Vox - The Americans, season 5: episode recaps and reviewshttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2017-05-31T16:50:01-04:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/146086112017-05-31T16:50:01-04:002017-05-31T16:50:01-04:00The Americans’ showrunners explain their intimate, sometimes polarizing season 5
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<figcaption>Philip and Elizabeth had a tough, tough year. | FX</figcaption>
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<p>"Spying's not pointless, but it can be drudgery," says creator Joe Weisberg on our podcast.</p> <p id="M3szbI">The fifth season of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/?ref_=nm_knf_i1"><em>The Americans</em></a> has proved equal parts fascinating and frustrating to many viewers and critics, alternating between gruesome scenes of violence both physical and emotional and long stretches where the story seemed to be setting up payoffs that didn’t arrive. Yes, this has always been a show known for anticlimax, but season five sometimes seemed to take that to extremes.</p>
<p id="LHpLvH">The natural thought is that perhaps this was all part of a plan — setup for the show’s sixth and final season, arriving in 2018. That wasn’t so much the case, say showrunners <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2913498/?ref_=tt_ov_wr">Joe Weisberg</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0276278/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Joel Fields</a>.</p>
<p id="IWYUm2">“I hear some people saying, for example, ‘Well, it seems like a very slow season but maybe that's because they're setting up stuff for next season.’ I'm afraid, for those who find it slow, no such excuse,” Weisberg told me at the end of the <a href="https://art19.com/shows/i-think-youre-interesting/episodes/411732fb-8d61-4ddc-912d-abe27b3ad522">most recent episode</a> of my podcast, <a href="https://art19.com/shows/i-think-youre-interesting/"><em>I Think You’re Interesting</em></a>.</p>
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<p id="TojwZL">Weisberg and Fields joined me to talk more generally about the process of making <a href="http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/the-americans"><em>The Americans</em></a> over its first five seasons, including the very early days of their partnership (itself an arranged marriage of sorts) and the casting process that led to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005392/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Keri Russell</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0722629/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Matthew Rhys</a> crafting one of TV’s most believable marriages. But at the very end, we talked about season five in more detail. That discussion follows below. If you haven’t watched season five, <a href="https://art19.com/shows/i-think-youre-interesting/episodes/411732fb-8d61-4ddc-912d-abe27b3ad522">nearly a full hour of spoiler-free chatter with Weisberg and Fields precedes our spoiler-filled discussion</a>.</p>
<p id="gBKznQ"><em>This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. </em></p>
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<cite>Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Joel Fields (left) and Joe Weisberg</figcaption>
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<h4 id="ReufpI">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="PtsAM7">This season has had a lot of what’s felt to me like Philip and Elizabeth being asked to do pointless busywork and tying off of loose ends, like tracking down the Nazi collaborator in episode 11 and a few other stories, and it felt to me like that was a meta-commentary on how the Soviet Union is starting to crumble at this point in time. Would you say that’s a fair read?</p>
<h4 id="CPY7EN">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="rZZ0ea">I don't think we had a sense that anyone inside the USSR at that point was sending them around to do pointless things because they thought things were falling apart. It's a little early for anybody to be thinking that. </p>
<p id="zD2wgz">In our minds, Philip and Elizabeth are still very important assets for them. After all, the wheat story was an extremely important story, and even after it turned out [the Americans] weren’t making that wheat to try to destroy the Soviet Union, then [the Soviets] wanted to get their hands on that wheat. </p>
<p id="7Qn7d6">The episode that you’re talking about where they went after this collaborator, I think that was something that was very important to them. Think about what the Israelis did to go after [Nazi SS Colonel Adolf] Eichmann, this is a similarly important thing.</p>
<aside id="ml04NQ"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The Americans finale leaves us arguing over the point of this next-to-last season","url":"https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/30/15678302/the-americans-finale-recap-the-soviet-division"}]}'></div></aside><h4 id="tctlc4">Joe Weisberg </h4>
<p id="zXfyzB">We have mostly and maybe more this season than before not run away from showing the side of espionage that is dull and that does involve busywork. In our minds, it’s not pointless, but it can be drudgery. It can be drudgery, and maybe the point’s only going to be revealed later. We talked about how the spy stories are so complex, maybe the point is a little bit obscure and is sometimes getting lost. But, at least to us, it is never pointless, but it is sometimes busywork.</p>
<h4 id="9FYgFc">Todd VanDerWerff </h4>
<p id="uhrYRR">This season has been read by both fans and critics in terms of the penultimate season. How much did you think of this as setup for the final season, and how much of it did you want to set aside as its own story?</p>
<h4 id="tpJTXt">Joe Weisberg </h4>
<p id="lUrHkj">It's a complicated mix, and I think we’ll give you a much better answer for that after you’ve seen next season. It’s hard to discuss that fully without too many spoilers for next season. But it is probably, in our heads, more of an independent season than people think. I hear some people saying, for example, “Well, it seems like a very slow season but maybe that’s because they’re setting up stuff for next season.” I'm afraid, for those who find it slow, no such excuse.</p>
<h4 id="U5uLAA">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="fYHTC6">That criticism of “this has been a really slow season,” I thought that for a while, and then I looked back at, for instance, season three, and it’s not appreciably slower than that season. I’m just thinking, “Oh, Stan should be catching on to them” because I know the last season is coming. How have you balanced out that sense of wanting to tell this season’s story separately but also acknowledging the end is coming, and viewers know it’s coming?</p>
<h4 id="EQxJB3">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="fN87JO">It’s an interesting question. It hadn’t occurred to me that maybe people were finding this [season] slow because the end is coming rather than because it was somehow different than prior seasons. It hasn’t felt, to us, to be different. We were just trying to tell the story that we wanted to tell this season. </p>
<p id="IESkZW">We were thinking more about emotional things for Philip and Elizabeth over the course of this season. I mean, obviously leading up to the marriage was a big thing, and then some big decisions for them toward the end of the season, with Paige. </p>
<p id="UHnz42">But I don't think we were thinking about pace when we broke this season so much as we were just thinking about telling the story.</p>
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<figcaption>We miss you, Martha!</figcaption>
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<h4 id="RAjLBo">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="uIRXK9">You depleted the cast a lot in season four...</p>
<h4 id="FqvR6c">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="PXqqLY">That’s a really good point. In season four, there was a lot that we had to cash in on, that we did cash in on in season four, and that worked really well. So there was a very propulsive Martha story that people were invested in, and there was the very propulsive Nina story that people were invested in, and I think that created a sense of pace through the season. </p>
<p id="a0IES9">Nina got whacked in episode four, and then Martha disappeared in episode eight, and in a 13-episode run, those are some pretty big moments. This season built in a different way. But we've always tried to start each season with a pact between us to do something different. </p>
<aside id="O4GJB3"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"How a TV show goes from an idea in someone’s head to an episode on your screen","url":"https://www.vox.com/2016/4/14/11411564/how-tv-gets-made-americans-fx-production"}]}'></div></aside><h4 id="181N9G">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="VB65t9">Speaking of Martha, she pops up a few times this season. Now, she’s adopting the most adorable child in the world.</p>
<h4 id="ZV0Y3X">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="JejNK4">Isn’t she cute?</p>
<h4 id="FK8kW8">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="72cPiz">How do you see that character fitting into the story of both this season and — I know you’ve not going to tell me if she’s in season six, but do you feel as if you’d like to see more of her?</p>
<h4 id="DNURQB">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="eJ76Ic">Well, I think you've answered that question yourself, because you know we won't answer it. </p>
<h4 id="ZxYKSe">Joe Weisberg</h4>
<p id="OM9TFF">We were very happy with how that story played out this season. Each of those scenes came to us not all three at once but sort of one after another after another. Each of these scenes we thought would be the one scene [for Martha], and then another came, and then another came. We feel very attached to that story and felt that each time she came up it would be a surprise and then give a more emotional ending to the story. </p>
<p id="JAGU0p">The final adoption scene we had broken, it was basically the same story but a different kind of setup and a different location and a different way it happened. And our Russian consultant, Sergei Kostin, who gives us all kinds of useful stuff about Russian culture and things like that, he had just a sort of little thorn in his foot about it. And he kept coming to us and saying, “I don't know, there's something bugging me about this scene,” but he never really could quite tell us what. </p>
<p id="pRpyco">He doesn't usually give us advice or complaints about a particular scene, and finally he just emailed us one day and said, “I don’t think that’s how the KGB would do it, I think they would do it in a park and they would have it set up so that the teacher knew,” and he really re-broke the scene for us. And I remember after we read that email, we were both like, “Oh, let's do that!”</p>
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<figcaption>Even when he gets to wear a cowboy hat, Philip seems super bummed out.</figcaption>
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<h4 id="Ts2UGW">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="S9B36k">Everybody's exhaustion this season is palpable, and everybody feels like they’re sick of doing this shit, especially certain characters. How do you convey that to the audience without it just being like, “I'm tired”?</p>
<h4 id="SpEZWE">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="2uOsdK">We just think back to how we felt in season one and write that.</p>
<h4 id="WISVxR">Joe Weisberg</h4>
<p id="zOsf1E">So much of that is on the actors and the directors. The story is, of course, one that's happening to these people, but you probably could tell this story with a lot more verve and vigor if you wanted to. But they know what the story is and boy, they accomplish a lot with a look. Philip, in particular, is increasingly beaten down and worn down, and the way Matthew [Rhys] brought that and developed it throughout the season is incredible.</p>
<h4 id="D1TPi8">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="onHpoW">If you look at one of our scripts, we’ll write things like, “Philip sits there.” Period new paragraph. “Elizabeth looks at him.”</p>
<p id="CCLPfO">And then we'll sit in this room, and the director will be there and Chris Long, our brilliant producing director, will be there and the assistant director and Mary Thewlis, our line producer, and we’ll have a tone meeting where we go through every scene in the script which is going to be shot the next week. </p>
<p id="albble">Sometimes, we’ll spend three hours in a tone meeting. Sometimes, we’ll spend a full day from morning to ordering in dinner going through every scene, and we could spend a half an hour talking about “Philip sits there, Elizabeth looks at him” and talking about multiple layers of interpretations and subtexts. But ultimately, Keri and Matthew have to sit and look, and they have to deliver all of those dimensions, and they do.</p>
<h4 id="3H9ML3">Joe Weisberg</h4>
<p id="baJeMM">After seeing the first three episodes, we never had to say in a tone meeting again, “Philip's beaten down.” He’s got that.</p>
<h4 id="d4JOWu">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="1hXFyK">If you think back to the pilot, these characters are very different from the way they are at the end of season five. What, to you, has been the most marked shift over the first five seasons for Philip and Elizabeth?</p>
<h4 id="iBHXKJ">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="N2SphN">That marriage and how they relate to each other and the generosity with which they see each other now is such a progression from where they started. They each were individuals with their own feelings, and now they’re fully married.</p>
<p id="AoYi5h">My dad was a rabbi, and he married me and my wife. Before we got married, he sat down with us, and he said that he always has a meeting with the couple. He said he usually has several meetings with couples before he marries them to see that they’re ready and so forth, but he said, “I know you guys, I don’t need to have the meeting but I wanted to sit down and say some of the things that I say to couples.” </p>
<p id="Gh3ynq">And one of the things he said is, “I always tell people that, before you get married you’re living in the ‘me’ world, but when you get married you’re no longer in the ‘me’ world, you're in the ‘we’ world, and you’re in the ‘we’ world from now on.” If I think about season five, even as they’re in their own turmoil, they’re in it with each other. It’s beautiful to watch Matthew and Keri playing that.</p>
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<figcaption>Big surprises are in store for Henry.</figcaption>
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<h4 id="OUCpfA">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="4y7Q8O">They float the idea of going back to the Soviet Union and say, “Oh, our kids will adjust.” To me, I was like, “That’s crazy!” especially for Henry. But having that on the table, then off the table because of the development with Kimmy, made me feel like it will only hurt more to have that pulled away from them. What was your thought process behind developing that story?</p>
<h4 id="q874Ku">Joe Weisberg</h4>
<p id="yXiLvQ">For them, the place they’re at, how exhausted and beaten down they are, this dream that has been playing out over a couple seasons in different ways of home, just the idea of home, it seemed to us, if this were real, they would have to be seriously thinking about going home at this point. </p>
<p id="qIGZa2">Of course, it came up very concretely with Gabriel. But that’s what real people would be considering and they would consider taking their kids with them. As bad of an idea as it might be for a lot of reasons, they would consider it, and in fact real illegals who served for many, many years abroad, did take their kids home. In many of these cases, the results were not always positive. It was very, very complicated, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. That would’ve been a good TV show, too in a sort of difficult and sad way.</p>
<p id="qPn5dI">It felt that them going toward that and then, as happens with them so often, having the rug pulled out because of who they were and, again, because of a side of Elizabeth that is fundamentally complex but positive — because of what she believes in, because of her steadfastness, because of her loyalty and then, seeing something so great about Philip and their marriage which is, at the end of the day, he respects that part of her. Even when it’s going to fucking wreck them in so many ways, he’s not going to sit there as you can often see in a marriage and clash and fight. He’s going to love her. So that seemed like a good story to us.</p>
<h4 id="B4A4yv">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="wxWMHE">I’m fascinated by how you use Renee, because you’ve taught us for so long how to watch and read characters, and you’re almost inviting us to ask ourselves if she’s a spy even before Philip does. Was that the intention?</p>
<h4 id="SmizUu">Joe Weisberg</h4>
<p id="bjWCXD">That’s a good description. That was the plan.</p>
<h4 id="mPVnLW">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="MtB3eW">It's a show about trust and identity. How do you know, at the end of the day?</p>
<h4 id="Q72lGn">Todd VanDerWerff</h4>
<p id="y6HoRC">I know you’re not going to tell me plot details, but as you head into season six, what are the conversations you’re having in the writers’ room, or the themes that keep bubbling up as you talk about ending this story?</p>
<h4 id="Cv0GCL">Joe Weisberg</h4>
<p id="Lx97Ht">We’re past that. We’ve got an ending. </p>
<h4 id="a9Z74q">Joel Fields</h4>
<p id="hj6fr7">We’ve got 10 outlines written, and we’re deep into refining them now and getting ready to write the scripts. Our theme is trying to do it in a way that makes us proud and isn’t too depressing for us in the process, because it’s going to be hard to say goodbye.</p>
<p id="TpWCRL"><em>To hear more interviews with fascinating people from the world of arts and culture — from powerful showrunners to web series creators to documentary filmmakers — </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/i-think-youre-interesting"><em><strong>check out the </strong></em><strong>I Think You’re Interesting</strong><em><strong> archives</strong></em></a><em>.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/2017/5/31/15714714/the-americans-season-5-review-interview-podcastEmily St. James2017-05-31T09:46:59-04:002017-05-31T09:46:59-04:00The Americans finale leaves us arguing over the point of this next-to-last season
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<figcaption>The family that spars together stays together. | FX</figcaption>
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<p>Was building an entire season of TV around the main characters’ exhaustion a good idea? Ask us in 2018.</p> <p id="4u2m7m"><em>Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14844570/the-americans-season-five"><strong>The Americans</strong></a><em>. This week, a variety of writers offer their takes on the season five finale, </em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5780828/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1"><em>“The Soviet Division.”</em></a></p>
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<p id="HkkUwI"><strong>Todd VanDerWerff: </strong>I had two thoughts upon finishing “The Soviet Division”: “Oh, I get what they were going for now!” and “That was it?!”</p>
<p id="FAVzfP">To be sure, that second thought only flitted through my brain for a couple of seconds, before I started thinking through the implications of an utterly gutted Philip being forced to stay in the US to handle One Last Job (which, if you’re familiar with stories about “One Last Job,” they rarely turn out well), and Elizabeth doing her best to hold everything else together. And “The Soviet Division” was such an engrossing finale overall — sort of the opposite of season four’s less immediately gripping “Persona Non Grata” — that I let it slide all the same.</p>
<p id="dYyZmn">Still, when I talked to showrunners <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2913498/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Joe Weisberg</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0276278/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Joel Fields</a> (for an interview running Wednesday morning), they indicated to me that this season was less buildup for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><em>The Americans</em>’</a> final 10 episodes than I had expected. Indeed, they had meant for it to mostly be a standalone season.</p>
<p id="yTnLT1">Viewed in that light, season five still can’t quite compete with the last three, but it starts to gain more shape as a story of two people who shouldn’t be doing this job anymore but don’t really see any escape routes. Even the idea of returning to the Soviet Union rings hollow. We know the country is about to collapse, and Philip and Elizabeth’s belief that Paige and especially Henry would eventually adjust seems ... optimistic to me. (Besides, aren’t both kids US citizens, having been born here? I’m sure being the children of Soviet spies would complicate an eventual return to America, but you’d have to think they’d have certain allegiances to the only country they’ve known.)</p>
<p id="Wb7TXY">Thus, “The Soviet Division” balances, surprisingly nimbly, season five wrap-up with a handful of setup moments for season six, perhaps none more ominous than Renée suggesting that maybe Stan should just stick around at the FBI after all. What did you all think of this as a capstone to the season?</p>
<p id="7yZemd"><strong>Genevieve Koski: </strong> “Satisfying” is not the word I would use to describe “The Soviet Division,” that’s for sure. But it is intriguing, which is maybe more appropriate for a show that loves to keep threads dangling (ahem, Kimmy), the better to pick them back up once we’ve let down our guard.</p>
<p id="FmmNa2">But — speaking of threads getting picked back up! — this finale did strike one roundly satisfying note, in the form of Martha being presented with the option of adopting a Russian orphan. Given that her misbegotten desire for a child with Clark was one of the falling dominoes that ultimately led to her current predicament, it’s a nice suggestion of a future bright spot in her current dreary situation, even if it does have the whiff of manipulation about it. </p>
<p id="SonpXu">The idea of a Russian child being what allows Martha to finally feel at home in the Soviet Union also provides a funhouse-mirror version of the “what if” scenario Philip and Elizabeth are pondering in bringing their American children home with them, as well as the horrifying predicament the Morozov family finds itself in following Pasha’s suicide attempt. To put it in Pastor Tim lingo, all of these children are, in some way or another, staring down the “challenges that will shape them,” challenges bestowed upon them by their parents. </p>
<p id="VsmjXQ">Given all that, there’s a stinging irony to Elizabeth’s suggestion to Tuan — in some ways, her adopted child — that he needs to “have them send you someone.” She insists to him that without a partner in the field, and presumably in life as well, his work will be harder and he will fail. But having a partner, and children with that partner, has become a bigger and bigger complicating factor in Elizabeth’s work, to the point where it’s left her and Philip with no good options for themselves <em>or</em> their children. Tuan seems to take her advice seriously — but should he?</p>
<p id="1ijp6A"><strong>Todd: </strong>BTW, that orphan Martha might adopt is the <em>most adorable child ever</em>, which overrode my initial, “Oh, come on!” objections to the story.</p>
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<figcaption>This is the pleasant face Elizabeth offers before destroying us for our doubts.</figcaption>
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<p id="AjNp73"><strong>Caroline</strong><strong> Framke</strong><strong>: </strong>Whoever orchestrated this opportunity for Martha knew exactly what they were doing when they tied that kid’s pigtails with ribbons. <em>They knew</em>. </p>
<p id="QDM46a">That being said, I truly wanted to come away from the season finale with a reaction other than “Oh, come <em>on” </em>... and I just couldn’t do it. <em>This</em> is the endgame this stuttering season has been building toward all along?! I unfortunately think I might’ve been more willing to give it some slack if you hadn’t mentioned that <em>The Americans</em>’ producers viewed season five as a (mostly) standalone season, Todd, because I’m truly confused by that. </p>
<p id="XljYZd">Season five spent more time looking ahead to its final act than tracking its week-to-week conflicts, making it that much harder to care about them. I can understand if this season was purposely scattered to send the Jennings family in a dozen directions and wear them out for the last stretch. And I do genuinely admire — and always have — that <em>The Americans</em> finds drama and pathos in even the seemingly smallest of conversations. But when considering this season on its own contained merits, I can’t say I’ll remember much of anything specific about season five so much as the ripple effects it will undoubtedly have in season six.</p>
<p id="IBgOwZ">Okay wait, I lied, I’ll remember one thing: Paige becoming an unlikely steel trap of nerves. Not only can she take a punch without blinking much at all (a fact that, unsurprisingly, unnerved Philip more than it did Elizabeth), but she’s also shown a knack for sneaking around on her own. That moment where she snuck off to a parked car in some godforsaken parking lot was more intriguing than the entire rest of the episode put together, and I’m not even sure it meant anything at all. </p>
<p id="TI2q9f"><strong>Jen Trolio:</strong> Caroline, I had that exact suspicious response when Paige got into the car — my very first assumption was that she was somehow going rogue and that she wasn’t going to come home. Or wait, that’s not quite true; my <em>first</em> assumption, given that we’d recently witnessed Paige’s mini training montage (which I loved so much, by the way), was that she was going to get jumped in that parking lot in a repeat of the incident from last season where Elizabeth killed a man in front of her, and we were going to see her put her new fighting skills to use. It looked to me like Paige was in the same place where that very scene unfolded, back before she knew what Elizabeth, not to mention she herself, was capable of.</p>
<p id="06wL4b">But after watching again, I think she was simply headed home from her evening at the church/food pantry with Pastor Tim — less exciting, though another indicator of how <em>The Americans </em>has us all amped up waiting for something bigger to happen. And that’s generally how I felt when watching “The Soviet Division”: Ah, okay, <em>here’s </em>where things start picking up. But then they didn’t, really. </p>
<p id="HDNmU2">Essentially, I too walked away from the finale thinking it was all a table setter for season six, which indeed makes it especially confusing to hear that season five was supposed to operate on kind of a standalone basis. I almost wonder if, in “training” us to watch <em>The Americans</em> in a certain way for so long, the show’s creative team undercut themselves a bit, and closed off the opportunity to try any different approaches. Maybe they wanted season five to be slower and more standalone, and every week they’ve got us asking when something’s going to <em>happen</em><em>.</em> </p>
<p id="Yg8wJN">At any rate, I think this episode is going to function as something of a table setter no matter its intentions. I keep going back to something Stan said when he was talking to Renée about possibly quitting the FBI: “It just feels shitty. I’m tired of feeling shitty.” That line feels like something of a mission statement for a lot of characters on <em>The Americans</em> right now. And I think the sentiment behind it is definitely going to play into however the show wraps things up in season six. </p>
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<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Spy or not a spy? You make the call!</figcaption>
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<p id="fMB59z"><strong>Genevieve: </strong> I’m fascinated that both of you picked out that shot of Paige in the parking lot as a setup for some big action that never arrived, when I thought it was clearly included for thematic/summarization purposes, not narrative ones. It occurred within a musical montage, something <em>The Americans</em> uses more to underscore its Big Narrative Themes than to introduce action (though it sometimes does the latter as well), and to me, that’s clearly what this one — set to “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” — was angling for. </p>
<p id="HUo8XT">As the Elton John song plays, we watch Stan bid farewell to racquetball buddy Philip and embrace his new partner, Renée, whom Philip still regards with suspicion; we see Elizabeth pondering the well-stocked closet and cushy American home she’s now realizing, as she considers leaving it behind, she’s become surprisingly accustomed to; and we see Paige leaving church to walk through the very parking lot she and her mother were accosted in — after taking a moment to brace herself, she walks to her car and drives away, brushing aside the trauma of that earlier event with the steely reserve her mother has instilled in her through training. </p>
<p id="yo2AFv">Basically, the “Goodbye Yellow Brick” road montage functions exactly as I’d want a season-concluding <em>Americans </em>montage to function, showing us how our primary characters have developed this season, and subtly indicating what challenges still lie ahead.</p>
<p id="Kccokr">In case you can’t tell, I loved that montage — as I almost always love <em>The Americans</em>’ musical montages — but it highlights something that I did find the show somewhat lacking in this season: memorable musical moments. Aside from this one and the use of Bauhaus’s “Slice of Life” in “Darkroom,” I’m hard-pressed to remember any great music cues from this season, and I wonder if that may be contributing to the sense that this season felt just a little “off” by <em>The Americans</em>’ (admittedly high) standards.</p>
<p id="Du1JoB"><strong>Caroline: </strong>I also really liked that “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” sequence! So much so that I can admit I was probably looking for more significance in Paige’s shuffling walk than was maybe there — but like Jen said, that’s kind of been my experience with this entire season, after all. </p>
<p id="pB2ALH">While I’m at it, though, I might as well talk a little about the big development that <em>did</em> happen in this episode. Philip overhearing on the tapes he routinely swipes from Kimmy’s house that her father is now going to head up the CIA’s Soviet Division (hence the episode title) is a huge revelation, and one that reverses the Jenningses’ plans in a second flat once Philip tells Elizabeth about it. And yet I still couldn’t bring myself to react to it like the eleventh-hour twist it’s supposed to be. After all of Philip and Elizabeth’s agonizing, after all their back and forth with the Centre on whether or not going back to Moscow would be the right call, this single moment upending everything felt anticlimactic. </p>
<p id="rKmlk6">But that’s <em>The Americans</em> for us, isn’t it? A single twist of fate in even the seemingly quietest of moments can shatter plans, deal death, cast everything in a whole new light. Season five doubled down on that idea hard, squeezing most of its drama out of whispered conversations and furtive glances rather than the high-stakes action sequences the show has leaned into from time to time in the past. So while I can’t say I <em>enjoyed</em> this season, I do respect where it came from. </p>
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<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Spy Paige is our favorite.</figcaption>
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<p id="KSRt0b"><strong>Todd: </strong>Respecting season five without quite <em>loving</em> it is where I am, too, Caroline, though I think I liked it better on the whole than you did. (I have a tendency to love deliberately isolating seasons of TV, against my better judgment — ask me about the <em>Lost</em> finale sometime, or, better, the <em>Battlestar Galactica</em> finale.) I think the emotional throughline it reached for was perhaps a touch too muted to really carry everything, but it was nonetheless fascinating to watch an entire season of TV about getting sick of being a character in a TV show (very <em>Sopranos</em>-y).</p>
<p id="pJZDpi">And yet there are a ton of indelible moments in this season all the same. That final confrontation with the Nazi collaborator, say, or the rush to save Pasha’s life, or even something as mundane as Paige taking off her little cross necklace. It feels like this season was full of tiny Rubicons being crossed, even if no one in the world of <em>The Americans</em> quite realizes what they’ve done just yet.</p>
<p id="XZsxZD">So for as much as Weisberg and Fields say that this season should, in some way, stand on its own, I still think it will stand out as something quite different when viewed via the prism of the whole picture. I’m confident we’ve just witnessed the last time when everyone on the show could still change things. Now, with the decision to stay in the US, Philip and Elizabeth have made their bed, and they’re going to lie in it. At least they’ll be lying (in all senses of the word) together.</p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/30/15678302/the-americans-finale-recap-the-soviet-divisionEmily St. JamesCaroline FramkeGenevieve KoskiJen Trolio2017-05-24T09:56:55-04:002017-05-24T09:56:55-04:00The Americans’ "The World Council of Churches” tests loyalties, limits, and parenting skills
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<figcaption>Oleg is in a dark place, both literally and figuratively | FX</figcaption>
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<p>Oleg runs out of options, while Tuan makes a big (and very dumb) move.</p> <p id="bycoyw"><em>Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama</em><em> </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14844570/the-americans-season-five"><strong>The Americans</strong></a><em>. This week, Vox critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, </em><em> associate editor Libby Nelson, </em><em>and staff writer Caroline Framke are here to talk about “The World Council of Churches,” the penultimate episode of season five.</em></p>
<p id="HeMa0h"><strong>Todd VanDerWerff:</strong> “The World Council of Churches” features one of the few scenes from this season that truly filled me with the sort of existential dread that <em>The Americans</em> so often manages as a matter of course. </p>
<p id="mRQ3Lz">As the episode ends, Tuan tells his “parents” that he figured out a solution to the Pascha problem — just tell the kid to slit his wrists, so his parents will think that living in the States is so unbearable they'll have no choice but to take him back to the USSR. </p>
<p id="OeqQvi">Philip and Elizabeth, realizing just how ridiculous this plan is and how many ways it could go horribly, horribly wrong, spring into action — and may inadvertently trip the surveillance surrounding Pascha’s family. See you next week!</p>
<p id="OEqV5S">There’s been a definite urgency to the last handful of episodes that this season’s midsection lacked in places (for as much as I liked that midsection), and “World Council” kicks that up even further. Pastor Tim gets that job offer (for the titular organization)! Tuan launches his stupid, stupid plan! Philip and Elizabeth start to think more seriously about going home, about being <em>done</em>!</p>
<p id="yPlSpF">And, I have to admit, it’s that last one that has me most intrigued. After so many years living in the US, can Philip and Elizabeth simply stop being the titular Americans? Can they <em>really </em>expect to reintegrate into their old lives smoothly? As with all things on this show, I’m guessing it’s a bit more complicated than they’d like it to be.</p>
<p id="5X2onW"><strong>Caroline Framke: </strong>Not only do Philip and Elizabeth realize that Tuan’s plan is a dumb plan, but they walk into this moment after a whole episode of grappling with what it means for them to be good parents. Does it mean going back to Moscow, where they wouldn’t have to lie every day but would have to rip their kids away from everything they’ve ever known? Does being a good spy “parent” to Tuan mean instilling the same ruthlessness in him that made them so good at what they do? Does Henry have a girlfriend?! (Meanwhile, poor Mischa is meeting Philip’s brother halfway across the world — a moment that could undoubtedly send Philip into a tailspin if he only knew about it.)</p>
<p id="z2noCS"><em>The Americans</em> has always been fascinated with the idea that the Jennings family is fiercely loyal to each other, even as they make huge decisions behind each other’s back in the name of What’s Best. And since the beginning of the series, we’ve watched as Philip and Elizabeth are pushed to their brinks over and over again — which, very often, comes down to the question of their kids’ safety. </p>
<p id="gO6xwg">I’ll never forget the moment in the season two premiere, for example, when they found their dead friends and daughter bloodied and glassy-eyed in that hotel room. They know the risk is there; they’ve seen the devastating possibilities with their own eyes. But I can’t imagine Philip tearing away from Tuan with such naked venom and storming out into the open suburbs to halt a plan in its tracks, consequences be damned, before this exhausted season finally pushed him there.</p>
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<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Just your average undercover spy family enjoying breakfast before fake flying planes.</figcaption>
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<p id="ln0l5G"><strong>Libby Nelson:</strong> And it isn’t just Philip who runs to stop him, but Elizabeth too. There’s an echo of an earlier Elizabeth in Tuan’s strident arguments in favor of his (stupid, dangerous) plan, and for a moment I thought Elizabeth — who has always been less prone to moral scruples than Philip — would join in. But while Elizabeth is more ideologically rigid than he is, that’s no longer a source of overt conflict between them. The Jenningses might not have lost their allegiance to the Soviet Union, and maybe they never will. Yet their allegiance not just to their children, but to each other, is clearly superseding it, just as Paige, in this episode, definitively chooses her family and her family business over Pastor Tim and the church.</p>
<p id="1SNyEE">But speaking of family, loyalty, and allegiance to the Soviet Union, let’s talk about Oleg. This season has really delved into the failures of the Soviet Union, especially its failure to live up to its own ideals — the ideals Elizabeth, in particular, still believes she’s fighting for. While Paige is reading Karl Marx, Oleg is realizing he lives in a profoundly unjust and unequal society. That alone, as his father suggested, could be enough to put him in danger. But it’s not just that — the slow, painstaking investigation into Oleg’s background is finally circling his decision to tell Stan Beeman about the biological warfare mission.</p>
<p id="dhiwoc">People have been killed for much less. “The World Council of Churches” suggests that when all is said and done and we’re looking back on six seasons of this tremendous show, it’s possible that he was the hero all along.</p>
<p id="BQKh9u">Philip and Elizabeth are our protagonists. They’ve grown and changed and are immensely compelling characters. But they have done, and continue to do, horrible things. Particularly since the death of his brother in Afghanistan, Oleg has only tried to do right — for Nina, for the potential victims of biological warfare, for his country that is failing to live up to its promises. I greatly fear he’s too good for this world.</p>
<p id="mVaby9"><strong>Caroline: </strong>You and Oleg’s father, both!</p>
<p id="4dLMKd">For as much as I was frustrated with the saggier midsection of this season (ugh, what a phrase, I am sorry but also not taking it back!), it was always fascinating to watch Oleg and Stan unknowingly mirror each other’s actions from across the world. Both put themselves in compromising situations for what they firmly believe is the greater good — and it was telling that this increasingly didn’t mean “for good of country,” as both started to question the orders they’d always blindly followed. (Also, not for nothing, Noah Emmerich and Costa Ronin have been so, so good at playing the flickering raw emotions of men who have to suppress their feelings for a living.)</p>
<p id="L1dpBm">But Stan’s story has since veered elsewhere as he and Dennis pursued a questionable new source (c’mon lady, don’t bring your sudden fiancé to the safe house!). Oleg’s, meanwhile, has increasingly become about him trying to keep his head not just above water, but level enough to throw off suspicion that he’s drowning at all. In “The World Council of Churches,” Oleg finally seems to accept that he might just be screwed, especially after hearing the harrowing truth about what his country has done to people who can’t defend themselves, people who were just trying to help, people he loves. </p>
<p id="x4D0PQ">Oleg’s storyline has been so focused on the idea of tearing down the ideals he once had of his country this season that it’s impossible not to think about whether the same would happen for Philip and Elizabeth if they did move their family to Moscow. I can’t imagine they would be thrilled with what they would find, especially after questioning so much of what Moscow has had them do throughout this entire fifth season.</p>
<p id="hyYAg6"><strong>Todd: </strong>What's interesting is that I think this season is sort of arguing that Philip and Elizabeth <em>might </em>be okay in Moscow, even if they moved exactly when the Soviet Union completely fell apart. </p>
<p id="TBbEx6">The fifth season has so successfully portrayed their bond as stronger than anything else, as completely unshakable, that I'm no longer worried at all that, say, Philip will decide to defect and their marriage will fall apart (an obvious place to believe the show was going in season one). If that were to happen, I think Elizabeth would simply say, “We'll handle this.”</p>
<p id="47XpTQ">This has made the show kind of? sort of? about the power of love, weirdly, and the more I think about that as a unifying theme for the series, the more it makes sense. Oleg and Stan are both heavily motivated by their concerns for Nina (and, in the former’s case, an eventual desire to grieve for her), and, of course, Philip and Elizabeth use sex and love as a method of control, from Martha to their many, many, many assignations of the week. </p>
<p id="xLDWaQ">Perhaps that makes the Pastor Tim focus this week all the more telling. He stands in for a religion that most Americans could identify as “I guess loving your fellow human is a good idea, right?” But he also seems to realize that for the world to truly become a place that reflects that love would require a complete teardown. He’s hopeful but not naive, and Philip and Elizabeth never killed him because of how much they love their daughter, no matter how much they tell themselves otherwise. And now he's going to South America.</p>
<p id="ysLUbh">Love is not an area the dramas of the post-<em>Sopranos</em> era have felt all that comfortable going. (<em>Mad Men</em>, arguably, got there as well, but love was always a bit secondary there.) And even in <em>The Americans</em>, all of that connection is muted and chilly, and you have to be willing to get your hands cold digging for it. But it’s there, and it’s stronger than anything on earth.</p>
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<figcaption>Poor Paige.</figcaption>
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<p id="Rm2SrQ"><strong>Libby: </strong>I was drawn into <em>The Americans</em> initially because it was a story about relationships, not a story about spying. While I have my complaints about season five, it’s succeeded so well at making me believe in the Jennings marriage, and the Jennings family, that I suspect my frustrations from a few weeks ago are going to fade. Particularly because <em>The Americans</em> succeeds at giving us anticlimax when we’re expecting a climax, I’ve found myself wondering, too, if maybe they’ll just go back and it’ll all be okay, and we’ll see them, at the end, watching the fall of the Berlin Wall from Moscow. (Where I get stuck is figuring out where Henry fits in that scenario.)</p>
<p id="9rJfGw">If <em>The Americans</em> is making a case for love, it’s also a case for love as a habit, a series of actions, rather than an emotional commitment. Over and over, we’ve seen that however artificial a connection might initially be, in the end, if you pretend long enough that you care about something, it might turn out that you really do. Elizabeth and Phillip’s marriage was initially fake, but it eventually turned out to be real; so did Philip’s friendship with Stan and, in a way, Clark’s marriage to Martha, and Stan’s relationship with Nina. The operation with Pascha’s family has been nothing but an annoyance and a burden for the Jenningses, and yet they put themselves at risk to save Pascha’s life. Love isn’t ideological. You are what you repeatedly do.</p>
<p id="8WTNPf">Speaking of things that we’re repeatedly doing: What is up with Stan’s new informant? It sure seems like it’s going nowhere, and in a very confusing fashion.</p>
<p id="5NQioL"><strong>Caroline: </strong>An excellent question that I wish I had an answer to. I’m now mostly wondering if she's here to show us Stan’s increasingly “off” instincts — which, now that I think of it, would tie in pretty well with whatever the hell’s going on with Renée.</p>
<p id="5hTOHf"><strong>Todd:</strong> It is hard to see how whatever’s up with Stan isn’t setup for season six, but at the same time, it's hard to imagine season six devoting a lot of time to … whatever this plot line is. </p>
<p id="FtfDrL">I could maybe theorize about how Hockey Fiancée is part of a double ploy against Stan by the Soviets, which also involves Renée. (And now I’m chuckling about the thought of Stan also having to go to the USSR at the end of the show — and moving in right across the hall from Philip and Elizabeth.) But it all feels so very tangential to the rest of the action — and that’s saying something for Stan’s story this season, which is basically the definition of tangential. </p>
<p id="H6YrTo">But maybe it’s supposed to be sort of comical. A sudden engagement leads to Hockey Fiancée becoming part of the team, in a sort of “first time as tragedy, second time as farce” echo of Philip and Elizabeth's wedding from a few weeks ago. And it’s definitely another example of the season’s focus on romantic bonds as the only thing holding these people together.</p>
<p id="YYq9P7">Which brings me to the two players who definitely feel like free agents: Paige, who is drawing herself into her parents’ world but still has theoretical options; and Renée, who is probably a spy but might just be a nice lady who had the misfortune of becoming a character on <em>The Americans</em>. </p>
<p id="ElpdSw">Paige, especially, is only growing more vital the deeper we get. What do we think about her final decision regarding the matter of Pastor Tim?</p>
<p id="gpOeMV"><strong>Libby: </strong>Maybe Paige is becoming more vital because, for the first time since she learned her parents’ secret, she’s finally got some agency.</p>
<p id="Jj7nu7">That said, I think she’s being a little hard on Pastor Tim, don’t you? What seemed to eventually turn her against him — and Christianity in general — is the vast gap between what he said to her and what he wrote in his diary. It’s understandable that Paige has very strong feelings about being lied to, and that given what an emotional burden Pastor Tim has become, she’d simply want him out of her life. But I’m not sure what he said to her was really dishonest. Sometimes private venting and public graciousness can coexist, and both can<strong> </strong>be true. Given what we’ve seen of Paige, it seems like the pastor was telling the truth both times: She is screwed up, and what her parents did to her is terrible, but she’s also a good person and a strong one. </p>
<p id="5SQRzl"><strong>Caroline: </strong>Pastor Tim might be right about Paige struggling more with the news than her parents (Elizabeth in particular) might be willing to admit. But I just keep thinking about that moment in “Darkroom” when she made her parents physically stare at both Pastor Tim’s worries about her and his accusations against them. Paige is struggling, but it’s the kind of struggle she can’t talk about it, can’t <em>truly</em> share with anyone without wading through layers of second-guessing and doublespeak. </p>
<p id="K1hfVn">If you need a handy summation of Paige’s mindset — not to mention this season in general — you don’t need to look further than the sequence in this episode of Paige stringing up the garage’s practice punching bag and swinging at it with a steady, grim drumbeat of determination. Paige doesn’t want to ignore her problems; she wants to beat them down. She might want to throw her cross in the garbage, but her dedication to righteousness isn’t going anywhere.</p>
<p id="Cj0YnH"><em>The season finale of </em>The Americans<em> season five airs Tuesday, May 30</em><em>,</em><em> at 10 pm on FX.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/23/15680738/the-americans-episode-12-world-council-of-churches-recapCaroline FramkeEmily St. JamesLibby Nelson2017-05-17T09:03:03-04:002017-05-17T09:03:03-04:00On The Americans, “Dyatkovo” pushes Soviet loyalties to the brink
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<figcaption>Irina Dubova is heartbreaking as Philip and Elizabeth’s latest mark. | FX</figcaption>
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<p>Also: the return of mail robot!</p> <p id="yo8Zr9"><em>Every week, some of Vox’s writers gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama</em><em> </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14844570/the-americans-season-five"><strong>The Americans</strong></a><em>. This week, deputy culture editor Genevieve Koski, senior reporter Dara Lind, and staff writer Caroline Framke take on "Dyatkovo," the </em><em>11th</em><em> episode of season</em><em> five</em><em>. </em></p>
<p id="AC5TTr"><strong>Caroline</strong><strong> Framke</strong><strong>: </strong>Now <em>this</em> is the episode I’ve been waiting for all season. </p>
<p id="3Z8Qyd">Don’t get me wrong; I’m still frustrated at how slow and seemingly scattered <em>The Americans</em>’ plot developments have been lately, a fact I think was exacerbated by the fact that seasons three and four were full of such propulsive energy. But season five has come into much clearer focus with “Dyatkovo,” a much tauter hour (literally, running at 42 minutes versus the usual 47ish). The episode doesn’t exactly reveal why Elizabeth and Philip have been pulled in so many directions of late, but I understood the decision much more by its awful end.</p>
<p id="twa1zq">This week, the two are tasked with a straightforward mission: determine whether a certain Russian woman living in Massachusetts is a traitor who committed war crimes, and if so, take her out. But the way it all unfolds is a horrific slow crash. “Natalie” (Irina Dubova) does turn out to be the traitor they’re looking for, but as she explains through anguished tears to the American husband who thinks she’s “wonderful,” she only shot and killed Soviet prisoners after soldiers killed her family, liquored her up, and forced a gun into her hands. </p>
<p id="fXPv6y">The moments that bookend “Dyatkovo” are telling: The hour begins with Claudia confirming that the KGB took the devastating virus Philip and Elizabeth secured last season and didn’t come up with a cure for it, but weaponized it. It ends with the Jenningses staring down a devastated woman admitting to her crimes, but muddying the simple explanation the Centre gave them for why she must answer for them with her life. </p>
<p id="F1zKYf">The truth has always been a twisted knot of contradictions on <em>The Americans. </em>But this season, more than any other, has meticulously laid the groundwork for Philip and Elizabeth, as well as Oleg, to face the fact that they might not always be on the right side of history after all. </p>
<p id="MdzwiL">But there’s so much else to get into with “Dyatkovo” — I didn’t even mention the glorious return of mail robot yet! What did you both think of this episode and what it might be setting up for the final two installments of the season?</p>
<p id="HLSWGH"><strong>Genevieve</strong><strong> Koski</strong><strong>: </strong>“Muddying” is putting it mildly in terms of how Natalie’s confession squares with the Centre’s line on her supposed war crimes. Even after watching the scene several times, I’m not 100 percent certain what exactly Natalie is confessing to having done under duress. She was clearly kept prisoner; Claudia’s information about her being treated for VD after having sex with Nazis suggests she was being kept more or less as a sex slave; and her tearful confession doesn’t make it entirely clear whether she was the one pulling the trigger on prisoners, or being physically compelled to pull the trigger, or simply being forced to stand by as an unwilling accomplice/witness. </p>
<p id="82v0hV">Any of those explanations is perfectly plausible — and horrifying — but regardless of what actually happened, her anguish comes through loud and clear, and sets the stage for Elizabeth’s startling, episode-ending proclamation: “I want to get out of here. … Let’s go home.”</p>
<p id="3k5g4V">Now, we’ll get to what it means to “go home” in a bit, but I want to highlight what a devastating pairing of scenes this is. Philip and Elizabeth are being manipulated into killing someone who (very) arguably doesn’t deserve it, someone who was forced into committing war crimes as a matter of self-preservation — which is not unlike what the Jenningses are being forced to do here. They are well aware that the Centre is giving them an order based on incomplete, inaccurate information, but what can they do other than carry it out? </p>
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<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Previously on <em>The Americans</em>: a whole lot of grim faces.</figcaption>
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<p id="ywQtF8">At this point, I don’t think it’s out of line to characterize Philip and Elizabeth as prisoners of a sort — what would happen to them if they refused orders? Nothing good, and they know it, which explains Elizabeth’s willingness to accept the Centre’s dubious reasoning, seemingly despite her better judgment. Philip has a history of indulging his own doubts (which he is very much doing here), but Elizabeth won’t allow herself that luxury, right up through the moment she murders two people, something her husband couldn’t bring himself to do.</p>
<p id="ahBi4F">But then: “I want to get out of here.” Yes, Elizabeth carried out her orders, but it seems her resolve has finally broken. Natalie’s tale helped her realize what the Centre has made of her, and what effect that has had, and will continue to have, on her family, in particular the man she loves. Ironically, Natalie may have ended up <em>saving</em> a war prisoner in enabling Elizabeth’s revelation — provided “getting out of here” is something the Jenningses can even do at this point. And given what season five has been showing us over in the motherland, I’m betting the final two episodes are going to dig deep into what it would mean for the Jennings family to return “home” in 1984.</p>
<p id="Q0roQz"><strong>Dara</strong><strong> Lind</strong><strong>: </strong>Oh, wow, Genevieve. I didn’t see it that way at all.</p>
<p id="J8iNiK">As much as doubt has become a part of Elizabeth’s nature and started to compete with Philip’s this season, and as close as they’ve grown, <em>The Americans</em> has never let us forget that Elizabeth still thinks she’s stronger than he is — and hasn’t forgiven him for it. When Deirdre dumped him, Elizabeth blamed Philip for going to EST and (essentially) being too in touch with his feelings. And when she realized, in “Dyatkovo,” that Philip wasn’t going to pull the trigger, I thought I saw in her face not just panic and resolve but a little disgust.</p>
<p id="yHCjdi">So when she said, “Let’s go home,” I immediately wondered if she was, somehow, testing Philip — seeing if he still harbored the defection fantasy he voiced to her way back in the series pilot, forcing him to choose between homelands.</p>
<p id="L1bBAb"><strong>Caroline: </strong>I’m with Dara on this one. Elizabeth was definitely thrown when Natalie told the whole truth — which only vaguely resembled the justification Claudia had offered — but she was horrified when Philip suggested that they should maybe go easy on her, whether she committed those crimes or not. Elizabeth sees the world in black and white, good and bad. She might be sick of America, sick of what the Centre’s asking her and Philip to do, but she’s still nowhere near defection. I don’t, for instance, think she cares nearly as much as Philip that their country weaponized a virus, because she has faith that they would only do such a thing for a good reason — faith Philip has never wholly had. </p>
<p id="8u6luE">Remember that this episode opens with Philip — essentially a father of three sons between Henry, Tuan, and far-flung Mischa — grimly flashing back to how warm his father could be. Philip’s memories of his father are so incongruous with the reality of him being a prison guard that he <em>has</em> to believe there’s always room for people to contain multitudes. Elizabeth, in contrast, takes pride in being “strong enough” to understand that one traitorous decision, no matter the context, is enough to brand someone a traitor for life.</p>
<p id="t4d4Dq"><strong>Dara: </strong>Philip understands that several decades in America can change a person fundamentally — that they can become the person their loved ones always thought they were. When Natalie tells her husband that she wanted to be the person he thought she was, and he replies, “I know who you are. You’re good,” it’s hard not to see the moment as a reminder that relationships can be stronger than the lies that build them, and that the person you were back in the Soviet Union isn’t the “real” you any more than any of the masks you wear in the US. If that makes Philip wary of killing a woman he believes has reformed, it also means he understands that he and Elizabeth can’t go home again — not just politically but psychologically. I’m not sure, even after all this, that I could say the same for Elizabeth.</p>
<p id="xAhBzB">Then again, this episode also made it clear that even returning to the Soviet Union doesn’t necessarily mean seeing the reality of what it takes to get by in the country. Oleg certainly got told this week, by both his partner and his prisoner, that he’s still living a privileged life, blind to the choices other people have to make to survive. What did you think about his plot?</p>
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<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>The Russians are dubious.</figcaption>
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<p id="ux1Jmo"><strong>Genevieve:</strong> I’m happy to agree to disagree re: Elizabeth, whom I’m still holding out hope for. I don’t think this series can end without a major ideological realignment of some sort from her, and I maintain that we’re seeing the seeds of that here.</p>
<p id="aQqV5U">Admittedly, that may be informed by my desire to see Elizabeth forced to confront those realities of modern Soviet life, which we’ve been seeing a lot of via Oleg. Oleg’s food-supply-and-bribery plot line has been perhaps the most slowly developed one in a generally slowly developing season, but the threads are finally starting to weave together into a depressing tapestry of institutionalized inequality and corruption. That scene with Oleg and his boss questioning Fomina, the secretary keeping a ledger of her boss’s wheelings and dealings, was mildly chilling in how it conveyed not just how deeply broken the country’s food system is but how apathetic most people have become about the need to manipulate that system. “This is how the whole country works. It’s how people get fed. It isn’t going to change,” Fomina icily tells the men.</p>
<p id="c0WHHE">The most striking part of this exchange is Fomina’s apparent lack of fear in the face of officials who could conceivably imprison her for 15 years — men who, as she points out, “don’t have to worry about these things,” men who can casually offer their bosses a trip through a fancy grocery store. But as we see in an earlier Oleg scene, this is still an environment where people can be sent to the mental ward for not knowing when to keep their mouths shut. So what exactly is Fomina doing here? Is she just shaming Oleg, or is there a power play at work I’m not getting?</p>
<p id="hjHmTc"><strong>Caroline: </strong>It's hard to say, but my instinct is that Fomina pretty much knows she's fucked no matter what, so why not be frank?</p>
<p id="VW9jk6">In that scene you just mentioned, Oleg listens to his colleagues talk about how they had to send a foolish man to the mental ward even after he proved useful, because "he should've known better than to open his mouth." And Oleg is still simmering in anger about the reversal in Nina's fate, still smarting from the revelation that his mother spent five years in a work camp for "sabotage." It almost doesn't matter what anyone did or didn't do; if a powerful person finds a reason to bring down a less powerful person, it's done.</p>
<p id="wjWMRH"><strong>Dara: </strong>Isn't it possible, too, that Fomina is simply too distraught to do anything but speak from the heart? It's miraculous, isn't it, that we automatically assume the distrust the Soviet Union forces on its citizens goes so deep that honesty has to have an angle?</p>
<p id="oIINgJ"><em>The Americans</em> has drawn plenty of parallels between the FBI and the Centre. But when Stan told Henry this week — after giving him a tour of plenty of operationally sensitive stuff around the office! — that he couldn't be emotionally honest with anyone because he had to see them as a potential spy, what I thought of wasn't Philip and Elizabeth. It was everyone we've seen in the Russian scenes this season, unable to go about their daily lives without a little healthy suspicion.</p>
<p id="SQ7xmB"><strong>Genevieve: </strong>Yeah, but does the KGB have those cool new soap dispensers in the bathroom?</p>
<p id="yMRKFi">As you say, this show has not been subtle about drawing parallels between the FBI and the KGB, and while Stan’s message to Henry about not being able to trust anyone is the big emotional parallel, I did find myself chuckling at the fact that neither Stan nor Dennis has any clue how many people work at the FBI, but both sure do have opinions on the soap dispensers and mail robot. No matter where you work, it seems, it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees.</p>
<p id="thIbev"><strong>Dara: </strong>Personally, I'm horrified that as far as we know, the existence of the Vault is about to be revealed in a junior high newspaper. (This was a heckuva week for the show to present the FBI as careless about media leaks!)</p>
<p id="YIZZpw"><strong>Caroline: </strong>I think I was blinded to Henry’s journalistic missteps by Stan calling the mail robot “more trouble than it’s worth” with the kind of affection you reserve for an unruly dog. Missed you, mail robot! </p>
<p id="c5BYIk">There is a deep irony in Stan telling Henry how little he’s allowed to trust people, when he’s unwittingly trusted two KGB agents with so much over the years. But there’s also something deeply sad about him saying this to Henry. The youngest Jennings has no idea that his field trip to the FBI doubled as intel collection for his spy parents, and Stan has no idea what he did by trying to do something nice for “the greatest kid in the world” (don’t tell Matthew).</p>
<p id="INfpw4">But that’s always the rub with <em>The Americans</em>, isn’t it? Every interaction contains layers upon layers of mistrust, deceit, irony, ignorance, pain. People like Philip, Elizabeth, Oleg, and Stan have been trained to read them, peel them apart, and find the truth therein — but even they can’t fill in all the blanks, whether they know it or not.</p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/16/15646920/americans-episode-11-dyatkovo-recapCaroline FramkeGenevieve KoskiDara Lind2017-05-09T23:10:01-04:002017-05-09T23:10:01-04:00The Americans’ latest episode has a big twist up its sleeve — it’s heartwarming
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<figcaption>Here are the lovebirds now! | FX</figcaption>
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<p>This is The Americans blissing out on family togetherness.</p> <p id="kYtJjS"><em>Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama</em><a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14844570/the-americans-season-five"><strong>The Americans</strong></a><em>. This week, critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, culture editor Jen Trolio, and staff writer Alissa Wilkinson talk about </em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6263008/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1"><strong>“</strong><em><strong>Darkroom,”</strong></em></a><em> the 10th episode of season five.</em></p>
<h3 id="ekSLq3">Somebody’s getting married... (Spoilers: It’s Philip and Elizabeth!)</h3>
<p id="2vAu8c"><strong>Todd </strong><strong>VanDerWerff</strong><strong>:</strong> It's the wedding of the [20th] century!</p>
<p id="RKHlVW">After nearly two decades together, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings have finally, officially tied the knot, at least in the eyes of the Russian Orthodox Church, which apparently still officiates Soviet weddings. (I will admit that my knowledge of Soviet weddings consists entirely of what I saw in this scene.) It's a beautiful, weirdly haunting sequence, which is immediately followed by the two realizing Pastor Tim believes what they've done to Paige is worse than rampant abuse. </p>
<p id="wdGkjD">(To give you a bit of context in how I watched this episode: FX sent “Darkroom” to critics with an email warning us not to spoil anything that happened after a certain time code until the episode had aired. That time code immediately preceded the wedding, and when I realized that was what the network didn't want spoiled, I laughed a lot. Never in a million years would I have dreamed that the major plot twist on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><em>The Americans</em></a> would be a happy one.)</p>
<p id="ybFdge">Anyway, "Darkroom" is another episode of the show turning up the burners underneath its simmering pot of water and letting us wonder if the damn thing is going to boil already. But as with most of the recent episodes that have done this, I liked it quite a bit. There's an elegance to how thoroughly this season has put us in the characters' heads, and I look forward to seeing how that all shakes out now that everything comes down to the Jennings family, as it probably should.</p>
<p id="gJpgOQ">Also: Philip and Elizabeth's big mission of the year essentially boils down to getting some bullies to mock a teenage boy. Good work, everyone!</p>
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<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>“We’re doing a really good job of making that teen boy’s life a living hell.”</figcaption>
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<p id="aJc0k7"><strong>Alissa</strong><strong> Wilkinson</strong><strong>: </strong>I laughed at the wedding reveal too! I thought for sure someone important was going to die, maybe Pastor Tim. But he's still alive and kicking and worrying about Paige, as is everyone else. For now.</p>
<p id="V3xrNE">I said this earlier this season, but I feel like this show operates on the principle that everything, no matter how banal, could be a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun">Chekhov's gun</a> — that each element has the potential to come back in a big way later on, and that nothing is irrelevant. (That Chekhov himself was Russian is purely coincidental, probably.) </p>
<p id="tWF9Zm">Most of the TV shows I love most, and the ones that are most rewarding on second viewing, make you slowly aware that you have to really pay attention to everything, because anything might come back later: <em>The Leftovers, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad</em>, and even <em>Arrested Development</em> do this.</p>
<p id="czi7AL">The tricky thing about TV shows making everything significant — as opposed to, say, a play or a short story, like Chekhov would have written — is that there are a lot more strings to keep track of. I find myself working overtime to interpret everything in the story through that framework. </p>
<p id="UB76Io">So that's one thing I thought about the wedding: What is it setting up? It sort of came out of left field, and I'm not entirely sure what Philip's thinking was behind it (though I have some hunches), but it was lovely to see a scene like that in this show. I'm wondering what it will mean when the Center discovers it, or if they even care.</p>
<p id="SGYnAY"><strong>Jen</strong><strong> Trolio</strong><strong>:</strong> I was also totally and completely thrown off by FX’s pre-episode guidance to not publicly discuss any part of what happened in basically the second half of the episode. It formed a false expectation in my brain; though I didn’t laugh the way you two did, I did have kind of a “Wait, that was <em>it</em>?” response to the wedding that really undercut the beauty of the scene.</p>
<p id="hp3G6p">Going back to it for a rewatch, I was really touched by the pre-nuptials scene in the car, where Philip and Elizabeth reminisce about getting their fake marriage license and Philip kind of playfully asks, “Wanna make it official?” Similarly, I loved hearing the couple’s real names, Mikhail and Nadezhda, during the ceremony — and then felt sad for them as they hid away their new, “real” wedding rings in a safe. </p>
<h3 id="iTUtP9">
<em>The Americans</em> leans into its family versus ideology conflict </h3>
<p id="sN8P51"><strong>Jen: </strong>As for your question about what it’s setting up, Alissa, my early read lacks for “here’s how it comes back later” theories; for now, I’m viewing their marriage as a very symbolic development in <em>The Americans</em>’ ongoing theme of family versus ideology. Previously, they were essentially married for (and to) the cause. Now they’re very purposely married to each other. If they’re ultimately faced with the choice of family or country, I feel like we’ve just seen a big, tangible sign of which way <em>both</em> of them are gonna go.</p>
<p id="uLcgBS">That feeling was only cemented for me in the episode’s final scenes. FX’s spoiler warning aside, the “bigger” moment in the second half of “Darkroom,” for me, had to do with that literal darkroom scene at the Jennings house. I’ve always had a soft spot for the spy-show trope of having to develop your own clandestine photos because you can’t trust your film with some random employee at the drugstore photo lab down the street. </p>
<p id="efNfeV">Paige paid lip service to that fear, once again showing she’s got a bit of a knack for spycraft, however reluctant. Just the fact that she was compelled to take the photos in the first place underscores how increasingly willingly she’s being drawn into the family business, even though her parents have told her more than once not to worry about Pastor Tim’s diary, to leave it alone.</p>
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<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Philip thinks you’re all right, Paige.</figcaption>
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<p id="w9zIIK">More and more we’ve seen the Jenningses start to smudge and blur the line between family and ideology, as the two continue to fuse and evolve into something totally new. We saw this happen as Philip and Elizabeth tied the knot after all these years, and we saw it as Paige started to embrace the idea of getting Pastor Tim a job offer somewhere far away, before going all in and photographing his diary so that she could show it her parents.</p>
<p id="6HJpxo">For Philip and Elizabeth, their ideology will always be part of them, even though we’ve been witnessing them start to question it more and more. But it’s also what created their family, and now it literally can’t be separated from that family. </p>
<p id="gIng5E">In the final scene of “Darkroom,” seeing all of Pastor Tim’s concerns about “P.J.” scrawled out on page after page, his words almost seemed to spur a revelation in Philip and Elizabeth. They and their daughter are all a little (or a lot) messed up, but they’re also all in this together (sorry, Henry; at least Paige is trying to look out for you). I think all three characters are starting to take a Three Musketeers, “all for one and one for all” approach.</p>
<p id="NihVWe"><strong>Alissa: </strong>The entire concept of a “darkroom,” in which film is developed into photographs, is the linchpin for this episode as well as its title and concluding scene, and I thought that made for a fine metaphor for this season overall. When you develop film, there are a bunch of processes that have to be executed properly before the full picture reveals itself. </p>
<p id="8ieet4">We watch (along with Paige) as Philip and Elizabeth expertly execute the steps required to develop Paige’s photos of Pastor Tim’s diary. And the whole episode is about people slowly engineering the pieces required to “develop” a larger story: Tuan working the kids to get to Pascha, the Jenningses being informed that they’ll have to stay on the honeypot trail possibly for years, and them wondering how they’ll put together Pastor Tim’s future — even the plot with Stan and his girlfriend still has Philip wondering if it’s a setup.</p>
<p id="8QuzpT">All this reminds me that there’s an actual clear historical expiration date on this plot. We get lost in the story sometimes, and forget it’s historical fiction rather than an alternate timeline. </p>
<p id="XslNSV"><strong>Todd:</strong> Allow me to take a moment to point out that we have all complained about the spoiler warning sent out for an episode FX gladly allowed us to watch early on screener, because we are the worst kind of critics and do not acknowledge our screener privilege. May we be punished.</p>
<p id="i3wRxO">That said, I loved the darkroom sequence too, because it ties into something this season has fitfully kept in sight in every episode: When you can't tell the whole truth, how do you talk about the stuff that's troubling you? Seen one way, this is Paige doing her level best to make sure Pastor Tim's words are his undoing and that her parents don't need to know anything else from his diary. But seen another way, this is a desperate cry for help.</p>
<p id="067ccq">A similar situation is playing out with Oleg over in the USSR, where he's caught in the strange situation of knowing what government officials <em>might</em> be after him for, but also not being precisely sure how much they have on him, or if they suspect him of what he thinks they do. Could it be that he colluded a little too closely with Stan last season? Sure. It could also just be random chance. Like the Jennings family, he can't talk about what's really bothering him, because if he's ever open, he's doomed.</p>
<p id="W2rSz1">So which two characters are more or less having a great time of it right now? Henry (who sits out this episode) and Stan, who's got a great girlfriend, seems to have mostly let the Oleg thing burn itself out (for now at least), and is making some real progress on his current operation. </p>
<p id="mipTJ9">It worries me a bit that Stan is so far out of the central loop this season, though<strong> </strong>not because I think he's suddenly going to reveal that he's been onto Philip and Elizabeth all along. No, it feels to me like whatever other shoe will drop this season has something to do with what he's been up to all along. (Notice how little we know about his current operation in the Rezidentura — mostly that it's happening.) Curiouser and curiouser.</p>
<h3 id="81Unag">We still don’t have a great idea of a lot of what’s happening this season — possibly intentionally</h3>
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<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Claudia isn’t talking.</figcaption>
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<p id="tBMqqc"><strong>Jen:</strong> Now that you say that about Stan, I’ve suddenly found myself wondering about how frequently Stan and the Jenningses — or at least Stan and Philip — are actually seeing each other these days. I can’t quite discern whether things are “normal” between them, especially in the wake of Paige and Matthew’s recent breakup, and that ambiguity, along with Philip’s nagging feeling that the Center is meddling with Stan, is putting all kinds of worst-case scenarios in my head about where Stan’s story arc is headed. </p>
<p id="FuIn95">Stan is dating someone new and is obviously busy with this vague (to us) Rezidentura operation, and Philip and Elizabeth are traveling a lot “for work” (to Topeka, no less!). They’re also, as we were reminded last week, maintaining past missions like the one with Kimmy, hanging out with the Borozovs, fake-parenting Tuan, and real-parenting Paige and Henry. It’s easy to imagine that Philip and Stan might be struggling to keep up their regular racquetball game. </p>
<p id="ekX76M">On the one hand, this makes perfect sense — friendships between adults ebb and flow all the time because life, kids, work gets in the way. On the other, Stan not being as much in the central mix of the season is making me feel a similar worry to you, Todd. </p>
<p id="cF67Xu">How much of Stan and the Jenningses’ relationship is work, how much of it is “play,” how much of is both? I have questions about what <em>The Americans</em> is choosing to show us and not show us at any given time, and while I agree that we probably aren’t headed for a “Stan knew all along!” situation, I’m unsettled nonetheless. </p>
<p id="XR8iNU">As more people on this show learn more things, and human emotions play a larger and larger role — especially with Philip specifically declaring to Elizabeth that “I don’t want Stan to end up like Martha” — there’s a lot of possibility for things to get very, very messy.</p>
<p id="W5vZne"><strong>Alissa:</strong> In fact, the whole season has made me feel a little in the dark about what's going on — I keep getting the feeling that I might have missed something. And <em>that</em> makes me wonder if the Jenningses are missing anything too. They're not superheroes. They're just really good at their jobs.</p>
<p id="lrlTmf">But this season has been bent on showing their weaknesses, and I wonder what the wedding signifies in the midst of that. They're being kept in the dark by the Center on some level — they're starting to wonder, I think, how many levels — and that's mirrored by what Oleg is going through, and by what Gabriel told Martha as well. (Elizabeth even has to explain to Paige that they weren't lying to her, and I think that explanation gives Elizabeth pause.) The Center lies to its people. What have they taken for granted that might not, after all, be true?</p>
<p id="aTSiiP">This makes me think about the Topeka plot. Could it be there's more to it than even Elizabeth and Philip know?</p>
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<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Travel agent.</figcaption>
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<p id="11HaHr"><strong>Todd:</strong> One of the things <em>Americans </em>showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields told me when I <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/6/8/11879750/the-americans-finale-recap-interview-persona-non-grata">interviewed them after season four</a> was that they don't look at, say, the marriage between Clark and Martha as "fake." Yes, on one level it's a sham that Philip perpetrates for work. But on another level, he's forced to be there and care about Martha, to make sure he's meeting her needs as best he can. And she does the same for him. That's a marriage!</p>
<p id="V7eKvu">Thus, <em>The Americans</em> is, on some level, about how the rituals of acting like something will make you that thing (like, say, an American). Tuan isn't actually Philip and Elizabeth's son, and he's even in on this particular ruse. But that doesn't stop the three of them from falling into the familiar parent-child relationship. Oleg acts like he hasn't done anything his countrymen would find suspect, in hopes that will paper over everything else. And Paige's entire life has become a delicate balancing act of pretending to still be a normal teenager, something that (to me at least) she seems to be getting better at.</p>
<p id="kGyw9F">This is what makes the final sections of "Darkroom" so moving to me. Things that were "fake" are being made "real," even though they don't have to be. No one would suggest that Philip and Elizabeth weren't "actually" married — indeed, the thought had never occurred to me. But the wedding serves as an important milestone for the both of them in a line of work where the border between reality and story is ever-shifting. </p>
<p id="WW0bFW">Similarly, the honesty the two share with Paige is possible entirely <em>because</em> the three of them have been able to be so open with each other. That final scene is a horrific revelation of just how screwed up all of these people are, yes, but on some other level, it's the proud parents greeting their teenage daughter at work and saying, "All of this will be yours someday!" (Good thing Philip and Elizabeth didn't get Paige involved in the travel agency; there's probably more of a future in spying.)</p>
<p id="e7SyQl">The deeper we get in season five, the more obvious it becomes that it's constructed to hide something from both the main characters and us. What that is, I have no idea. (My guess: Stan's business with the woman from the Rezidentura is designed to root out spies living in the US — which will somehow implicate Philip and Elizabeth.) But they also have no idea because they've become so consumed by the layers of falseness with which they've constructed multiple identities. At a certain point, there will be a crash.</p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/9/15599144/the-americans-episode-10-recap-darkroom-weddingEmily St. JamesJen TrolioAlissa Wilkinson2017-05-02T23:11:02-04:002017-05-02T23:11:02-04:00The Americans’ spies confront the ghosts of missions past
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<img alt="The Americans" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0ML0yrZ5HiAygMbnbXbgD8AUbZo=/0x0:1796x1347/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54593137/theamericans5.9main.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Henry has some big news. | FX</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The tension rises to a breaking point — but is that just because Philip and Elizabeth are so paranoid?</p> <p id="Cq9iUj"><em>Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama</em><em> </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14844570/the-americans-season-five"><strong>The Americans</strong></a><em>. This week, critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, culture editor Jen Trolio, and deputy culture editor Genevieve Koski talk about </em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6263006/?ref_=tt_eps_cu_n">“<em>IHOP,”</em></a><em> the ninth episode of season five.</em></p>
<p id="hBmVCz"><strong>Todd VanDerWerff:</strong> There’s perhaps nothing more “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><em>The Americans</em></a> season five” than having all the Tuan buildup result in him traveling to Pennsylvania to contact his old foster family from Seattle about one of his old foster siblings, who’s really sick. Granted, I suspect there’s another shoe to drop here, but the message is still a potent one: Philip and Elizabeth are in so deep that they’ve lost the plot entirely.</p>
<p id="lQtkPK">In that sense, <em>The Americans </em>season five is an extended look into how doing this job has completely and utterly changed the way the Jenningses view the world, has perhaps even <em>broken</em> their viewpoint. They’re shattered now, and it’s impossible to put the pieces back together. Only Martha, who’s lost everything and can’t even talk to her parents, sees things for how they really are, and we don’t get a big speech from her confirming as much. She just says she knows everything, and Gabriel knows enough to leave.</p>
<p id="FSGSqU">“IHOP” probably isn’t going to quiet this season’s skeptics, but I thought it was the strongest episode of <a href="http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/the-americans"><em>The Americans</em></a> in a while, maybe of the whole season. That buzzy, dread-filled vibe the past few episodes built up threatens to explode throughout the hour but always calms down again at the last moment. Were you two similarly affected?</p>
<h3 id="9IgfMz">Greet some old friends, if their Russian is good enough</h3>
<p id="1Tl0Fj"><strong>Jen Trolio:</strong> I was truly on edge when Philip and Elizabeth pounced on Tuan at home and stuck a gun in his face immediately upon his return from Pennsylvania. For that reason, I think that even with another shoe still dangling on the Tuan front, I absolutely found the cycle of dread-filled buildup and last-minute diffusion effective in terms of illustrating how Philip and Elizabeth’s worldview has changed.</p>
<p id="Ue7k5O">As a result, I think even though Martha and Gabriel’s discussion happened prior to the Jenningses’ confrontation with Tuan, the weight of Martha’s pragmatism and her sad, angry acceptance of her situation resonates for me a lot more strongly after the fact that it did in the moment. </p>
<p id="DSHOO6">While I was actually watching, I found myself being kind of hard on the scene: Where is the show really going with this, beyond giving us some more screen time with a fan-favorite character? I basically felt bad for Martha and her sad baked potato and onions, was more impressed by her Russian than Gabriel was, and then otherwise felt kind of similarly annoyed by his presence. (I also think she should have just finished her food in front of him. You were too polite, Martha!)</p>
<p id="aFD4pd"><strong>Genevieve Koski:</strong> I think you were indeed being a little hard on that scene, Jen, which felt to me like a much-needed resolution for Martha, as well as Gabriel. </p>
<p id="5RPQi1">Now that both of them are in the USSR and not actively involved with Directorate S, this is probably the last we’ll see of them; allowing Martha to say her piece to Gabriel, the man who helped doom her to a lifetime of sad baked potato breaks, feels like a much better resolution for the character than that tiny glimpse we got a few episodes back, and puts a nice button on Gabriel’s guilt over all he’s done throughout the years. If the show trots out either or both of them again after this, though, you’re free to get annoyed.</p>
<p id="T96avl">Honestly, though, “IHOP” was lousy with blast-from-the-past moments, starting with the pre-credits scene with Kimmy. (Happy birthday, Kimmy!) In addition to reminding us that Philip is still running the Kimmy mission — just how often is he switching out those tapes? — the episode also resurrects the ghost of Frank Gaad via his widow, Linh. </p>
<p id="gN5iu3">Linh tells Stan, in so many words, exactly what he doesn’t want to hear: that Gaad would want Stan to use his Oleg connection for revenge over what happened in Bangkok. And Oleg himself invokes Nina’s ghost in his discussion with the agents who search his apartment, reminding us that both he and Stan still have lingering anger over her sad fate.</p>
<p id="JvYZYi">Taken together, all of these scenes serve as a trenchant reminder: Just because someone is out of sight on <em>The Americans</em> doesn’t mean they’re out of the characters’ minds, or that they won’t have an effect on this series’ endgame. </p>
<h3 id="jCjdiO">The past is catching up with everyone</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The Americans" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/c3V3AeCz7yZo95HcAmYrh1hK9LQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8455145/theamericans5.9pe.jpg">
<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Philip and Elizabeth have one of their patented late-night chats.</figcaption>
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<p id="TgYmgR"><strong>Jen: </strong>You’re completely right about Gabriel and Martha, Genevieve: While watching the episode, I missed the forest for the trees, so to speak, but I get it now and fully agree with you on the scene being a good resolution for both characters.</p>
<p id="2unH3E">As for Kimmy, my mind was pretty blown by her sudden reappearance. I’d completely forgotten about her, as I assume many <em>Americans</em> fans have. Even though we’ve been seeing all season how Philip and Elizabeth are stretched extremely thin, I never really considered the potential pile-up of ongoing spy commitments that we haven’t “checked in” on in a while. </p>
<p id="x8rbYp">Indeed, I think I was more surprised to see Kimmy than I was to see Martha in the grocery store a few weeks ago; we all expected Martha to return at <em>some</em> point, but Kimmy had dropped off my radar of “storylines <em>The Americans</em> will almost surely bring back sooner or later.”</p>
<p id="ZSs3Jv">On one hand, her reappearance is a little messy, given how much Elizabeth and Philip have spent catching each other up recently on the details of one mission or another; apparently he just never happened to mention a tape-switching expedition to Kimmy’s until now? But I can ultimately get past that, because I’m definitely impressed by the way the bug in Kimmy’s dad’s briefcase has opened up another fissure in Philip and Elizabeth’s commitment to their cause. </p>
<p id="6Eci8D">They now know that a group of Mujahideen in Afghanistan died from “hemorrhagic fever”; consequently, they’ve been forced to consider that the virus they got from William and sent back to the motherland was about much more than the Russians protecting themselves after a nuclear attack. Elizabeth weakly posits that “we don’t know if it’s the same virus,” but she and Philip both know Philip’s right when he observes that if it wasn’t, it’d be “one hell of a coincidence.”</p>
<p id="g3RQvQ"><strong>Todd: </strong>Something I've been wondering a lot lately is whether some of the discontent with this season of <em>The Americans</em> stems not from its actual content — which is generally good, if slow — but from our knowledge that every little piece moved into place is building toward "the endgame," whatever that may be. We're so focused on how the series might conclude that we've lost sight of everything else.</p>
<p id="a2GecA">For instance, I spent so much of “IHOP” convinced that <em>some</em> shoe was about to drop that I didn't really think about how the episode focused on all of the lives Philip and Elizabeth have ruined simply by virtue of their line of work until it was over. </p>
<p id="sXRKdD">They've destroyed their daughter. They've destroyed Philip’s (other) wife. They've destroyed an otherwise agreeable kid like Tuan. And they've destroyed themselves. There might be nothing left for them at the end of this road.</p>
<p id="icXASR">Yet at the same time, Stan and Oleg's cross-cultural bromance — now being carried out even though neither man has talked to the other in ages — is starting to see cracks here and there. Both of their superiors are attempting to get them to use the other against his homeland, even though Stan and Oleg know how unlikely that is. (Even though Oleg is still mad about Nina’s death, it's hard to imagine him flipping.) Unexpectedly, Oleg has become one of <em>The Americans</em>’ most compelling characters, and even if I'm not sure just what his plot line has to do with everything else, cutting away to him is more than holding its own.</p>
<p id="KEAfGK">All of which brings me back to our least likely storyline: Tall Henry Is a Math Whiz. Now, our boy wants to head to a special school in New Hampshire, which Philip is adamantly against, perhaps because he knows he needs to keep his kids close, lest his whole world crumble. Elizabeth, intriguingly, seems more open to the idea. What make you of this? And do Philip and Elizabeth have anything to fear from '80s background checks?</p>
<h3 id="7N3shl">When did Henry become the most carefree Jennings?</h3>
<p id="1k1Y8Q"><strong>Genevieve:</strong> I’m continually delighted by Henry’s storyline this season, which seems like a purposeful nose thumbing at the critiques <em>The Americans</em> gets over how it handles the youngest member of the Jennings family. What better development for a character whose most notable quality is his continual absence than a sudden desire to become <em>more</em> absent? </p>
<p id="Az5P0H">It’s delightfully cheeky — but it also serves as an interesting contrast with Paige’s emotional and mental (and, perhaps, educational) trajectory, which has trended downward as she’s been drawn deeper into her parents’ world. </p>
<p id="DiPZgh">Meanwhile, as Henry has further disengaged from the family dynamic, to the point where he now wants to straight-up leave the house, he’s thrived. This has certainly not gone unnoticed by Philip and Elizabeth, who’ve noted in surprise, and perhaps slight dismay, that Henry turned out to be “the good one.”</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The Americans" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Hj27rsKxutvxTKY-Wg3A0Gc7jl8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8455151/theamericans5.9henry.jpg">
<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Watch out for that Henry Jennings. He’s going places.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="5Z3iZP">This Henry-Paige contrast has to be influencing Philip and Elizabeth’s different reactions to their son’s request to attend boarding school, though Elizabeth in particular is inscrutable as ever. She seems generally pleased with Paige’s progress, such as it is — I love this season’s commitment to their fight training — but she’s also increasingly aware of the burden she and Philip have placed on their daughter, which was highlighted in her revelation to Paige last week about her rape experience. </p>
<p id="SvOKSi">Perhaps she senses, even if subconsciously, that Henry’s desire to chart his own course could be his salvation. Philip, meanwhile, seems to be acting out of his usual protective instinct, appalled at the idea of willingly letting his child out from under his immediate protection. But what if letting Henry escape his parents’ orbit is the best protection he could have?</p>
<p id="c9Y3Zm"><strong>Jen:</strong> I also think it’s kind of fascinating how, of all the things for Henry to suddenly show an interest in and really badger his parents about, asking to go to a fancy New England boarding school boldly underscores the constant push-pull that we’ve always seen on <em>The Americans</em> between Philip and Elizabeth hating everything the United States stands for while also enjoying so many of its creature comforts. Henry has always embodied the fact that they have “real” American kids, much more so than Paige, and now he wants to leave home for what they were very quick to call a “fancy orphanage” and a “country club.” </p>
<p id="x5fYjq">It’s easy to picture Henry in khakis and a navy blazer, goofing around with his classmates, and then in turn, it’s easy to picture how infuriating of an image that could be to his parents, and to Elizabeth specifically. The idea of a full-time boarding school is so much more intense in terms of an immersive American experience than wanting to drive a cool American sports car or occasionally indulging in McDonald’s or Bennigan’s. </p>
<p id="jbMulj">So I think it nicely adds a new layer to one of <em>The Americans</em>’ core tensions, by bringing to a head this long-simmering conflict that Philip and Elizabeth have long been dealing with. That it does so with a fancy prep school that might turn one of their kids into exactly the kind of capitalist they hate the most seems to be a sort of ante-upping test that will force them to scrutinize even more whether they can stay committed to this ideology they’ve been serving for so long.</p>
<p id="4ERYaF"><strong>Todd:</strong> That sort of casual capitalist life that Henry seems destined for is definitely horrifying for Philip and Elizabeth, but it also turns Henry into a weird mirror of Oleg, who was raised by relatively affluent parents in another society filled with layers of injustice. Everywhere you turn, the wheels or power are greased unevenly.</p>
<p id="5Y7cnr">Oleg's story, as I mentioned above, has become far more compelling than I ever would have expected, precisely because he's starting to confront not just the relative privilege he comes from and the ways his father has insulated him, but also the incredible task of trying to root out corruption at the source, something that results in Dmitri (his source who’s been stewing in a holding sale) muttering a "God forgive me" when he finally gives up a name to our man in the USSR.</p>
<p id="RUbBcT">Is this the sort of thing that Henry could see? It's remarkably hard to open your eyes to the ways you've been protected from the sorts of destitution others think of as a matter of course. We can imagine a Henry who eventually realizes this just as easily as we can imagine a Henry who ignores it completely.</p>
<p id="HOPHcP">But Oleg's process serves as a mirror for almost everybody because it's about waking up to the things going on in your name, being done by your country and, by proxy, by you. That's certainly a story that applies to the USSR in the 1980s, but it's one that applies to any country in any time. We're all party to something terrible. What are we gonna do about it?</p>
<p id="of0HG0">The Americans <em>airs Tuesdays at 10 pm on FX. You can keep up with </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/the-americans"><em><strong>our coverage of this season here</strong></em></a><em>.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/2/15521222/the-americans-episode-9-recap-ihop-henry-tuan-marthaEmily St. JamesGenevieve KoskiJen Trolio2017-04-26T09:57:15-04:002017-04-26T09:57:15-04:00Is The Americans season 5 ever getting to the point?
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<img alt="The Americans" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gmrYW1rVWEEQKEGRkF4bHKq55sQ=/5x0:4904x3674/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54450279/americans5.8tuan.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>What’s the matter with Tuan? | FX</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Is the show building necessary tension — or tossing out a lot of go-nowhere plot lines?</p> <p id="eJ2Z91"><em>Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama</em><em> </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14844570/the-americans-season-five"><strong>The Americans</strong></a><em>. This week, critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, associate editor Libby Nelson, and staff writer Alissa Wilkinson talk about </em>“<em>Immersion,” the eighth episode of season five.</em></p>
<p id="dqooIK"><strong>Todd</strong><strong> VanDerWerff</strong><strong>:</strong> Because I was on vacation when they aired, I watched the sixth and seventh episodes of this season of <a href="http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/the-americans"><em>The Americans</em></a> right on top of each other, immediately before watching this eighth episode. And not only did the three episodes form a loose trilogy of sorts — call it the Gabriel trilogy — but they all informed each other in interesting ways. </p>
<p id="DNKeDp">I've gotten the sense from some fans of the show that they're feeling this season hasn't yet coalesced in the way previous seasons have. (Remember: At this point in season four, we'd already <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/5/5/11592528/the-americans-episode-8-recap-david-copperfield-martha">sent Martha off to the Soviet Union</a>!) And I'd have to agree with that. But after watching these episodes one after the other, I think that's very much intentional.</p>
<p id="zbvlwL">Or, put another way: Something's coming, and we're meant to be terrified of it.</p>
<p id="0Gj9wk">These episodes ramp up the dread, and when "Immersion" ends on a wide shot of Elizabeth and Paige in the distance, taking their walk, talking about how maybe Elizabeth could have been a doctor if her life had taken a different turn, it was hard not to think that the conversation served as a premature obituary for some other Elizabeth, someone who hadn't hardened herself so much that she seemingly doesn't feel things any more, except when they slip through the cracks of her exterior.</p>
<p id="mUhRQh">Structurally, the season has so many balls in the air that if this were any other series, I would be sort of nervous about some of them being dropped. </p>
<p id="qPEfJY">But <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/?ref_=tt_ov_inf"><em>The Americans</em></a> has never really had the chance to <em>try</em> this kind of “everything’s up in the air” story, because it's never had the benefit of knowing another season is coming. In a way, it reminds me of the first half of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0141842/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><em>The Sopranos</em></a>' final season, which felt at the time like a bunch of throat clearing but now plays as one last pause before the descent.</p>
<p id="h8qa2m">That's enough big-picture stuff for now, though. What did you both think about "Immersion" and its many, many, many plot strands?</p>
<h3 id="MsSCkZ">Should we be feeling mounting pressure — or frustration?</h3>
<p id="OS3UHu"><strong>Libby</strong><strong> Nelson</strong><strong>: </strong>Ooh, I’m dying to talk about this — because I wish I were having the response to these episodes that you’ve experienced, Todd. </p>
<p id="Z84SVG">I want to feel the building pressure and the looming sense of doom. Instead, I’m just frustrated and lost. I’m confident it’s all heading somewhere, but not from anything we’ve seen in the show itself; I simply have too much faith in <em>The Americans</em> to believe otherwise. (Well, and the fact that I had the same impression for most of season five of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804503/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><em>Mad Men</em></a> — whose final episodes then turned out to be the best arc of the series’ entire run.)</p>
<p id="jT08EP">Then again, I’m still watching week to week, and this season feels influenced by the rise of streaming and bingeing — it seems like we have a lot of plot lines and yet somehow not a lot of plot.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The Americans" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hxGY_Xn0phrqyO1LIyYLf-Y6oR4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8409121/americans5.8main.jpg">
<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Not a lot of photo options on the ol’ FX press site this week.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="BsYKYq">In part, I suspect, this mirrors how Philip and Elizabeth are feeling too, pulled in a dozen different directions between missions they’re not fully invested in. The result is that while there’s a lot going on, most plots feel like they’re nowhere near a climax. Existing characters’ stories feel like they’ve slowed to a crawl — Stan has taken months to develop a source, which is accurate, I’m sure, but not necessarily a thrill a minute to watch — and new additions don’t get the emotional space and time to breathe that made William and Young Hee, for example, such vital figures last season. The Jenningses, and <em>The Americans</em> itself, are spread thin. It can’t be meaningless that Tuan once again, in “Immersion,” begged for time and attention that our protagonists simply don’t have.</p>
<p id="qlLjpc">And those protagonists are getting sloppy. We’ve seen Philip pack paramours into suitcases and/or send them off to Moscow, but we’ve never seen one send him packing — until Deirdre, who wanted someone a bit more aggressive. (She never met Clark in the bedroom, I guess.) He managed to execute a last-minute save by claiming to be married (which intrigued Deirdre), but it makes me wonder: What else is getting sloppy treatment from two people who are, as far as I can tell, just plain burning out? </p>
<p id="jkf38o"><strong>Todd:</strong> Season five is the best season of <em>Mad Men</em> on an episode-to-episode basis, Libby, how dare you.</p>
<p id="w0pYvn"><strong>Libby:</strong> It’s improved dramatically for me with age. But I vividly remember just being confused by where all these weird, disparate plot threads (and red herrings) were going.</p>
<p id="sdhIII"><strong>Alissa</strong><strong> Wilkinson</strong><strong>:</strong> I can see that, but on the other hand, that's what I <em>love</em> about television that is almost impossible to pull off in film: the brushstrokes on an upside-down canvas that only reveal themselves to make sense when the whole thing is completed. That's what I loved about <em>Mad Men</em>, and for me it's a mark of great TV writing — though it can make for infuriating viewing in the week-to-week stretches.</p>
<p id="V7Pj9b">But as you’ve noted, Libby, I think what we're seeing is two characters burning out. (Well, more than two — Paige is also treading water; there's no way we're not headed for an explosion there.) A lot of what passes for TV drama often seems unmotivated to me: characters having dramatic emotional moments because a big moment has to happen to get the plot to move forward. Here, though, it feels like the show is letting us feel some of Philip and Elizabeth’s weariness.</p>
<p id="p22R95">And their uncertainty, too. Philip isn't the only one feeling rejected, remember; Elizabeth watched the evidence in the last episode that she's not the only thing on her own mark's mind, even though it seems like he really likes her. It's making her uncertain as well (even if it leads to Philip paying her a rather nice compliment).</p>
<p id="cLgzBa">What struck me about this episode was how everyone is navigating cultural divides between themselves and their own parents, in one way or another. Oleg tells his parents they don't understand how things are today — they're from the older generation. Philip and Elizabeth feel the same way about Gabriel and now Claudia, wondering what sort of things their mentors (or at least handlers) actually <em>did</em> in the past. </p>
<p id="IzKiqY">The Jenningses are faking a connection with Tuan, whom they nonetheless find a bit idealistic, and there's a big divide between them and Paige. They've raised an American kid who naturally thinks about what people actually <em>wanted</em> to do when they grew up, what her parents' hopes and dreams were. It's like seeing the gap between an older Soviet Union and a newer one. Same principles, different feeling. Maybe?</p>
<h3 id="CYY7EZ">Is this whole season about the inability to escape the past? Perhaps!</h3>
<p id="wCA5Wm"><strong>Todd:</strong> That inability to wholly account for the past has haunted this entire season. We're only now really getting into, say, Stalin's gulags (one of the few things most American laypeople would think of when it comes to "the Soviet Union") and how they continue to haunt certain characters. </p>
<p id="zJswXF">And the generational conflicts around Mischa and Paige are starting to unravel at an alarming rate, even if that's happening mostly off to the side of the main story. Children are accounting for the sins of their parents all over the place, even when they don't know what they are.</p>
<p id="diQmug"><em>The Americans</em> has always been at its strongest when the show’s spy storylines neatly intersect with its questions of what it means to be part of a family. This, if anywhere, is where season five is sort of marking time. Sometimes — as when Philip killed the lab worker — the two clash in horrifying fashion. But mostly, the show feels far more engaged by the human stories than the spy stories. That's my preference too, but it means the show doesn't always have the strongest story engine.</p>
<p id="8Nhr3o">With the depopulation of the cast, the Stan side of things in particular feels less and less like it matters outside of knowing that he will probably react poorly when he finds out Elizabeth and Philip's secret. (I couldn’t tell you what his FBI storyline is supposed to be about this season, beyond a basic sketch.) And the overall feeling we've gotten about Philip and Elizabeth's missions this season is: All of this is pointless.</p>
<p id="JzbhZU">Which is not a bad place to leave us, to be honest. <em>The Americans</em> has always been a bit skeptical of placing ideology above human connection. That's always made it a great TV show, but it's also made the show feel absolutely vital in this particular historical moment. </p>
<p id="HPLUSi">Gabriel's final warning to Philip last week that Paige shouldn't have been drawn into all of this is echoed in Claudia's realization that her own grandchildren didn't know her. Do the ghosts that all of our spies chase bring meaning to their lives? Or is it their human connections that bring meaning?</p>
<p id="BZxV6C">Or think about that moment when Paige, understandably, goes to hug her mother after Elizabeth tells her daughter about how she was raped. Elizabeth holds her at arm's length, because that's what Elizabeth does. That's what all of these people do — push away instead of pull close. And season five is arguing it's wrecked all of them, is maybe even wrecking Paige in this moment.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The Americans" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dds5UPD_UgUJuE5za4V_3bqqB3U=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8409125/americans5.8fam.jpg">
<cite>FX</cite>
<figcaption>Here’s another photo very similar to the first one.</figcaption>
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<p id="vNHyU5"><strong>Alissa: </strong>I wonder, though, if Paige is the Jenningses' salvation. (I don't really intend the double meaning of that, but it's true that Paige keeps wearing her cross necklace conspicuously in every scene.) She has the ability to surprise her parents, to show a commitment to their values that doesn't seem like it's totally compatible with them, either. As someone <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/2014/05/is-the-americans-season-two-ignoring-a-crucial-religious-question-192134/">wrote several seasons ago</a> about this show, it's kind of remarkable that it chose to have a professionally Christian character who <em>isn't</em> caught up in all the Moral Majority stuff but rather is a progressive Marx-reading pastor.</p>
<p id="3PDy8S">It's also interesting to me that Elizabeth talks to Philip about EST in this episode, while having apparently taken up tai chi, which certainly also has spiritual roots. She likes that it's relaxing, but I think she also sees a kind of grounded core in Ben Stolbert that she admires and understands. If she sees a groundedness and a concern for humanity in several different Americans, like Stolbert and her daughter, that she hadn't really thought of as part of their culture before, could that be what is subtly chipping away at her confidence?</p>
<p id="PnNU19">I'm stuck on Stan, though. Renée wants him to go skydiving. She keeps upping the ante. If she's a spy, I think she might be trying to get Stan killed, except in a plausible way.</p>
<h3 id="QxFh5S">The Stan theory corner</h3>
<p id="8gL2ud"><strong>Libby: </strong>Since you brought up Renée, it’s time for a Stan theory that’s been rattling around in my head all day: What if Stan doesn’t figure out who Philip and Elizabeth really are on his own? What if they (okay, Philip) tell him the truth because it’s the only way to avert some kind of deadly danger — like a Center-approved assassination via skydiving — to Stan himself? </p>
<p id="7RUIpm">I’ve long assumed Stan Beeman, FBI Man, will find out the truth, but it’s rare for an interpersonal plot on <em>The Americans</em> to unfold just the way you think it will, and it would fit with the ongoing theme of valuing human connection over ideology.</p>
<p id="OSTAb1">However, it’s possible Renée represents merely another way for <em>The Americans</em> to put us inside the characters’ heads. What have we really learned from this storyline? That, like Philip, we’re paranoid, seeing spies and danger everywhere.</p>
<p id="RcLTpP">Speaking of human connections: I know Philip and Elizabeth have, you know, destroyed marriages, threatened innocents, actually <em>killed people</em>, but is there anything more cold-blooded than calmly plotting with Tuan to make an already unhappy kid so miserable that his mother decides the only option is to flee the country? </p>
<p id="rkMvK8">If there’s a ticking time bomb planted in this season, my guess is it’s not in the Jennings household itself, but in the second family that Philip and Elizabeth have set up, complete with a third child they don’t really understand.</p>
<p id="Hpfvb9"><strong>Todd: </strong>As we talked about above, this isn’t the first time Tuan has told his “parents” that they need to spend more time at the house, before something bad happens. And even as season five of <em>The Americans</em> seems to flout storytelling convention all over the place, I doubt it would go so far as to completely ignore such blatant foreshadowing.</p>
<p id="oT4JCE">The same goes for the season’s various targets, on both sides, who have been turned into such basic plot functionaries that the story keeps stretching tighter and tighter until <em>something’s</em> gotta give. The spy scene that gives the episode its title — with Philip and Elizabeth realizing Evgheniya is having an affair with one of her Russian immersion students — also flips the show’s interest in human connection on its ear. Human connection, after all, is what Philip, Elizabeth, and Stan all exploit to get their jobs done.</p>
<p id="q4xWle">Maybe I’m reading too much into this. Maybe this season is casting about for something to hold on to because the <em>real</em> fireworks can’t start for a few more episodes. But “Immersion” struck me as purposeful in its aimlessness. Something’s coming, and once we know what it is, a lot of this season will snap into place.</p>
<p id="RfFtMw">The Americans <em>airs Tuesdays at 10 pm on FX. You can keep up with </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/the-americans"><em><strong>our coverage of this season here</strong></em></a><em>.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/25/15422026/the-americans-episode-8-recap-immersion-tuanEmily St. JamesLibby NelsonAlissa Wilkinson2017-04-19T09:35:22-04:002017-04-19T09:35:22-04:00On The Americans, a set of goodbyes gets personal — and troubling
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<figcaption>Matthew Rhys doesn’t just do a good skeptical look, he directed this episode, too! | FX</figcaption>
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<p>Saying goodbye is never easy.</p> <p id="AS55ps"><em>E</em><em>very week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama</em><em> </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14844570/the-americans-season-five"><strong>The Americans</strong></a><em>. This week, deputy culture editor Genevieve Koski and staff writers Caroline Framke and Alissa Wilkinson talk about </em>“<em>The Committee on Human Rights,” the seventh episode of season five.</em></p>
<p id="BgHNka"><strong>Caroline Framke: </strong>Halfway through watching “The Committee on Human Rights,” I realized I was annoyed. </p>
<p id="WmazNR">Throughout its run,<em> </em><em>The Americans </em>has always had its characters stop to debrief each other on the particulars of one mission or another, or even just a slightly strange interaction that could, with a stroke of bad luck, mean disaster. And maybe season five isn’t worse than any other on this front, but I sure have <em>felt</em> the drag of these scenes more than ever. Getting renewed for two seasons at once might have made <em>The Americans</em> feel like it could afford to take its sweet time, even this deep into the season. And there were plenty of moments where “The Committee on Human Rights” seemed especially slow.</p>
<p id="XoBj3J">Not a whole lot actually happens in the episode (directed by none other than Matthew Rhys), unless you count Paige finally breaking up with Matthew Beeman. But there were thankfully still a few key scenes that made me second-guess where we actually are at this point in <em>The Americans</em>. </p>
<p id="EqYXbQ">There were the times when both Philip and Elizabeth realized neither of them had gotten an accurate read on their respective honeytrap marks in their ongoing wheat investigation. There was Stan having his closest shave yet with getting fired. There was Gabriel insisting he knows nothing about Stan’s new girlfriend Renée being a Russian spy (but she’s been featured so frequently in otherwise innocuous scenes that there <em>has</em> to be another shoe to drop, right?). </p>
<p id="eXPaLd">And as for Gabriel himself, he left me with more questions than answers on his way out of the country. For example: Why did he tell Elizabeth that Paige would be fine, before turning around and telling Philip the exact opposite? </p>
<p id="pxxk1J">What did you both think about this episode, which felt pretty quiet to me, all things considered?</p>
<p id="tHIPj7"><strong>Genevieve Koski: </strong>Ooh, I disagree pretty strongly with you there, Caroline. True, there wasn’t a lot of suspense or action in “The Committee on Human Rights,” but the episode’s endless discussions were packed with thematic import and consequence, particularly those involving Paige.</p>
<p id="MJF8Yg">What’s been so interesting to me about Philip and Elizabeth’s conversations with their daughter has been how they reveal the Jennings parents’ mounting awareness of the extent to which they’ve misled her. Paige has seemingly transferred much of her church-bred idealism to her parents’ work, expressing more and more interest in what they’re doing and chagrin that America is engaged in such an evil plot. Of course, we, along with Philip and Elizabeth, now know that no such plot exists, and that Directorate S’s revised mission to steal Ben’s superwheat is actually the more nefarious mission.</p>
<p id="VV2vO2">It’s also become increasingly evident — through looks, not words, as is this show’s wont — that Philip in particular is uncomfortable with the honeypot element of their mission, something Paige really can’t know about for a variety of reasons. Paige has fully bought into the version of the truth that her parents have sold her, and welded her own budding ideology onto it. And that’s thrown into sharp focus — for Philip and Elizabeth, and us — how divorced from an ideology Directorate S’s work has become.</p>
<p id="MoDvRB">This season has spent a fair amount of energy poking holes in the idea that the Soviet Union is something worth defending at all costs, and “The Committee on Human Rights” goes all in on that idea, through both Oleg’s investigation into his mother’s imprisonment in the 1950s and Gabriel’s final goodbyes to Philip and Elizabeth, wherein he openly mourns the things he’s done in his country’s name. “It adds up,” he tells Elizabeth, and the moral burden he’s accumulated is evident in his face.</p>
<p id="O9i9B7">And then come his parting words to Philip, accompanied by a pointed musical sting: “You were right about Paige. She should be left out of all of this.” It’s an understated moment, but it was quite a gut punch for me. </p>
<h3 id="SHdnBs">It’s so hard for Elizabeth and Philip to say goodbye to Gabriel — but for very different reasons</h3>
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<p id="wQYuW7"><strong>Alissa Wilkinson: </strong>I felt like Philip's face right before the credits rolled — along with<strong> </strong>knowing Rhys directed this episode — was where “The Committee on Human Rights” really landed its sucker punch. Philip is loyal to his homeland, but it's always felt as if that loyalty was propped up by people around him, like Elizabeth and, clearly, Gabriel. That moment falls somewhere between an admission of truth and a betrayal, and I didn't see it coming. That Gabriel says it and then just walks out of Philip's life isn't just the country betraying him, but something very deep and personal for Philip. I wonder if we'll find this moment to be a catalyst moving toward <em>The Americans</em>’ last big act.</p>
<p id="kxhWjJ">I've been continually surprised by the sly way this season has been inverting, blurring, and repositioning lines that have always felt relatively set (between Soviets and Americans, usually). I laughed aloud early on when Pastor Tim handed Marx to Paige, but of course! Much of Marx's ideology is actually in line with Tim's, and Paige's, progressive Christianity. The fact that the book keeps surfacing (and that Elizabeth seems surprised when she spots it) is a reminder that politics, religion, and ideology have always mixed uncomfortably and strangely in America.</p>
<p id="o0DK99">But as you point out, Genevieve, it’s been illuminating to see how, in introducing the family business to their American-reared, socially conscious daughter (who still wears her cross around her neck but is starting to reconsider, I think), Elizabeth and Philip have grown more uncomfortable with their own work. It's one thing to think you can transgress on behalf of your cause, a greater good. It's another thing to realize you wouldn't tell your own daughter what you'd been up to, and then feel the need to lie about it.</p>
<p id="caRaFD">And frankly, this season's honeypot plots are far from <em>The Americans</em>’ most squeamish uses of the tactic. I mean, Philip seduced Kimberly, a teenager, and there's always poor Martha. In comparison, Ben and Deirdre are pretty vanilla. Nobody's really getting hurt. The fact that Philip and Elizabeth both feel so uncomfortable (and seem to both be off their game) is a subtle but clear indication of character development, on both of their parts.</p>
<p id="VtkVFI">I think the episode's relative quietness, though, is interesting, because <em>The Americans</em> is one of those shows where events from earlier episodes that didn't seem all that important at the time come back in a big way later on. I think “The Committee on Human Rights” just threw a bunch of Chekhov's guns onto a variety of mantels, and I'm curious about which one is going to go off first. What do you think?</p>
<p id="ztanfp"><strong>Caroline: </strong>I think you both just blew my opening argument to pieces. Damn you, smart co-workers! </p>
<p id="OxWMwR">On second thought, I see your point, Alissa. Even when things seem fairly manageable on this show, there’s usually a moment when everything blows up in everyone’s faces — and that final moment with Philip sure felt like one of those. The difference between Gabriel’s relationship with Elizabeth and his relationship with Philip has maybe never been so stark as in his respective goodbyes to them. Elizabeth, Gabriel’s stalwart soldier, sat with him in the streaming daylight and held his hands in her own. Philip, Gabriel’s troubled prodigal proxy son, didn’t say goodbye so much as confront him, grimly staring him down in the shadows. </p>
<p id="qIOgjo">As far as strewing Chekhov’s guns goes, I have to think that Mischa will come back into the picture by the end of the season. It can’t be a coincidence that Gabriel finally met and evaluated Paige almost immediately after doing the same with Mischa. And if/when Mischa does return, it will be ... messy.</p>
<p id="Xhuu58">Another moment from that final scene that struck me particularly hard came when Philip used his remaining minute with Gabriel to ask point blank if Renée is “one of ours” — and Gabriel responded that Philip must be “losing [his] mind.” Gabriel doesn’t tend to speak like that, but his patience for Philip’s questions had clearly reached its limit. It also seems to me that Philip didn’t buy it — much like he’s not exactly buying that the Soviet Union has the moral high ground in this mission they’re pursuing. </p>
<p id="YM5yiL">What do you both think is up with Renée? And, uh, how much longer can Stan possibly keep his job in counterintelligence, given all the feathers he’s ruffled? </p>
<h3 id="AeaqFs">At this point, how long can Stan possibly stick it out in the FBI?</h3>
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<figcaption>Aderholt and Stan (sorta) do their best to land a new source.</figcaption>
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<p id="pLsT3d"><strong>Genevieve: </strong>I admit, I’ve never really bought into the “Renée is a secret spy” theory, and I still think it’s a big red herring — but one this episode made an effort to dangle in front of our faces.</p>
<p id="2EtCMm">Gabriel’s response to Philip’s question was interesting on both a textual and technical level — by which I mean I suspect it was altered after the fact to keep us wondering. Notice that when Gabriel follows up his denial about Renée with, “It’s possible the Center didn’t tell me because they knew you’d ask this question,” the camera is on Philip, and the audio has a distinct <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbing_(filmmaking)#ADR.2Fpost-sync">ADR</a> quality to it — that is, it sounds like it was recorded in and edited in later. I can’t say for certain, but I suspect this scene was originally written as a flat-out denial, with the equivocation added in afterward to keep us guessing about something I’m pretty certain is not worth guessing about.</p>
<p id="LEqDVM"><strong>Alissa: </strong>I almost feel like Renée is TOO obvious of a secret spy girlfriend by now. They've been signaling it so hard! But then I'm lost when I try to imagine what else she could be. A private investigator? CIA? A grifter? Or just ... maybe just Stan's girlfriend? I find her fascinating and I keep looking for clues, which I think may be <em>The Americans</em>' way of distracting me from what's obviously in front of my face. </p>
<p id="aeFeRH">There have been two other clear moments I can recall when Elizabeth and Philip suspected something that turned out to be totally wrong: once with the real reason the United States is developing grain, and way back in an early episode when there was an assassination attempt on President<strong> </strong>Reagan and they thought a coup was on. Both times I bought into it, and both times the show twisted me into coming back to my senses. I wonder if this is another similar moment.</p>
<p id="AQWsYb">Either way, I agree that Mischa is certainly coming back. That aborted journey is too much to throw away, especially coupled with Philip's persistent recurring memories of his father, a father who is always bringing him things in those memories.</p>
<p id="BYYBXv"><strong>Genevieve: </strong>Going back to the idea of Chekov’s guns, though, I do think we’re facing a big upheaval with Stan, though I don’t think it’ll come through Renée. He’s obviously on very thin ice at the FBI after his fun little blackmail adventure with the CIA, and his work with Agent Aderholt doesn’t seem to be progressing in a manner destined to save his ass.</p>
<p id="3xNrzs">I found that scene with Aderholt and Stan questioning a potential Soviet defector enlightening as far as Stan’s mindset goes; the whole time he was frankly telling their mark about the potential for danger if she works as an informant, I was seeing the word “Nina” flash over and over behind his eyes. If we’re looking at this whole season as a story about questioning loyalties, which I am, I can’t help but wonder if Stan’s time with the FBI is coming to an end — not by force but by choice. His growing disillusionment is clear, and he seems to have no real ideological stake left in counterintelligence work. He’s a man going through the motions — and maybe Renée is nothing more than someone who presents the possibility of a happy life outside the FBI (which, remember, was a huge contributing factor to his divorce).<strong> </strong></p>
<p id="aNsD92"><strong>Caroline: </strong>That makes sense to me. It’s easy to forget five seasons in that Stan was already exhausted with the FBI when <em>The Americans</em> debuted, after years of undercover work, and that all his time since has been spent struggling with the demands of his job and the possible damage it can do to the people he loves. This season, we’ve seen him prioritize a new relationship, take an interest in a good girl like Paige influencing his son, and joke ever more fondly with Henry as if the boy is part of his own family. I don’t think Stan can be in this for much longer, especially since he’s now taken a moral stand that was the counterintelligence equivalent of pulling the pin out of a grenade. It can’t be long before he drops it, whether on purpose or not. </p>
<p id="xy2uX6"><strong>Alissa: </strong>And that's interesting, because I think Paige, Philip, and even maybe rock-solid Elizabeth are moving ever so slowly in the same direction that Stan is with their own loyalties. Paige is going to feel betrayed by her parents. Philip already feels betrayed by his country, for sure. Even Elizabeth feels like her resolve is getting slightly shaky. It would be a fitting final act for <em>The Americans</em> if the Jennings family left the 1980s and ended up as disillusioned institution haters in the ’90s, wouldn't it?</p>
<p id="5P8WXH">The Americans <em>airs Tuesdays at 10 pm on FX. You can keep up with </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/the-americans"><em><strong>our coverage of this season here</strong></em></a><em>.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/18/15342370/the-americans-fx-episode-7-committee-on-human-rights-recapCaroline FramkeAlissa WilkinsonGenevieve Koski