeth is freaked out to learn the FBI knows about the Connors and Stan went to see Jared. She’s horrified that she burned Leanne's letter and now Jared might find out about his parents from an American—which, of course, is exactly how Henry will find out.

Jared’s convo with Elizabeth seems off and tense even before you know the truth. He’s way more believable as a spy kid than Paige will be later. As with Stan, Jared deliberately makes/picks up food in the kitchen to focus on. Looking back you can see Jared already suspecting that Elizabeth is Directorate S, he’s just not going to say it first, obviously.

Perhaps it’s because of this that we start to see Elizabeth leaning into her role of the family’s Captain Ahab. Philip tells her he thinks they should let Paige go to the church camp. Elizabeth ironically reminds him that “they” already said no. Ironically because it was, of course, Elizabeth who unilaterally decided to call the church and say no on her own. (Philip’s own opinion is not, I think we can say, only a response to Paige’s continued cold shoulder.)

So sadly, in the very same episode that Paige asserts her freedom as an individual by saying “I’m me” Elizabeth decides that rather Paige is *her* (“like me” are her exact words), choosing to gloss over Paige’s assertion of independence to focus on “I want to protest American nuclear weapons.” (Of course Philip gets no say in this either, even though we know he wants to let her go.) She sees Paige as wanting Elizabeth’s Cause without yet knowing that’s what she’s searching for.

This ep is also the beginning of the Stan/Henry friendship. I’ve always vehemently disagreed with the “Stan is Henry’s real father” interpretation, one that to me seems mostly based on a combination of disapproval of the Jennings and clichés from other stories that aren’t this one. There are, of course, times when they fill in for the other’s father or son, but those other people (Philip and Matthew) exist and are very willing to have a relationship. Neither Stan nor Henry is abandoned during main run of the show.

I think what’s really going on is more idiosyncratic. First, they’re not always drawn together for the same reason (father wanting a son, son wanting a father). Henry, throughout the show, is a kid trying on different role models. Paige looks to adults like Pastor Tim and her mother for guidance, to give her life a framework and direction and meaning. Henry, otoh, looks for people he might himself decide to be. As a child that was obviously Philip, but now he’s getting older and looking around: Stan the FBI agent with the hot wife/girlfriend, Matthew, Eddie Murphy, the smart kids at school, Chris’s dad, the other dads at St. Edwards.

The rewarding thing is that when Henry decides he doesn’t want to be Philip no matter how much he loves him, he’s often unwittingly following in Philip’s footsteps. That’s why the most important, imo, scenes of him and Stan are the ones where Stan reveals something about himself that’s also true of Philip. Like here where Stan says he wanted to be an FBI agent because he grew up with stories of the Feds catching the bad guys. That doesn’t apply to Philip the travel agent, but it probably does to Philip the Russian “hero.”

With Stan, though, I think it’s about being a hero. That’s always been central to Stan. All the spies spot it fast and use it against him: Nina, Arkady, Oleg. Philip makes sure he keeps Stan as the hero throughout their friendship—even here when he ruefully admits that Henry would like to interview Stan for a “my hero” essay because “a travel agent can’t compete with the FBI.” Stan responds by saying “except when it comes to cars,” thus letting go of the resentment he felt about that earlier. Sure Philip got a cool car, but Stan is a hero. In the garage scene, Philip isn’t just saying “I’m your friend,” he’s saying “Save me! Save me!” and setting up a whole scenario where Stan can protect spies in order to be a hero and Philip can be a damsel in distress.

Throughout the show, the two people who work the hardest to connect to Stan are Sandra and Matthew. And Stan can’t reciprocate because they are the two people in his life that make him feel the least heroic. Sandra explicitly calls him “the only bad guy here” and accuses him of wanting to look like the good guy in their marriage.

Once Stan feels like he’s failed them he’s unable to work through it with them. Matthew even says something to this affect when Paige breaks up with him. He says something like “I’m not my dad. If I did something wrong I’ll make it right”—explicitly referring to how Stan has been given multiple chances to repair his relationship with his wife and son, but instead chooses to focus on being the good guy with someone else—Nina, Renee, Henry.

it’s not that I think Stan’s some cartoon narcissist who sees himself as Superman when he’s with these other people (when Henry asks him what it’s like to be a hero he of course says he is not one—right before the scene where he’s promising to single-handedly save Nina from everything). It’s just that Stan seems to mostly only know how to relate to people by being the white hat. He can just about deal with being vulnerable with Philip, but he can’t weather the gaze of a person who makes him feel like a dishonorable piece of shit. 

The only way he knows how to deal with feeling like he’s failed is to go out and perform something good. I feel like that’s partly what’s going on when poor Matthew returns to his dad’s house for the first visit in a long time (thanks to Philip and Sandra) and he walks in to find Stan showing off how great he is with Henry and then leaves for the whole night.

Anyway, that’s why I think it’s clever that the “my hero” essay works in the ep as another way to frame Stan’s ongoing issues with trying to be the white hat in a black and white world, it’s also such an interesting way to keep examining his inability to stick with his family.

[Roseanna]

On 1/27/2020 at 6:44 AM, sistermagpie said:

We check in on Anton and Vasili for plot purposes. One thing I like about Anton is while I’m 100% sympathetic to him as the victim of a kidnapping and don’t blame him for it, I don’t like him much as a person, cheating on his wife and now being fine with faceless Soviet bedwarmers who are probably as coerced as he is. I don’t actively dislike Anton or anything, I just like that they don’t seem to make him out to be an all-around perfect victim.

I think that is really fine because victims irl are seldom saints, either. But whatever they are like as persons, it doesn't make them less victims. Otherwise, it's like a person's clothes or behavior or former sexual history excludes that she could be raped.

[sistermagpie]

12 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I think that is really fine because victims irl are seldom saints, either. But whatever they are like as persons, it doesn't make them less victims. Otherwise, it's like a person's clothes or behavior or former sexual history excludes that she could be raped.

Exactly. It really just makes him more interesting to me. Not to mention, it highlights how unjust the situation is because sure, he wasn't being the best husband and father, but that's not why he was kidnapped. And if he were some perfectly saintly guy it would feel like that's the reason he didn't deserve it. Instead he's just yet another flawed character.

[Roseanna]

How about the trade-off? Arkady was ready to do everything in order to save Philip whereas Israel agreed to suddender Anton to the Soviets.

I guess the decision must be made by the governments. One Soviet spy was so valuable to Soviets that they made a huge concession, but one Jewish scientist was sacrificed by Israel  in order to get many Jews emigrate. 

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, Roseanna said:

How about the trade-off? Arkady was ready to do everything in order to save Philip whereas Israel agreed to suddender Anton to the Soviets.

I guess the decision must be made by the governments. One Soviet spy was so valuable to Soviets that they made a huge concession, but one Jewish scientist was sacrificed by Israel  in order to get many Jews emigrate. 

In a way the governments are probably making similar calculations because while Anton is a talented scientist, he's not so uniquely special as a scientist for the Israelis (he's not even Israeli) that they see him as more important than all those other Russian Jews. But in Philip's case, he's an Illegal so he's really important and pretty rare for the Soviets. 

They even explicitly pretty much say that in The Deal. The Israeli agent knows that Philip is the more valuable spy--even though Philip himself knows he's expendable too. When Oleg gives up William he's doing it because it will save a lot of Russians--if Philip gave up Renee, it was him taking a stand on principle as well as protecting a friend, imo. (Like what he did with Kimmy, imo.)

[sistermagpie]

Just finished Operation Chronicle. As you get near the end of season 2 you just have to keep watching.

So the things that stood out to me this ep: first, Henry’s watching Diff’rent Strokes. Just thought I’d mention that. He also has very intelligent feelings about the upcoming Star Trek: Wrath of Khan for someone who doesn’t yet know about the Odd/Even rule in Star Trek movies.

Philip still doesn’t feel like Fred is “his” agent. He and Elizabeth remedy this by bringing her in on it to make Fred feel like Philip’s letting him into his family, perhaps reflecting Paige’s own feelings of being on the outside of her own. And reflecting how Elizabeth and Claudia will give her their own false gesture of family in S6 that she clings to until she doesn’t.

I’ve always been fascinated by Philip’s description of Fred. He says he’s a grandiose loner who tells himself he’s doing this for the cause but really Emmett could have had him working for Martians as long as it made him feel like he was better than everyone else. Then he says he likes him!

I think the liking him part refers to the fact that Fred’s “gutsy, smart, reliable” but it still stands out to me because Philip rarely actually likes anybody they work with. I can’t say Fred doesn’t deserve it. Guy knows how to come through without being flashy and Philip appreciates that.

Speaking of family, this is the ep where Martha talks about starting one and Clark says no. I never noticed before, but you can clearly see Philip feeling like shit when he realizes he’s taking away Martha’s chance at children. It’s fitting her story ends with Gabriel presumably using Philip’s notes to give her one. (Also the subject comes up after Clark removes his condom, because this show does not shy away from sex as a bodily function—yuck.) Otoh, kids obviously aren’t Martha’s priority or she’d not make the choices she makes. The kid’s her second choice.

Interesting to note too, that before Martha brings up children she does her own version of Clark’s proposal by upping her value to him. She brings home a pile of secret files without being asked and then casually drops that she knows he wears a toupee. A lot of Martha’s actions and lines track with the idea that she unconsciously knows all along that she’s in a romance with a sexy secret agent.

This is a real theme in the ep and the series, that the Cause might create a short term illusion of family, but ultimately destroys it. Philip & Elizabeth’s marriage is unique in surviving, but mostly because both of them quietly begin to protect and prioritize it.

Stan and Oleg both start dreaming of Nina’s getaway, though Oleg seems much more honest about it. Nina’s clearly already getting Oleg to question things; he disagrees with Arkady about her deserving punishment if Stan doesn’t come through.

Stan, to me, seems to be spinning fantasies for himself. He tells Nina he’ll just somehow get her dropped off in some US city that doesn’t have a Soviet embassy (with the car he’s buying her with cash) and she’ll “know how to blend in” there but...would she? Does she really know how to disappear so well in a random American city? She’s not Philip and Elizabeth, she’s an exceptionally beautiful woman with a Russian accent.

Stan also says he’ll visit her every weekend. How did he think that was going to work? Nina’s going to be invisible on her own in some city with Stan the FBI agent coming to see her in hiding every weekend? Also, what life is he envisioning for her if he expects their relationship to continue?

I have to say, too, that one good thing about Nina’s deportation is I really really hate her and Stan as a couple. The scene with them lying in bed just grosses me out. No offense to Noah Emmerich. The whole relationship just creeps me out.

Back home Stan has less luck with Matthew. He’s sadly brought him home The Rocky Horror Picture show, completely not understanding that it’s not a movie Matthew is going to watch on video with his friends. We know later he’ll try the same move on Henry who’s young enough to take Stan’s word for it that Stan’s cool for showing this movie, leaving Matthew to have to sit through it with a 12 year old. Thanks Stan!

Oh, and the one thing Stan asks about Sandra’s new guy is if he’s “a good guy,” once again underlining Stan’s obsession with that (and conflicted feelings about how he might give Echo to the Soviets for Nina). Sandra tries to reply with a different pov, saying he’s “able to be in the flow of things (presumably this includes being emotionally present, unlike Stan), then just gives up and says yes, he’s a good guy.

Paige is majorly disappointed when Elizabeth splits for a work emergency instead of helping her pack for her night in Pennsylvania—no girl with "absentee" parents would be bitching over her mom bowing out of helping her pack for a night away and punishing her dad by not speaking to him.

On the contrary, clearly Elizabeth has shown real interest in supporting her here, though sadly we know she’s going about it hoping Paige will be like Elizabeth herself instead of respecting her finding her own way. Paige reacts to this by seeing all her parents’ lies all the more clearly, even trying to listen in on their phone conversation, prompting Philip to threaten to take her phone away. (Might have been a good idea in retrospect, especially given how she doesn’t seem to particularly talk on the phone much when not eavesdropping or ratting out her parents!)

Paige’s conversation with Pastor Tim is also a little sad in retrospect. She tells him she no longer believes anything her parents say, that she considered whether one or both of them were having an affair, and Tim reassures her with some generic stuff about how being a parent is hard...and so is being a kid! Paige will be back to feeling this way at the end of the show.

But Tim also asks Paige what made her parents "change their mind" and on one level they didn’t. They said no to camp and yes to a night away, two different things. Which makes it seem like he’s responding to Paige telling him how positive Elizabeth was about the demonstration—iow the real change in Elizabeth’s attitude that suggests there’s something else going on there. But she can’t explain that to Tim, so she has to accept his reassurances that they let her go because they knew it was important to her, which is exactly wrong. Elizabeth let her go because this kind of thing is important to Elizabeth, something Paige doesn't yet have any way of understanding.

You can almost see Paige’s normal life that could have been, where she defines herself through the church for a while and either does or doesn’t stick with it. But we know there’s no real solution here because Paige’s suspicions are well-founded and, worse, Elizabeth’s change of attitude has a sinister note to it. Elizabeth and Paige’s demand the other admire rather than just accept her will eventually make this worse.

Meanwhile Elizabeth has her own talk on the road with Jared, who’s being sent away out of the country. This was the thing that most interested me in the ep. By the end Elizabeth will say to Philip that their kids would be dead in an alley in a week in this situation. Philip claims Paige can “out-think” anyone and at this point the line doesn’t sound insane, since she’s giving them such trouble about their lies. But this conversation explicitly brings up the situation at the end of the series, with Elizabeth reminding Philip that one day their children will be in Jared’s shoes so they need to prepare. It’s just ironic that Elizabeth, the one who thinks she’s the one preparing her Chosen One for it, is the one doing the opposite while Philip will be the one better preparing Henry to survive on his own.

Philip here also does his consistent thing of refusing to define Henry at all, saying he's just a kid now but in a few years...who knows? This is another way the show clearly links the two of them, as re-Philip Mischa himself is almost always left undefined by people who knew him, save a few small qualities that also describe Henry.

Of course there’s many reasons for Jared and Elizabeth to behave differently here than Paige and Elizabeth do in START, but their behavior does also reflect Paige’s actual personality combined with the way Elizabeth “develops” her for the next few years.

Jared, though 3 or 4 years younger than 20-year-old Paige in S6 is calm in the face of his life changing. He accepts that he’s in danger so has to leave everything behind, follows orders, asks Elizabeth if he’ll be resettled in the US, so obviously he knows he possibly won’t be. And on her side, Elizabeth deals with him in a calmer way, telling him the hard truths upfront in a way he understands. Basically this whole trip with the two of them reads like a trial run of the final escape with Paige if it went the way Elizabeth imagined in her head. Elizabeth calm, giving him the hard truths; Jared rising nobly and quietly to the occasion, understanding everything.

The actor’s performance--to me--makes it clear that whatever fantasies Jared still holds about the cause, underneath he has a very realistic—possibly fatalistic—view of what he’s done and what his situation is. Whether or not he thinks he’ll be dead literally soon, there’s a sense that he feels everything he knew as his life is already over.

And finally, here we learn that Elizabeth will ultimately deliberately break the rules about exfiltration. She tells Jared he needs to strip down and throw away all his clothes and belongings. She says, this is what they do, that “We clean ourselves, you don’t get to take anything with you.”

Watching her say that now, I can’t help but picture Elizabeth grabbing those wedding rings before she leaves the house, two things she and Philip both always intended to be part of their “real” identities in both countries. Not just the rings but, of course, the marriage. Elizabeth’s already beginning to see (or admit to seeing) differently here. Where last season she described herself as alone in the US, forced to live with “a strange man” she now describes herself and Philip as having always had each other, unlike Jared.

But yeah, this talk with Jared on one hand is important for the plot—it’s the reason Larrick loses the tracker he’s got on them when Jared tosses his backpack. But it’s also clearly meant to be a psychological ritual that Philip and Elizabeth reject with the wedding rings, like Arya Stark hiding Needle instead of tossing it, if you watch GoT, or even the totems in the movie Inception. They’re the touchstones.

[Roseanna]

On 2/18/2020 at 3:20 AM, sistermagpie said:

Stan and Oleg both start dreaming of Nina’s getaway, though Oleg seems much more honest about it. Nina’s clearly already getting Oleg to question things; he disagrees with Arkady about her deserving punishment if Stan doesn’t come through.

Stan, to me, seems to be spinning fantasies for himself. He tells Nina he’ll just somehow get her dropped off in some US city that doesn’t have a Soviet embassy (with the car he’s buying her with cash) and she’ll “know how to blend in” there but...would she? Does she really know how to disappear so well in a random American city? She’s not Philip and Elizabeth, she’s an exceptionally beautiful woman with a Russian accent.

Stan also says he’ll visit her every weekend. How did he think that was going to work? Nina’s going to be invisible on her own in some city with Stan the FBI agent coming to see her in hiding every weekend? Also, what life is he envisioning for her if he expects their relationship to continue?

That amused me, too. If Nina had any chance to succeed, she should have needed much help (ex. change her looks) and, definetely, Stan should haven't have ever met her.

[sistermagpie]

4 hours ago, Roseanna said:

That amused me, too. If Nina had any chance to succeed, she should have needed much help (ex. change her looks) and, definetely, Stan should haven't have ever met her.

It's really strange to even think of what would have happened if the KGB hadn't ruined his plans. He's probably not even only being naive about her abilities but the FBI's reaction since Stan's buying her a car seems to imply he's not planning to do any of this with FBI help. He just wants her to pull a Jennings and drive away while he pretends he doesn't know what happened (and slips away every weekend to see her).

[ByTor]

6 hours ago, Roseanna said:

That amused me, too. If Nina had any chance to succeed, she should have needed much help (ex. change her looks) and, definetely, Stan should haven't have ever met her.

Speaking of Nina, when I think of her I'll always think of one scene.  She was in that awful, dirty prison lying on the cot.  She swung her legs around to get off, and she was wearing the cleanest white socks I have ever seen, socks that no way could have walked on that filthy looking floor 🙂 

[sistermagpie]

Just watched Echo and that’s a wrap on season 2 – so I have A LOT to say!

This ep feels like the end of the beginning of the show. It’s still lighter on its feet than later seasons but starts everyone’s complicated personal journeys.

Hard to believe we only met Oleg this season. He and Arkady don’t agree on everything—Arkady seems to have some faith that Nina is getting a fair trial, for instance, but you can see why he will trust Oleg to act for him in S6. They’re a really interesting pair throughout the show.

I maintain that being “the good guy” is the prime motivation for Stan, and Nina seemed like a way for him to get back on track after his pre-show assignment he just betrayed. He can’t separate the personal and professional. Some would say that makes him like Philip, but I think it actually makes him more like Elizabeth. That’s why she doesn’t allow herself to get close to her assets.

Maybe Stan spends the rest of the show trying to climb out of the guilty hole he dug here—it would explain a lot of his reckless behavior, much of which seems to go against the whole point of his job. His choice to not hand over Echo is definitely one of those “EST moments” that define a person. Early in the ep Sandra knows something’s wrong with Stan because she “knows him.” He says maybe she doesn’t know him that well—because in that moment he’s planning to hand over Echo. Really Sandra probably would have predicted his actions. He never trusted her and he really could have.

Larrick has his own EST moment when he decides to turn P&E and himself in. Although it’s Philip who kills him, it should be noted it’s Elizabeth who beats up this (albeit wounded in the shoulder) Navy SEAL with not one but BOTH HANDS TIED BEHIND HER BACK.

I’ve always been surprised by people who think Jared was supposed to have been a genuine true believer in Communism. I hadn’t remembered that we really don’t meet the real Jared at all until he’s bleeding out. He keeps his secrets throughout his talks with Elizabeth. We get, iirc, 3 deathbed scenes on the show—Jared, William and Harvest—and all of them talk about family. (Dying Erika does too.) In death Jared talks about the cause, but only in a vague, abstract way. He says it was Kate who was “always saying” what they did was more important than themselves—echoing Paige’s later “like you and Claudia are always saying” about the same Cause.

The story Jared really tells is about love—he loves Kate, Kate loves him—she told him who he really was. Elizabeth is wrong, he says, in saying his parents loved him. They never loved him. His whole life was a lie. His family was a lie—that’s why he destroyed them, even Amelia, who was innocent. Elizabeth, notably, is the one who has to turn away when Jared is spouting this stuff.

A word about Martha, btw. I love how when Clark finds her gun there’s no ominous music with it. He just stares at it lying there on a dishtowel. We all thought somebody would get shot with that gun and no, they never do.

That said, Clark gets a phone call about an uncle who’s wandered off and announces he’s off to Indiana to deal with it. So…your husband can only be with you a couple nights a week at most but he’ll fly halfway across the country on a moment’s notice for this? Girl, that is not your man.

Ultimately the whole season is leading up to Claudia’s revelation about the 2nd gen program, which she defends with more claims about how it will give purpose to the lives of the kids in it. That story will come to dominate the rest of the show as a way to contrast P&E’s parenting philosophies.

At this point here, though, it seems like the 2ndGen program is going to be one of those stories where the teenager has the potential to be a great spy, but is robbed of her independence and desire to live her own life. Instead it’s the opposite—stress and Paige’s own personality will lead her to be a willing traitor (temporarily) despite her lack of potential. Much less cliché.

Listening to Paige declare to Henry that she wants to get out of the house asap, on re-watch, can’t help but remind you that it’s Henry who actually does exactly this. And while I think part of it is his personality, it’s worth considering if his development isn’t seriously affected by listening to Paige’s suspicions. By the time he gets to be the age she started getting suspicious he’s already had the idea introduced to him, only to then see Paige behaving oddly too. (When Paige asks how long Elizabeth and Philip have been gone from the motel, Henry changes the subject.)

Also, when Paige challenges her parents’ behavior she sounds like Philip in S6 challenging Elizabeth’s story about the General’s suicide. He knows—and we know—that Paige is more than capable of seeing through this sort of thing since she did it back then. She’s just refusing to think at that point and he knows it.

By the end of the ep Elizabeth, to Philip’s horror, will be up for 2ndGen. I think there’s a temptation to see this conflict as one between opposites: Elizabeth wants Paige to be a spy, Philip does not. Elizabeth will manipulate and influence her to be a spy and therefore Philip should doing all that and more to prevent it. Spy vs. spy, iow. But it’s actually not only about whether the kids should spy. It’s really more a conflict of parenting philosophies: holding on vs. letting go.

We see the seeds of Philip’s repulsion at the idea of the kids doing this work (like when he regrets using Henry as a prop and hears Henry crying about people thinking he’s a bad person) and regret over what he’s doing, but his conclusion won’t be to commit to making sure his kids don’t choose this life, but rather to figure out what psychologically and pragmatically, he’s doing. He takes Pastor Tim’s advice to deal with his own issues for his children rather than trying to control their life for their own good.

This means he’s not as proactively anti-spying for Paige as many would like. But in the end his approach gets him the result he wants. Not Paige scared off or repulsed by any means necessary, but Paige rejecting spying as her own decision.

Elizabeth’s story is, of course, more proactive and obvious. There’s a logic to how she starts the season frightened at almost destroying a family of deer and ends it by wanting to put Paige in danger. Because Paige spying means Paige under Elizabeth’s wing (or the wing of some proxy of Elizabeth) forever.

Philip’s instincts about Paige are to let her find her own way, to *trust* her, in his own words, to make the right decision in the end (which she does at the end of the show). But Elizabeth responds to feeling out of control by taking tighter control. This is how she thinks she can avoid a replay of Lucia’s, Jared’s and the Centre’s mistakes. She can steer Paige’s “career” away from what Elizabeth herself finds too awful and turn Paige’s unacceptable interest in the church into a means of making Paige more like herself.

Elizabeth’s not wrong in saying that Paige is looking for something to give her life meaning. To give her “a place to put it all” as Paige herself says. And while Paige claims she wants to get away from her family, she seems to really desire their understanding and support—she’s so antagonistic in the face of their disappointing reaction to her protest that Philip has to remind her that nobody’s opposing her about it.

That scene, btw, is already hinting that the appeal of church for Paige isn’t primarily spiritual. She says protests like this are the whole point of the church, that it’s not just Jesus and the Bible, as if those things on their own aren’t that important. Paige is evangelical about activism, not Jesus, and seems to see him as a human role model rather than God. I don’t know if this was intentional, but it makes sense if it was since Paige is ultimately going to dump the “church stuff” for the Soviet Cause, which has its own culture to which she’s just as insecurely attached.

Btw, the budget of the show makes Paige’s demonstration look really sad. It’s supposed to be a giant thing all over the country with tons of people and instead there’s this obviously tiny group barely larger than the police force there. I’ve always wondered if Pastor Tim decided on his own to get arrested against the instructions of the higher ups just for his ego—it just doesn’t seem like something the church would plan with kids involved.

Of course, Elizabeth’s ego is also bound up in her cause. It takes her way too long to notice Jared’s focus on Kate because she’s so eager to tell Jared what heroes his parents were (and so she is). Not that Philip doesn’t have his own ego—love his irritation at Paige’s fangirling of Tim’s arrest that she does not see as performative as he does—another consistent important character trait for her. Philip’s line about wanting to punch her in the face is still one of the funniest moments of the show.

The kids sleeping in the back of the car to and from the motel are one of the last times the family looks like one of parents/young children that I remember. And of course those shots now make me think of Philip and Elizabeth sleeping in the back of Arkady’s car in START. Only their sleeping represents relief after along journey and long, impressive mission while the kids here are dragged around as valuable but confused baggage.

[sistermagpie]

Just watched EST Men and wow, they start laying the foundation for a lot of good, complex stuff right off the bat.

Stan first hears of the Russian defector that he’ll try to use to get Nina back—he and Oleg have just heard about Nina’s sentencing. Oleg reveals he’s begged his father to help her and still would, even knowing that Nina hid some meetings with Stan from the Centre. Oleg’s dad turns out to be a pretty great supporting character, imo. Here he’s introduced as being against corruption, so he’s already connected with the characters who will come to represent the “other side” of the USSR when it emerges.

Stan lamely tries to get points from Sandra for going to EST but has no idea what it’s even supposed to do for you. Sandra points out this was what he did in their marriage, said what he thought she wanted to hear instead of being honest. Stan gets defensive and says EST is stupid and Sandra pretty much already knew he thought that. It really shows how clueless Stan is about what’s really being asked of him by Sandra—or he’s just denying it. I maintain that Stan never really gets much better at this.

On first viewing I thought the EST scene was a funny one-off. But while Stan, like Elizabeth, is far too closed off to give it a chance (though Elizabeth isn’t afraid to report her contempt of it in a way she thinks is being honest), we now know Philip’s going to take to it. So this time around I tried to listen to the EST talk more closely. The writers have said they knew Philip wouldn’t go to therapy but wanted to give him some version of it.

The EST guy talks about living in the moment and how orgasms and life endangerment are two moments where you’re most likely to do that. Makes sense this would strike something in Philip who does those things frequently *without* being in the moment—his mind is on his job and his training instead. So it does make sense, especially now that he’s in a real marriage, that he sees the value in being in the moment. This makes a nice contrast to his Kama Sutra scene with Martha where he’s not only in disguise and faking a marriage but keeping one eye on the book to make sure he’s doing the position right. Martha’s into it—Philip clearly is not. Despite his “make it real” lessons.

Btw, I visited the set while they were filming a few episodes after this and in the writers room there was a whiteboard breaking scenes down by type. Before I was rushed out (wasn’t supposed to be in there it turns out) I saw they had a breakdown under violence/sex that included Philip/Anneleise blow joy and Clark/Martha Kama sutra. I thought I was seeing a breakdown of the season. I had no idea Philip would get this busy in one episode!

The big thing here is the return of Gabriel and P&E’s differences on the 2nd Gen program. Gabriel, to me, is immediately believable as a longtime mentor; he very much seems like a parental figure with his grown kids, as opposed to Claudia’s later life stepmother. Even when Elizabeth is playing whatever we call it with Claudia in S6 there’s still no affection or real intimacy that I sense. There’s so many parent/child relationships and styles in play in this ep. Stan, btw, missed a weekend with Matthew for EST so at this point the Beemans are trying to maintain frequent visits b/w father and son that Stan will not be able to keep up-and I realize now that those scenes might be foreshadowing Elizabeth and Henry just a bit.

Gabriel cooks for P&E, and Elizabeth brings him ice cream. Elizabeth makes brownies for the church that she won’t let Philip touch, then later brings him one like a peace offering. Pastor Tim orders in pizza for his volunteers. Noting this because I think it’s easy to overlook how important food is in the show, especially for Philip. As annoying as the wheat storyline could be, food is always connected to emotions with Philip. Elizabeth is more likely to talk about food insecurity, but it’s a much deeper issue with Philip, including in these two instances.

The biggest issue in the Gabriel scene (besides Elizabeth proudly bringing him the 80s ice cream sensation Frusen Glädjé, which she says is from Sweden!) there’s Elizabeth going to church with Paige and revealing, to Philip’s horror, how much she’s been grooming her. P&E also both have protégés in this ep: Anneliese and introducing Hans.

Anneliese is clearly a real person w/a lot going on inside her. In her first ep Philip said she was half off her rocker and while that’s a cruel way to put it, he was noting a reality. Her mercurial party-girl demeanor masks real insecurity, a desire to be respected and loved—and possibly depression imo. She was a dangerous person to use this way and Philip knows it—he denied it to get what he wanted and pays for it here when Yousef kills her. This is what Philip afterward always imagines when he thinks of making someone a spy.

That said, after the murder Philip again shows his skill at manipulating people. When he rushes into the hotel room he does a similar thing as when he woke up tied up in Fred’s apartment. He puts himself in the other man’s shoes and starts narrating to them what they’re thinking and who they are. It takes him mere seconds to snare Yousef and tell him what he knows he wants to hear: I can make this go away. Btw, it’s funny how different Philip looks when he dresses in earth tones. It’s very clever how Philip/the costume designers use that.

I said after the ep where Philip first talks Anneliese down after an outburst that we don’t really see Elizabeth ever doing that sort of thing with an asset about to go off (except once, imo, with Paige in S6). It’s surely intentional that Philip’s spy career focuses on his ability to hold on to longterm assets, emmpathetically adjusting himself to their changing needs. Elizabeth usually has more short term people—the one person we meet that we know was very longterm is Gregory who shared her pov and who knew her as herself.

This ep, in fact, starts with Elizabeth getting turned on by a CIA worker. (Their conversation, btw, is about how the woman’s daughter has decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps to the CIA!) I don’t think it’s a unintentional how uninterested Elizabeth seems to be in the woman’s personal problems in this scene either.

What Elizabeth also has is protégés. Last season she had Jared and Lucia, now she has Hans. The way P&E deal with assets reflect their views on parenting: Philip tries to give the person what they need emotionally even while manipulating them. Elizabeth thinks recruiting and training is good in itself. When she reports on Paige and her church to Gabriel, I don’t think she was fully aware how much she was assessing her all that time. She just couldn’t help it.

When Philip accuses her of it she answers simply, “She’s my daughter,” because she doesn’t really see a difference between parenting a child and developing an asset. (It means other things too—it’s a loaded line.) She thinks the goal of parenting is to mold the child into who they should be. For Philip, it’s giving them the tools they need to be who they want to be. He echoes Paige looking forward to the day she will be off to college and free--and again you can’t help but remember that she’s going to choose to stay home for college instead.

For all her disagreements about parenting with Philip, it’s clear who Elizabeth sees as the enemy here: the church. There’s even a little moment where Pastor Tim tries to play wingman to a boy in the youth group who likes Paige and Elizabeth gives him one of her “I will kill you” smiles. She sees Pastor Tim guiding what Paige’s life will be and should be and Elizabeth is making plans to usurp him. She doesn’t get that her real obstacle here is Paige *herself*, who will always be different from Elizabeth and who isn’t just a passive object they can fight over. (Again, when Paige asserted her independence as an individual Elizabeth only heard the ways she was like her mother.)

Elizabeth’s aggressive actions with Paige will give her the advantage over passive Philip throughout the show, but in the end his policy of encouraging Paige to be and think for herself and subtly supporting her own identity when he can is more in line with what she finally chooses. Even the one time he really asserts himself with her, he does it in the context of taking her seriously. That’s why the train moment is more about Elizabeth than Philip. This is also the ep where Elizabeth learns her own mother is dying, and throughout the season she’ll be rethinking that relationship without really admitting it.

Oh, and it’s also interesting now listening to her mother’s tape because her mother starts out saying how she’s been thinking about how when she came home from work she used to find Elizabeth sitting in the kitchen. Her mother would ask why she didn’t use the time to do something useful, but Elizabeth was just always like that. She liked to just think. That image is exactly echoed in the last season. After Paige rejects her, Elizabeth flashes back to a moment in training where she was also sitting at a table thinking, and she does it while sitting in the Jennings kitchen thinking. It seems like if she’s doing that, she’s being her true self—it kind of echoes the EST speech, in fact. It’s a moment where she stops running around concentrating on her mission and is just in the moment thinking. (Somehow fitting that the show threw that in there in dialogue they intentionally left untranslated.)

Hans has one scene, training with Elizabeth on how to follow a car. I know some remember Hans as having a long, detailed training period but I really don’t remember it that way so I’ll look out for that. In this first training scene you can’t help but think of Paige’s story in S6, of course. Some things Elizabeth does here are similar—she’s encouraging when Hans says he almost lost her once, advises him to accept that with only one person that might happen, similar to how she reassured Paige after the sailor.

But Hans already seems very different from Paige. He’s not in the kind of stressful situation she had with the sailor here so you can’t compare them as if he was, but still, he clearly understands what he’s doing and why. When Elizabeth says at one point he got too close he already knows what she means, he can explain what happened without being defensive, and accept the correction.

When Paige tells Elizabeth about the sailor she’s still highly agitated and unable to really objectively analyze her own actions. She takes responsibility by saying she’s sorry, but the only thing she can offer as critique is that maybe she shouldn’t have been reading. She concentrates more on how she did what she was supposed to do. At that point Paige would have had all the training Hans gets before he starts working and her lack of ability to do an objective post mortem is highlighted at least twice in that season. And while Elizabeth encourages Hans here, she also points out his flaws. With Paige she doesn’t, even though she’s still worried about it the next morning.

One other thing with the kids, there’s a scene where Henry’s watching TV and then Paige is. I wondered what the point of it was, then realized oh, this is showing us the kids have now outgrown babysitters, which they always had during the first 2 seasons. (People often describe the kids as home alone as children, but they weren’t—they had babysitters. Paige is nearly 15 at this point so she’s the babysitter--they separate, though, not even watching TV together.)

[ElectricBoogaloo]

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