The Americans

[sistermagpie]

23 hours ago, greekmom said:

Americans is one of those shows that left so many unanswered questions...

But that's what so great! A sequel might ruin it! 😬

[sistermagpie]

5 minutes ago, Zella said:

Yes this is something I really picked up on in my summer rewatch. I know I've seen people complain about him not being a particularly good actor--not so much here as other discussion sites--but I never had that impression of him at all. I found him quite believable as Henry and truthfully was always delighted when Henry popped up. He was very believable to me as a bright kid who wasn't quite a slacker but very much marched to the beat of his own quirky drum and mystified the rest of the family. I thought the scene in season 6 when he reveals to Stan that he has actually felt alienated from the family was quite poignant.

I always thought that about him too. He doesn't have enough to do for me to know whether he's that great an actor in general or not, but he was often a breath of fresh air walking into a scene. I never had a problem believing him in a scene. I remember one scene this season that I really like his little moments in--I think it's where the math teacher calls, but I'll see when I get to it.

Also, I honestly feel like sometimes while he didn't mistify the audience, they just didn't pay attention to him and kept replacing him with some cliche he never was. Sure we didn't see him as much as everyone else, but he wasn't just a blank slate to project onto. He had a clear personality that develops--especially with the way he interacts with Philip. (But then, some people always seemed determine to deny that relationship existed!) I got everything I needed from some of his little moments, like his "Oh" when Philip says he can't pay for school, or saying Elizabeth never talks to him. The revelations about his parents would have such different meanings for each one too, given their very different relationships at the end. 

5 minutes ago, Zella said:

I just never had that reaction to a Paige scene. I can better appreciate the writing for the character, but I don't think she had the acting chops to handle more subtle character work. Basically she moves her eyebrows and looks worried. She's not awful, but I think she was definitely outacted by pretty much the entire rest of the cast. 

Yes, it's not like she's the worst actor ever. But she's on a show where making that inner life and motivations clear is so important and it's just not there.  That affects the show beyond just whether or not the one actor is "good" in a scene or not. 

[Andy73]

Oops. They did it again

Yesterday, from Italian press:

Sweden, the network of Russian spies dismantled: the double existence, which lasted a decade, of Sergei and Elena

It's true, in the end, they discovered them. But it's been a while since, in the late 1990s, they arrived in Sweden from Moscow like any couple. And, once they settled behind a screen of legality, they turned into ‘illegal’, spies on behalf of the Crane, the Russian military secret service.

Sergei Skvortsov and his wife Elena Koulkova: a case reminiscent of the plot of the extraordinary TV series The Americans.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Andy73

[Andy73]

On 11/28/2022 at 5:14 AM, sistermagpie said:

Just watched Pests. 

Again: thank you for your post! As usual you give me other pow that I would never have had.

I agree: the entire 5th season is a path forward the end. Some line are a little bit ridiculous (US want to starve the Russians), but this is a long marathon.

Tuan: for me he a “pebble in the shoe” his  behavior is no so clear for me: Why is he so radical in general, especially with Pasha and then we discover him fond of his adoptive family? What is his background?

Elizabeth: she is She is split: she doesn't trust Page, she would like to protect her… otho she would want Page like her… 

Page: she still doesn't know who she wants to be. Hard not to understand her: who would be able to handle such a thing at his age?

I know: you don’t like so much Holly’s performance. It’s seems flat… I agree… but… may be JJ wants her in this way to show us she confused… 

On 11/28/2022 at 5:22 AM, Zella said:

I found him quite believable as Henry and truthfully was always delighted when Henry popped up. He was very believable to me as a bright kid who wasn't quite a slacker but very much marched to the beat of his own quirky drum and mystified the rest of the family

I agree. In 6th season he was a breath of fresh air

On 11/28/2022 at 5:23 AM, sistermagpie said:

But that's what so great! A sequel might ruin it! 😬

Totally agree!!!!

I miss them, but no… I don’t want a sequel…

[Andy73]

Just watched Cardinal 2x02

Well there is not much to say: thriller in this episode is really present: Elizabeth in every scene shows all her terror... a look at the window... her posture with which she scrutinizes the environment outside the front door... a drop of water falling from the tap...

And then love: I had forgotten the relief on Elizabeth’s when Philip showed up at home unexpected. It was stunning! Elizabeth was openly happy that her husband chose her over the mission; that said everything about how much she’d come to need him at this point.

That is why I love this show!!!

In this ep. Elizabeth is very warried about kids… then we can see her u-turn: she is ready to involve Page in spies stuff when Mother Russia call!

A connection whit START: here Philip answer to Elizabeth: we’ll get used to it. In START Elizabeth said the same. The ring closes.

Spy stuff: FBI makes a good work with Dameran!

Edited January 23 by Andy73
Added spy stuff.

[sistermagpie]

7 hours ago, Andy73 said:

And then love: I had forgotten the relief on Elizabeth’s when Philip showed up at home unexpected. It was stunning! Elizabeth was openly happy that her husband chose her over the mission; that said everything about how much she’d come to need him at this point.

 

I love how it's like throughout the show Elizabeth is continually surprised when Philip has her back and how that feels for her.

[sistermagpie]

Just watched The Midges! Lots of food—or lack of food, as in the sad grocery store where Poor Martha shops.

First time round I saw S5 setting up S6 in practical ways—Elizabeth working alone, Philip partially retired, Paige working with Elizabeth. But now I’m seeing deeper character foundation, especially for P&E, who are never less root-able than they are ignorantly menacing this poor bug guy In his lab.

 

OLEG

Oleg meets with a grocery store manager to figure out this whole bribe system and gets offered tangerines. Food! He also gets hit with the tape Stan made of him, so he knows he might be in trouble.

 

STAN

People often criticized Stan and Adderholt for talking to Russians in the open, but, iirc, the show itself explains that they’re doing that on purpose. It puts the targets under suspicion and threat, which makes them more vulnerable. The FBI don’t have to do this stuff in secret. It’s their home turf!

One guy they meet in a diner, making him leave without eating. Adderholt helps himself to his fries. Food!

 

TUAN

When Tuan hints about wanting a dog, and I remember how people seemed to expect P&E to treat this guy like their actual child even while Tuan himself is disgusted (or maybe just jealous) of Pasha’s mother coddling him. This, imo, is proof that P&E were never the bad parents people often claim they were, because if they were, they wouldn’t always be expected to parent everyone. (Stan isn’t.)

Tuan’s amusingly insensitive, predicting the US will destroy the USSR with obvious satisfaction. Later he and Philip eat (food!) at the house and he talks about having to eat out of garbage cans (food again!).

 

MISCHA

Mischa makes it to Yugoslavia and has a lot of his money taken by a guy who’s maybe going to get him across the border. He’s probably never had that much money before so didn’t think to split it up and put it in different places. I can’t help but notice that Mischa has a nervous energy in this scene that’s entirely missing from any scene with Paige. 

 

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth’s brown eyes are intense in this disguise! And how does she keep that wig on over the giant lump of hair without any of the pins and glue Clark used? She’s really attached to that long hair to keep it in this line of work.

There are still people who believe Elizabeth is honey-trapping Philip because she playfully gets Philip to dance when he’s brooding over Soviet grain issues, but she’s not tricking him into loyalty, she just sees he’s gloomy and cheers him up. And he knows she’s doing that and appreciates it for what it is.

On rewatch I saw a lot of little ways Elizabeth deals with things that will come to swallow her up in S6. Sometimes they’re contrasted with things Philip’s doing that equally foreshadow him in S6.

For instance, when they’re telling Paige that they are undercover as a pilot and his stewardess wife, Elizabeth laughs, instinctively making it seem silly and even a little fun, inviting Paige to imagine Elizabeth as herself, but wearing a stewardess uniform, not someone manipulating another person in potentially cruel ways. Elizabeth has a certain tone she takes when encouraging Paige down the road she wants that’s really consistent—and a bit Pastor Tim-like.

We all see Elizabeth brushing off difficult questions with easy answers or just avoiding them entirely. When Paige complains she’ll have to be fake with her boyfriends forever, Elizabeth claims it’s not being fake, that everyone holds something back, that relationships are complicated. Well, yeah, but that’s not really taking her question seriously. If it’s so easy to just “hold back” something why did Elizabeth want so badly to tell Paige who she was? Why does she find it so hard to relate to anybody outside their world?

She also brushes off Philip’s question about why the USSR can’t grow its own wheat with another breezy “Everybody has problems.”

She’s evasive when Philip wonders what they’d do if they had to run—would they tell the kids beforehand or, like Alexei, simply run and explain later? Elizabeth had earlier excoriated Alexei’s actions, saying “Who does something like that?” and “He just didn’t give a shit what his family thought.” But now, with Philip pointing out they might do the same thing, she just says it’s different because Alexei didn’t have to run from Russia. Except that’s irrelevant to the question. The kids would still experience things the same way Pasha did, and P&E didn’t have to be undercover. They chose it and dragged the kids along, just like Alexei.

I’d always remembered it as Philip who tells the bug guy he “should have asked” what people were doing with those midges before he sent them off, but it’s Elizabeth, making the line even more hypocritical. Elizabeth not only never asks, she’s often proud of it. (I love that the guy at one point says, “Do you know anything about bugs?” Nope, but they'll still kill you.)

The other thing is when they’re telling Paige about the wheat plot, Elizabeth focuses on how this is the type of thing the US does, that they go after the USSR any way they can. US aggression vs. USSR defense. Good guys (her) and bad guys (them). She’s drawing a line between US/USSR, offender/defender, aggressor/victim, and as long as Paige considers herself American, it’s implied, she’s supporting the former even if that's hard to hear.

Watching all this now, I can’t help but think of how she’ll continue to soften her work to Paige and give simple, unhelpful answers. Her “not asking” about what she’s doing in the wider context will become an explicit theme and a point of vulnerability for her in S6.

Elizabeth's ability to see only what she’s supposed to see is already distancing her from Russia as it exists in 1984 as opposed to 1942. She needs that straightforward conflict and an enemy attacking the country to focus on and doesn’t want to think about internal issues or the day-to-day struggles of ordinary people within the system. So it’s not that strange to think she’ll wind up semi-unwittingly trying to prolong the Cold War. She doesn’t want peace, she wants victory and if that victory is forever out of reach all the better, because the battle defines her life and justifies everything she’s doing.

This thinking on her part often led some to consider her the stronger person/spy, but to me it always seemed like yes, it kept her far more resolute in the present, but totally unprepared for the future and more vulnerable to manipulation.

 

PHILIP

Philip looks so glum whenever he’s playing Brad, but I think it’s because he can’t smile with that moustache.

The foundation’s also being laid for S6 Philip here, though, as ever, it’s not as clear compared to Elizabeth.

The idea of Russians being starved is an emotional one for him—too emotional to logically question the details. But when he’s coldly agreeing with Tuan that Alexei deserves to be shot or threatening the bug guy, it still seems like he wants this wheat plot to be true more than he’s convinced it is. He needs to feel like the righteously angry good guy.

His first flashback to childhood is a big contrast to Elizabeth’s childhood memories, which always include some clear exposition and usually a lesson in dialogue. With Philip, the stuff that’s most interesting to viewers is mostly in the background: That’s his home? That’s his brother?! As a viewer you can’t help but see this scene differently than the way Philip himself is meant to be seeing it.

For instance, on first watch this flashback seemed to be about hunger, since his family is so poor and that’s the big theme. But in retrospect, it’s Alexei again. While bowling (and eating popcorn—food!) he tells his neighbors more details about his father being sent to a camp, talks about a guard there, says the prisoners were outside where everyone could see them. This, I now think, is why Philip is remembering his father bringing home a pair of pants. The fact that Alexei’s awakening these memories, imo, makes clear that Philip *did* know where his dad worked all along. He was just young enough to forget after his death.

Speaking of his death, I always found it odd how Philip tells Tuan about going hungry before his dad died, (after the war). Because why would he make it sound like his father’s dying made food more plentiful when as a guard he would have at least had a salary and was bringing things home? Losing his father would make things worse, not better, especially right after. It seems like maybe Philip is replying to Tuan’s stories of hunger with his own, but winds up starting with his father because that’s where his mind keeps being drawn, back to his father and the prison he was well-aware of as a child. Open to other interpretations!

I think he feels it when Tuan says Pasha’s always talking about “how much he hates his dad.” This season seems to be all about kids potentially hating a father or not knowing them for Philip. Alexei’s got to be one reason for him decisively leaving Henry behind. He’s been thinking about this for years by the time they leave.

When Elizabeth is laughing about pretending to be a stewardess, Philip tells Paige that sometimes it’s really hard to pretend to be someone else. While Elizabeth talks about the wheat plot as the kind of monstrous thing the US does to the USSR, Philip frames it entirely about trying to keep innocent people from being hurt. He avoids making it about Paige’s country hurting his own, or war, and instead makes it about protecting ordinary people.

So where Elizabeth tries to keep things separate—US vs. USSR, us vs them, who she really is vs. who she pretends to be—a policy that will eventually make her have to kid herself that Paige has become Russian and a spy and allow Henry to become this totally foreign Other, Philip—who’s basically in therapy via EST—is trying to integrate the world and his own self: the USSR and the US, Philip and Mischa, loving father and deadly spy. That’s reflected in S6 in his hope for better relations between the two countries, Pizza Huts in Moscow and the idea of serving Stan Russian food.  

This seems to somehow go along with Russian characters looking at internal problems in the USSR, like supply chain/corruption and the GULAG history. It’s the characters who can face the past and the present who seem better able to face the future.

 

PAIGE

Paige’s dilemma here is a serious one. Where her parents committed to a secret for their own reasons, Paige’s life revolves around a secret forced on her by someone else. She’s grown up feeling outside her parents’ bond and consequently associates love and intimacy with truth. So telling her she can’t ever talk about the biggest thing in her life isolates her and takes away the thing she wants most in the world.

This season, I believe she’s supposed to be fighting to hold on to the person she is and wants to be without losing everything familiar and secure. As of this ep, this struggle is personified in Matthew Beeman, so it’s unfortunate that I just can’t root for Paige and Matthew as a couple at all. It’s not that I need them to be true love or think they're supposed to be. Matthew's important enough just representing the potential for Paige to have a relationship of her own. But they’re just so blah I can’t not want them to break up.

Part of it is maybe what I said earlier, that their entire relationship is created out of Paige’s same problems. It’s outright funny when she tells Elizabeth how awful it was when Matthew asked about her and Philip and how things were at home (over pizza – food!) because the kid's been well-trained by now to know her only topics are her problems (which usually are about her parents) and problems Matthew has that reflect those problems. (Just made me remember Tuan saying if Pasha wanted to be cool he needed to stop talking about how much he hates his father.) So of course, Matthew’s telling her about his dad’s new girlfriend. He doesn’t feel like any kind of escape or refuge or hope even without her terrible secret. She’s just as glum and perplexed with him as with her parents.

Oh, and as an aside, note that Paige, who’s determined to pass on info from Matthew that’s relevant to her parents, does *not* pass on Matthew’s news about Stan’s new girlfriend, because she doesn’t get that aspect.

The other thing maybe, though, is that it continues to be hard to really get what Paige is supposed to be feeling even when we’re told what she was supposed to be feeling after the fact. She has her scene with Matthew, then reveals it felt gross to lie to him. Her parents tell her about the wheat plot (while clearing the table from an earlier dinner—food!), then report to Gabriel (over tea and pastries—food!) that it made her look at things differently, feel strongly about people being starved and be closer to her parents. Watching that Gabriel scene now, I still wonder if P&E aren’t supposed to be seeing what they want to see here because I saw them tell her about the wheat and didn’t get any of that?

I see Paige doing “this is hard to deal with/understand” throughout the whole scene. Whether she’s asking questions in a childlike, direct way or an adolescent “everyone here is crazy except me” way, everything from her parents pretending to be other people to them getting information from sources gets the same “Wait…wait…what?” reaction. And even after we’ve been told this wheat plot is a game-changer for her, it still seems like she only asks about it out of politeness before getting to talk about her issues with Matthew. 

I felt briefly sorry for Matthew when I thought he maybe failed a test by telling  Paige there was nothing they could do about the world being so messy, but then it didn’t really seem like he had. Earlier seasons established Paige as a big activist and presumably this is why Philip thinks hearing about the wheat plot will make Matthew seem unimportant to her. (Another time Philip solves an immediate problem by doing something that will be worse for him later.) But she really doesn’t seem that affected by the idea, even when saying, “So nuclear weapons aren’t bad enough?” It sometimes seems like you’re constantly watching her get hit with stuff she will have to process before you’ll get to see who she is, and then that never comes.

I guess in general it seems like when I watch this battle that Paige is supposed to be fighting, it seems like she’s just already given up because everything’s the same. Perhaps she’s meant to have different things she feels strongly about: terrified about threats to her parents and therefore her, passionate about injustice and exhilaration with her boyfriend. But it already feels like the first two things are just more complicated burdens she doesn't want and her scenes with Matthew are so devoid of warmth, chemistry or comfort it’s hard to believe she wants to be there with him. Matthew has moments of believably looking like he wants this to work, but only in a generic way.

When her parents gave her the “rub your fingers” trick they said it was about losing control because sex and romance was going to make her feel and say things with Matthew that she never had before. But when Matthew leans in and earnestly and says, “What is it? You can tell me,” it doesn’t seem like her rubbing her fingers has anything to do with Matthew at all—she just wants to tell somebody, just like with Pastor Tim, but with less personal connection. Which is understandable in itself, but doesn’t support the idea that this has anything to do with romance or desire. These two have known each other for years and have been going out for a while and it’s still impossible to believe they’ve had a private joke, had fun or even had a lively conversation together. 

Edited January 30 by sistermagpie

[Andy73]

Thank you for your post!!!

On 1/27/2023 at 3:17 AM, sistermagpie said:

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth’s brown eyes are intense in this disguise! And how does she keep that wig on over the giant lump of hair without any of the pins and glue Clark used?

This is the real mistery of the Americans!!!
 

On 1/27/2023 at 3:17 AM, sistermagpie said:

She’s really attached to that long hair to keep it in this line of work.

She has such long hair today too, doesn't she?
 

We know very well that Elizabeth also has her own fragilities, even if her dedication to the Cause has always been far firmer than that of Philip . “The Midges” does nothing but confirm this  her position, first in the considerations about Alexei, then in the confrontation with Paige and finally with Philip.

However, the picture that emerges from this is profoundly different from what we would have had if these same scenes had been  in the first or second year: we know Elizabeth’s: we know how much her apparent coldness is in fact a constant work of rationalization of emergencies, of normalization of reality, of pragmatism above all.

On 1/27/2023 at 3:17 AM, sistermagpie said:

We all see Elizabeth brushing off difficult questions with easy answers or just avoiding them entirely. When Paige complains she’ll have to be fake with her boyfriends forever, Elizabeth claims it’s not being fake, that everyone holds something back, that relationships are complicated. Well, yeah, but that’s not really taking her question seriously. If it’s so easy to just “hold back” something why did Elizabeth want so badly to tell Paige who she was? Why does she find it so hard to relate to anybody outside their world?

Elizabeth brings everything back on the most practical level (“it would not be right to give him such a weight”, where the weight would be equivalent to a death sentence) and above all normalizes an issue that is anything but normal, equating the inevitable and necessary “unspoken” in any relationship to lies of this magnitude.

Elizabeth is not trying to manipulate Page with false rhetoric, but this is something she has convinced herself to believe, because perhaps it is the only way to live all this without definitively splitting, losing all her humanity.

At least I agree with you!

 

On 1/27/2023 at 3:17 AM, sistermagpie said:

There are still people who believe Elizabeth is honey-trapping Philip because she playfully gets Philip to dance when he’s brooding over Soviet grain issues,

I don’t agree with them. I found that scene a very romantic moment.

I thought to honey-trap only once in the whole show: in S6 when she needs his help with Kimmy….

On 1/27/2023 at 3:17 AM, sistermagpie said:

PHILIP

Philip looks so glum whenever he’s playing Brad, but I think it’s because he can’t smile with that moustache.

The foundation’s also being laid for S6 Philip here, though, as ever, it’s not as clear compared to Elizabeth.

 

On 1/27/2023 at 3:17 AM, sistermagpie said:

PHILIP

…… 

The foundation’s also being laid for S6 Philip here, though, as ever, it’s not as clear compared to Elizabeth.

Agree!

Philip’s flashback.

I think Tuan and Alexei work like a trigger for him and also I think all flashback are at first related to his father and then how his family was poor. 

However, I find his flashbacks quite cryptic….

Also I think Philip here is  understanding  It is legitimate to be faithful to one's  cause, it is also legitimate to ask questions where necessary, to question, even if only to emphasize then with even more conviction one's ideas.

he does that especially when he is willing to draw lessons from the condition of Alexei’s family, he see what happens when personal decisions are mixed with those of his kids – if there is one thing that Pasha’s affair clearly shows is that the blood linkage is not necessarily enough to save the family one.

On 1/27/2023 at 3:17 AM, sistermagpie said:

This season seems to be all about kids potentially hating a father or not knowing them for Philip. Alexei’s got to be one reason for him decisively leaving Henry behind. He’s been thinking about this for years by the time they leave.

Oh, this is really true!!!!

 

Edited February 26 by Andy73

[sistermagpie]

On 2/26/2023 at 6:41 PM, Andy73 said:

 

Elizabeth is not trying to manipulate Page with false rhetoric, but this is something she has convinced herself to believe, because perhaps it is the only way to live all this without definitively splitting, losing all her humanity.

At least I agree with you!

I think Elizabeth's mind is so well-trained now, too, to put things the way they're supposed to work in her mind, that she would never think of it as manipulation. She probably sees manipulation as lying to people like a man she sleeps with for information, where for Paige she's just going right to what's important and of course not getting to tangled up in thinking it through. Thinking it through is just confusing yourself, in her mind.

On 2/26/2023 at 6:41 PM, Andy73 said:

 

I don’t agree with them. I found that scene a very romantic moment.

I thought to honey-trap only once in the whole show: in S6 when she needs his help with Kimmy….

Me too. In fact, I go back and forth with Kimmy. On one hand it seems like a honey trap since she sleeps with him and then asks her to do this for her. But otoh, it's possible she slept with him because she wanted to in that moment and then felt close enough to him that she risked asking him for help. She herself might not know for sure! But whichever way, I don't think she did it in a completely cold, calculating way. If it was completely about the job, I think he would have been angrier about it.

[Andy73]

On 2/28/2023 at 2:04 AM, sistermagpie said:

Me too. In fact, I go back and forth with Kimmy. On one hand it seems like a honey trap since she sleeps with him and then asks her to do this for her. But otoh, it's possible she slept with him because she wanted to in that moment and then felt close enough to him that she risked asking him for help. She herself might not know for sure! But whichever way, I don't think she did it in a completely cold, calculating way. If it was completely about the job, I think he would have been angrier about it.

May be you are right…. I’m not so sure it was a honey-trap! Do you remember if it was before Chiacago’s or later?

[Andy73]

Just watched “The walk in” 2X03

People disapproved Elizabeth for burning the letter pointing out her u-turn. But honestly, what else could she have done?

Here comes the flood…. I saw a tear on Liz's face... I had it too

I still surprised, like first watch, how how anxious Elizabeth is: she is really afraid.

Edited March 5 by Andy73

[sistermagpie]

On 3/5/2023 at 12:33 PM, Andy73 said:

May be you are right…. I’m not so sure it was a honey-trap! Do you remember if it was before Chiacago’s or later?

Definitely before. She got him to sleep with Kimmy, then he backed out when he realized it was stupid to just take Elizabeth's word that Kimmy wouldn't be hurt if he got her kidnapped behind the iron curtain. Elizabeth was still angry with him when she left for Chicago (telling him to shove his Forum bullshit up his ass, iirc!) but he called her and asked if she needed him.

On 3/5/2023 at 12:44 PM, Andy73 said:

People disapproved Elizabeth for burning the letter pointing out her u-turn. But honestly, what else could she have done?

 

I thought it was a great U-turn! Even thought it, ironically, turned out to be the wrong move since Jared already knew about his parents. But in the moment she realized she didn't want to up-end the kid's life just so his parents (with whom she identified) could be known the way they wanted to be known. She put the child before the parents.

I wonder if she would have done the same if she hadn't become a mother herself by then...

Edited March 7 by sistermagpie

[Andy73]

3 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Definitely before

You are right, thank you!

The doubt is still alive .... But that's the good!

4 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

She put the child before the parents.

I wonder if she would have done the same if she hadn't become a mother herself by then...

May be yes! Definitely she did for the child, but for business too. It’s dangerous have an upset child, who knows real ID his parents, walks in DC.

[Andy73]

Rewatched 2×04 A Little Night of Music

The Americans are staging the world of human relationships!

The series, we have said many times, is a very powerful magnifying glass aimed at the Family, explored in such a meticulous game of masks and lies.

‘The world of physics encompasses the microscopic, the submicroscopic, the very distant, the world of unseen things,’ says Anton Baklanov at the beginning of the episode, in a sort of manifesto of the series itself, which, in this episode, focuses on what is deepest and most invisible in the world: consciousness.
 

I agree Claudia: Elizabeth hasn't recovered yet!

I liked the scene of the first their meeting: Claudia whispers sitting behind Liz, who often reacts only with her eyes, as if talking to her was actually something much more inner. Claudia looks like her Talking Cricket...

The truth, for characters forced to live in a world of lies and secrets, can only emerge in the form of pseudo-confessions, that is disguised (also) as a lie. Stan admits to having an affair, but lies about the “who”; Phillip argues with Martha without it being possible to tell how much is fake and how much real there is in his outburst.

Elizabeth in disguise tells the story of the rape: I have the impression that she wasn't just acting with that boy...

Page prays at the table... I loved Philip and Elizabeth in that scene... as well as their dialogue in the car. Yes guys, Page is telling lies... you are losing control over her!!!

The final scene is amazing: Elizabeth is a fury (why???) Philip is as shocked like me... and the girl goes away with Anton....

Marriage is hard. Great Philip…. 

Edited March 11 by Andy73