The Americans - General Discussion

[sistermagpie]

Just watched David Copperfield—this is a biggie that required two posts! Seriously, this is one of two. A lot of the episode is a series of scenes where people’s surface harmony is disrupted when one of them speaks some inner truth that shows how they’re different, which reflects the fight(s) that P&E are having throughout.

When people preserve the lie, the interactions are smooth. For all the truth that’s come out between Clark and Martha, Philip isn’t threatening the foundational lie, that they’re both alone without each other. Martha almost creates a conflict when she points out she’ll have to learn a whole new language to start living again, but she knows Clark’s had to do that himself. If he can master articles, Martha can master the genitive case. Good luck, Martha!

Stan still doesn’t know Philip’s a Russian spy, so they have a nice scene where Stan unwittingly reveals to Philip that yes, the FBI was onto Martha so he saved her. Elizabeth and Young-Hee also have a good time—more on that later. Now on to the conflicts:

 

STAN AND GAAD

Stan runs into Gaad on Gaad’s way to get fired and tries to cheer him up with a story about a guy who expected to be fired but was really just called in to talk about his stamp collection. (I half expected Stan to remind Gaad of the time Stan himself ought to have been fired, but wound up sort of promoted instead.) Gaad rejects that story by pointing out the truth--he’s getting fired. Post time-jump Gaad advises Stan to remember the truth about Oleg lurking beneath whatever polite exterior he presents to Stan.

Of course, Gaad also rolls his eyes at Stan’s new by-the-book boss. Does he really have room to do that given why he was fired?

Btw, I wonder if Stan assumes Clark left with Martha since they were married. Not that this is logical, but the last ep suggested that Stan needed to believe in the truth of Clark/Martha because of Nina.

 

GABRIEL AND CLAUDIA

After Gabriel complains to Claudia about dealing with the feuding Jennings, Claudia says P&E just don’t have the same life experience as their handlers. This time it’s Gabriel who rejects that surface connection, reminding Claudia that he and she are not of the same generation. Claudia is always connected to WWII (as is Elizabeth), Gabriel is more connected to the Purges (as Philip will also be) when Russia was eating its own.

 

ELIZABETH AND PAIGE

The scene where Elizabeth reads Paige the riot act is one of the most memorable of the show. Elizabeth was always be the one remembered in it, since she has that great outburst over Paige’s seeming inability to not comprehend the situation she’s in.

But on rewatch, I realize that the scene’s much more important for Paige herself—this is the last day we’ll see her in this hairstyle. By the end of the ep, she’ll be in the Low Ponytail of Lost Hope she’ll wear until S6. Exactly how important it is for her still doesn’t quite come across. I mean, we get that it’s more than just laziness that makes Paige not want to go to Bible Study, that what’s being asked of her is a lot. But it still feels pretty generic resentment of having to do stuff she doesn’t like doing.

I wonder if it would come across differently if Paige played the beginning of the scene more casually, as if she knows she’s trying to get away with something, hoping that if she’s casual Elizabeth will also think it’s casual. Then get more desperate as Elizabeth matches her fake-casual with fake-patience, with her line about needing to talk at Bible Study being more meaningful.

Paige’s main desire throughout the show is intimate relationships, something she believes she can’t have without 100% truth. This is logical, given she grew up looking at her parents’ relationship from the outside and being lied to. Being “not a liar” is a core part of her identity she’s claimed for herself, and she’s always fighting hard to defend her identity against Elizabeth’s influence especially.

Since finding out the secret, she’s found passive-aggressive ways to fight for that. Her parents tell her not to tell, she tells Pastor Tim. They tell her to make nice with him, she gets angry with him. They tell her to forgive him, she tells him her parents say she’s supposed to forgive him. Bible study was one of the first places Paige probably really felt like she was talking as herself and being listened to; that’s why she thinks people will notice if she’s not “in the mood.” She’s trying to carve out this space for herself. Unfortunately, that leads to Elizabeth planting her own flag right in the middle of that space and laying the truth bare.

Many have commented on how this turns P&E into Paige’s handlers as well as her parents, but what’s maybe more important is that this is where Paige begins to create her understanding of what spying is: reporting on people you know. She’s being a source here, like Martha. She’s not creating a relationship to manipulate people. As hard as it is for Paige to fake always wanting to have fun with the Tims, it’s impossible for her to accept the next step of having no real feelings for the Tims at all. To Paige, spying is about offering up a real relationship for potential info, not creating a relationship exclusively for info.

 

HENRY

Henry has started to notice his parents swooping in on Paige as soon as she gets home, but we now know it has the opposite effect on him as it did Paige. He wants to get away from the weirdness. Also, there’s a mention of Henry getting extra help with Spanish—yet another reminder of how closely his parents monitor his not-great schoolwork. (Despite him doing badly in Spanish, I can totally see him learning Russian independently post-show—Henry learns well when self-motivated.) Henry’s also hanging out with Matthew rather than Stan. (And despite Paige spending way more happy fun times with them than Henry spends with Stan, nobody considers the Tims Paige’s parents.)

 

THE TIMS

Pastor Tim and Alice are pregnant now, which I think is important for Pastor Tim’s own arc in the show, even if it isn’t laid out explicitly. More on that in later eps if it seems to pan out.

Edited January 3, 2022 by sistermagpie

[sistermagpie]

Onto the main event.

PHILIP

I was always surprised when people thought Philip actually missed Martha, like he enjoyed her as a domestic haven. To me it seems clearly the opposite. Martha disrupted his domestic haven and however much he valued her as a source, it’s a personal relief to him that she’s gone.

Despite his frazzled appearance, Philip’s still barreling forward here. He’s looking ahead to playing hockey again, which is a team sport. So he’s not just craving the physical exercise, but a social thing. He visits Gene’s grave, is already pestering Gabriel about contacting Martha’s parents and asks about his son (once more he’s connected to separated families). I know some found him insufferable here and I get it, but he can’t help but be so given what he’s objecting to. And it’s probably significant that despite Elizabeth’s derision and Gabriel’s disapproval, Philip does not stop going to EST.

 

ELIZABETH

It’s really Elizabeth who’s got a lot a big story in this ep, dealing with her own agents (Paige included). All season we’ve seen Elizabeth trying to claim Young-Hee for her real life as if they’re really friends—in this ep, too, she tells Philip she “snacked with Young-hee” during the day in that same tone she often uses, like a girl talking about the things she and her new cool friend do together.

She calls Young-Hee because she’s mad at Philip and tells her she rarely goes to the movies because she always thinks she ought to be doing something useful instead (which her mother always told her when she was a child). Iow, she’s at the movies now doing something she considers useful—working Young-Hee.

People have often said that Elizabeth compartmentalizes better than Philip, but I think they just do it differently. Philip allows himself real feelings for people like Martha, but he never forgets he’s manipulating her. Elizabeth usually draws a line between friends and sources. With Young-Hee, she’s doing the worst thing she could, using her job as permission to have fun with Young-Hee while being in denial about what she’s doing to her. Maybe because Young-Hee isn’t the real target she thinks it’ll be safe, but in general Elizabeth’s talent for denial is central to her character.

Young-Hee herself even points the danger out, confessing she feels guilty for making “Patty” a Mary Kay rep to get money for herself (Mary Kay is an MLM scheme, right?), mixing money with friendship. Elizabeth brushes this off as Patty, but doesn’t seem to dwell on the connection. In fact, she’ll use this idea instead to attack Philip, suggesting he couldn’t really be getting anything out of EST since they want his money.

At the end of the ep Elizabeth meets with Lisa, in the most tragic truth-telling scenes. Poor Lisa seems to believe the best of everyone who’s helped her at some point, both her jerk husband Maurice and her friend Michelle. She’s worried her friend and fellow AA member will fall off the wagon too if she doesn’t dump “Jack,” the person Lisa thinks is the villain here. Maurice, of course, never shared his correct suspicions about what Michelle was with his wife before he ran off with all her money.

Lisa and Martha are different people in different situations with their handlers, but I still do think this is meant as an example of how Elizabeth’s attitude/style makes her more suited for short-term jobs. Lisa is the longest source (as opposed to a recruit like Hans or Gregory) we ever see her work—we meet her at the end of S2. Yet in this scene we see how Elizabeth and Lisa don’t have the kind of relationship that will allow Elizabeth to calm her down once she decides to confess what she’s been doing.

Sure, Clark/Philip has an advantage as Martha’s husband etc., but I think it’s more than that. Elizabeth’s relationship with Lisa has just never progressed beyond the original one they formed. Philip’s characters evolve along with his sources. “Michelle” isn’t as full a person as Clark or Jim is. Clark even had a scene like this with Martha when she was ready to run home to her parents. And obviously it’s not like Elizabeth could have done what he did here. Lisa might have wound up the same way if Philip was working her. But I do think we’re meant to contrast Elizabeth’s colder attitude toward sources not just with Philip’s care for Martha, but the different outcomes. She got to Lisa by providing her with practical things she needed and didn’t address her emotional issues beyond that.

Elizabeth also attends EST, listening to an incredibly on the nose speech about how maybe she wouldn’t know what to do if she was let out of her cage. I doubt whatever she’s thinking there is the way the audience would see it. Maybe she’s worried about Philip only being with her because he was locked in a cage with her? But in any case, there’s no way this speech wouldn’t feel threatening to her, even if she didn’t know all the reasons why.

Otoh, the minute Gabriel opens their cage to give them a break, it’s Elizabeth who says what they should do: take the kids to EPCOT.

 

PHILIP AND ELIZABETH

These two have three big fights in the timeline of the series that are really the same fight three times. (S1 when Elizabeth kicks Philip out, here, and then in S6.) Each fight even involves a woman—first Irina, then Martha here, and eventually Kimmy. I was trying to boil down this fight to its most basic conflict which, in their eyes, I think is: He’s a traitor; she’s a snitch.

Usually, P&E’s differences make them a good pair. On the temperamental level, someone who needs control and is aggressive like Elizabeth needs a partner who’s easy-going and passive. But at the same time, someone who isn’t a doormat. Philip picks his fights, but when he thinks he’s right he doesn’t back down, even if he loses the battle, like with Paige.

Their different perspectives also help each other. I said earlier that both of them have exes who seem more like them on the surface, while not being them underneath (Gregory chooses death; Irina chooses to run). That means that when their exes challenge them, they challenge them in their own voice. Gregory tells Elizabeth what she tells herself, that Philip makes her weak, that the cause is all that matters, that she’ll never be a real wife and mother. Likewise, Irina tells Philip the Centre doesn’t care about him, that he’s doing terrible things, that he deserves a real life.

But when they challenge each other, they hear what they deny in themselves. Elizabeth denies how much she wants love and loves her family. Philip denies how far he’ll go for the sake of the Motherland. Again, they work well together.

But when they get stressed and fight, they’re dealing with the fears they have over these differences and need reassurance about—and that ironically makes both of them act in ways that seem to prove the other’s fears correct. It’s laid out most obviously in S1—and it sort of neatly parallels the State/Citizen situation in the USSR.

In S1, Philip he sleeps with Irina and lies about it, proving Elizabeth was right not to trust him. But he also did that after learning Elizabeth had informed on him to the KGB and disavowed him and their family to Gregory, proving she couldn’t be trusted. Elizabeth doesn’t trust Philip because he’s secretive and likes too many things—so might not be loyal to her or the cause. Philip doesn’t trust Elizabeth because she puts the Cause/State over people—so might not be loyal to him or the family.

He’s a traitor; she’s a snitch.

In this ep, they have three scenes of conflict.

 

ROUND 1

Philip is lying on the couch reading and Elizabeth is watching him—exactly like the scene in S1 when she confronts him about sleeping with Irina. She’s looking at him unsure of what could be going on in his head. She asks him where Paige is. Philip answers her by talking about what he considers Paige’s actual life (she’s doing a food drive at church), Elizabeth only wants to hear about what she considers Paige’s actual life (did she say anything about the Tims?).

Elizabeth asks about Martha, seemingly expecting something for her patience and compassion over the last few days—an apology, some gratefulness. Instead, Philip is, as always, closed off about Martha.

So Elizabeth asks about the book he’s reading. By now her friendly interest is obviously fake, barely concealing her irritation as she asks if his EST book is “helping.” Philip says yes, it’s made him realize something…that he wants to play hockey again. To Elizabeth, this seems like another dodge since how could anyone “realize” anything about hockey?

Elizabeth goes for her cigarettes, which are often associated with her focusing on work, and marches out to call Young-Hee. After she leaves, Philip puts down the book and sighs, indicating that no, he wasn’t being open with Elizabeth just now. They’re already falling into the bad pattern

 

ROUND 2

Elizabeth arrives home in a better mood after hanging out with Young-Hee just after Philip’s learned they were right to get Martha out. She acknowledges that Philip was right after all. Then…well, it seems like she’s trying to be nice about Martha, but is, imo, simply awful, insulting both him and Martha. Martha, she says, is a simple woman, so she can listen to Philip’s more tedious feelings that are beneath Elizabeth’s understanding. Again, she’s proving to Philip why he’s right to instinctively protect Martha from her, because Elizabeth doesn’t see her as a person worthy of respect. And she’s doing it right after Martha was at her most dignified.

But Philip doesn’t seem to understand that Elizabeth is actually insecure about Martha, and maybe that’s why she can’t talk about her without cutting her down. And that also makes sense since Philip lived with Elizabeth 15 years without her being interested in him and since she’s so objectively desirable. This is one area where his love for her is a blind spot.

So she winds up sounding to him like a monster being cruel to Martha; he winds up sounding to her like a man sensitive about the woman he loves.

 

ROUND 3

By the time Elizabeth returns from EST whatever good intentions she had in going seem to be gone. In fact, this is one of those moments where we, imo, see how similar she and Stan are. Both went to EST begrudgingly, as if doing their partner a favor. Elizabeth’s dismissal of EST as a money scheme also reminded me of the time in S2 when Sandra’s listening to a guy on PBS in hopes of saving her marriage and Stan dismisses the guy as just suckering people for money.

Elizabeth’s really nasty the way she does this here, though. She starts off claiming she can see how EST might help without actually saying anything *she* got from it—she simply describes what happens there. Philip moves a little closer to her, like a squirrel nervously approaching someone holding out a nut. That’s when she rolls out the derision, how it’s just about money and he’s being manipulated. She’s even ready for Philip’s too-cliché “you don’t get it” response, since that’s also part of the marketing scheme.

The money is no doubt Elizabeth’s favorite part of EST, because she can attack it with ideology. Maybe that’s also what makes her more threatening here. Philip is, once again, guilty of Thought Crimes she’s tricked him into admitting, and now he will be reeducated.

I think this might be the reason that I feel like Elizabeth gets better lines in the fight. She says what I’d like to have said if I were her, where Philip seems to ignore all the most obvious attacks he could make. Maybe because his position really is more risky (and he’s still working through it). Philip isn’t sad about Martha because he loved her or wanted her around, he’s questioning the morality of what they’ve done to her and for what.

Elizabeth hits back by comparing Martha to Gregory, which opens up a whole different can of worms. She uses him to remind Philip that she sent off an agent she loved to die too—behavior she actually considers admirable. But Gregory isn’t just an agent, he was the guy she wanted to be with more than Philip. When he accuses her of still “thinking about” Gregory he doesn’t mean she’s thinking about him as an agent, he means she wants him.

For Elizabeth, these two things probably go together since she mistakenly thinks that Philip feels similarly about Martha. But he simply couldn’t “think about” Martha the way Elizabeth could think about Gregory. And given that they’re fighting about, once again, Philip’s traitorous impulses vs. Elizabeth’s snitchy impulses, Gregory’s name can’t be invoked as anything other than just what Philip describes him as, the love of Elizabeth’s life when she was stuck with Philip.

One thing I really don’t get is why Philip looks so surprised when Elizabeth throws Irina back in his face. Like, how could he not have expected her to have that ready, even if he doesn’t get her insecurity?

The fight’s interrupted by Gabriel’s call and it’s kind of interesting to me what Elizabeth does there. Because on one hand, she’s obviously dying to run to teacher about Philip’s misbehavior, knowing that Gabriel will take her side. But otoh, she doesn’t actually say it herself. It’s sort of there, held over Philip’s head until he himself confesses it and says he’s not ashamed of it. It’s funny that Elizabeth complains that Philip only wants to talk to a roomful of strangers in a hotel about his problems given in S6 she doesn’t think anything he has to say is worth hearing.

Also…Gabriel knows EST? Wonder if there's a story there.

[greekmom]

Totally forgot about this show and never watching it when it originally aired.

I did read up on the finale though. So far I am on season 1 episode 4.

1. hoping for more backstory on Philip and Elizabeth and those early years when she was pregnant with the kids.

2. Don't understand why anyone would want to go back to Mother USSR.  I do understand patriotism and ideology and how that twists you (see Gregory) but these two lived in Russia and were poor. Seeing how they live a decent life and can afford what they want or work to afford what they want, why would anyone want to go back to bread lines and food shortages!??!

[Roseanna]

On 1/14/2022 at 7:18 PM, greekmom said:

2. Don't understand why anyone would want to go back to Mother USSR.  I do understand patriotism and ideology and how that twists you (see Gregory) but these two lived in Russia and were poor. Seeing how they live a decent life and can afford what they want or work to afford what they want, why would anyone want to go back to bread lines and food shortages!??!

People have of course a right to seek a better life, but I don't think that a patriot can abandon her country in the time when her destiny is decided for a long time - at least if her life and liberty isn't in danger. One can never know beforehand for sure what happens until one has done all one can.

Regarding the lack of food, although it's well known that forced collectivization and driving away the "kulaks" broke down the Soviet agriculture, it's still odd that the situation became worse in 70ies and 80ies. Whereas the USSR had in the 60ies bought grain from abroad only in 1964-6, in the 70ies it was only in 1970, 1971 and 1974 that she didn't do that. And whereas in 1972 she bought grain 571 million tons, in 1984 she bought already 6602 tons.

In the same time, the only product that the Soviet Union could sell to the world market in great quantities was oil, so she became dependent on its price which began to decline in the middle of 80ies.

The necessary economic reforms were politically impossible because they would have broken the (unofficial) pact between the government and the people. 

In the end, the country had used even all her currency and gold to buy grain and had huge debts to the Western banks. 

[Roseanna]

Continuening: let's remember that in the end of the show P&E had only two options: either to rot in the US prison or return to the USSR (where they no doubt were privileged enough not to need to stand in queue).

Besides, having led their own travel agency, they had business experiences of just that kind that the country needed. They could have made a fortune in the 90ies when most Russians have no knowledge nor understanding about Capitalism.

Worse still, even the members of the Politbyroo had had no information about their own economy. And when Gorbachev as a new member, asked to see the budget of the state, Andropov just laughed - it was a top secret!

As you maybe remember, Gorbachev's campaign against alcoholism that shortened the Soviet men's life failed: when the production of alcohol was cut, men simply began to make vodka on their own. But that meant they bought sugar whose stocks lessened. Also the selling of products including spirits, f.ex. cologne, tooth paste and glue, increased. On the top of it, the state got less money for selling of alcohol in the situation where there was a serious fiscal crisis. Not to mention that the campaign against alcohol was very unpopular and caused even hatred against the government.

  

[sistermagpie]

On 1/27/2022 at 6:10 AM, Roseanna said:

Continuening: let's remember that in the end of the show P&E had only two options: either to rot in the US prison or return to the USSR (where they no doubt were privileged enough not to need to stand in queue).

Besides, having led their own travel agency, they had business experiences of just that kind that the country needed. They could have made a fortune in the 90ies when most Russians have no knowledge nor understanding about Capitalism.

Yeah, I feel like their personal grief (both about their children and later the failure of their cause--and even no longer having a clear purpose) will far outweigh any challenges in the lifestyle. Elizabeth has trained herself for a long time to take pride in living with less so probably wouldn't allow herself to admit to missing anything. And Philip really does seem like he'd just adapt to whatever. I always felt like on some level he never thought a comfortable life could last and that was part of his justification for enjoying it and he'd already learned that more doesn't mean happy.

Plus, I think holding each other up will help them both. They were probably in the long run so, so lucky that Paige hopped off. I can't see her being anything but mostly a source of stress and misery if she was with them.

[Zella]

I didn't really think Elizabeth and Philip would find the logistics of the shortages and challenges of living in the late Soviet period as difficult to navigate as realizing how clueless they'd been about what life was like back home when they were in America, so a lot of the facts they'd heard and dismissed as propaganda or lies was actually true. That'd have to sting some personal pride, especially since they were so incredibly dismissive of any bad reports from there. 

And I also always assumed that what would be harder especially for Elizabeth would be to have what they'd sacrificed so much for (the Soviet Union) just collapse within a matter of years of them returning. She always seemed far more hardcore as a Marxist than Philip, so I don't see her handling that well or being very interested in dabbling in capitalism there once it was legal to do so. 

I also think they both remained more clueless about capitalism/entrepreneurship than their thriving business indicated. In fact, I suspect Stavos was a big part of what made their agency successful, and that it's no coincidence the business starts foundering when Philip becomes more involved and pushes Stavos out of management and into sales. 

Edited January 29, 2022 by Zella

[Domestic Assassin]

12 hours ago, Zella said:

I also think they both remained more clueless about capitalism/entrepreneurship than their thriving business indicated. In fact, I suspect Stavos was a big part of what made their agency successful, and that it's no coincidence the business starts foundering when Philip becomes more involved and pushes Stavos out of management and into sales. 

I don't think Stavos was ever management. I read it as just as Elizabeth was floundering as a spy working alone, Philip also needed Elizabeth at the travel agency for it to run successfully. Their strengths and weaknesses complimented each other in both endeavors, and they were both necessary checks on the others' excesses. But I agree that it seems unlikely to me that they (Elizabeth especially) would enthusiastically embrace capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union and become successful businesspeople as I've seen so many people theorize. 

Edited January 29, 2022 by Domestic Assassin

[Zella]

1 hour ago, Domestic Assassin said:

I don't think Stavos was ever management. I read it as just as Elizabeth was floundering as a spy working alone, Philip also needed Elizabeth at the travel agency for it to run successfully. Their strengths and weaknesses complimented each other in both endeavors, and they were both necessary checks on the others' excesses. But I agree that it seems unlikely to me that they (Elizabeth especially) would enthusiastically embrace capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union and become successful businesspeople as I've seen so many people theorize. 

You're probably right, but during the course of the show, they spent increasingly little time at the agency even before Philip retired. Stavos was always the one who seemed to be dealing with the minute details of logistics when they weren't there and he seemed competent at it. He may not have technically been management, but he seems like he was the de facto day-to-day manager of much of what was going on when they weren't there. 

I actually find the idea of the show from Stavos's perspective hilariously fascinating. "I think my bosses are spies, but I just really need them to stop plotting espionage for five seconds to sign off on this form."

[Domestic Assassin]

I remember a podcast interview with the showrunners (with Emily Van Der Werff maybe?) suggesting a prequel series "Better Summon Stavos"!

[sistermagpie]

23 hours ago, Zella said:

I didn't really think Elizabeth and Philip would find the logistics of the shortages and challenges of living in the late Soviet period as difficult to navigate as realizing how clueless they'd been about what life was like back home when they were in America, so a lot of the facts they'd heard and dismissed as propaganda or lies was actually true. That'd have to sting some personal pride, especially since they were so incredibly dismissive of any bad reports from there. 

Though it seems like not dismissing it was part of what made Philip reconsider what he was doing. Like when the defector was talking about how terrible things were there, Elizabeth dismissed it but Philip asked why they couldn't make their own wheat, and he was reading the US papers and believing some things about the attitude changing. Although maybe his biggest advantage was just admitting that he didn't know what it was like there now.

23 hours ago, Zella said:

I also think they both remained more clueless about capitalism/entrepreneurship than their thriving business indicated. In fact, I suspect Stavos was a big part of what made their agency successful, and that it's no coincidence the business starts foundering when Philip becomes more involved and pushes Stavos out of management and into sales. 

 

9 hours ago, Zella said:

You're probably right, but during the course of the show, they spent increasingly little time at the agency even before Philip retired. Stavos was always the one who seemed to be dealing with the minute details of logistics when they weren't there and he seemed competent at it. He may not have technically been management, but he seems like he was the de facto day-to-day manager of much of what was going on when they weren't there. 

I've heard this suggested before, that Philip getting more involved messed things up because Stavos was running the place, but it just to totally go against what we see imo. Because we *do* see the Jennings--particularly Philip--working the day to day stuff at the agency. There's not a single scene where anybody has to go to Stavos for questions on that level at all. In fact, it seems like more often Stavos is asking them about stuff that he wouldn't be if they weren't a constant at the place.

We see fewer scenes at the agency at some points, but I think they're both supposed to be still going there day to day. There's scenes in seasons 3, 4 and 5 where they're dealing with minutia there. Since we see the Jennings themselves doing bookings and dealing with clients and it's a small company, it seems unlikely there's this one single job that doesn't involve sales and Stavos must have been good at it since he's not good very good at sales.

Also, that whole business with the client switching companies happens because Philip has more people to manage and has now delegated their account to Stavos. If Philip wasn't that involved in the business, he wouldn't be personally selling this family a vacation for years.  He fails them because he's become *less* involved day to day business because he expanded, not causing trouble by suddenly getting involved. (That way it parallels his leaving the "saving the world" stuff up to others.)

Plus, and maybe this is subjective, but to me everything Stavos does in handling that situation with the family makes it clear he's used to being an employee who just does his job and is managed by Philip, not the guy with his eye on the bigger business picture. Even when he's chewing Philip out for firing him he doesn't speak as the guy who ran the place successfully without Philip, he speaks to him as a loyal employee who thought something shady was being run out of the office and looked the other way.

11 hours ago, Domestic Assassin said:

I don't think Stavos was ever management. I read it as just as Elizabeth was floundering as a spy working alone, Philip also needed Elizabeth at the travel agency for it to run successfully. Their strengths and weaknesses complimented each other in both endeavors, and they were both necessary checks on the others' excesses. But I agree that it seems unlikely to me that they (Elizabeth especially) would enthusiastically embrace capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union and become successful businesspeople as I've seen so many people theorize. 

Yeah, that's more how I saw it. They were both doing things that were familiar, but became different once they were the only ones doing it. 

Also wrt what they would do afterwards, just their English skills and knowledge of the US would probably have a lot of uses. But in the end it seemed like both of them wanted to do something good in the world. As Matthew Rhys said, Philip had sort of had a dream of "making it" in business, but he'd realized that it wasn't his dream--probably just like Elizabeth realized living and dying for the Cause wasn't as fulfilling as she'd once thought. So I'd imagine them both eagerly agreeing that they wanted to do something to help people rather than making money a priority.

[Zella]

10 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Though it seems like not dismissing it was part of what made Philip reconsider what he was doing. Like when the defector was talking about how terrible things were there, Elizabeth dismissed it but Philip asked why they couldn't make their own wheat, and he was reading the US papers and believing some things about the attitude changing. Although maybe his biggest advantage was just admitting that he didn't know what it was like there now.

Yes he did come around and question it first, as Philip was prone to doing, but he still initially assumed that  Alexei was plotting to poison Soviet wheat and was lying/exaggerating.

That's a fair point about Stavos, though I am not entirely sure what he was supposed to be doing beforehand since he clearly is so bad at sales but has been there from the beginning and isn't characterized as generally incompetent. I will say that Philip firing him perhaps made me madder than just about anything Philip did during the entire course of the show. I didn't even spend that much time thinking about Stavos beforehand, but I think it was one of his shittier non-spy-related moves. The gasp I gasped when Stavos let him know he knew they were up to something illegal/nefarious all along was real. LOL

Edited January 30, 2022 by Zella

[Roseanna]

37 minutes ago, Zella said:

Yes he did come around and question it first, as Philip was prone to doing, but he still initially assumed that  Alexei was plotting to poison Soviet wheat and was lying/exaggerating.

I wouldn't like Alexei, either, because he is totally black-white: all is bad in Russia, all is wonderful in America (and because he doesn't care a bit that his son is miserable in the school and hasn't got any friend). He is a scientist, so he should have more complicated views (I admit that it's difficult in the drama). 

If one wants to change the other's views, Alexei's method seldom works - although of course he thought that his neighbors were ordinary Americans and were glad to hear things like that.  

As for poisoning the wheat, it was unlikely but not wholly impossible, if one remembers some US projects towards Cuba. It was better to find out, not to dismiss out of hand. 

[Zella]

6 minutes ago, Roseanna said:

I wouldn't like Alexei, either, because he is totally black-white: all is bad in Russia, all is wonderful in America (and because he doesn't care a bit that his son is miserable in the school and hasn't got any friend). He is a scientist, so he should have more complicated views (I admit that it's difficult in the drama). 

Eh I would have found Alexei a little hard to take in person, but I didn't blame him for his views. As the season unwinds, it seems pretty clear that he does have more complicated thoughts about home and that a lot of his anger at the USSR is driven by frustration, which I found pretty understandable. In some ways, I felt like a lot of his more bombastic comments to the Jennings about the Soviet Union was posturing from someone who thought he was talking to Americans and was relieved to have escaped and trying to make the impression that was expected of him, which he drops as he thinks he gets to know Philip better. 

And I never interpreted him as uncaring toward his son. If anything, I always thought his very sad observation that Pasha acted like a beaten dog was a pretty telling glimpse at how much more perceptive he was about it than his wife (who got pretty distracted with her affair) but also how powerless he felt to do anything about Pasha's situation. Going back home was simply not an option for him. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by Zella

[sistermagpie]

13 hours ago, Zella said:

Yes he did come around and question it first, as Philip was prone to doing, but he still initially assumed that  Alexei was plotting to poison Soviet wheat and was lying/exaggerating.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to suggest that Philip is really prepared for what he's going to find in the USSR. I just think he's got a bit more of an advantage in that he is in general more open to not knowing than Elizabeth. I love how at the end they echo their attitudes in the pilot. Back then Philip said America seemed "brighter" in person than he expected while Elizabeth insisted she could feel a weakness in the people there. He's processing his feelings as they come and holding back on conclusions; she's focused on the attitude they need to survive. Back home Philip says it "feels strange" and Elizabeth just they'll get used to it. Not as something they're going to be doing or have to do, but that they will do it, period.

It's a good combination--as usual.

13 hours ago, Zella said:

That's a fair point about Stavos, though I am not entirely sure what he was supposed to be doing beforehand since he clearly is so bad at sales but has been there from the beginning and isn't characterized as generally incompetent. I will say that Philip firing him perhaps made me madder than just about anything Philip did during the entire course of the show. I didn't even spend that much time thinking about Stavos beforehand, but I think it was one of his shittier non-spy-related moves. The gasp I gasped when Stavos let him know he knew they were up to something illegal/nefarious all along was real. LOL

My personal take was that Stavos was perfectly fine at what he did for years, but he wasn't cut out for the more aggressive sales environment he was suddenly in. It was a shitty thing to do and seemed like it was meant to be an example of capitalism. Even if Stavos hadn't turned out to have suspicions about him that were totally shocking--he probably would have missed him. Just as it's wrong to look at people as pawns in the Socialist state, if you look at them only as numbers on a spreadsheet you miss their value just a much.

Though I guess Philip did how some loyalty to him in not killing him right there. LOL. For a second he gets his cold kill face on when Stavos is unwisely telling him this!

12 hours ago, Zella said:

Eh I would have found Alexei a little hard to take in person, but I didn't blame him for his views. As the season unwinds, it seems pretty clear that he does have more complicated thoughts about home and that a lot of his anger at the USSR is driven by frustration, which I found pretty understandable. In some ways, I felt like a lot of his more bombastic comments to the Jennings about the Soviet Union was posturing from someone who thought he was talking to Americans and was relieved to have escaped and trying to make the impression that was expected of him, which he drops as he thinks he gets to know Philip better. 

Also, I think he was trying to convince himself he'd made the right choice since his family was so very very miserable. And while Philip I think early on said he didn't like the guy or wasn't sure he liked him or something like that (Philip doesn't like many people!) I think he did realize there was more to it than that. Presumably the whole thing with Pasha informs Philip's own decision to not take Henry with him because he doesn't want to be Alexei. Though originally it makes him tell Henry he can't go away to school because he doesn't want the family split up. 

In fact, it was probably logical that "Brad" was the person Alexei admitted things to--about things he missed in the USSR. Because he didn't want to show any doubts to his family, even though it might have been a good thing.

12 hours ago, Zella said:

And I never interpreted him as uncaring toward his son. If anything, I always thought his very sad observation that Pasha acted like a beaten dog was a pretty telling glimpse at how much more perceptive he was about it than his wife (who got pretty distracted with her affair) but also how powerless he felt to do anything about Pasha's situation. Going back home was simply not an option for him. 

Yeah, I really hoped that in the future they could work things out. It was probably the worst time in Pasha's life to have uprooted him that way--no coincidence he's the same age as Henry. Things might have gotten better if Pasha really had found a friend, but of course Twan was intentionally making things worse. It's still hard to watch the parents not moving him to a different school, though, as if it couldn't possibly be different there. Are there no other Russian immigrants they could hook up with with kids?  No hobbies outside of school where the kid could make friends? Again, these are probably things the "real" Brad and (forget Elizabeth's fake name there--I keep wanting to say Janet) would suggest.

The guy also did moved them in a terrible way. I can understand him keeping his plans to defect from Pasha, since it seemed like he very well might have pulled a Paige (his name's uncomfortably close to the Soviet informer kid Pavel Morozov), but iirc he didn't tell his wife what he was planning either. 

[Zella]

21 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Yeah, I really hoped that in the future they could work things out. It was probably the worst time in Pasha's life to have uprooted him that way--no coincidence he's the same age as Henry. Things might have gotten better if Pasha really had found a friend, but of course Twan was intentionally making things worse. It's still hard to watch the parents not moving him to a different school, though, as if it couldn't possibly be different there. Are there no other Russian immigrants they could hook up with with kids?  No hobbies outside of school where the kid could make friends? Again, these are probably things the "real" Brad and (forget Elizabeth's fake name there--I keep wanting to say Janet) would suggest.

The guy also did moved them in a terrible way. I can understand him keeping his plans to defect from Pasha, since it seemed like he very well might have pulled a Paige (his name's uncomfortably close to the Soviet informer kid Pavel Morozov), but iirc he didn't tell his wife what he was planning either. 

Yes that whole thing was badly handled, and I could see all sides of it. I could see why Alexei felt he needed to bolt and why his wife and kid were miserable and felt blindsided. I don't really think there was a bad guy there within the family. It was unfortunate all around. 

That mission was one of the ones that bothered me the most. I never particularly cared about the Jenningses using people who were the equivalent of one-night stands. But when they used people who thought they were genuinely friends (like Young-hee or the Mozorovs), those were the hardest for me to watch. 

I do think that storyline was a big wakeup call for Philip at least that them suddenly defecting to the USSR and taking Henry was probably not going to resolve itself any better than it did for Pasha. It was always going to be a place that was not home to him that he was brought against his will. 

 

21 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

And while Philip I think early on said he didn't like the guy or wasn't sure he liked him or something like that (Philip doesn't like many people!) I think he did realize there was more to it than that.

He even says toward the end of the season that he still didn't particularly like him. LOL I can't remember his exact phrasing or which scene it was, but it was something along the lines of I am not saying I like the guy, but maybe he has a point. 

Edited to add: The scene I'm thinking of is in the final episode of the season after the shit hit the fan. Philip is trying to say that he actually feels sorry for Alexei after his family splintered apart and returned home and his kid almost killed himself. "I'm not even sure I like the guy, but. . . ."

Edited January 30, 2022 by Zella

[sistermagpie]

4 hours ago, Zella said:

He even says toward the end of the season that he still didn't particularly like him. LOL I can't remember his exact phrasing or which scene it was, but it was something along the lines of I am not saying I like the guy, but maybe he has a point. 

Edited to add: The scene I'm thinking of is in the final episode of the season after the shit hit the fan. Philip is trying to say that he actually feels sorry for Alexei after his family splintered apart and returned home and his kid almost killed himself. "I'm not even sure I like the guy, but. . . ."

That's the line! I remembered him saying it that way but wasn't sure. I like how precise he's trying to be. I can never predict who Philip's going to say he actually likes. The only person I remember is Fred from season 2!

There are a lot of things about Alexei I imagine he wouldn't like. Despite it all, he remains very patriotic so he probably hates Alexei shit all over the country. He could probably take some truth, but I think Philip can't help but actually root for the country, so it must be painful to hear the whole thing just mocked. Like everyone's too stupid to ever succeed at anything. So it makes sense to separate liking the guy from feeling sorry for him. He just couldn't. Otoh, there's probably a lot about the guy that just scares him.

[Zella]

3 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

That's the line! I remembered him saying it that way but wasn't sure. I like how precise he's trying to be. I can never predict who Philip's going to say he actually likes. The only person I remember is Fred from season 2!

After looking it up to check it, I was surprised that it was a little less conclusively opposed to him than I'd remembered. He definitely was trying to be precise in setting it out, and that was very Philip! 

Quote

Despite it all, he remains very patriotic so he probably hates Alexei shit all over the country. He could probably take some truth, but I think Philip can't help but actually root for the country, so it must be painful to hear the whole thing just mocked. Like everyone's too stupid to ever succeed at anything. So it makes sense to separate liking the guy from feeling sorry for him. He just couldn't. Otoh, there's probably a lot about the guy that just scares him.

Yes I always interpreted Philip's commitment as primarily to his country (the USSR), whereas I saw Elizabeth's as being much more motivated by Marxist ideology, though she certainly was patriotic too. It was an interesting dynamic. 

[Roseanna]

16 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Also, I think he was trying to convince himself he'd made the right choice since his family was so very very miserable. 

Yes, a person often speaks ultra surely when she isn't convinced herself. 

Or, Alexei has been in American only a short time - he is like a tourist to whom all is just new and wonderful. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Roseanna
added a sentence

[Roseanna]

16 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

The guy also did moved them in a terrible way. I can understand him keeping his plans to defect from Pasha, since it seemed like he very well might have pulled a Paige (his name's uncomfortably close to the Soviet informer kid Pavel Morozov), but iirc he didn't tell his wife what he was planning either. 

That! 

I remember a Soviet artist and his artist wife who, after being a long time pressured by the Soviet government, decided to ask the a permission to emigrate (not defect). They went before the icon and promised to each other that they would never accuse each other about the results of their decision. Which was really wise as one can never know *beforehand* what kind the life one will have and if one likes or not.    

[Roseanna]

11 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

There are a lot of things about Alexei I imagine he wouldn't like. Despite it all, he remains very patriotic so he probably hates Alexei shit all over the country. He could probably take some truth, but I think Philip can't help but actually root for the country, so it must be painful to hear the whole thing just mocked. Like everyone's too stupid to ever succeed at anything. So it makes sense to separate liking the guy from feeling sorry for him. He just couldn't. Otoh, there's probably a lot about the guy that just scares him.

Many people react like Philip. While they can criticize and even mock their country, no foreigner isn't allowed to do that.

I this case, however, Alexei believed that P&E were ordinary Americans. So it's probably that he also spoke things he believed that they wanted to hear. It's simply ordinary politeness. If he had known that they were, not spies of course but Russian Communists, he would have spoken in the different way to persuade them that they were wrong.   

[sistermagpie]

15 hours ago, Roseanna said:

Many people react like Philip. While they can criticize and even mock their country, no foreigner isn't allowed to do that.

I this case, however, Alexei believed that P&E were ordinary Americans. So it's probably that he also spoke things he believed that they wanted to hear. It's simply ordinary politeness. If he had known that they were, not spies of course but Russian Communists, he would have spoken in the different way to persuade them that they were wrong.   

Really, it's a nicely ironic punishment that Philip and Elizabeth are tricking this guy and therefore have to listen to an actual Russian person talking about how what they're doing is worthless. Not only can they not argue as alleged Americans, they can't argue about how things are in the country since he's the one who was recently living there. Plus they have Tuan criticizing them for not being ruthless enough.

[sistermagpie]

Just watched The Day After. This ep is really where the show stops playing out stuff from the beginning and starts setting up the end.

The opening of the actual TV movie The Day After just screams, “Look, it’s the REAL America—the HEARTLAND!” So gross.

 

STAN

Stan’s complaining that he’s got a boss who’s too strict now. Unsurprising, since Stan does not follow rules or even guidelines well. The new boss still isn’t going to be able to control him at all. He’s broken up with Tori (seems there were no hard feelings all around for the whole “your best friend’s having an affair with your ex-wife” incident though).

Bravo to the adorable aerobics class going on that Philip and Stan walk by. Stan volunteers information about where Gaad is here, which people thought would lead him to Philip in the end, but he never seems to remember doing it and it doesn’t seem like it was top secret info anyway, even if Philip did give the Centre the idea to do…whatever they were trying to do.

 

OLEG

At the time a lot of people were looking for a hidden, sinister agenda in both Tatiana and William, but the show really didn’t usually go that way. William isn’t trying to test Philip by telling him about the new toxin, he genuinely doesn’t want to decide what to do with it on his own. Just like Philip will tell Elizabeth about the Breland tape and Elizabeth will tell Philip about the suicide pill. In all those situations the person wants to do one thing, but thinks it might be wrong. Philip knows Elizabeth will tell them to stay in the US, Elizabeth knows Philip will tell her to destroy the cyanide pill. Only William probably has some doubt about what Philip might tell him to do. It’s in keeping with everyone trying to pass off that vial of Glanders earlier in the season. You can see how Team Oleg finally becomes stronger when they are a team.

Oleg and Tatiana’s reactions to the story of the near-averted nuclear war show their different povs, just as P&E’s reactions to TDA do. Oleg wonders hopes that he, personally, would have reported a false alarm like Petrov did; Tatiana asks who knows about it. She really does seem political through and through.

 

YOUNG-HEE and DON

I love how convoluted this operation turned out to be—months of complicated psy work for 15 minutes alone in an office. There was a lot of talk at the time about how Elizabeth destroyed her one true friendship with Young-Hee, but it wasn’t ever a real friendship since “Patty” isn’t Elizabeth. I do still wonder why Young-Hee doesn’t have a ton of other friends, though.

Having now seen Rob Yang in other things I admire his performance as Don even more. He embodies the guy he has to be for Elizabeth’s plan to work without coming across like some Korean immigrant stereotype.

It’s a nice little pattern for the show that any time somebody snoops around a married couples’ house they get some peek into their sex life. (There was a great joke on the original thread about how Don ought to have recognized Elizabeth luring him into her bed from the plots of his pornos.)

I’m still not quite sure if there’s meant to be a thematic link to the juxtaposition of Elizabeth’s stuff with Don and Paige driving. I do notice that the shot of Don passed out looks a lot like Annelise’s dead body in Baggage.

 

PAIGE

In an ep where Paige is described as burdened, her clothes seem like one more weight to carry. Like, take off your skirt outfit to lie on your bed and do homework, you’ll at least be more comfortable! Her outfits are maybe why her “she’s too depressed to do her hair” never quite comes across—and I really do wonder if as an adult her tastes went back to something more like her pre-S6 wardrobe.

I get that Pastor Tim might logically think Paige spends so much time at church as a refuge, but when he says she seems burdened while knowing she’s doing food bank two mornings a week, plus Bible study, plus youth group I can’t help but remember him as the guy who took $600.00 from a 14-year-old without blinking. (Of course, back then Paige was doing most of this stuff because she enjoyed it.)

I know many take Tim’s telling Philip that Paige is glum as a sign of how clueless P&E are as parents, but I think they both obviously know she’s burdened. They just know she has to suck it up. Philip does take her out in the Camaro to cheer her up. It works well enough that she’s later happily playing videogames with Henry, but once Elizabeth walks in with a fake headache, she’s back to her worry face.

Philip teaches Paige to drive; Elizabeth’s going to teach her to fight. They’re pretty consistent with how whenever they’re alone with Paige, Elizabeth slips in some work stuff (even if Paige doesn’t know that’s what it is) aimed at selling her on recruitment and turning her into Elizabeth while Philip encourages her to focus on her own life. Driving being even more significant, since it’s giving her independence. (He wanted to get her a ten speed for her birthday…)

This ep starts laying the foundation for some fundamental things for Paige’s future decisions. First: she’s fearful. Nervous in the car, worrying over TDA movie. Her feelings are mostly focused on two things: a general fear of a coming disaster and being left alone. There’s a specific shot of her when Jason Robards is calling “Is anyone there at all?” in the movie and later she says she’d just want them to be altogether when Armageddon happened.

These are the exact fears that eventually lead her to join Elizabeth. She’s even already started connecting her parents’ job with power and security when she asks Philip if he doesn’t know something about the state of the world through his work. I do think that by the time she tells Elizabeth she’s more afraid of being alone than dying in S6 she’s repeating something that motivated her for a long time and is no longer exactly true, though. Or at least not under the same terms.

It's also, I think, important that Philip is honest with her about also thinking about the threat and not honestly knowing if what he does is helping. It’s laying the foundation for Paige to reject that for Elizabeth’s reassurances that if Paige does what Elizabeth says, it will solve these problems. I suspect a lot of scenes where people thought Philip wasn’t doing the right thing for Paige are about that, in fact. He tells her she can deal with stuff if she faces it and at this point, she doesn’t think she can or doesn’t want to.

 

PHILIP

Philip, too, is getting his endgame put in place. He and William and Oleg are linked in not being satisfied with Cold War rhetoric. His reaction to TDA is to not want to contribute to deadly weapons being around to use, though ultimately, he’s still a child of WWII USSR who thinks it needs defending.

In a way, he’s the opposite of Paige there. She’ll eventually go through the motions of wanting to spy because it fills an emotional need, but isn’t motivated to do it with any competence or conviction. Philip can’t not spy it when he thinks it will help, even when it’s emotionally damaging to him.

In the end, William will intentionally infect himself with and die from the disease Philip encourages him to get here (and will be used offensively). Philip doesn’t die, but turns out to have similar impulses.

 

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth, of course, reacts to TDA by wanting to get that organ-melting toxin to the KGB asap.

She still tells herself that things are either duty or pleasure, so if she feels reluctant about what she’s doing to Young-Hee it’s because she’s weak and selfish, not because it’s morally wrong to destroy this family like she destroyed Lisa’s (and will damage her own).

First time round it seemed like the Young-Hee story was going to lead Elizabeth to have doubts like Philip, but while I do think it raises some doubts in that area, in retrospect it seems more about showing how Elizabeth can’t emotionally handle caring about her assets and how easily and deeply she’s able to live in denial. She spends months just not thinking about the conflict of interest with Young-Hee, talking about her as if she’s part of her real life as Elizabeth. In this ep she even mentions to Young-Hee that she had a strict mother too, which Elizabeth loves to almost brag about re: her own mother. “Patty’s” mother allegedly walked out on her. Not that she couldn’t have been strict before that, of course, but it feels like Elizabeth yet again just allowing herself to blur the lines for pleasure.

This op teaches her it’s better to hate her victims because it’s too confusing to her to like them and hurt them—so by S6 she seems almost dead emotionally. It also shows how she deals with things with denial. She puts off thinking about the pain she’s going to bring to Young-Hee, telling herself she’ll just find another way, just as she denies so many many things about Paige’s work in S6, ignoring Paige’s consistent failures, telling herself that Paige will magically improve, that she’ll just safely photocopy secret documents at some high-security government job, that she’ll never figure out Elizabeth is lying to her, that she won’t need real relationships, that she won’t commit suicide like Claudia’s West Germany agent, that she won’t get herself or everyone else caught or killed, etc.

 

PASTOR TIM

It’s Pastor Tim that really gets my attention in this ep. I think I said earlier how this character never quite gelled for me, seemed more like a plot device than a character. I think that’s in large part due to the change of attitude he’s going to soon have.

But on rewatch he makes more sense to me, mostly because of what I imagine going on with him off-screen. Theories about that are always a little tricky, but I feel like mine is reasonable, fits the themes of the show and it even makes Paige’s story a more interesting to me.

We know we’re never going to see how Tim and Alice talk when they’re alone. But we know what happens there sometimes seriously affects the Jennings.

We also know he keeps that side of his life secret—he promises Paige he won’t tell anyone her secret even after he’s already told his wife, for instance.

I’ve said how his advice to Paige seems completely in conflict with his claim to want to just help her, even while he doesn’t seem to be lying. I think he, like other characters, has a certain view of himself and it’s easy for him to fit whatever he does into that view. He has convinced himself the right thing to do is to use Paige to find out what her parents are up to in case they need to tell them to stop.

But now everything’s going to change. When it first became clear that Tim and Alice had no kids back in S3, I wondered why that was, since with this particular couple kids would be expected. It was a decision of the writers to make them unusual this way, was even referred to in dialogue.

I think in S4 we find out why they didn’t have kids: it’s because Tim has been putting it off.

This is the most obvious explanation for why Alice is pregnant now after all this time. The Tims aren’t that much younger than the Jennings—probably 4 or 5 years based on Tim’s college story. Alice seems to be the same age, so her bio-clock is ticking. That’s why she’s pregnant now.

Why do I think it’s Tim who put off the kids? Because of his behavior in this ep, which is a little odder than it seems on the surface.

There are two scenes involving him in this ep. In the first, Paige tells Philip there’s a going-away party for Tim they all should go to. I remembered Paige saying they should all go to the party to seem “more normal” but incorrectly attributed that opinion to Paige. I thought she was saying *she* thought they seemed odd and didn’t understand why she’d feel that way. But on rewatch I realize she’s telling Philip that *Pastor Tim* wants to see them all together. This making them look “more normal” is just her attempt at interpreting why he wants to see them.

What it means for sure is just that Tim has started pressuring her again about bringing her parents to see him. When the get to the party, Tim immediately pulls Philip aside to demand a meeting with the four of them. This is the same meeting he wanted back in Glanders and didn’t get.

So here’s a guy who’s very close to having his first child, and what is he doing and thinking about? Going to Ethiopia—not the safest place in the world—and getting more personally involved with the Soviet spies when he gets back. Nothing baby or wife-related.

Parents balancing children with their life mission is a recurring theme on the show and right now Tim is a guy tightly clinging to the person he is without kids. If it were just the Ethiopia trip maybe you could view him as getting in one last adventure before the baby (still significant), but the fact that he wants to blow up the status quo with the Jennings as well says he’s making plans for the foreseeable future as well.

There’s even another little hint of this in the party scene when both Paige and Philip bring up the impending birth and Tim ignores it. When Paige asks how Alice is, Tim says to ask her herself. When Philip says Tim’s going to find out how hard it is to be a parent of a teenager, Tim laughs…and quickly gets back to demanding that meeting. Makes you remember how even last week when Paige reported on her outing with the Tims she said that Alice said she felt the baby move. There’s no way the script writer wasn’t making a choice here for Tim to avoid talking about what would be the biggest thing going on in his life.

So by the end of this ep, Tim’s about to have a baby, but that’s made him lean towards his risky, exciting mission work. He’s not seeing himself as a father with a family yet. Maybe he doesn’t want to. As of now, the baby can still be not real. That’s setting up the change that’s coming so, uh, TBC…

[Zella]

21 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Oleg and Tatiana’s reactions to the story of the near-averted nuclear war show their different povs, just as P&E’s reactions to TDA do. Oleg wonders hopes that he, personally, would have reported a false alarm like Petrov did; Tatiana asks who knows about it. She really does seem political through and through.

I loved the montage of the various characters watching that. It said so much about everyone, from Philip and Elizabeth and their family watching it with Stan to Oleg and Tatiana watching it together and having that revealing conversation (isn't that the first time we have it confirmed they are a couple?) to Arkady silently watching it by himself. 

[sistermagpie]

4 hours ago, Zella said:

I loved the montage of the various characters watching that. It said so much about everyone, from Philip and Elizabeth and their family watching it with Stan to Oleg and Tatiana watching it together and having that revealing conversation (isn't that the first time we have it confirmed they are a couple?) to Arkady silently watching it by himself. 

And don't forget William watching it in his little kitchen!

I do think that's the first time we see Oleg and Tatiana are a couple. I think the scene of them having sex is later in the ep.

They also let Matthew look over at Paige in the ep. It's a nice realistic moment laying some foundation for his interest in her later. Henry's got a big bowl of popcorn. LOL.

[Zella]

5 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

I do think that's the first time we see Oleg and Tatiana are a couple.

Thanks! I mainly remember my reaction to it because I'd been thinking, "I think she has the hots for Oleg," so when I saw them together for the first time I was like

I need to rewatch the montage. I forgot about William! 

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, Zella said:

Thanks! I mainly remember my reaction to it because I'd been thinking, "I think she has the hots for Oleg," so when I saw them together for the first time I was like

I need to rewatch the montage. I forgot about William! 

It's almost surprising William subjected himself to it. Like he just wants to make himself more miserable.

Now it's also reminding me of Mad Men when everyobody's watching Jackie Kennedy give the White House tour...except Pete who's watching cartoons.

[Roseanna]

On 2/20/2022 at 9:00 PM, sistermagpie said:

PASTOR TIM

It’s Pastor Tim that really gets my attention in this ep. I think I said earlier how this character never quite gelled for me, seemed more like a plot device than a character. I think that’s in large part due to the change of attitude he’s going to soon have.

But on rewatch he makes more sense to me, mostly because of what I imagine going on with him off-screen. Theories about that are always a little tricky, but I feel like mine is reasonable, fits the themes of the show and it even makes Paige’s story a more interesting to me.

We know we’re never going to see how Tim and Alice talk when they’re alone. But we know what happens there sometimes seriously affects the Jennings.

We also know he keeps that side of his life secret—he promises Paige he won’t tell anyone her secret even after he’s already told his wife, for instance.

I’ve said how his advice to Paige seems completely in conflict with his claim to want to just help her, even while he doesn’t seem to be lying. I think he, like other characters, has a certain view of himself and it’s easy for him to fit whatever he does into that view. He has convinced himself the right thing to do is to use Paige to find out what her parents are up to in case they need to tell them to stop.

But now everything’s going to change. When it first became clear that Tim and Alice had no kids back in S3, I wondered why that was, since with this particular couple kids would be expected. It was a decision of the writers to make them unusual this way, was even referred to in dialogue.

I think in S4 we find out why they didn’t have kids: it’s because Tim has been putting it off.

This is the most obvious explanation for why Alice is pregnant now after all this time. The Tims aren’t that much younger than the Jennings—probably 4 or 5 years based on Tim’s college story. Alice seems to be the same age, so her bio-clock is ticking. That’s why she’s pregnant now.

Why do I think it’s Tim who put off the kids? Because of his behavior in this ep, which is a little odder than it seems on the surface.

There are two scenes involving him in this ep. In the first, Paige tells Philip there’s a going-away party for Tim they all should go to. I remembered Paige saying they should all go to the party to seem “more normal” but incorrectly attributed that opinion to Paige. I thought she was saying *she* thought they seemed odd and didn’t understand why she’d feel that way. But on rewatch I realize she’s telling Philip that *Pastor Tim* wants to see them all together. This making them look “more normal” is just her attempt at interpreting why he wants to see them.

What it means for sure is just that Tim has started pressuring her again about bringing her parents to see him. When the get to the party, Tim immediately pulls Philip aside to demand a meeting with the four of them. This is the same meeting he wanted back in Glanders and didn’t get.

So here’s a guy who’s very close to having his first child, and what is he doing and thinking about? Going to Ethiopia—not the safest place in the world—and getting more personally involved with the Soviet spies when he gets back. Nothing baby or wife-related.

Parents balancing children with their life mission is a recurring theme on the show and right now Tim is a guy tightly clinging to the person he is without kids. If it were just the Ethiopia trip maybe you could view him as getting in one last adventure before the baby (still significant), but the fact that he wants to blow up the status quo with the Jennings as well says he’s making plans for the foreseeable future as well.

There’s even another little hint of this in the party scene when both Paige and Philip bring up the impending birth and Tim ignores it. When Paige asks how Alice is, Tim says to ask her herself. When Philip says Tim’s going to find out how hard it is to be a parent of a teenager, Tim laughs…and quickly gets back to demanding that meeting. Makes you remember how even last week when Paige reported on her outing with the Tims she said that Alice said she felt the baby move. There’s no way the script writer wasn’t making a choice here for Tim to avoid talking about what would be the biggest thing going on in his life.

So by the end of this ep, Tim’s about to have a baby, but that’s made him lean towards his risky, exciting mission work. He’s not seeing himself as a father with a family yet. Maybe he doesn’t want to. As of now, the baby can still be not real. That’s setting up the change that’s coming so, uh, TBC…

Thank you for your insightful analysis!

It seems that while we understand that this show wasn't about "Good versus Bad" and that therefore we we were able Stan as a many-sided human being with problems of his own in the work and at home, Pastor Tim's behavior was more difficult to understand because his motivations were so muddled.

[Roseanna]

On 2/20/2022 at 9:00 PM, sistermagpie said:

Philip, too, is getting his endgame put in place. He and William and Oleg are linked in not being satisfied with Cold War rhetoric. His reaction to TDA is to not want to contribute to deadly weapons being around to use, though ultimately, he’s still a child of WWII USSR who thinks it needs defending.

I was thinking about Philip's reaction to the war in Afganistan. To him, the most important matter is that the Soviet soldiers are killed there. He doesn't make the question if it's right and/or sensible that the Soviet Union wages war in Afghanistan, nor is he concerned about the sufferings of the Afghans.  To Philip it's only "right or wrong - my country", as trhe British used to say.  (Instead, to Elizabeth has believes "my country - never wrong" - a maxim that is attributed to the Russians.) 

Compare Philip's reaction with that of (at least some) Americans during the Vietnam war. To them, the question was that the war was immoral and/or stupid and/or wouldn't work anyway. And papers and TV showed the sufferings of Vietnamese women and children. 

I don't think these Americans saw themselves as unpatriotic - they just demanded their county both a higher moral code and a more sensible foreign policy. 

 

[Roseanna]

Still about the theme of allegedly poisoned wheat: 

There are two words in Russian that mean "truth": one means factual truth whereas "pravda" means a higher truth that was known beforehand.

That means that even if wheat wasn't in fact poisoned, from the perspective of the "higher truth" it was (in this case, "the Imperialists do every evil they can to destroy the Soviet Union").  

For that reason, "the USSR was always attacked by others, it never attacked another country". What the outsiders called an aggression, was an unselfish help in their minds. 

[sistermagpie]

On 2/25/2022 at 2:22 AM, Roseanna said:

It seems that while we understand that this show wasn't about "Good versus Bad" and that therefore we we were able Stan as a many-sided human being with problems of his own in the work and at home, Pastor Tim's behavior was more difficult to understand because his motivations were so muddled.

Yes--earlier it just felt like Tim's explanation for why he's going to back off the Jennings seemed false, but now I'm seeing that maybe it's supposed to be false in a perfectly realistic way. Looking forward to seeing how the next few eps play out with that in mind.

On 2/25/2022 at 2:43 AM, Roseanna said:

I was thinking about Philip's reaction to the war in Afganistan. To him, the most important matter is that the Soviet soldiers are killed there. He doesn't make the question if it's right and/or sensible that the Soviet Union wages war in Afghanistan, nor is he concerned about the sufferings of the Afghans.  To Philip it's only "right or wrong - my country", as trhe British used to say.  (Instead, to Elizabeth has believes "my country - never wrong" - a maxim that is attributed to the Russians.) 

Compare Philip's reaction with that of (at least some) Americans during the Vietnam war. To them, the question was that the war was immoral and/or stupid and/or wouldn't work anyway. And papers and TV showed the sufferings of Vietnamese women and children. 

I don't think these Americans saw themselves as unpatriotic - they just demanded their county both a higher moral code and a more sensible foreign policy. 

 

Do you think this is a progression for Philip? Because with the war in Afghanistan, it seems like his default position was to not think about the reasons behind it. His area of interest was the Cold War, so he was concentrated on it purely as a proxy war--the Americans were on one side, so he could just see it through that lens. Where it got more personal was that he already knew he had a son in the Russian Army, and heard more than one Afghan talk about murdering Russian soldiers personally. He never thought about whether or not Russians should be in Afghanistan, really. It actually makes me think of when the Tims come for dinner and Tim's talking about being against the war in Vietnam. Philip says he was right, that "we never should have been there in the first place" (or something along those lines). But the way he said it always sounded like Philip imitating the US pov there. Of course he would agree with the sentiment as a Russian, but it felt more like Elizabeth knowing the type of expressions Americans used to talk about the Kennedy assasination back in S1. 

But here in S4 he's starting to question those higher truths, whether he's actually protecting his country or doing good in the world. With the wheat it seems he desperately wants a situation where he can feel like he knows what he's doing and why and feels justified about it, the way he probably did when he started out. Then he gets burned again.

[Roseanna]

I just listened a lecture that I think can help us to understand P&E and even more Claudia, even more than "the cognitive dissonance".

In the narrative structure ”the road of the trials and tribulations is the road of victories” there are two intertwined themes. First, a teleological view of history: history has a greater purpose towards which it moves and that gives meaning to the present. When a generation joins another, what seems unreasonable at the moment is actually something else. Second, a continuous cycle: after each ordeal, people will build anew and move forward - but a new ordeal always comes. In the dual structure of teleology and cyclicity history is spinning but still progressing!

Using the method of combining teleology and cyclicity one can present to others, and believe oneself, on one hand that the USSR and the world is moving towards Communism, and on the other hand that the same themes are always repeated: the threat of the West and a victorious war. In this way, what seems bad in the present is justified.

 

[sistermagpie]

14 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I just listened a lecture that I think can help us to understand P&E and even more Claudia, even more than "the cognitive dissonance".

In the narrative structure ”the road of the trials and tribulations is the road of victories” there are two intertwined themes. First, a teleological view of history: history has a greater purpose towards which it moves and that gives meaning to the present. When a generation joins another, what seems unreasonable at the moment is actually something else. Second, a continuous cycle: after each ordeal, people will build anew and move forward - but a new ordeal always comes. In the dual structure of teleology and cyclicity history is spinning but still progressing!

Using the method of combining teleology and cyclicity one can present to others, and believe oneself, on one hand that the USSR and the world is moving towards Communism, and on the other hand that the same themes are always repeated: the threat of the West and a victorious war. In this way, what seems bad in the present is justified.

 

Interesting! That does seem to make a lot of sense--particularly for someone who craves a world with sense and purpose. It might make the purpose actually look forward to the next ordeal, even create one when one doesn't exist, for the feeling of purpose. One could start to associate the pain of struggle with victory and the relief of peace with defeat.

[sistermagpie]

Just watched Munchkins. I think this one’s going to be a 2-post because I saw so much in the Paige story.

Parenting is central in this ep—even Martha’s dad shows up—and all the kids come into it, including Young-Hee’s, hence the title. Even the Tims’ baby gets a line.

Elizabeth asks Gabriel to ask the Centre if she can beg off the Young-Hee job, giving Gabriel a chance to sound compassionate before he tells her no, of course not. The KGB does not send their best to visit Gaad in Thailand, ruining his trip and killing him by accident.

I never noticed that it’s a nice bit of mirroring. The KGB did not kill Tim in Ethiopia, but they did kill Gaad in Thailand. Both situations were accidents. Ha!

 

STAN

Matthew is with Stan for the weekend so Stan’s working. I never miss a chance to point out how Stan somehow gets labelled a great parent for doing exactly the same thing the Jennings get slammed for. I have little patience for comparing any of these characters to the most extreme helicopter types of 2022, not just because I think it’s fine for all these kids to be home alone at times, but because when you focus on that you erase that they each have their own unique dynamic with their kids.

Stan and Matthew have had a troubled relationship since the start of the show, when Matthew refused to pretend that his dad, newly returned from a 3-year absence, wasn’t avoiding his family.

The issue isn’t Stan not being at home, really, though. It’s that Stan doesn’t want to face his own failures. He damaged his relationship with Matthew, but doesn’t want to face the uncomfortable challenge of fixing it. He’d rather just hang out with the kid across the street who thinks he’s a hero the way he imagined Matthew would when he came back, or use work as an excuse to not be home. These days, Matthew says, Stan’s become chatty about the job he used to keep secret. But this in itself is probably another avoidance even if Matthew, who’s always seemed to have a good emotional intelligence, recognizes that this is Stan’s way of telling him he’s glad he’s there. It’s not that Stan doesn’t love Matthew or isn’t trying at all, but he doesn’t do personal introspection.

Likewise with Martha’s dad he can’t bring himself to talk about Martha the person he knew. He just talks about her like a criminal. It’s Adderholt who at least tries to talk to him as a grieving father.

 

PHILIP

Philip starts the ep telling us something about his past—a rare treat! His story of his mother being tough cuts to tough Elizabeth, in case we forgot how tough she is or hold it against her. Many noted that Philip married his mother here, but to me what that means isn’t that he has a pattern of being with cold, hard people, but that he probably easily sees the vulnerability and love beneath the toughness. Some also think Philip rarely talking about his past on camera means he just didn’t care about his family at all, but that seems bizarre to me.

Philip has yet another surprising moment of openness with Kimmy. I’ve come to love Kimmy and Jim together. Not romantically (ew), I just feel like Philip occasionally connects with her some way he doesn’t with other sources including Martha. She’s an alternate Paige, of course, but I feel like he also sees his own younger self in her. I love watching the two of them here. You can even just turn the sound off and watch little expressions play across their faces.

Here she’s standing in for Paige by telling Jim her dad works for the CIA. But when Jim/Philip explains why she shouldn’t have told him that, I feel like we—and he—get a rare hint into what he felt about what Paige did. He and Elizabeth haven’t spent time analyzing their feelings about her betrayal. They just got on with dealing with it. But I think Elizabeth has made her personal feelings about it more clear, while Philip’s been defending Paige the whole time. Here, when directly asked, he says Kimmy broke her father’s trust, that the secret can only bring them closer if she keeps it, revealing maybe that while he doesn’t hold it against Paige that she told, maybe understands why she did it and forgives her, it still told him something about how he could and couldn’t trust her and affected their relationship.

And I don’t think he realized he thought that until Kimmy forced him to consider his own feelings in ways he doesn’t usually, outside of EST. Just as he had never thought about whether he liked Tobolsk or his mother was a good cook (or maybe even much about his father’s job) until Paige asked him, this is the first time he thought about how he felt about Paige’s betrayal.

Speaking of Paige and parenting, Philip and Elizabeth in this ep are often in sync dealing with Alice’s accusations that they’ve had Tim murdered (neither considers telling her they’ve bugged Tim’s office), but they approach Paige very differently. At the end of the ep when Philip tells Paige that they won’t lie to her, I wondered if he was lying. But Philip actually does seem to try to follow a code where he might withhold information—even important information that could be said to amount to deception—but tries to avoid outright lying.

He does that in this ep. When Paige takes Alice’s side about the suspiciousness of Tim’s disappearance and their potential part in it, Philip responds to her logically: Alice thinks it’s true, but it’s not; this is a disaster for them, so they would not have done it; they don’t have the power to order hits in Ethiopia; they have reached out to contacts to help search. In fact, it’s the way he replies to Alice as well.

Probably should note Henry’s presence here too. He’s in the first scene being casually entitled, oblivious to everything going on. We’re getting to the stage where we get serious hints that if Henry continues to make the opposite choices as Paige regarding their parents, he’s going to wind up in a very different place. Philip says they “can’t leave him behind” if they have to go to Russia, but that’s when he’s this age.

Philip makes a joke about Paige’s burdens as the downside of being a good student (since Henry uses a test he has to study for to get out of even clearing his place, much less washing it), reminding us again that Henry is NOT a good student and doesn’t want responsibility.

 

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth, not for the first time, goes right for the emotional manipulation and gaslighting. She gets offended at the first sign that Paige is considering Alice’s story and claims it’s crazy to suggest they kidnap people and then “what…kill them?” as if they don’t actually do that. Like Philip, she reacts to Paige just the way she reacted to Alice herself.

This seems really important because while the Jennings are both tragic figures and both lose their kids, they don’t have the same story. There’s advantages and disadvantages to their different decisions as parents, but in the end, it’s obvious why it’s Elizabeth and not Philip who gets the punch in the gut moment at the loss of each kid. She’s the more tragic figure when it comes to the kids (and other things). Philip’s no more innocent than she is, but their different choices still matter. When Paige remembers this scene, for instance, she will see she was being manipulated and lied to—gaslighted—by one parent more than the other.

 

THE TIMS

Picking up on the story I see happening off-stage for the Tims, Alice reveals that yes, there’s been conflict at home about Tim’s dealings with the Jennings. Not only has his trip to Ethiopia left her alone and stressed at a time when she’s close to giving birth for the first time, it’s now potentially left her a single mother. She’s probably aware that before leaving he demanded a meeting with the Jennings, blowing up their status quo. That not only gives Alice another motive for the Jennings killing Tim, but makes them a more natural target for her anger at him. In yelling at them, she’s also yelling at the Ethiopia trip and his reckless decision to hop on over to the next village.

It's clear in the actor’s performance that this isn’t about Alice being sure they did it. She’s angry and scared and this gives her a way to feel in control of the situation, if only for a minute.

Also, gotta give a shoutout to the very churchy guy who gives Paige the news about Pastor Tim being found as proof that God is merciful. Because yeah, the famine’s still going on but the guy they know finally found his way back to the place he started. Priorities!

[sistermagpie]

Just watched Munchkins – part 2

PAIGE

This is really Paige’s episode. Around the time it originally aired there was a mild push around the idea that HT was a brilliant actress and Paige fascinating, but never in any way that led to a concrete sense about what was going on inside her. She shows very little range despite everything happening in the ep, mostly just playing her lines literally without much real change in emotional temperature. It often seems like she’s both under-reacting to what she’s playing (“I have to conclude that you maybe murdered by beloved pastor and that’s…troubling, I guess”) and over-acting (TRAGIC EXPRESSION) without any moment-to-moment emotional arc to follow either within scenes or between them.

It doesn’t help that other actors demonstrate things missing in her performance. Julia Garner brings Kimmy’s whole history into her one scene, while Paige seems to have forgotten some key parts of hers. JG is also able to be silently alone onscreen without looking like she’s hyper-aware there’s a camera on her so she better Act Something. (I know that’s more difficult than it looks.)

Susie Jane Hunt’s scenes as Alice are as easy to follow as Paige’s aren’t. For instance, when Paige comes to see Alice the morning after her accusations, you quickly get where she’s at. She’s still scared, angry and physically uncomfortable and determined to not deal with Paige’s feelings. When she relents and gives her a dutiful, unaffectionate hug, the physical sensation of having someone in her arms triggers her emotions and vulnerability and she bursts into tears.

On Paige’s side of the scene, I just see HT trying really hard to make herself cry. I have no idea why specifically Paige is supposed to be crying, and I’m unsurprised to see when she turns to the camera that she’s not, despite the sippy breaths she’s been taking to indicate sobs (and what seems to be pink make-up on her eyes).

At some point we had a discussion here about acting. I remember @Dev F saying they didn’t think it really mattered if an actor was bad because the script gave us what we needed. And I really disagreed, because we only see the script filtered through the performance and probably rely on it more than we’re aware.

I remembered that conversation now, because this ep could be my thesis statement. Knowing where the story is going, I saw the potential for important, concrete character development in the script that didn’t make it to the screen, one that’s meant to change Paige’s alignment in her world and point her toward the path she’ll follow to the end.

Obviously, I don’t know what was in the writer’s head and there’s no single correct way to play something. But since a lot of people thought it was impossible for any actor to do anything with Paige given the bad writing, it seemed good to point out an example of how the same writing could be different and probably would be with a different interpretation.

 

She’s got about 8 scenes, and in each one she just seems to be upset in slightly different ways. So it’s like:

1. Paige feeds Philip some questions for no particular reason in her hesitant, childlike way so we can see stuff about him and Elizabeth.

2. Paige is upset about Ethiopia eating Tim and Alice’s accusations and threats.

4. Paige is upset that she doesn’t know who to believe.

5. Paige goes to see Alice, nearly cries, then is upset by Alice breaking down on her shoulder.

6. Paige is loudly upset to learn she might have to move to Russia. She angrily rants about a number of things, throwing out ideas as they come to her head, as if only half aware of what she’s saying before she goes to the next thing, until Elizabeth cuts her off and she’s defeated.

7. Paige goes to Matthew’s on an errand and sadly monologues the situation at church, then is surprised when Matthew gives her the ride to church she needed.

6. She finds out Pastor Tim’s okay, but is still too upset/overwhelmed to be completely joyful. She shares some watery relief with Alice, but is obviously still burdened. She eventually remembers the tape and is about to ask about it, but when Alice cheerfully offers snacks, she sadly indulges her and holds off.

7. She earnestly reports what happened, including Alice and her feeling bad about accusing her parents of murder, then returns to earnestly confused and burdened mode to explain what happened with the tape and btw, when are they going to tell Henry?

She basically spends the ep being put into scenes by circumstances, and then getting things dumped on her she’s too young to handle once she’s there. Your only choice as a viewer is to feel sorry for her or not. She starts sadly burdened and ends more sadly burdened. Her relationship with her parents goes from uneasy to more uneasy. Her relationship with the Tims goes from complicated to more complicated. Major change was threatened, but averted, leaving her even more unsettled.

 

But imagine an actor playing Paige more like Kimmie, a teenager who goes into scenes with goals, looking for something from the people she’s talking to, even if it’s misguided or immature. This Paige is actively walking into these scenes with demands and needs, testing people and drawing conclusions. Her scenes all center around one theme: Who is her real family/support? She’s at a very different place at the end of the ep than where she started.

So this time, the details of the scenes actually become important:

1. For the one and only time in the whole show, Paige asks about her family as people (rather than using them to ask about her own life). She’s, as always, uninterested in foreign details like collectives, but she has some reason to ask if her grandmother was a good cook beyond just cooking dinner themselves right then.

This is the Paige who might have been, the one who’s gotten some confidence spending time with her encouraging father learning to handle a car. She’s ready to maybe incorporate her parents’ weird pasts into her own identity in a healthy way. (Maybe that explains last ep’s juxtaposition of Paige driving with Elizabeth setting up Don: the slower road of figuring out who she is herself vs. following the road her mother lays out for her.)

This Paige is enjoying the conversation. Despite her own situation, she still doesn’t really understand what it means to have to protect your family. She’s reporting on the Tims because her parents tell her to. We should miss this Paige when Alice knocks her off course.

2. When Alice arrives with news of Tim’s disappearance, Paige first assumes she’s coming to her to gather the church family for support. Instead, she’s shoved aside to watch the adults interact. She sees how Alice is coming across to her parents (hysterical) and vice versa (suspicious as hell). When Alice makes a concrete threat, she steps in to take control and Alice shuts her down like she’s irrelevant. She’s just been rejected by Alice as part of the family.

3. Humiliated and feeling stupid, she blames her parents for doing this to her. She’s not at all prepared to think critically about whether she thinks they murdered Tim and doesn’t have to, since she can focus on how logical it is for Alice to suspect them without that. She’s disgusted by their playacted concern for Alice, Philip’s coolly practical logic and Elizabeth’s self-righteousness. It’s Normals vs. Liars here and Paige is on Alice’s side.

4. She goes to see Alice hoping—expecting—that once they’re alone Alice will assure her of her love and support, but Alice is still clearly treating her like an outsider even when Paige prompts her by saying how much she loves her and Pastor Tim. In fact, Alice makes it clear Paige’s love means nothing. Paige hovers in limbo, taking that in. Then Alice motions her over for a hug—here, she thinks, is the return of the Alice she knows and her usual reassurance. Relieved, Paige says, “You’ve done so much for me” meaning “I know you’d never let me down.”

But when Alice bursts into tears Paige realizes she’s not being reassured at all. Alice still doesn’t really care what happens to Paige. Alice is confirming the rejection.

5. So when she tells her parents that she and Alice “prayed” she means “no change.” With her new perspective on Alice, she has to ask about what happens if she sends the tape.

Her response to the answer “We might have to leave” has three distinct parts.

First, she needs clarification on who is “we” and where are they going. It’s been established that Paige has a real, specific fear of being abandoned by her parents. She freaked out about it in Chloramphenicol, just identified not all being together as her greatest fear in a nuclear war and has long felt her parents looked out for each other more than their kids. She’s not showing her blissful ignorance here, but her knee-jerk fear.

Once she’s assured no one will be left behind, she can deal with the horror of being uprooted to Russia as a person who’s been established as not seeing foreign places as legitimate places to exist. She makes her case for how this is ridiculous. Speaking Russian isn’t just a challenge, it’s absurd—even for her parents.

When that fails to change the facts, she goes back to lashing out at her parents for doing this to her. When she says they can’t be Russian spies in Russia, she’s not accidentally saying something silly out of hysteria or truly considering their employment prospects, she’s accusing them of not being capable of leading an authentic existence. They’ll have to drop her into another life they’ll destroy with their lies. “Being Russian spies” isn’t a job here, it’s a character flaw.

Elizabeth’s response that she and Philip had nothing to do with this brings her back to the Tims, since Paige herself had everything to do with this. Yes, her parents created the situation, but this particular crisis is the direct result of Paige trusting the Tims, who love her the way a pastor and his wife “love” an enthusiastic kid in the church group and no more. This is one of the most important things she’s learning in this ep.

6. Alienated from both church and home, Paige looks to Matthew for a friend. He’s always taken her seriously, he’s not connected to either place and his dad’s an FBI agent so they sort of have something in common. Paige makes up an OBVIOUSLY FAKE errand to get herself invited in (honestly, HT playing this straight makes the writing seem so bad) and comes as close as she can to talking about what’s going on—only this time in a way that gives us some new information about how she feels/what she’s thinking. She then makes up an OBVIOUSLY FAKE hint for Matthew to offer her a ride to the church she’s been getting to on her own for years so she doesn’t have to go in alone. She’s keenly aware of no longer belonging at church.

7. Once there she’s elated to learn Pastor Tim’s been found—but a second later must deal with the real situation: Pastor Tim did something dumb and Alice was going to make Paige pay for it.

She goes into the office with Alice to find out about the tape. When she’s asking about Tim, assuring Alice her parents aren’t mad, laughing at Alice’s joke—she’s waiting for Alice to bring it up. When she doesn’t, and then interrupts Paige’s attempt to bring it up herself, she understands this is no accident. Alice wants that threat to stay in place, and any conversation about it is going to be awkward.

This confirms that the Alice who hates her parents and doesn’t care what happens to Paige is the real Alice. This is how she really feels about Paige and always has. Her parents didn’t change Alice’s feelings for her, they revealed them.

8. That new perspective informs how Paige tells her parents what happened and apologizes. She now understands something more about how Philip described himself relating to family growing up. She’s now voluntarily strategizing about the Tim threat—and wanting Henry brought in is part of that.

Paige now has a whole new set of data about people in her life. Matthew is a potential friend/boyfriend. Her parents are infuriating, but they’re family and they care about her. The Tims are not. They’re also fakes and a potential threat.

She’s also seen that her parents had good motive to get rid of Tim and didn’t, so that’s reason to assure herself they don’t kill/hurt people. And she’s been presented with another idea she’s going to be testing out, that the only way she can have a true relationship at this point is to be on the inside of her parents’ world.

Like I said, this isn’t like the one correct way to play anything. But it does show there’s plenty of things for Paige to do with this story that’s active and has some variation. Where she’s got something to think about instead of looking like she’s thinking and we get a sense of how she's reacting to the situation instead of just being in it and I think this version would be remembered as a more important ep.

[anonymiss]

On 1/2/2022 at 6:23 PM, sistermagpie said:

PHILIP

I was always surprised when people thought Philip actually missed Martha, like he enjoyed her as a domestic haven. To me it seems clearly the opposite. Martha disrupted his domestic haven and however much he valued her as a source, it’s a personal relief to him that she’s gone.

I don't think Philip missed Martha but there were times he went to her as a refuge (like a cheating man would escape to his mistress) when he was having a rough time at home with Elizabeth. I recall them coming home after one particular miserable night together and Philip, while they were still in the car, saying, "I'm going to Martha's tonight." He could kill two birds with one stone--further the developing of her as a source and escape the misery at home. Elizabeth, in her usual way, tried to look like she couldn't care less. 

Edited April 28, 2022 by anonymiss

[sistermagpie]

9 hours ago, anonymiss said:

I don't think Philip missed Martha but there were times he went to her as a refuge (like a cheating man would escape to his mistress) when he was having a rough time at home with Elizabeth. I recall them coming home after one particular miserable night together and Philip, while they were still in the car, saying, "I'm going to Martha's tonight." He could kill two birds with one stone--further the developing of her as a source and escape the misery at home. Elizabeth, in her usual way, tried to look like she couldn't care less. 

I definitely agree with that. I even remember that moment--it's when the South African guy is in town and Elizabeth's hinting she admires how the guy wants his sons to grow up and join and possibly die in the fight. This is after Elizabeth's brought Paige to Gregory's neighborhood etc. and they fought about it, and so he hasn't told her about Gabriel telling him he has a son.

So yeah, Martha just sits in the eye of a passive aggressive storm there for both of them. And there's also that time he asks Elizabeth for jewelry to give to Martha after they're kidnapped and Elizabeth seems to give him something mean in response.

[sistermagpie]

Just watched Dinner for Seven. This one’s a little hard to get a handle on!

 

YOUNG-HEE AND DON

This whole time we thought the Young-Hee job was just Elizabeth, and people kept pre-emptively complaining about how dumb it would be if they tried to blackmail Don, but it turns out we just didn’t know Philip’s part yet. He and Elizabeth must have worked out this family together and his role just so great. It’s like the minute you see him all the hints about “Patty’s” life story snap into focus.

Working Don, Philip leans into how dishonorable Don is, but at the very end, when Don apologizes, he holds back since he doesn’t need to do it anymore. He can’t accept the apology as John, but he doesn’t have to keep kicking the guy.

The plan ultimately makes sense—months of work to win 20 minutes alone in an office. It occurred to me that Don’s story about him and Young-Hee meeting sort of parallels P&E—another way for Elizabeth to destroy the good in her life, symbolically.

 

STAN

Stan’s full-Stan in this ep. He tells Philip that Gaad’s been killed by the “animal” Russians (and Philip wonders if that was his fault). When he shows up at dinnertime and sees the Jennings have company he doesn’t quickly claim he can’t stay, just accepts Henry’s invite like a doofus, meets the Tims and goes TMI about his personal life. This unplanned introduction might be good for the Jennings, since the FBI agent now sees the social justice Tims as their personal friends.

Even more true to character, he calls Oleg to tell him that he’s cutting him loose, which seems pretty bad for an FBI agent. I mean, it’s tempting to see Stan acting like Oleg or Philip here, doing what he thinks is right despite it being against protocol. Or playing some long game where by telling him he’s protecting him makes Oleg trust him. But it really seems like he’s doing exactly what he says for the reasons he’s saying it: he doesn’t want to have Oleg on his conscience so he’s unilaterally deciding to cut the operation off just like he started it to save Nina.

There’s really no justification for cutting loose an active KGB agent like this. Oleg isn’t some innocent and there’s no greater issue at stake, just Stan’s feelings about himself. This is why I don’t get when people don’t buy it when he lets the Jennings go in the end. He almost never acts out of loyalty to the FBI.

Meanwhile, Adderholt combs through Martha’s file and finds the Mail Robot clue. Never forget how great Adderholt is.

 

The real story here, though, is the Tims. I think I said how previously how Pastor Tim sometimes seemed like a plot device more than a person. It was this ep above all that gave me that impression. It felt like Tim had been an obstacle for 3 seasons and when they didn’t want that obstacle anymore, they had him show up and announce he wasn’t going to be an obstacle anymore for a silly reason.

But on rewatch, I’ve started to see his character as making a lot more sense. I also remembered this ep inaccurately. I thought Tim explicitly said that his fear of never seeing his kid made him feel sorry for the Jennings and not want to be a threat to them anymore, and I thought we were meant to take that at face value.

But watching again, I saw that Tim isn’t explicit at all, and that he actually can’t be removing himself as a threat. Where before I thought the ep was clear, and I felt unsure about it, on rewatch it seemed more like the ep was purposefully making me unsure because the characters were.

 

PAIGE

This ep seems to validate my alternate interpretation of the events of Munchkins, since Paige has no interactions with the Tims at all. In S3, she hung on Tim’s every word and strategized with him and his wife against her parents over dinner in the kitchen. Here, they eat in the more formal dining room and she identifies Tim simply as the guy who baptized her. Then, at the end of the ep, she’s strategizing with her mother.

At the time, some felt Paige’s focus on the tape Alice made was misplaced, since even if they destroyed it, the Tims could make a new one, but the tape itself isn’t what’s important; it’s the threat that is. If the Tims made a tape and the Jennings didn’t know about it, it would be useless. Philip and Elizabeth have always seen the Tims as enemies, but to Paige, it’s a daily reminder that these people are a threat and don’t really care about her.

Munchkins and this ep are a one-two punch for Paige that point her directly into S6. The first punch didn’t land, imo, because of what I said in the last post and, unfortunately, I think her performance in the mugging scene (punch 2) indicates why the second one won’t really land either. Watching Elizabeth kill someone, Paige tries to look dramatically traumatized while obviously not feeling much, rather than the other way around, which is what she needs to be for the next two seasons.

 

TIM AND ALICE

So what *is* Tim doing in this ep? He shows up at the Jennings house in the first scene looking awkward, and apologizes for happened. (Henry apparently still has a policy of never showing interest in who’s ringing the doorbell unless it’s going to turn out to be Stan.) On first watch I thought Tim was awkward because he felt dumb for his trouble in Ethiopia and wasn’t used to being in the wrong. But on rewatch I think no, he’s probably fine with that—has probably already planned sermons about it. What he is used to, imo, is being open and trying to do the right thing. That’s what makes him awkward in this scene, imo, that he knows he’s not doing either now.

He's so awkward getting started that P&E have to prompt him by saying Paige isn’t there. I think he knows she’s not there. He probably made sure she was at the church before coming over. He’s meeting her parents behind her back to make a new deal with them, one that doesn’t prioritize her at all. Before leaving for Ethiopia, he said he wanted to meet with her parents because she seemed burdened, and none of that’s changed, so why would he no longer want to meet?

He explains that he was scared he would never be found in Africa—this is where I thought he explicitly said it made him feel bad about judging them. But what he actually says is: “I thought about you two and Paige (not Henry). All the things that being a parent can mean.”

That’s totally vague. If he was removing himself as a threat, he ought to undo the threat Alice made, the one he alluded to when he arrived. But he keeps that threat in place, as if he’s ready to see the sense of it, and refers to it in the passive voice as something that simply "happened." In that context, his line about what being a parent can mean doesn’t have to refer to the Jennings being parents despite also being spies. It can be Tim saying that being a parent means putting your kid above the higher causes you were all about before. Iow, maybe Paige is still burdened, but Tim doesn’t care. He’s abandoning her to them, and expects them to leave him alone in return, knowing the threat that hangs over them if they don’t.

Earlier this season Paige said it felt like there was a conspiracy of grown-ups and this is what this is—Tim isn’t telling Paige he’s changing his attitude toward her, but she already senses something different.

 

PHILIP

Thee Jennings seem to react differently to Tim’s announcement. Philip seems to see it as an endpoint and that makes sense because it’s like the culmination of the series of talks he’s had with Tim in the past about being a father. From Martial Eagle (Stay away from my daughter / I’d do anything for [Paige]) to Stingers (Do you have kids? / I have a flock. / That’s not the same thing.) and even to The Day After (Teenagers are crazy--you’ll find out!). Now, finally, Tim understands where Philip has been coming from. His child is real to him now, and he’s possessive of her already.

I think this is one of those times when Philip is more clear on what’s happening than Elizabeth, because he knows Tim is here as a parent, not a pastor.

 

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth, though, reacts like a professional who sees a wedge she hopes to use to get the Tims more on their side. Some took her series of meetings with Tim in this ep as Elizabeth truly looking to him for comfort—I remember one guy who confidently predicted this was signaling the beginning of Elizabeth’s conversion to Christianity, which she’d only rejected before because she’d never been exposed to it. And it’s true the ep doesn’t give us any scenes where she explicitly says she’s trying to work Tim, but she’s so aggressive about it, trying a new line in each scene, that I wonder if even Tim starts to see her for what she “really is” (to paraphrase Elizabeth talking about Tim in a later ep).

It’s Elizabeth who jumps in with a dinner invitation in the opening scene. Then she drops by to see Tim when picking Paige up from choir practice. (Btw, that line still bothers me—I know they want Paige to be doing a ton of stuff at church, but she’s never been associated with choir.) She’s in full Elizabeth “suburban mom” Jennings mode, laughing and making faces.

Her first mode of attack is to make herself another Paige, trying to appear vulnerable in ways she wasn’t when Alice was actively threatening them. Tim says he thinks he knows what she fears, but does nothing to assure her. He’s not taking the bait he would have jumped at in the past.

At dinner, Alice talks to Elizabeth in the kitchen, presumably having been told about Elizabeth’s visit by Tim. She reminds Elizabeth that she didn’t ask for any of this and insists she’s not vindictive, that she doesn’t go around making threats. But of course, she obviously is exactly that, since it’s what she did. There is something satisfying about Elizabeth telling her that she would have done the same thing—iow, no, Alice, you’re not fundamentally kinder at heart.

Elizabeth returns to Tim’s office *again* soon after, this time flattering him about how he brought their family closer together, that it was him that did it and nothing she and helpless Philip could do on their own—again, this would have been catnip to the guy back in S3 and we know she doesn’t believe it. She also, I think, dangles the possibility of conversion in front of him, or at least some friendly debate about their different faiths. And Tim’s fine with a little of that, but not in any deep way, even while describing himself as the guy holding the axe while Elizabeth’s out on a limb. He even backs off his original impulse to question the whole Stan situation. Not his circus, not his monkeys.

After getting a phone message from frantic Young-Hee, Elizabeth goes to see Tim yet a third time. This was another scene I remembered wrong. I thought Elizabeth made it clear to him that she felt guilty about something, hinting that she really was looking for solace over Young-Hee. But in fact, she just asks him about having something on her mind that she can’t stop thinking about—iow, while it’s true she can’t stop thinking about Young-Hee, she’s hinting to Tim that she just can’t stop thinking about that threat of his over her head.

Tim again leaves her twisting in the wind with a conversation that makes no sense. Tim says he deals with intrusive thoughts through praying for guidance. Elizabeth asks what to do when you don’t pray (iow, again offering herself as a lost soul who would benefit from prayer or something like it). Tim says that doesn’t matter, and when Elizabeth understandably thinks that makes no sense, he says that all that matters is how they treat each other.

On first watch I just thought it was weird that a professional pastor would suggest believing in God didn’t matter, but the real trouble is the exchange is illogical. How is “how we treat each other” an answer for who to pray to for guidance if you don't believe in God? 

It makes no sense as a conversation, but it does make sense as Tim speaking to what Elizabeth is allegedly asking about: As long as they treat each other well (you don’t threaten me, I don’t threaten you) she doesn’t have to obsess over what he might do to her.

Seems fitting that Elizabeth so monopolizes Pastor Tim in this ep, like she’s literally taken him from Paige—and it’s mostly Pastor Tim’s doing. I mean, let’s think about his influence in Paige’s life. He encouraged her to confront her parents to learn their secrets. When she told him what she’d learned, he claimed he wouldn’t tell anyone else, but told his wife. Then he pressured her to find out more about exactly what they were doing and guilted her for not imagining them up to nefarious deeds and wanting to Do Something About It. Now that he has a kid of his own, he wants to insulate his family from all of that.

So, since the start of the season when Tim learned the secret, he’s been the opposite of helpful to Paige in just about every way. He gives her no advice at all about practical steps to protect herself or be ready for a crisis, lies about keeping it to himself and justifies that by saying he and his wife would never do anything to hurt her. Then Alice winds up threatening to blow up Paige’s life because of something Tim did, and Tim goes along with it without telling Paige he’s doing this face to face. He just retreats back into the role of youth pastor—now with more appropriate boundaries—and leaves her to deal with not just the feelings of betrayal and danger that come from her parents’ lies, but from his misguided interfering as well.

This all seemed a little contrived to me on first watch, but now I see that the baby is the key that makes it all make sense. Tim’s playing out one of the central themes of the show, how children complicate a life dedicated to a cause and change priorities. Only Tim's cause involved somebody's else's kid. His change of priorities somehow just lets him be a pretty bad influence on Paige in two different ways that somewhat mirror to Elizabeth.

[sistermagpie]

Just watched A Roy Rogers in Franconia – this ep is setting up a lot for the last season, especially a few key miscommunications and misunderstandings.

OLEG

Oleg tells Stan about Tatiana’s project and gets William caught. He and William are both laying out something important that connects to the Paige story—that they can do things that are scary only when they think they’re doing the right thing, especially for those back home. This is the foundation for Team Oleg.

TATIANA

Tatiana asks Oleg to consider being her Deputy as Rezident. She’s an ambitious career woman, but her feelings for Oleg influence her in ways that don’t work out for her and the same can’t be said of Oleg. That is, he’s not conflicted about acting against her when he thinks it’s right. Just seems significant since Tatiana was sometimes seen as so career-minded. Though again I think this is in keeping with Team Oleg and the question of motivation.

HENRY

Henry has a couple of moments in this ep where he’s obviously thinking something hinky is going on, laying the groundwork for his deciding he *doesn’t* want to know. Yes, he seems also annoyed at seeming to be left out of conversations, like in the aftermath of the mugging, but I’ve never agreed with attempts to characterize him as mostly motivated by resentment.

STAN

Stan gets another bad fitness report from his actual son when Matthew tells Paige he’s rarely at home while Matthew visits. He responds to Paige’s mature big sister praise of Stan being nice to Henry by saying Stan is good with *little* kids, since Stan abandoned him at around Henry’s age. I don’t think it’s an age thing so much as a complexity thing. Henry, even as a teenager, simply makes no awkward demands on Stan at all. But regardless, he’s *more* absent a parent than the Jennings.

Nice callback that Matthew says that catching spies, unlike Stan’s undercover work, doesn’t involve “car chases and stuff” when Stan literally had a car chase and a shootout with the Jennings at the end of S1.

It’s the three main Jennings who are really being set up for their endgames here.

PHILIP

Philip’s most important scenes are the ones with William, which is fitting because Philip’s path is a solitary one. He’s moving towards some kind of enlightenment, but he’s taking the dark path where he faces his demons and lets go of one thing after another until he’s got almost nothing. Only then can he start making informed choices going forward. But it’s a long path.

Again, everything William says about himself and Gabriel says about William applies to Philip. When Philip is surprised by Gabriel changing William’s mind about stealing the pathogen, Gabriel says he didn’t change his mind, he reminded him of who he was and gave him what he wanted. In S6 Oleg will remind Philip who he is and give him what he wants.

It’s manipulation when coming from Gabriel, but he is right in ultimately seeing that William is still the same man he was when he signed up—and so is Philip, even if both of them doubt it at times. Great performance by William in his Gabriel scene, btw. I completely buy him as a patriot despite his surly, sarcastic demeanor.

ELIZABETH

Where Philip is heading down a dark, solitary path of self-knowledge, Elizabeth and Paige are heading down what they insist is a shared bright path, built on self-deception and misunderstanding—it can’t hold up in the real world.

Elizabeth tells Philip how just before the mugging Paige was “reporting” to her things Matthew said about Stan. She doesn’t seem happy about this, despite her dreams of Paige being a spy. Later we find out why: Elizabeth knows Paige had a crush on Matthew, can see he’s a potential boyfriend. Therefore, she sees Paige getting very close to honeypotting with her reports, something she probably never thought about before. That continues when Paige obviously asks Matthew about Stan in Elizabeth’s presence, then looks to Elizabeth to make sure she heard him.

That’s why the next time Paige reports something she thinks might be “important” about Stan, Philip and Elizabeth are prepared to start warning her off this path. Only Paige doesn’t get it, because honey-trapping is so completely against who she is and how she sees the world that she wouldn’t consider it. Even if on some level she does get what they’re talking about, she can’t admit it even to herself. This will be a very big misunderstanding in S6.

I think the scene the morning after the mugging when Elizabeth and Paige talk sets up an even more important misunderstanding/delusion for Elizabeth. The scene made me think about how Philip’s various personas are so important to his characterization—you can’t always tell where Clark ends and Philip begins. With Elizabeth, her real persona is so strong, you can always see her. Philip’s personas are roles that he plays; Elizabeth’s are masks that she wears.

But in this scene, I did get a sense of different Elizabeths. When she first enters the room, she’s “Elizabeth Jennings, suburban mom,” bringing cocoa and asking how Paige is. She stays that way until Paige asks her if she knew her job would be dangerous when she joined up. Then she snaps into patriot mode, resolutely declaring she wanted to serve her country. When Paige points out that’s not what she’s asking, Elizabeth thinks more deeply about it, telling stories of Smolensk during the war. These aren’t her own memories; they’re stories she herself grew up hearing. (Maybe that’s why she claims her father died when she was two, associating his death with the end of the war.) But these stories eventually lead her full circle back to mother mode—only now she’s the real mother she is, a Russian mother who desperately wants a daughter who shares her love and understanding of her country.

It makes Elizabeth more vulnerable, imo. It also makes me think how Elizabeth lost Young-Hee not long ago, yet instead of making her question orders (as viewers predicted it would), she instead seems to hope to make Paige as a possible connection to fill the hole. (She looks genuinely upset by Paige's needing comfort after watching her murder.)

But this is a misunderstanding on Elizabeth’s part. Paige, as I’ve said, has been established as not feeling connected to foreign things, even in this scene. (She’s like Elizabeth that way, really.) She smiles at Elizabeth sharing something about herself, but that doesn’t mean she’s wanting to see Smolensk, particularly. (She even kind of makes a face when Elizabeth starts to talk about Russia, as if her first instinct is to be impatient with it.) When Elizabeth ultimately does try to take Paige to Russia and so at some point Smolensk, Paige will get off the train. I don’t think this is the first or last time Elizabeth will assume that if she explains her feelings to someone, they must feel them themselves.

Elizabeth telling herself Paige shares her feelings about her homeland and thinking she can keep Paige ignorant about honeypotting through vague warnings will be central to their relationship in S6.

Pet peeve in this ep: I don’t like that line of Paige’s about how Elizabeth doesn’t understand the soap they’re watching because it’s “about emotions.” They’re watching General Hospital and the two people onscreen are Celia and her husband, Grant, who by this point has been outed as…a Russian Illegal just like Elizabeth. I think by this point he’s defected because he loves his wife. The “emotions” exchange would be ridiculous anyway, but in response to this it’s even worse.

This ep also made me think how Elizabeth’s role as a parent gets more focus on the show than Philip’s because she’s so conflicted about it. His parallel story is about his relationship with Russia. Elizabeth’s feelings for her country seem clear and easy to her; her relationship with the kids is more complicated; she hides her own feelings from herself and doesn’t always understand them. With Philip it’s exactly reversed. His feelings for the kids seem clear and easy; feelings about Russia less so. Just as Elizabeth in the past claimed to not want kids, Philip toys with the idea that he could just defect. But ultimately, they’re both fooling themselves about how strongly they feel about the thing that comes second.

PAIGE

This ep makes major moves for Paige as well which on first watch I didn’t get. I remember thinking she seemed to be written as a bit dim here when she compares reporting on Matthew to reporting on the Tims—like she still didn’t get why she was reporting on the Tims. But now I see she’s not dumb. It’s very logical.

She reported on Matthew in the last ep in response to Elizabeth telling her there was nothing they could do about the Tims and their tape. Since Paige couldn’t do anything about that threat, she moved on to the threat that is Stan, hoping that anything he said about his work via Matthew might be significant. Then another threat leaps out and traumatizes her.

This introduces an important psychological conflict for Paige. From the beginning of the show, she’s been trying to define herself, assert her own identity, and eventually find intimacy. This causes problems with Elizabeth, especially, because she thinks it’s her job as a parent to mold Paige into the person Elizabeth thinks she should be.

But now, suddenly, Paige has a new priority: fear. In this ep that fear is already leading her to for the first time consider handing herself over to Elizabeth. Paige herself, for instance, doesn’t like violence. Back in S1 she found the news re-running Reagan’s attempted assassination to be “ghoulish.” Her idea of heroism has always been non-violent: the secret service agent who threw himself in front of Reagan, Jesus, Pastor Tim the pacifist, non-violent resistance. But when Elizabeth got violent, she made a threat go away.

You can see these two things in conflict in the dialogue after the mugging. Paige’s instinctive reaction is repulsion (“Did you have to do that?”/ “I feel sick.”) but she’s envious of Elizabeth’s ability to get rid of the threat (“How did you know how to do that?” / “I was so scared…you were, like, calm.”).

The next day, she’s still thinking about how her parents do dangerous things and handle fear. She starts moving consciously closer to them as figures of protection and strength, feeling more secure when she knows what they’re doing.

Paige’s incomprehension of her parents’ honeytrap warnings points to a bigger misunderstanding on her part about what spying is. Paige has a real relationship with the Tims and with Matthew. She assumes her parents have real relationships with the people they work with, even if they use different names. Longing for real intimacy is too central to her character to imagine faking entire relationships to manipulate people. She’s spent her whole life on the outside of their secrets. She reminds them in this ep that now that she knows who they are, there’s no reason to lie. She has reason to assume it’s like that for other people too. The scene in this ep re: spying on Matthew is a foreshadowing of Paige and the intern in S6, trying to tell us that no, she really doesn’t accept honeypotting as a possibility.

That said, while the writing for Paige fell into place on rewatch now that I know where it’s going, I don’t think the acting does justice to it. It seems like this ep would play differently with an actor who could play Paige as a person recently traumatized and deeply afraid. As is, her emotions stay firmly in the same small range as usual, so her reactions seem more motivated by how she thinks than her emotional make-up. It’s all too easy to see her as just thinking she knows best while still not getting it.

Like when she and Elizabeth first come home, they’re almost the opposites of each other in that Elizabeth is speaking calmly, but underneath seems tense. (I love how she even gives Philip a little headshake as she talks about the mugging.) She’s believable as someone who recently had to kill someone unexpectedly. Whereas Paige is making a big show of being upset with her face, but physically seems totally calm when she’s not supposed to be. (We get two more references in this ep to her not sleeping, a consistent, explicit tell about her anxiety.)

That continues when she and her parents go up to her room. There, while it’s clear she’s supposed to be upset, she doesn’t seem like someone in shock and trying to process. I think an actor who was more specific would make us see her jumping around as things hit her differently and see the conflict between her attraction and repulsion to Elizabeth. Her feeling that on one hand her parents are killers so she can’t feel safe with them, while otoh her parents are killers so she can ONLY feel safe with them.

But physically, she’s just obviously not anywhere near the hysteria hinted at in the script. When she suddenly announces that she feels sick, she obviously doesn’t really feel sick. Compare her physically to Martha in the scene where she confronts Clark about not being Walter Taffet—that’s a person who’s freaking out. Paige, despite her dramatic facial expression, she’s the calmest person in the scene. Her affect, especially in conversations with Elizabeth, actually reminded me most of a little kid asking her parents about a pet who’s died. Like she’s putting a lot of effort into showing that these are Very Serious Questions but without a sense of what exactly she’s asking and why.

Her best scene by far, imo, is when she’s flirting with and kissing Matthew, a normal teenager in a normal situation. But when arguing with her parents about him, that same energy that made the Matthew moment seem important makes the argument about spying seem shallow. Paige seems like she’s catching her parents out on a technicality instead of panicked that they’re still lying to reassure her. So the parts of that scene that ring most true are the parts where she’s awkwardly talking about dating Matthew. This all seems important because I think it’s a problem in S6 as well.

Edited July 4, 2022 by sistermagpie

[Paloma]

I just started rewatching the series (since someone nicely gifted me a year's subscription to Prime), and it's interesting to see how many things I forgot as well as how I see things that I do remember in a different way than during the original viewing. For example, I'm currently in season 2 in the episodes when Paige starts sneaking around, routinely lying to her parents, and rebelling (most noticeably, her trip to find "Aunt Helen" and getting involved with a Christian youth group). When I originally viewed this season, I was just annoyed with Paige's character and felt like her story was a waste of time. But now I see that her behavior was (1) not unusual for a teenager, even a previously obedient and loving "good daughter" (I had some experience in that area both as a teenager many moons ago and as the mother of a teenage daughter some more recent moons ago); and (2) this change in her attitude and behavior was part of the first real test of Philip and Elizabeth as parents, because until now both kids were easy and did not take up too much emotional space that might interfere with their missions. The scene where Philip angrily made Paige sit down and reprimanded her felt very realistic and also like the first time he had to deal with something difficult with either kid.

I also related to Elizabeth's anger about Paige's religious involvement more on this rewatch. Originally I just thought about it as a natural reaction to the Communist view of religion as the "opiate of the masses." But given recent political events in the US where someone else's religious views are being forced on those who don't share those views, and the increasing worry that the separation between church and state is being lost, I empathized with Elizabeth's anger on this specific rebellion by Paige.

[Zella]

6 minutes ago, Paloma said:

I just started rewatching the series (since someone nicely gifted me a year's subscription to Prime), and it's interesting to see how many things I forgot as well as how I see things that I do remember in a different way than during the original viewing.

I'm rewatching too and am having the same revelation! I'm a little ahead of you on the rewatch (just wrapped up season 3), but I'm also finding the Paige storyline less exasperating this time around. Just in general, I've been really impressed with the storylines that are established so early that end up being pertinent to the finale. It's fascinating to watch Philip and Elizabeth morph from primarily seeing themselves as coparents who work together to being an actual couple. 

My most recent lightbulb moment that didn't click for me at all the first time around is the same episode where

Spoiler

Paige is finally told that her parents are spies, which of course seemed so significant at the time, is the same one that Henry and Stan start becoming buddies, which didn't really compute as terribly relevant to the plot. But of course it ultimately is!

 My mind was blown. 

[Domestic Assassin]

19 minutes ago, Paloma said:

I just started rewatching the series (since someone nicely gifted me a year's subscription to Prime)

Just a warning in case you haven't heard, The Americans will not be available on Prime after July 29th. It's moving to Hulu.

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, Paloma said:

I just started rewatching the series (since someone nicely gifted me a year's subscription to Prime), and it's interesting to see how many things I forgot as well as how I see things that I do remember in a different way than during the original viewing. For example, I'm currently in season 2 in the episodes when Paige starts sneaking around, routinely lying to her parents, and rebelling (most noticeably, her trip to find "Aunt Helen" and getting involved with a Christian youth group). When I originally viewed this season, I was just annoyed with Paige's character and felt like her story was a waste of time. But now I see that her behavior was (1) not unusual for a teenager, even a previously obedient and loving "good daughter" (I had some experience in that area both as a teenager many moons ago and as the mother of a teenage daughter some more recent moons ago); and (2) this change in her attitude and behavior was part of the first real test of Philip and Elizabeth as parents, because until now both kids were easy and did not take up too much emotional space that might interfere with their missions. The scene where Philip angrily made Paige sit down and reprimanded her felt very realistic and also like the first time he had to deal with something difficult with either kid.

Yeah, on rewatch I found as much as Philip and Elizabeth starting a relationship was the start of the show, so was Paige becoming an adolescent, changing the way they had to parent. There's so much about Paige's story that's more clear to me on rewatch. It made sense to me in general the first time, but now I can see details that were there.

2 hours ago, Paloma said:

I also related to Elizabeth's anger about Paige's religious involvement more on this rewatch. Originally I just thought about it as a natural reaction to the Communist view of religion as the "opiate of the masses." But given recent political events in the US where someone else's religious views are being forced on those who don't share those views, and the increasing worry that the separation between church and state is being lost, I empathized with Elizabeth's anger on this specific rebellion by Paige.

Especially since this particular church comes with a Pastor and his wife who are there to be alternate parents who seem to enjoy presenting themselves as better at it than her actual parents. Pastor Tim is really aggressively entitled about it--and again, on rewatch I find that his arc is clear in ways it wasn't before. He doesn't mean to be terrible, but is thoughtlessly terrible.

2 hours ago, Domestic Assassin said:

Just a warning in case you haven't heard, The Americans will not be available on Prime after July 29th. It's moving to Hulu.

Something I actually have!

[Paloma]

2 hours ago, Domestic Assassin said:

Just a warning in case you haven't heard, The Americans will not be available on Prime after July 29th. It's moving to Hulu.

Thanks for the warning, I will have to speed up my rewatch. Between work and other commitments, I only have time to watch about half an episode a day most of the time, but I will find more time somehow. It's just as bingable (on the second watch as it was on the first one.

[Paloma]

Some random questions and thoughts (in no particular order) now that I have finished rewatching Season 2:

Did Stan somehow steal the ECHO floppy disk and then return it? When he came home after seeing where the disk was kept and what it contained (when the officer put it in the computer and told Stan it was just code), he opened his shirt and pulled off something taped to his chest that looked like the shape/size of the disk. But with all the security and the officer with him in the secure area, how could Stan have just taken the disk? And if he did manage to take it, how did he get it back? Or was this whole scene part of the nightmare that he was shown to be having in a later scene?

Why did Oleg give Nina an envelope of U.S. cash? I know he told her earlier to run if Stan wouldn't give the Russians ECHO, but I think Oleg gave her this after they knew Stan had not given them ECHO and she was being presumably being guarded until it was time to escort her back to Russia for trial and execution. So she couldn't have run at this point, and I don't know what good the cash would do other than possibly as a bribe to a guard.

In my original watch, I remember thinking of Henry as the typical annoying and sometimes amusing little brother who, until much later in the show, did not have much significance in the story as Paige. But when Henry was pleading with his parents to believe that he was good and not a criminal after being caught sneaking into a neighbor's house and playing video games there, on this rewatch this scene hit much harder. The contrast between this child's small "crime" and his remorse over it, and his parent's terrible crimes (even if we are sympathetic to their situation) and lack of remorse and/or way of justifying the crimes (especially Elizabeth) was painful to watch, and within the story was probably intended to make the parents start to understand how their secret lives will affect their children when those secrets are inevitably discovered.

[Zella]

3 hours ago, Paloma said:

Why did Oleg give Nina an envelope of U.S. cash? I know he told her earlier to run if Stan wouldn't give the Russians ECHO, but I think Oleg gave her this after they knew Stan had not given them ECHO and she was being presumably being guarded until it was time to escort her back to Russia for trial and execution. So she couldn't have run at this point, and I don't know what good the cash would do other than possibly as a bribe to a guard.

He gives her the cash before Stan doesn't deliver the ECHO program.

What essentially happens is in 2.11, they announce to Nina the plan for Stan to be coerced into doing this, and Arkady notes she seems unenthusiastic and finally explains (separately) to Oleg that if it fails, Nina will be sent off for trial since she had previously committed treason. He also tells Oleg that he himself can't warn her about what happens because he lacks connections, so Oleg then himself warns her if it fails, she needs to run. I think Arkady tipped off Oleg, knowing full well that he would say something to her. 

Then in 2.12, they spring the trap on Stan and make him the offer. Then while they're waiting to see what Stan does, Oleg mentions to Arkady that Nina has done all she could, even if Stan doesn't take the bait, and Arkady deflects from giving him the positive answer he so clearly he wants. Arkady instead responds that the only way for them to be sure that Nina is not still spying for the Americans is for her to be able to get Stan to give them something so valuable that it is clear this is not an American operation that is baiting them.

It's only after this that Oleg gives her the money. 

Arkady doesn't even make arrangements with Stan to hand over the information until 2.13 and that's when it finally becomes clear Stan isn't going to do it. So, when Oleg gives her the money, it's still unclear what Stan will do--at least to the Soviets. 

I believe what happens is that Oleg increasingly begins to realize that Stan may not be turned--that he may be willing to give them surveillance information on Rezidentura officers but that is very different from giving up something as valuable as ECHO--and he is feeling Arkady out to see if there is any wiggle room for Nina. 

Once he realizes that there is none, he gives her the cash.

From a logical standpoint, it's not really going to make a difference, but I also think he's trying to tip her off that running might be better rather than waiting around to see if the operation works but without saying anything that would get him in trouble. He tells her that her future is bright and then shakes his head and looks intently at her, as if to say, "Eh it's really not." 

And I think the guards are there because again the KGB is really unsure of Nina at this moment. But she's not technically under arrest yet. 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Zella

[Paloma]

@Zella  Thank you for this detailed explanation! The timeline of what's going on in these complicated plots is often confusing for me. I did suspect that Arkady tipped off Oleg, knowing he would probably tell Nina about her likely fate, and I remember the other things that you mentioned. But I either forgot or was confused about when Oleg gave her the cash.

[Zella]

6 minutes ago, Paloma said:

@Zella  Thank you for this detailed explanation! The timeline of what's going on in these complicated plots is often confusing for me. I did suspect that Arkady tipped off Oleg, knowing he would probably tell Nina about her likely fate, and I remember the other things that you mentioned. But I either forgot or was confused about when Oleg gave her the cash.

You're welcome and no worries--it is convoluted! The Rezidentura shenanigans in season 2 are my absolute favorite part of the show (I've rewatched those scenes a lot in isolation), but I still sometimes have to stop and go "Wait what are we doing?!" LOL 

6 minutes ago, Paloma said:

I did suspect that Arkady tipped off Oleg,

His reaction to the whole thing fascinates me because I think he does sincerely like Nina as a colleague and as a person, but unlike Oleg, he's not going to make excuses for her or minimize what she did that got her into trouble to begin with. I wonder if for him Nina bolting and running would be more or less of a headache than just sending her back home for trial. 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Zella

[sistermagpie]

6 hours ago, Paloma said:

Did Stan somehow steal the ECHO floppy disk and then return it? When he came home after seeing where the disk was kept and what it contained (when the officer put it in the computer and told Stan it was just code), he opened his shirt and pulled off something taped to his chest that looked like the shape/size of the disk. But with all the security and the officer with him in the secure area, how could Stan have just taken the disk? And if he did manage to take it, how did he get it back? Or was this whole scene part of the nightmare that he was shown to be having in a later scene?

I believe what Stan has taped to his chest is some kind of camera or recording device rather than a disc. So he was maybe working on how to actually steal it or something but didn't take that next step.

I tried to take a screenshot of it:

6 hours ago, Paloma said:

In my original watch, I remember thinking of Henry as the typical annoying and sometimes amusing little brother who, until much later in the show, did not have much significance in the story as Paige. But when Henry was pleading with his parents to believe that he was good and not a criminal after being caught sneaking into a neighbor's house and playing video games there, on this rewatch this scene hit much harder. The contrast between this child's small "crime" and his remorse over it, and his parent's terrible crimes (even if we are sympathetic to their situation) and lack of remorse and/or way of justifying the crimes (especially Elizabeth) was painful to watch, and within the story was probably intended to make the parents start to understand how their secret lives will affect their children when those secrets are inevitably discovered.

I thought it was kind of the opposite, that Philip, at least, recognized himself in Henry. Both of them had done things that made them look like bad people. The fact that they wanted to be good people, didn't want to hurt anyone, had good intentions, didn't matter. They wouldn't be able to explain their way out of that bad impression. It was just too close to what Philip seemed to be thinking that season to not be intentional imo.

Elizabeth, of course, just leans into that. She really is ready to look people in the face and say the ends justified the means. She thinks it's just weakness for her to think too much about hurting others. (And of course Philip shares some of her feelings there, since he did take the job thinking it was necessary.)

2 hours ago, Zella said:

You're welcome and no worries--it is convoluted! The Rezidentura shenanigans in season 2 are my absolute favorite part of the show (I've rewatched those scenes a lot in isolation), but I still sometimes have to stop and go "Wait what are we doing?!" LOL 

His reaction to the whole thing fascinates me because I think he does sincerely like Nina as a colleague and as a person, but unlike Oleg, he's not going to make excuses for her or minimize what she did that got her into trouble to begin with. I wonder if for him Nina bolting and running would be more or less of a headache than just sending her back home for trial. 

Yes! I love Arkady's evolving feelings towards both Nina and Oleg. It's a really cool dynamic between the trio of them, almost quasi-parental without Arkady being the parent. He seems to identify with both of them in different ways. 

It also seems like there's so many interesting reasons for Arkady to have a different reaction to Nina's troubles as Oleg. He's a bit older, yes, but he's also not coming from the kind of privilege Oleg is. It's quite a journey for him to eventually approve of Oleg's giving up William. I always thought Arkady was really angry at Nina for getting herself into trouble too, because he really did like her.

Edited July 20, 2022 by sistermagpie

[Paloma]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

I believe what Stan has taped to his chest is some kind of camera or recording device rather than a disc. So he was maybe working on how to actually steal it or something but didn't take that next step.

That makes more sense, and your screenshot seems to rule out that it was a disk. 

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

7 hours ago, Paloma said:

The contrast between this child's small "crime" and his remorse over it, and his parent's terrible crimes (even if we are sympathetic to their situation) and lack of remorse and/or way of justifying the crimes (especially Elizabeth) was painful to watch, and within the story was probably intended to make the parents start to understand how their secret lives will affect their children when those secrets are inevitably discovered.

I thought it was kind of the opposite, that Philip, at least, recognized himself in Henry. Both of them had done things that made them look like bad people. The fact that they wanted to be good people, didn't want to hurt anyone, had good intentions, didn't matter. They wouldn't be able to explain their way out of that bad impression. It was just too close to what Philip seemed to be thinking that season to not be intentional imo.

When I referred to Philip and Elizabeth's lack of remorse, I was really referring more to the idea that they could murder people and do other terrible things without being overwhelmed with guilt, the way Henry was over his little crime. They may feel some remorse when they have to hurt someone who is not an enemy (e.g., when they deceive or threaten a decent person into helping them), but they can live with it as the price of the larger cause...until they can't. Philip has always seemed to have more difficulty living with this price, and the more he sees that this price affects his children (even if his children don't yet know it), the closer he comes to a breaking point. So I am actually agreeing with you that Philip recognized himself in Henry in that they both wanted to be good people but had done things that made them look like bad people and would have difficulty explaining their way out of it.