I've been rewatching the first 2 seasons and I'm impressed with how smart and slick Henry is even as a little boy. After Paige forces the 2 of them to hitchhike and they get picked up by a 'bad actor' with a gun, Henry saves them by clocking the guy with a bottle. When they get home, Elizabeth and Philip ask them how they got home and Paige is flustered because she doesn't want to tell them they were hitchhiking. Henry steps right in and comes up with a bald-faced lie about a friend's mother giving them a ride. I'm thinking for a 10 year old boy Henry was very resourceful assaulting a grownup and lying to his parents to cover up Paige's mistake so they wouldn't get into trouble. I still think Henry may be a KGB sleeper agent - he's got what it takes...
3
I rewatched the episode and I started thinking that the bug in the box was recording Elizabeth and Jackson's exchange in the car. Do you think Elizabeth edited that out before giving the tape to Claudia? Probably will not end up being anything at all but would be something Claudia could use perhaps to blackmail Elizabeth or let Paige listen to it as part of a malicious plan. This show causes overanalysis paralysis sometimes. But its fun, will miss it and this comments section.
12
Oh man, this show can’t possibly wrap up everything in only 2 remaining episodes.
7
Is Claudia named for the Roman emperor Claudius, an efficient administrator, or for Hamlet's uncle? To quote Wikipedia, "As Norway's army, led by young Prince Fortinbras, surrounds the castle, Hamlet finally exacts his revenge and slays Claudius by stabbing him with the sword and then forcing him to drink the very poison that he had intended for Hamlet."
Maybe the cyanide has Claudia's name on it?
9
One can only hope.
9
In Philip's personal ten-step program, he's at the stage of going back to those he's wronged and trying to make it right, if possible.
Nothing could be more tedious. The audience wants conflict. I want conflict. So what Philip needs now is an event to force him to choose between being a goody-two-shoes and fighting to preserve his family.
Speaking of family: I'm losing interest fast. I never warmed up to Paige; Henry is never around; Stan and Dennis have been reduced to ciphers; Oleg...?; Elizabeth, who, the last we saw, rushed out to play the hero by protecting Nesterenko, should just go out and buy a cape (used, of course). Boring!
2
In the middle of the night I got another idea on how this may end !!
How about this: There's a 3 a.m. shootout in the city between FBI and Claudia and Elizabeth. Aderholt unfortunately dies, but at least it's over real fast (LOL); Stan suffers a broken shoulder when he's shot, & Stan is unconscious on the pavement because, as he fell, he bonked his head. Claudia and Elizabeth, tho', are left writhing on the pavement from their gunshots. The shootout just happened to take place near Paige's apt. Paige hears all the gunshots and goes outside to peek and watch. Once all is over and 'calm', Paige goes over to Claudia and her mom, and sees both of them are writhing in pain and doing some bleeding from the mouth, and Elizabeth has green & black bile coming out of mouth and nose. Out of mercy, Paige takes her mom's gun and puts Claudia out of her misery first, then tears up and says 'Bye, mom' and finishes her mom off.
THEREFORE:We viewers wind up not 'I can't stand that Paige', because she finally did one thing right on the show.
Stan is so happy to become Henry's legal guardian ('the son Stan never had'), and Henry gets to finish boarding school.
Only by sheer coincidence, while the shootout was taking place, Phillip had put on that new suit of his & The Center whisked Philip back to Moscow as Phillip had secretly asked. In bitter cold, Phillip trudges for miles to Martha's apartment-much like Yuri in film Dr. Zhivago.
And Martha and Phillip live happily ever after.
6
How can Stan afford Henry's tuition on an FBI agent's salary? (Assuming Renee, in a gender-role reversal that this show should embrace, bites the dust while protecting Stan.)
2
Philip was not in love with Martha.
And the USSR (still the USSR) is too bleak for him. Maybe now it might be better - witness all the yuppies in Moscow in the penultimate episode of this season's Homeland.
He would probably go into witness protection.
And your scenario does not exonerate Paige from six seasons of obnoxiousness.
6
I think this works except that Stan dies, if only to support my theory that Philip and Renee run off and live happily ever after- this has been a long con, designed to rid Philip of his family and Renee of Stan, so that they can be together. Philip and Renee knew each other from the old country and reconnected at some point. Renee hooked up with Stan to monitor him, and to be close to Philip. Because Paige cuts a deal with the authorities to avoid prison for the murders of her mother and Claudia, she has to provide info regarding her parents. She doesn't give them much, but Renee and Phil still have to assume new identities and move to Cuba. Henry has no desire to join them, so he has himself declared an emancipated teen, and gets his friend's father to foot the bill for his boarding school. Eventually he creates a tech company and becomes a capitalist tool.
3
Just wanted to say how much I enjoy these recaps -- it's fun reliving the episode again. And even more, I enjoy reading the comments on the recaps. Both enhance the viewing experience. Several new series coming up and I hope the NYTimes chooses some of them to do their recaps. Btw, I've always wondered how do you choose which ones to do recaps on?
9
Frankly, I don't see how they can wrap this up in only two more episodes.
*** Spoiler Alert ***
I checked ahead to the last episode, "START," and it is scheduled to fill 1 1/2 hrs. Chock full of advertising, no doubt, but no "double episode."
2
where have you seen last episode length? on Imdb it shows average episode lenght
TIVO will show you "upcoming" broadcasts; FX shows each new episode of "The Americans" three times in a row; it's 1 1/2 hours between successive showings.
When Philip bought the suit, I thought funeral.
3
Philip's suit. Hmmm ... many are saying it's a funeral suit. And he certainly looked 'funereal' when modeling it. But if he expects to be killed by FBI or KGB he'd just be thrown in a box or dumped in a river. Or whisked off to Moscow. No fancy funeral. If he swallows that Pill or uses any other means I still doubt a fancy American funeral. So who knows what the suit is all about? On the other hand, I'd be quite happy if he wore it at someone else's funeral. Say, Claudia's.
1
Philip has some kind of a plan I think. His behaviors this episode seem methodical and planned. He deliberately tells Elizabeth about Oleg, then goes and sees Stavros, and then goes and buys a suit and rents the Russian video tape (which would definitely be against protocol). It seems like these are parts of something he is doing. Could be a suicide plan, could be a plan to turn himself in to the feds, or to go back to Russia, or he is about to file bankruptcy and wants to buy a suit first (probly not that one). Will be interesting to see.
2
Good article in this morning's Wash Post by former CIA Chief of Disguise
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/17/i-was-c...
5
Isn't it more likely that Philip is buying an expensive suite to impress someone in a meeting to try and save his business, maybe with the father of Henry's friend from school?
I mean really, he's planning a suicidal confession and he wants to look good in his coffin? Pretty fanciful stuff there, people.
I'm not saying he won't end up being buried in that suit. But I doubt that's why he's buying it.
6
yep, my thoughts about the suit:
-plain retail therapy (Philip does enjoy his finery)
-attire for meeting Henry's friend's father--as you say, a potential investor
-the outfit he'll don when he turns himself into the FBI.
4
I'll go with Door #3 . . . but, remember, he bought the suit before Elizabeth found her way to the light, so Philip might have a change of heart -- that is, if he doesn't get short or arrested at the meeting with Father Andre.
After the episode, the show-runner gave an interview and said that Phillip bought the suit for no other reason than it made him feel good during this stressful time -- simply retail therapy. It was never meant to become the subject of speculation about funerals and such. This isn't a spoiler because I read this in several different places.
3
I think Stan is going to turn out to be the double double double agent who's been faking EVERYONE out masterfully. Notice how Stan slickly lied to his wife when she asked him what he was looking at (out the bedroom window) and Stan says 'the moon'. Stan's a big, big liar to the core, to be lying to his wife like that. And Stan had that lie 'all ready' and didn't skip a beat when he dished it out to his bride. And Stan ALWAYS has that stupid, stupid 'look on his face' - since Day One of the show when he moved in across the street. And it made no sense for FBI to 'just happen' to move in right across the street & become BFF with the 2 parent spies.
Me: I'm -lol but true - just too plain scared to watch that final 2 episodes right now. I need to gather my courage and watch them in, oh, a month or 2? I'm going to -lol but true - avoid all news articles and 'our' comments here until I've seen the final 2 episodes with my own eyes: I don't want my impressions sullied in any way prior to me 'watching with my very own eyes'.
And FYI: Years back, I had 'kids' who were mesmerized by Keri Russell's sweet, tender portrayal of (lol!) Felicity. On The Americans, the time Keri told Claudia ~"Shut up Old Lady", I rofl...
One more note: Funny how the long paintbrush/green vomit/plug victim's nose as she wrestles trying to live: LOL, that was 'no big deal' - not after, oh, chopped hands & head, projectile vomiting at football party, all Keri R's evil to others, & P is E's mini-me.
2
I was struck by Philip's attention to the film; he was completely wrapped up in it. Aside from his handlers, isn't this the first time he has had contact with Mother Russia since he landed on this side of the Iron Curtain?
One question: with no internet or IMDb, how did he learn of "The Garage" in the first place? Who was his informant?
7
Maybe Oleg recommended it as a way to see how Russia was changing. Or he just was looking for any Russian movie in the foreign section of the video rental store. Was interesting that he was watching it, sort of another sign that P is letting some standards slip in protocol and he wants to learn as much as he can about things.
1
So many of us browsed video stores back in those days, just looking for something. Or maybe Oleg told him. We don't see all the complete conversations.
2
Maybe he just went in the store and browsed the foreign language section. No title in mind.
1
I just rewatched The Summit and realized this is the second episode in a row where Philip is asked to be a messenger and carry an important message. Not sure if that means anything but it struck me. Such a great episode! Keri Russell’s crushing it.
6
In the finale, Gabriel will step in, or fly in, as a guardian angel, and save the day.
3
Let's not forget that incident in one of the earliest episodes when Claudia had Elizabeth beaten to within an inch of her life to test her loyalty.
5
. . . and had Philip waterboarded. Claudia has no scruples. She would shoot her mother if ordered to do so.
1
Also had Philip waterboarded.
Let's not forget what Eliz did in return.
(As i recall, it was Phillip who really got beaten. Eliz. was just locked in a closet for a while.)
3
"You have a lovely daughter." Granny/Claudia to Philip, before P realizes she is the new controller. "Don't you ever come near my kids again." When P confronts Claudia when he realizes she is trailing him. "If you don't love her, leave her be. If you love her, leave her be." Gregory to Philip, about Elizabeth, all from in S1, E3. Remarkable how the motivations and fault lines have remained constant, and the characters consistent. Rewatching this episode brought home the differences between the P and E. Her lover dies in a shoot out, to her a martyrdom she understands and thinks necessary. Philip makes Martha's escape to the Soviet Union possible.
2
Philip also tells Arkady to leave his family alone, Arkady, being noble, does. Claudia doesn't.
3
Philip also warned Arkady off his children, saying the Jennings would quit if Directorate S approached the Jennings kids.
2
I'm floored by the parallels between our Elizabeth's recruiting Jackson and the "English professor" who tried to recruit George Papadopoulos from the Trump campaign.
It is reported that he offered to pay Papadopoulos $3,000 to write a paper about the oil fields off the coast of Turkey, Israel and Cyprus, “a topic on which you are a recognized expert.”
It is a long-standing practice of intelligence operatives to try to develop a source by first offering the target money for innocuous research or writing.
The professor invited Papadopoulos to come to London later that month to discuss the paper, offering to pay the costs of his travel. “I understand that this is rather sudden but thought given your expertise, it might be of interest to you,” he wrote.
Papadopoulos accepted. While in London, he met for drinks [is that ALL?] with a woman who identified herself as the professor’s assistant, before meeting on Sept. 15 with the professor at the Traveler’s Club, a 200-year-old private club that is a favorite of foreign diplomats stationed in London.
After Papadopoulos returned to the United States and sent his research document, the professor responded: “Enjoyed your paper. Just what we wanted. $3,000 wired to your account. Pls confirm receipt.”
Wow! He must have learned his tradecraft from Elizabeth, so maybe she's still out there serving as an operative for the US - you think?
7
Sorry; I meant serving as a trainer for Russian operatives.
1
One more example of the scrupulous attention paid to detail:
Remember the episode where eliz. takes Erica to the party and Erica vomits in the dining room. The person who came over to help E. mop up was Nesterenko.
Eliz. remembers this too. Another reason to like him and not murder him.
22
** Spoiler Alert **
In the preview, the line of FBI agents advancing with guns drawn can't be at the Jenningses' house. The background is urban, not suburban. Could it be the safe house. . . ? Claudia . . . ?
4
Remember in season 3 when Henry hid the photo of Sandra Beeman under his bedroom floor? And remember in season 4 when FBI agents checked out Martha’s apartment, even inspecting her tampons and ice cubes? Wonder if we’ll get a scene of a puzzled agent finding Sandra’s photo in Henry’s bedroom?
4
As many have pointed out, this show likes doublets: repeated motifs and sequences. Two this episode:
The FBI is gazing at cartoons of Russian agents (Philip and Elizabeth). Cut to Elizabeth gazing at Erica's painting in the Haskard's living room.
Elizabeth and Philip's confrontation at the start of the episode mirrors Elizabeth and Claudia's at the end. E: "What does this have to do with (fill-in name)?" "So, Mexico,it was all (fill in the blank. . .). ". . . Gorbachev."
3
One of my favorite pastimes while watching the show is counting the doublets. This episode left my mind spinning at the frequency of mirrors and repeated motifs.
First, of course, are the two mirror scenes - presented mirror-fashion, back-to-back(!).
The initial scene with E & P is mirrored by the confrontation between E & C, down to the way one person enters and leaves the room; the way one person is photographed in profile, the other full on; the use of phrases like "What does that have to do with 'X'? or "I won't do it!" Even the name Gorbachev comes up in both.
Watching a movie about watching a movie, how self-referential is that? The very name of the Russian movie "The Garage" echoes one of the FBI's objects of investigation. In addition, the captions echo Philip's qualms about doing the Center's dirty work: "You won't wash off from this your whole lifetime." Or the top-down management: "Our co-op always agrees with the board."
But then there's also the implied warning of the consequences:"Disagreeing with the board is like spitting against the wind." The wrath of Claudia, anyone. . . ?
3
I forgot that Philip watching "Garage" doubles E, C & P watching "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears."
Interesting that each got the film they needed: robot warrior Elizabeth got the soapy "Moscow," while the unbusinesslike Philip got the ease of doing business under communism report.
2
This just occurred to me: Kimmy! Phillip's last conversation with her was a breakup call, and he was rather specific about warning her not to go to a communist country with anyone. That would've seemed ominous and strange to her, and she may well tell her father about it. Which leads me to wonder about: Kimmy's Dad's briefcase--the one with the bug! Will it be discovered? And will Kimmy supply the FBI with yet another sketch of Phillip, this time in his hipster-older-boyfriend getup?
3
Yeah, as meticulous and wonderful as this show is it does feel like some loose ends like this are going to be inevitable with only 2 episodes left. I have been wondering the same thing about Kimmy. I guess we can assume Kimmy kept quiet or the CIA kept quiet. Or for some reason, Kimmy didn't do anything that further affected the plot of the show if we don't see her any more. It is kind of good the show is ending as it would continue to be less and less plausible that the Jennings are not discovered the longer it goes on.
2
Does she go to the same school as matthew Beeman?
My favorite moment from this episode: Claudia's description of Gorbachev -- "He has no sense of our ideals, he has no sense of our history, of the sacrifices we made, the price that we paid to build a great nation. Now he's giving it all away." Hmmm . . . that sounds kinda familiar.
13
Gorbachev was an average Soviet apparatchik trying to fulfill the Plan when Yuri Andropov -- who should be Claudia's great hero -- promoted him to the Politburo. Gorbachev was what they'd made all of those sacrifices for.
1
I lost sleep wondering why Philip bought a custom suit, while short on money. Here's my guess why:
Philip plans to give a public talk or press conference at a TV station or the Washington Post to announce that a plot has been foiled. He’ll admit that he was an agent, and knew of the order to assassinate a Russian diplomat, as part of a scheme to keep the USA and the USSR in a permanent nuclear arms race, while replacing Gorbachev with a pro-military clique. But he and another handful of peace loving folks took risks to support Gorbachev’s peace effort.
By going public, he and Eliz. will be seen as heroes and pro-American patriots, and receive political asylum. Other folks are left out in the cold–Oleg's family; Martha; Stan, who at the time of the press conference has the neighborhood staked out with 50 agents in unmarked vans. Or, the press conference goes live on TV while Eliz and Stan are pointing guns at each other.
The suit wouldn't work at all for country line dancing.
7
Philip in your scenario would make sure Oleg was protected. Gorby will promote Arkady for setting this heroic plot in motion.
2
Speaking here as an American woman, I would say the man's just indulging in some good old Retail Therapy. A new dress can wipe out a bad day for me.
This was one thing they didn't have in the USSR, where every other woman I saw on the Moscow Metro was dressed in the exact same wool skirt. Like they only sold that one skirt in the stores. And any jeans that actually fit were smuggled in from The West.
4
He knows that he and Liz would never be safe after that, and if they were going into witness protection, then they wouldn't have a news conference. Unless of course they immediately have plastic surgery .....
Remember in season 3 when Henry hid the photo of Sandra Beeman under his bedroom floor? And remember in season 4 when FBI agents checked out Martha’s apartment, down to melting the ice cubes? Wonder if we’ll get a scene of a puzzled agent finding Sandra’s photo in Henry’s bedroom?
4
Let’s not underestimate Henry. Has he already been recruited by the Russians to take care of his family...
2
I think it's too late in the narrative for Elizabeth to become a genuine hero. She may be experiencing a change of heart, but too many other elements are already in motion. I'm thinking her lack of awareness will cost her Philip (the one who has been aware) and possibly Paige (the one who is innocent). She has to become aware so she can suffer the consequences of her choices.
8
Maybe I've seen too many musicals, but I can't help thinking of it as the "What Are We Going to Do About Renee?" problem.
My suggestion, referring back to the film noir "The Big Heat," is to have her blown up by a car bomb meant for Stan.
2
That scene was also in The Godfather.
2
I hope they don't do that! Would be a different tone than this show has set up. You may be right. Renee could be a secret spy, innocent girlfriend/wife, or saddest of all an innocent victim of being involved with Stan before it ends. This show is so great - keeping us guessing up to the end.
3
I can't imagine Stan being killed. Unfeasible if I am a writer. I see Paige as potentially being killed. Her character has morphed into a future Elizabeth so why not destroy her like old Russia was essentially destroyed by Reagan. Kill off the future generation.
I can't imagine Henry being killed. He is the epitome of America. Ambitious and strong. So we are left with E & P and Aderholt. I can't imagine Aderholt because he is genuinely another American hero. It would make sense as all countries make sacrifices but he is such a great guy. Please don't.
I don't believe Renee is a spy. Do you believe a lady who is there as a plant would actively solicit getting into the FBI? Wouldn't Russia just want her to keep tabs on Stan? Why use her services for FBI work when they could get another spy.
Claudia is a good possibility for death. I think she gets caught and not killed.
Renee I could see getting killed, as with Paige, somebody is going to die. I hope it's E. My prediction is at least 2 of all the above mentioned individuals will be killed with one of them being apprehended and arrested by Stan. Prediction, P.
Predictions of death.
1. E
2. Paige (aligned with momma). I think the writers are going to show the consequences for bad choices and Paige will meet an unfortunate end. I loved her character but people get pulled into bad things all the time and innocent and good is lost to evil.
3. Aderholt (for the cause). Please no.
2
John,
I enjoyed your analysis, but as for Reagan destroying the "old Russia" I would suggest the present Russia, led by ex-KGB thug Putin is simply a nasty reboot.
I cannot imagine a "heroic" ending as too many decent humans ( Nina, Gaad, Betty Turner and numerous civilians) have had untimely deaths at the hands of P & E; and Stan may have to answer for the murder of Vlad.
Certainly P & E will be outed and the family will suffer, and my guess would be that one of the parents is either killed or sent to prison, and some subset escape to Russia for an uncertain fate.
2
Good point. Paige is Putin. I like it.
The trailer shows at the end that Stan is talking to Aderholt so you know that scene is probably in the beginning of next weeks show.
Anything is possible in the coming shows regarding deaths. I just want E to suffer. Personally. It could be the death of Paige. Leave Henry alone.
Ironic that women are really the despicable characters in this show. Keri Russell does make this character come alive or should I say come evil.
The writers have so many options. Take a cue from Breaking Bad. Go out with a bang.
"I see Paige as potentially being killed. Her character has morphed into a future Elizabeth so why not destroy her like old Russia was essentially destroyed by Reagan."
The Soviet Union dissolved, but that did not destroy "old Russia." Russia is a country that was just a part of the USSR while that organization existed. Russian culture has existed since the Tatar yoke was thrown off, and since then, the nation of Russia never went anywhere. The Russian language still exists.
Andropov put Gorbachev into the leadership hopper for purely internal reasons because Gorbachev was not corrupt and had been fighting corruption already as a Soviet apparatchik trying to fulfill the Plan.
That had nothing to do with Reagan. Andropov was trying to save his country from internal financial corruption, not respond to Reaganism in any way, when he mentored Gorbachev and positioned him on the path to power.
If he'd known how that was going to turn out, he would have chosen another apparatchik to mentor.
2
I'm desperate for a scene in which Stan comes in contact with P or E in disguise.
15
it happened, of course, long ago, when he shot E in the stomach.
Thinking ahead to the next, penultimate episode, "Jennings, Elizabeth," I noticed that the names of the screen writers of the Russian film "The Garage," are given in their normal order, viz., Emil Braginski and Eldar Ryazanov.
The coming episode's word order therefore suggests the title of a bureaucratic or police file. . . . but whose?
4
Sorry, I didn't read all 186 comments so someone might have already mentioned this theory.
I think Philip is having premonitions of his possible death and he's picking out the suit he wants to be buried in.
4
You should read all the comments! Very interesting and erudite people here!
7
A song by Left Banke from 1965 would be fun to play during a montage. "Just walk away Renee..." My 21 year old son did not understand the reference but those of us of certain age will.
12
I decided to re-watch Episode 8, and wanted to give props (pun intended) to the production design team. A few small but telling details that I noted on the second viewing:
--Claudia, that benighted Bolshevik, now turned traitor and anti-glasnost/anti-perestroika zealot, is wearing a knotted scarf around her neck, in the scene in the safe house, when she's seated next to Paige and Elizabeth. The scarf, it seems to me, is meant to evoke her childhood zealotry as a Young Pioneer in the Communist Party, and that correlation makes perfect, visual sense in this scene;
--Elizabeth, intensely dragging on a cigarette, in one of the street scenes, is standing next to a double-pipe fire hydrant, which is also an evocative, material symbol of the split in her marriage, and of the fire she sets in this episode (burning the portrait given to her by the grieving, unknowing widower).
6
Claudia, in her meeting in the park with Elizabeth, wears a gold pin with a (Russian?) bear.
1
@Rusalka the knot could also mean the noose that's slowly, certainly, tightening around her. I think Claudia's not going to see the fall of the Berlin wall.
A friend asked me how Stan suddenly locked onto the Jennings after all these years. Remember Stan suspected them in Episode 1, breaking into & searching their house? Stan had his suspicions from the beginning. But eventually Stan calmed down & grew to like whole family. My analogy for Stan's sudden renewed interest is: a marriage where a partner is cheating. The spouse initially suspects something, snoops around but finds no evidence. The partner denies cheating. Spouse then assumes everything is fine for months. They quite looking for evidence of betrayal. Then something happens - a confession or undeniable evidence. And suddenly, the spouse remembers tiny clues & betrayals going back over months they missed at the time. A cigarette pack in their partner's car. When the partner was "too busy to answer the phone" when away at a conference. It's easy to overlook clues to betrayal when you've satisfied yourself none exist because you love the partner & don't want it to be true. But if the betrayal is again strongly suspected or proven, memory of little things come rushing back. Stan's 'bromance' talk with Philip & Stan's talk with Henry - suddenly reactivated Stan's initial instinct years ago that something was wrong about the Jennings. You can push down your suspicions if you care about someone - until the point when a revelation shows you your early suspicions were right. Remember Stan didn't realize his first wife was cheating! That's human nature.
22
Interesting observations. But it was Stan who cheated on his first wife. Remember Nina? Sandra left Stan because of that, he was never around, etc.
5
You're right. And nobody has forgotten Nina.
2
We love Nina.
1
Without this show, what will I do in those sleepless hours after midnight?
I've been thinking about the confrontation in the safe house between Claudia and Elizabeth, and how it clues us in on the shifting of allegiances and rebalancing of power relationships.
The safe house has never exactly been a fun place to spend time, but this time it's set up as an interrogation room. One crucial difference is that this time Elizabeth is waiting for Claudia: she wants to be in control. Will she be successful?
Claudia enters, and at first, she's the boss, with questions about the mission and why it failed, insisting on the necessity for its completion, and her much bigger figure towers over Elizabeth. But then, as the back and forth sets in, and Elizabeth starts asserting herself and asking questions, Claudia sits down and they are of equal weight on the screen.
At the end, it is Elizabeth who gets up and leaves - departing into the light and liberty of the corridor.
Claudia is left in the darkness, confined - almost imprisoned - outlined against the opening to the kitchen. (By the way, when Claudia enters, we don't see the light, she enters in darkness.)
But
11
Dark and light in "The Americans" serve as signs of social isolation or connection, deprivation of human relationships or being involved with other people, inhumanity or humanity.
Previously, for example, when Elizabeth comes to Philip in their bedroom, she comes out of the darkness. The meaning is clear, the mission is paramount over the human relationship.
In the beginning of this episode, though, still under the influence of last episode's common effort, she feels connected to Philip. Accordingly, she enters in the light.
But by the end, when she admonishes him to seek absolution from the priest, she departs into the darkness. She has severed the connection.
Likewise for Philip: he is left alone and friendless in the dark corridor, after Stavos forbids him entry into the lighted apartment.
Erica's admonition to Elizabeth to "work from the dark to the light" means, then, to work on ending her isolation through establishing human connections and relationships. (By the way, in regard to Erica, it's significant that Elizabeth virtually becomes the painting: as the painting burns, her face assumes the very expression of the woman in the painting.)
15
This season is unbelievably tense. I’ve never been so tense in the expectation of each episode
What acting. What writing. What directing
39
Stavos farewell?!
Do you not watch the coming attractions?
Also, what’s the deal with the suit? Was it merely unwoke retail therapy?
And was the KGB underwriting the travel agency the whole time. But part of the deal with Philip quitting was that he had to get a real job. Which explains why he’s failing now?
4
re: the suit. I wouldn't be surprised if Matthew Rhys has a rider in his contract that says he has to have at least 3 scenes per episode of miserably staring off into the middle distance. This scene was a fulfillment of that deal.
4
it's so he can go live on TV news and reveal the plot to assassinate a diplomat, remove Gorbachev, and keep the expensive nuclear arms race going forever. He will also confess to spying, but hope for hero status, short jail terms for P and E, and a book contract to fund Henry's tuition and his transition to American Capitalism
I vote for Retail Therapy, especially since this was one joy that Soviet citizens could not experience, all clothing designs being ordered up by the State. The government designed their clothes.
This is where I start sounding Libertarian and railing against the Government, when the Government is actually approving the designs allowed for clothes. No. No no no. No!
1
Let's hear more about Father Viktor's engagemet with "a certain Frenchman"! This show can be surreal.
4
Claudia is going to liquidate both Elizabeth and Philip, claim to Paige they were murdered by the FBI and escape to mother Russia with a newly energized and passionate acolyte.
6
Please don't let it be that.
2
Yikes, Ken, you're harshing my mell...never mind, it's The Americans, no mellowness to be had!
2
I think Renee is a plant by the Centre, sent to keep an eye on Stan. Once Stan gets too close to figuring out who P&E are, she will kill him.
3
But then we'll miss Noah Emmerich's guaranteed-to-be-amazing scenes when his suspicions are confirmed and he realizes they've been literally under his nose the whole time.
7
The eye-twitching will be truly epic.
2
"Father Andrei referred to him last season, telling Philip about a Father Viktor who drank too much and had a problematic relationship with a Frenchman."
This is surreal! (And, actually, not so long before The Boston Globe would break the story about child abuse corruption in the Roman Catholic Church).
As for the suit - another red herring. Philip has always liked fine things. Boots; cars; food; and now, suits.
My prediction, since Lev Gorn's Arkady re-appears: Arkady will let Gorby's peeps know about Oleg's efforts to prevent Gorbachev's assassination. Since Arkady recruited Oleg for this, both Arkady and Oleg receive substantial promotions. Arkady, like Philip, also likes fine things - clothing; Russian vodka; American tobacco (he made a point a few years ago to say that Russians had the best vodka, but Americans had the best tobacco).
1
Renee works for the CIA.
2
The Americans—Philip and Elizabeth and the Royals — Elizabeth and Philip — have certainly preoccupied television viewers the past year. Compare and contrast...
3
Father Viktor and his Frenchman! This show is surreal!
2
"The priest being looked at most closely by the F.B.I. was a Father Viktor who had risen too quickly within the church hierarchy. I don’t think we’ve seen him before, but Father Andrei referred to him last season, telling Philip about a Father Viktor who drank too much and had a problematic relationship with a Frenchman."
This show is surreal!
A treaty will be signed. The FBI unit will disbanded. The government will no longer be interested in spies. Stan will be too late. P and E can return home where they will be treated as heroes.
2
For those fans in the Westchester area, a special screening of the penultimate episode with Stephen Schiff and Janet Maslin:
https://burnsfilmcenter.org/booking/small-screen-on-the-big-screen-the-a...
4
The painting Elizabeth chose was a portrait of Erica ‘s mother. Painted while she was dying, or just after.
Erica had related this info.
Given Elizabeth’s devotion to her own mother, which has somehow developed into devotion to her Motherland, it’s a fascinating choice.
By the way, the show runners have disclosed that most of Erica’s paintings were of Kerri Russell. And they were on set even before the “Nurse Stephanie” character arrived.
The subtleties of this show are enormously satisfying.
16
So the key to Elizabeth's conscience turns out to be the Party. The Party is the leader in all things. She probably says that in her sleep. And in this episode, she finds out that the Party is not the leader in THIS thing. And in a true display of Party loyalty, she bails. That's about as basic as it gets for her.
8
This was a brilliant episode and totally believable as Elizabeth becomes "human" and sees other's humanity for the first time. I'd love to see them take their money and passports and take off but they have roots. It's hard to do. Henry is in school, Paige is in college. I am so afraid this will end badly either via Stan or Claudia. I do wonder about Renee. Why does she want a job at the FBI so badly. Is she from the Center?
4
Wow, that's cool! You're the first person here who asked if Renee had a connection to the Center!I'm in awe of your thinking.
1
Ellen might be new to this forum or others. She might well not know about the speculation. Regardless, as Philip Larkin wrote, "we should be careful of each other; we should be kind while there is still time." Let's please save any unkindness for those who are seeking to do harm.
10
@PrairieFlax - When Renee first appeared, Philip and Elizabeth openly spoke with each other about their suspicions, not sure if she was "one of them," some kind of american agent, or just a civilian. The prospect of her being a Centre plant has been in the text of the show for a year.
These final episodes brilliantly touch upon one of history's great dissillusionments: the collapse of the Soviet Union. For most of the 20th Century, Communists the world over fervently accepted the diktats of the Soviet Politburo -- or else. Criticism, questioning, skepticism were not allowed, resulting in some near comical turnarounds, such as the meteoric fall of Stalinism and the removal of any trace of the man from Russia, as if he never existed.
This downfall is captured wondrously well in the way Phillip and now Elizabeth become disillusioned with all that they had been told and believed. It is also portrayed in the stubborn allegiance of Claudia who, it is clear, has her own doubts about what's happening "back home," but clings to her beliefs.
Phillip and Elizabeth are, in a way, stand-ins for the erosion in the beliefs of Soviet-era communism, in which some confronted reality more quickly and fully than others -- even in their own families. Accompanied all this had to be, for many Russians, gut-wrenching and emotionally draining. These are captured precisely in Phillip's gloomy face and slump demeanor as the grim truth emerges. To me, this is a startling but welcome development in American mass entertainment. Who would have ever thought that Russian spies, cold-blooded assassins driven by a core belief in a deteriorating political system, would be portrayed so realistically and generously on a series that has lasted six years!
37
For Philip this is true. Philip's belief has been eroding since day 1. But Elizabeth still destroys art out of her sense of duty as a Communist, to keep her identity a secret.
And her moment of truth with Claudia comes when Claudia admits that the military and KGB are running this current operation and not the Party. That is a violation of the principle that all decisions have to come down from the Party itself. Claudia's excuse that the co-conspirators are members of the Party was not going to fly with Elizabeth.
BTW Stalin did not have a meteoric rise. He was a Bolshevik thug with Lenin and that gang for many years before they got their chance to take over. He positioned himself next to Lenin the whole time and was Lenin's obvious heir.
Also, after Stalin's death, all traces were not extinguished. His body was removed from the Lenin mausoleum, but it was only moved a few feet away to a spot next to the Kremlin wall. Everyone in the Politburo, including Khrushchev, had been one of his follower, and many never completely gave him up. The standard course in Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet Union was still the version Stalin had edited himself. So Stalin's ideas about socialism were still being taught in school during the time covered by this show.
9
Stalin wasn't from Russia was from Georgia.
2
Good. Thanks. Recall, however, Khrushchev's secret denunciation of Stalin following his death that all but implied to the Communist faithful that their wartime and post-war leader erred in so many ways, large and small, that he no longer deserved adulation.
This is all quibbling, though. My point in commenting is that the disillusion with Soviet leaders and party apparatchiks is reflected in the narrative of The Americans, especially in Philip's character.
1
"Red Herring Renee" - a highlight of this great recap of a very captivating episode.
7
They could have gone one step further and given her red hair.
3
This has been a fabulous series with each episode more thrilling than the last. What other show could inspire so many different viewer resolutions, any one of them plausible.
The one thing I have found peculiar since I started watching is that despite all the disguises, there is one highly identifiable feature: the small mole on the top of Keri Russell's lip. In Stan's interview at Roy Rogers, I fully expected the counterman to turn back and add this as an afterthought.
25
I agree. I think a mole would be more memorable than someone who smoked a lot.
2
The movie soundtrack that Philip hears in the video store is from "I Was a Male War Bride," (1949) with Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan. He plays a French officer and she is an American army officer.
The last scene shows Cary dressing in drag in order to get into the USA.
19
Just a guess, but the reference could be to the fact that Philip and Elizabeth are, initially, about as unlikely and mismatched a pair as Grant's and Sheridan's characters.
2
Focussing on two mirrors, one scene directly follows the other:
The first, Philip trying a suit, appears doubled; he is contemplating something two-faced, some lying, perhaps? Pretense, in any case. The salesman picks up on the ambivalence and asks him, "You don't like it?" But Philip will go ahead with it.
The second, Elizabeth cleaning herself up after her final encounter with Jackson, appears whole and clear - except for a smudged area - signifying she still is not entirely at ease, something's bothering her.
6
Coming just after Philip's scene, this is very important in presenting Elizabeth's internal development. The point of the second scene is to show how she absorbs the unlooked-for information about Nesterenko. The camera switches between her face (Elizabeth's outer self, her social role as a Cold Warrior) and her face in the mirror (which represents her inner, human aspect). As she apprehends the facts about Gorbachev, the camera moves in closer and closer on the face in the mirror. In the film language of classical Hollywood, this movement signifies rising emotion as the subject absorbs the information. In this case, the information is completely counter to the expected. Indeed, it turns out to be something that will turn her world inside out.
5
Another excellent episode.
I realize that my periodic admonitions to other commenters against focusing upon minutiae, criticizing absurdities of plot in any given episode, speculation on future plot twists and so on are anathema to most. Nonetheless, I still aver that it is better to keep in mind the forest: the mix of entertainment value and powerful depiction of the human condition, the ultimate goal of all high-quality fictional art, while inspecting the trees: watching the details of a particular episode.
I like all features of this episode. These include:
Mr. Beeman's reluctant awareness that his neighbors are possibly so-called "illegals". Reluctant because he has seen them to-date as good, hard-working parents, friends to him, with wholesome, intelligent children, ergo the difficulty of accepting any false, illegal aspect of the Jennings' reality.
The turmoil that the Jennings pair find themselves in. Their awareness of the political intrigue at top levels of the communist party, military and clandestine services makes their murderous and dishonest activities evermore difficult to accomplish. Their work, distasteful or abhorrent depending on viewpoint, is justified in their minds by their belief in the superiority of the goals of the soviet system to the socio-economic system of the USA. Once that conviction starts to crumble, already for several years for Mr. Jennings and now for Mrs. Jennings, the human toll of their activities becomes too much to bear.
17
I wholeheartedly agree with your first sentence.
5
" . . . Once that conviction starts to crumble, already for several years for Mr. Jennings and now for Mrs. Jennings, the human toll of their activities becomes too much to bear. . . "
The pomposity of that critique is indeed too much to bear.
1
How dark is too dark for this truly amazing show? Can Claudia be considering using Paige as Elizabeth's replacement to assassinate the Russian negotiator?
13
I was thinking the same thing.
Claudia would never employ an untrained college intern like Paige to pull off a crucial hit. Can Paige even shoot? I've never seen her with a gun.
6
No, Claudia may be loathsome but she is not an idiot. Paige has ZERO training in any aspect of spycraft, especially the "dirty" stuff. She's a kid who knows nothing, has seen nothing, and is simply not capable. I mean seriously, that little girl has never even done six weeks of basic training,
7
Philip and Elizabeth will defect to Stan and trade what they know about the plot to overthrow Gorbachev for a full pardon, new identities and a new start in life selling pierogies in Kalamazoo. Or not.
43
Why shouldn't Renee be another illegal? She's been suspicious as hell since day one. I always thought the people who worked in the travel agency were also spies because there were so few of them and that the reds were financing the agency as a front, not caring whether it actually supported itself. What ever happened that was so suspicious in the back room other than a lot of closed door meetings or calls? Also, I'm totally not buying that Stan has finally come out of his coma and is convinced Elizabeth is a Russkie Super Spy. I can't believe that Claudia will just let Elizabeth walk away. And that Senate intern was a moron. The interns get training on being approached/recruited by foreign intelligence services. They know what's classified.
12
Sure hope Elizabeth can outmaneuver Claudia before Paige rushes to Claudia's defense.
Stan continues with the wry asides: the orthodox minister got promoted over tenured clerics because he was better at swinging the censer!
9
Very well crafted, written and acted episode. Admittedly a difficult task, but if you try to get into Elizabeth's head, this all makes sense. While angry at Phillip, she knows he's telling the truth and that there is a potential coup afoot. And P's statement that even though they were taking orders, it was ALL on them, had to resonate to E. ( And it came to mind that the writers were having P serve to refute the Nuremberg defense)
So E goes out after this, thinking about the fact that she's being played -- stops herself from taking a young life (for a mission E realizes is now shaky), and then stops herself from killing a fellow Russian. Then Claudia confirms to her that she's being played (with bull about "protecting" her); yes Claudia is lying to E again.
Elizabeth now realizes that she has been effectively acting against "the Party", the principles of which are the bedrock of her life. E doesn't view her job to kill Russians for one side of civil dispute - she believes her enemy to be the Americans. So IMO the path she in on now is very consistent and in character...
All amazing stuff, without even touching on the marriage aspects of this, which are profound.
And as for the cyanide pill -- think it's Claudia, a true villain, who's going to be swallowing it!
28
"Elizabeth now realizes that she has been effectively acting against "the Party", the principles of which are the bedrock of her life. "
Yes, she's very careful to ask exactly who ordered this, and doesn't like hearing that it was the KGB and not the Communist Party -- of which Gorbachev is the legally recognized committee-elected leader.
11
The Americans has always been about family: nuclear family, Philip, Elizabeth, Paige and Henry; neighborhood family, Stan, his first wife, his son, now Renee; undercover family, Claudia, Gabriel, etc.; work family, travel agency employees, Stavros, etc.
What is the dread of every family? That it will fall apart or cease to exist. This dread is how the story will end. These families will all fall apart or cease to exist. It's already happening.
17
Yup, remember the last episode of "The Sopranos?"
Trailer spoiler alert. Stan has a penchant for off the books activities that almost got him fired. Investigating the travel agency would be a tip-off, even Stavos, if he had some way of finding him on his own. But Father Tim in Argentina - he is just looking for some more pieces to fit. I was interviewed once for my neighbor's security clearance, which was just questions about anything I observed or knew about them, which wasn't much, but they asked a lot of questions like when did they move to the neighborhood, etc. So, will Father Tim tip off Paige? He doesn't seem like the type to get a call like that and do nothing. Nobody suspects Paige is also a spy, so she will have an important role. I found it strange that Claudia was sharing so much with Elizabeth - perhaps they know that Oleg and Phillip have been in touch and intercepted that, and now they will find out that Elizabeth has told Phillip. What has Oleg been doing with the information?
9
Is Claudia the villain of the show? Yes indeed, I'd be surprised if she ends well. But she too is portrayed as a multidimensional character, a real human being with real emotions who, in her own mind and based on her personal experiences, is fighting for truth and justice--by any means necessary. Remember the scene from previous seasons, when, without and probably despite instructions from above, she took her just revenge on the man who killed her lover?
The best shot in this brilliant episode was the cameo of Elizabeth's face as she realised that Claudia was Betraying The Party. Did she look like somebody disillusioned with the cause? If anything, the opposite.
That cameo could have been straight out of Soviet statuary of a female heroine of Socialist Construction. The model communist warrior willing to sacrifice all for the cause if necessary. And planning to do just that.
10
Wow. Yes.
Elizabeth's face and stance appearing like Mother Russia. I hadn't thought of that, but in the Claudia setting, it's apt.
When I was in the USSR in the '70s for a visit, the Mother Russia statues, with her wielding her sword, were prominently located and were elaborate and beautiful sculptures.
Highly dramatic and expressive.
Meant to light a fire in the Russian soul, for sure.
Liz as Mother Russia in this scenario. Love it!
1
What do you mean by cameo of E's face? Never heard that phrase.
1
Just have to add to the others who have commented on the quality of the hypotheses on these threads. This is truly the first show since Breaking Bad where anticipating the next episode is almost as delicious and satisfying as watching an episode itself. You know the writing is great when there only two episodes remaining, yet scads of potential final scenarios that are all plausible and possible-including the life or death of every main and minor character. Kudos to the two J's!!!
57
What if Renee is Claudia's daughter?!? She could be that second generation illegal, who puts Stan off the case. Just a thought. Her presence is so random that I keep looking for reasons for why she is here and why she wants to work for the FBI...
26
Claudia's daughter?
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Oh yes, please. :-))
In the TV time line it might work. If Renee is 40..ish...as has been inferred, she might have been born during the war and perhaps even from Claudia's liaison with the man she avenged in the show? (Sorry, but I can't recall the precise time period of Claudia's affair with him.)
The timing may certainly be right.
1
"The one murder she committed was a compassionate one..." I'm not sure shoving a paintbrush down someone's throat is compassionate; it was actually pretty gruesome. Were we meant to take that as Elizabeth wielding Erika's own means of expression against her? Why not just smother her with a pillow? Given how feisty Erika was in life, it didn't surprise me she fought Elizabeth for as long as she did.
Russell and Rhys each had some fine acting moments casting devastating gazes at others: Elizabeth at Philip in the opening scene, when he confesses what he's been up to, and Philip at Stavos when the latter refers to the goings on in the back room of the travel agency (I actually thought Stavos might be on his way out...)
I'd been puzzled by the scene of Philip buying the suit and hadn't at all considered the possibility that he was purchasing his ensemble for burial. Interesting notion.
With just two episodes left, it seems likely we won't meet up with Martha again; I guess we're left to assume that she's contentedly adjusting to life in the Soviet Union and raising her daughter.
After last night, it seems a bit more likely to me that Elizabeth and Philip will make it through to the end alive.
I know I'm not alone when I say that I'll really miss this show.
45
I think Liz killed Erica in a way that would elude suspicion by either police or coroner. I think Smothering/choking results in telltale bloodshot eyes. Choking on ones own vomit is, sadly, something that can happen naturally.
10
If she had smothered her with a pillow, an autopsy would reveal that she died by asphyxiation, which suggests foul play. What she did was to make her throw up and essentially drown to death in her bile, which wouldn't be an unusual way for someone to die in Erica's condition. The paintbrush was a (perhaps overly symbolic) way of making her gag.
31
I personally found that scene so horrifying that for the first time I started to feel like Elizabeth was the psychopath so may commenters have accused her of being over the years, rather than the "good soldier" that I've always believed her to be. But I heard an interview with the show runners on this mornings Slate podcast, and they really felt it was Elizabeth's way of doing something resourceful to protect Glenn from being accused of murdering his wife. (Dr. Kevorkian was a true villain in those days, and "assisted suicide" was not widely accepted.) That Elizabeth used the gentler end of that implement of death just demonstrated how compassionate she was. Not sure it really worked as portrayed - not with Erica fighting as she did - but that was the writers' intent. And Miriam Shor deserves an Emmy for her performance this season. Just spectacular, especially if you only knew her from her character on "Younger" (as I did.)
19
Philip made amends with his former employee and purchased with the look of death a “casket worthy” suit. Why? I believe to go on a suicide mission to put an end to Claudia ( and others) and hopefully save his wife from herself.
Stan must survive to be the parent to Henry and Paige will go back to the church and become a missionary.
8
Loose ends.....they’ll get you in the end. Jackson being allowed to walk away, the reappearance ( in the coming attractions) of Pastor Tim and even Stavos noticing strange goings-on at the travel agency. I always thought that leaving Pastor Tim and his wife alive with the ominous “letter to be opened in case of our untimely death” was too big a risk for the Jennings’ to take ( done for Paige’s sake...grrrr!).
Three new developments in this episode have me rethinking the ending:
- Philip meeting with the Orthodox priest puts him more likely to be under FBI surveillance than Elizabeth
- Claudia and Elizabeth’s meeting left me with a bad feeling for Elizabeth. Will the Center tolerate a doubter in their midst? I don’t think so.
-Renée. I always felt she was a red herring, but she sure looked ominous in the bedroom scene.
Can’t wait for the penultimate episode next week.
16
I wouldn't be surprised if Pastor Tim was killed after he left for South America. Would Paige really know? If they were corresponding someone else could write letters for him. Of course I guess the threat of that letter would possibly stop them. But just something I always wondered about. He always is a possible loose thread since Paige talked to him.
4
He’s in the coming attractions being questioned by phone by Stan. Alive and well.
2
Oh really? Interesting. I would have guessed we never saw Pastor Tim again. I don't usually see the coming attractions since I watch on Amazon and get the show a day late and it doesn't come with these. I don't mind so much but I have seen a few commentors ask that the coming attractions not be referred to in discussing the current episode. Just FYI
The look on Renée's face, after she asked Stan what he was looking at ("the moon") and after peeking over his shoulders to see what his vantage point really allowed him to see, was: uh huh, you're surveilling the Jennings's house.
You know she's a Soviet agent because she doesn't ask the obvious follow-up questions (why are you staring at the Jennings's house? Isn't it odd that Elizabeth comes home so late?), because she knows the answers already.
The Center sent up to keep an eye on the relationship between Stan and the Jennings.
Her original mission was not necessarily to protect the Jennings or to impede Stan, but when the moment comes, she will have to act, one way or another, perhaps even the opposite, to protect Stan and to impede the Jennings, all depending on orders from ... Claudia.
14
I don't know. I'm coming around to the likelihood that Renee is just a regular person. She wouldn't have asked those obvious follow-up questions because by this point she's lived across the street from the Jennings for 3 years. She isn't some outside observer. Their habits are part of the routine and don't warrant any comment. Everyone already knows about it.
4
I think it is 50-50. The writers could go either way with Renee. Kudos to them for putting this in the show, it keeps the ending from being predictable anyways.
4
Consider that Renee could just as easily be U.S. counterintelligence outside the FBI. Remember that Stan has had a LOT of contact with Russians over six years and has not exactly covered himself in glory.
6
One of the consequences of the slow, relatively inert season 5 is that things are wrapping up very quickly in this finale. Elizabeth's realization of the KGB scam, as it were, came very suddenly for my tastes. We've seen Philip and Oleg wake up to the reality for years now; she flips in a day. I like where this is going, though.
A few notes:
- One of the great things about Keri Russell's performance throughout this series is the way she seems to physically transform when angry. I don't mean disguises. In the moment just after Philip said he's been spying on her, there is a slow pan in to Elizabeth's face; she could have transformed into her true Reptilian form and it would have seemed natural. Just amazing work. That scene in general was very cathartic for me, too. Seeing Phil finally stand up to Elizabeth's low-key abuse and say his piece was a long time coming.
- The comment by the Roy Rogers guy that Elizabeth has amazing hair has to be a conscious meta-joke. Keri Russell's status as a sentient shampoo commercial is known far and wide. (Also from that scene - would the detail that she smokes a lot really be a huge lead? People smoked a lot back then.)
- Amazing reveal by Stavos that he sort of knew the agency was a front for something. A very fun and logical wildcard to introduce.
- When Phil was watching the Soviet movie, what was your interpretation of how he received it? I got the impression that some of the humor registered as alien to him at this point.
26
A lot of people smoked back then and a lot of people died of lung cancer. Could the title of the next episode, "Jennings, Elizabeth" refer to a patient chart at GW Hospital?
My husband and I have wondered for years whether and what the travel agency staff knows about P and E. We appreciated the writers letting us know that Stavos, at least, knew there was something fishy going on.
Phillip was watching "The Garage" a comedy about Muscovite neighbors scrapping over parking spaces. Not so different in tone from Henry and Stan's Thanksgiving weekend pick: "Police Academy". Philip might have been contemplating how Russian culture devolved to that point from Chekhov and Tchaikovsky. Or maybe he was just wishing he'd rented "Urban Cowboy" for the line dancing scenes.
Yes, things are getting a little rushed toward the end, but the show has been a great ride. I hope the writers will allow Stan and Oleg, decent if flawed humans, to be redeemed and happy (please don't let Renee be a white nationalist, CIA, or KGB spy). And let Henry graduate from St. Edward's, get accepted to his first choice college and law school, and become an FBI agent. As for P and E, could they find their way back to love as many empty nesters do? Stay tuned.
8
The Stavros scene also shoved into Philip's face the question of loyalty. And his ignorance as to who is staff was and what they might observe about him and Elizabeth. Philip realizes their game was more flawed than he thought.
4
Not mine, see my reply to someone else above. I think he was feeling guilt plus nostalgia for the Good Old Days, before he came to America and ended up as a capitalist mistreating his oppressed employees.
I think we've been watching the series from the Jennings point of view, assuming they're slick operators & master spies. After tonight - maybe not. We learn Stavos has always thought something criminal was going on in 'the back room" of the travel agency, horrifying Philip. And Elizabeth was shocked Jackson found the bug & demanded to know who she is. Maybe the Jennings aren't so clever, we've just been led to think so because the show is so closely focused on them. My other thought is Stan's been suspicious all along & done a good job of hiding it, waiting for a break. In episode 1, after Stan breaks into the Jennings house looking for evidence, Elizabeth says to Philip "He didn't find anything. Does he still suspect us?" Philip replies "Probably not. Or maybe he's just a very good actor." I now bet that Stan all these years has suspected the Jennings but no evidence til now. Stan Beeman's a very good actor. It makes last week's Stan & Philip 'bromance' all the more interesting.
Last thought - when Elizabeth accuses Philip of betraying her, he replies he was "looking out for our country, which is what you would do." I thought by "our country" he meant the United States -his country & his children's - & that E. would of course look out for Russia. Philip's "our country" could actually mean either place at this point, given who Philip is. The writing on this show is great that they can give us a scene like that where either interpretation is convincing.
19
"Stan's been suspicious all along & done a good job of hiding it, waiting for a break."--if that were true, he would have asked Henry the basic questions about family, etc years earlier, during the many nights they were alone playing games in Stan's house--and not been so thrilled about his son dating Paige.
"Philip's "our country" could actually mean either place at this point, given who Philip is."--no. He is clearly referring to Russia, with "our' meaning he and Elizabeth.
10
Stan's a great F.B.I. agent. We learned in Season 1 that Stan spent years deployed undercover with a group of white supremacists, which resulted in the prosecution of several dozen members of the group. Stan knows all about how to pretend to be someone you're not to try to fit in, with your life at stake if you're caught. Why not think Stan has noticed more about the Jennings that we yet know? Even though the F.B.I. counterintelligence unit is working on car purchases and other clues, Stan just went to see Gregory's friend at Roy Rogers & showed him a photo of E. asking "is this her?" Stan's almost there - way out ahead of the rest of the F.B.I. I think he hasn't told Aderholt or the others what he's doing because he wants to protect the Jennings, offer to turn them himself and bring them in safely so they don't wind up killed in a shootout with the F.B.I. You might ask what took Stan so long to get onto this? He left the counterintelligence unit years ago to go work in business fraud because he was so disturbed by what he saw working in counterintelligence. He just came back into that unit at Aderholt's invitation & already he's investigating the Jennings. Subconsciously he always knew something was going on with them. It was just on his mental back burner - until now.
17
Excellent points. I think the Jennings are pretty darn good at what they do but after over 20 years you are going to leave some evidence and raise suspicions. They always seemed a little blind where Henry was concerned especially. And their work has gotten noticeably sloppy this season. With P and E not working together and the Center trying to sabotage the government and hide things from itself it is no surprise.
4
Can Claudia and the Center let Elizabeth live after she refused to do their bidding? Or- if she and Philip do survive and are deported to Russia (as were the real illegals)will they be in danger either from the KGB anti-Gorbachev faction or from the new Gorbachev regime as it will be known they worked for the KGB anti-Gorbachev faction? Will Claudia and friends endanger or kill Paige and Henry to ensure Elizabeth and/or Philip's cooperation or silence if they are arrested?
WIll Philip and Elizabeth be forced to kill Stan or Aderholdt to either keep their cover or to end the investigation? Remember what happened to Richard Thomas.
Could Renee be CIA or maybe the mob? Wasn't Stan previously undercover in either organized crime or drugs? ? If she's an illegal was she planted to watch Elizabeth and Philip or to watch Stan?
5
Did you see the way Claudia set her mouth and ground her teeth as she spit out the warning to Elizabeth not to say a word about the anti-Gorbachev plan? She scares me.
4
Enjoyable little article from a former CIA person on tradecraft in "The Americans."
She likes Elizabeths' wigs and Philip's disguises, but reveals that, in her experience, spying is much less bloody than as depicted.
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/17/i-was-c...
14
Of course. It's Hollywood!
1
This is a silly question in light of the big ones facing viewers, but I've never figured out how their wigs don't come off when they have sex undercover...
79
I agree, and have ALWAYS wondered about that!
8
Didn't Philip's wig come off with Martha once? And she said something like she knew it was a wig all along? I remember that being a pretty funny moment. Some of their wigs do look pretty fake.
4
Yes! And then I'd finally resigned myself to some serious spy superglue. Until ... Marilyn's flew off last week while her body was being dragged out of the van!
Also, as incredible as most of P. & E.'s wigs have been on the show (I get fooled regularly by Philip's disguises), Pastor Tim's "real hair" is a complete joke. Somebody in costuming is having a good laugh at PT - or is it supposed to be a bad hairpiece?
1
Remember this from Season 1:
General: Do you know why you were chosen for America?
Liz: Because of my commitment.
General: Yes. Loyalty, intelligence, skills. But most of all, you were chosen because of your fear.
Liz: My fear?
Genral: Of surrender. Surrender for you would be an act of suicide.
30
They've reached "The Summit." Is it all downhill from here?
I was wrong about the cyanide going to Erica and now I'm even more concerned about P&E.
The show's writers are doing an incredible job. Love all the possibilities and can't wait to see what happens next.
7
Great series, but we need spoiler alerts since not all of us watch the previews for the next episode
4
Renee is a false flag operation run by the writers against the fans. She has been around for years at this point, and done nothing. No spy agency is going to waste an asset like that, deployed in a marriage with an FBI agent, just in case she's needed. The show runners are just diverting us.
16
I hope there's a way for Phillip and Elizabeth to escape their danger and become oligarchs, just like so many former KGB/FSB. Maybe they can live happily ever after in London like most oligarchs.
6
Berezovsky, the biggest of the London oligarchs, committed suicide. Going from the relative comfort of Soviet poverty to the dire and deadly economic collapse of the late 90s to oligarchic world-crushing wealth on the 2000s doesn't seem to be happily ever for that crowd. They still carry all of those Russian conflicts and issues and uncertainties about the future inside.
1
" Elizabeth duly donned a wig and concealed a gun in a newspaper......"
I thought Elizabeth was holding a knife in her newspaper when she walked past Nesterenko? Did I imagine this?
3
I thought it was something like a dart gun, presumably with a poisoned tip (think of the umbrella-stab at the ex-KGB agent in London).
6
It was a single-shot "gun" device. If you get a chance check out the museum/tour at the FBI headquarters. They have all sorts of strange guns and contraptions like that. Easily concealable, unusual designs that are hard to trace.
2
I thought it was a knife too when I watched. I saw the short wig and thought, "uh oh, that's a killin' wig!"
3
If Stan somehow survives the next two episodes, even after he “breaks the big case” he will probably spend a very long time ‘splaining how he could befriend two Soviet espionage agents for years without figuring out what was going on. After his debriefing he will assigned to the Casper, WY or Butte, MT field office … forever. As for Phillip, he has perfected the beaten puppy look and is SO ready to die (suicide? Assassination? Shootout with the feds?) that he is definitely NOT going to die. It’s just too obvious and it would be lazy writing. He’s not going to die. Finally, I appreciate the story line, but the idea of Elizabeth going from the Truest Believer to Big Skeptic in the blink of an eye is just not credible. Nevertheless, the writers went there, so I can’t wait for the conversation with Paige. “Hey Paige remember all that idealistic stuff I told you that almost got you, me, and your father killed? Yeah, well it was all a crock. Sorry I ruined your life sweetie.” Good luck with that.
30
I think Stan is going to have a moment when he realizes that he became so closely bonded with this couple because they're in the same business. Stan masqueraded as a white supremacist. That's like pretending to be from a whole other country. They all got along so well because a lot of their attitudes dovetail, because they're all spies basically. It's like a Coors executive bonding with an executive from Budweiser.
7
I don't think Elizabeth became a sceptic. It was the realization that she was being used and lied to.
1
Stan talking to Roy Rogers Guy: Do you remember outstanding features about the girlfriend?
Roy Rogers Guy: You mean like a very visible small mole on her upper lip or something like that? No, I don’t.
8
After year of great writing, the finale has been somewhat disappointing--the first half dragged, with too many shots of Elizabeth smoking and Philip staring at spreadsheets and now they are rushing to the conclusion.
What is the significance of a cash-strapped Philip buying a new suit (leaving aside why Moscow isn't funding Elizabeth's cover)?
If Renee isn't a spy (either Claudia' way of protecting Elizabeth by killing Stan and/or Philip, or perhaps for he Chinese to show spying never ends), she is the longest red herring in TV history.
13
By 1987, the Soviet economy was even more cash-strapped than Philip.
2
True, but espionage remained a high priority and the amount required to save the agency was small.
With Claudia now an enemy and Stan closing in, what can be done? Philip would give his life for his children. Saving Henry will be easier than saving Paige, given her recent involvement and her indoctrination. Do they cut a deal with Stan? Turn on Claudia? Become double agents? Can Oleg help? I don't see a way to keep the Jennings family intact.
10
Stan and Stavos both clued in Philip that his and Elizabeth’s odd activities have not gone unnoticed. In the preview for next week, we saw Stan questioning Pastor Tim. Is Stavos also on Stan's list??
7
On Elizabeth not killing Jackson: When Jackson was plastered against the car door, totally scared and freaked out, Elizabeth says to him sternly, "Do you understand?"; Jackson says, "No, I don't understand." In that moment, I think Elizabeth realizes how much like Henry, Jackson is. She can't kill him. So, she tells him to go back to school and complete the semester (From the beginning, I thought that Jackson had a strong resemblance to Henry). And, the phrase that Jackson says to her, "I don't understand", Elizabeth deliberately, slowly, in a monotone repeats to Claudia, when Elizabeth is asking Claudia to be clear about why Elizabeth has to kill Nesterenko. In both cases, Jackson and Elizabeth DO understand...they just don't want to believe that they have been duped this whole time: "Wendy" was lying to Jackson; the KGB and Claudia have been lying to Elizabeth.
64
And then there's Stan's new wife and what she may have up her sleeve. At some point during the series, I believe Claudia mentioned that they have a new highly placed source. Why not Stan's wife, who will now be employed by the FBI and could continue the counterespionage work of the KGB. Just a thought.
12
I too will miss this comment thread. Last night I was holding my breath at Philip's daring reveal--and finally realized the beauty of the est motif, with its emphasis on telling all. Ditto with the visit to Stavos. The admission, along with the inconvenient truth, that "it's all on us," had to have made the right impression on Elizabeth.
What struck me about Elizabeth's shift is how much time she spent this season with a dying woman. She's the one who does the killing, and death is her milieu--but not dying. Seeing the beauty and the humanity of a suffering person who puts it all on the line excited her own courage to be more open to Nesterenko as a decent human being. Which is what this episode was all about: "Don't you think I'm a human being?" Philip did not answer the question. I'm very glad the writers allowed this process to unfold in increments, beginning with Philip, then Erica and then Jackson. Elizabeth returns to Philip at the end with the message for Oleg, and the episode ends.
I too look forward to a hit of Kelly AuCoin as Pastor Tim in next week's penultimate episode.
28
Glenn's admitted selfishness in waiting too long also moved E. She could lend her expertise.
3
I know this show is turning us all into conspiracy theorists, but hear me out on my Henry-is-a-spy hypothesis. True to form, the truth is hiding in plain sight:
- The writers have always said they decided how to end the show when the “Jared Connors 2nd Generation” story line was running. Jared’s parents had no idea he’d been recruited: foreshadowing.
- Gabriel began recruiting Henry around the same time as Paige. Gabriel was butting heads with E and P on a number of things then, including a trip they planned behind his back. So he went behind theirs.
- I enter into evidence Ralph Lauren cologne and a computer. S4EP1 Henry’s cologne was so strong that his mother had to air out the house. But Philip didn’t give it to him. Neither did Stan, who noticed the scent and offered up Matthew’s unused bottle. That leaves Gabriel. The next episode, Gabriel gave E and P a computer for the kids. Instead, it was an ingenious way of running a teenager on-line. Henry spent the rest of the series glued to the screen. The timing also coincides with Henry’s first interest in Stan. No normal kid drops his friends to spend time with a grown man, unless he has a report to file.
- Gabriel stayed at it. Henry’s grades and horizons skyrocketed. Next evidence: prep school. Honestly, what 14 year old knows enough to complete an application to a private school states away, including fees and scholarships?
The hand of Gabriel. The show’s truest villain all along.
46
I like your thinking. A couple of counterpoints: the internet was really only available at universities and research centers, so Gabriel could not communicate online with Henry. And why would Henry have told Stan all those details about never meeting his aunt and about how his parents often went out of town and left them alone?
22
I was thinking more along the lines of engaging him through games (H was very young at the time, and we've often heard game noises in the background). Games were part Gabriel's MO; he often played chess with Philip. I can also see them swapping floppy disks. A kid would think that's cool, and disks were easier to protect then. As for the Stan conversation, I though it showed good spy craft. He didn't reveal anything Stan didn't already know, built up some sympathy, and ended the conversation on a positive (just doing their best for their family). In fact, H has always been naturally suited to spying. Remember which child got them out of the hitchiking debacle in S1, and lied so easily to cover it up. Guess we'll see!
I really like your hypothesis. None of this occurred to me however you laid out a very plausible scenario. Now I will watch the last two episodes with a different eye.
1
I did not see any blotch on Elizabeth's left cheek in this episode. Was that just another red herring??
1
I believe the blotch was part of her Chicago disguise.
6
Several here concluded it was just her Chicago disguise.
3
I have whiplash from Elizabeth’s change of heart.
Philip is in an extremely dark and depressing state. I don’t see a way out for him.
Will Stan find out about P & E in time.? That phonecall to Pastor Tim in the preview was encouraging, will the Pastor tell the truth?
I thought Erica’s death was brutal. I mean, E was actually helping her, but thought E could have killed her in a more humane way.
Guess the cyanide pill is going to someone else.
8
Cyanide would show up in an autopsy.
1
Wouldn't cyanide show up in any cursory medical examiner's review? Erica's death had to look "natural."
5
Elizabeth couldn't risk the cyanide being found out in an autopsy.
5
Renee is nothing more, and nothing less, than a smart, pretty woman Stan was lucky enough to meet. And the writers are having some fun at the expense of those of you who believe otherwise!
21
No she isn't. There are very few coincidences on this show. Mark my words.
7
Renee is suspicious to me. She didn't chime in with Stan's toast at the Thanksgiving dinner. And her look when Stan was looking out the window. And she wears buttoned-up PJs to bed?
1
I think Philip is planning to return to Russia. Hence, new suit, Russian movie and trying to get in touch with Henry for, perhaps, a last goodbye. Maybe he'll reconnect with poor Martha. After all, they're married to each other, aren't they?
31
Martha is married to Clark.
It's a fraudulent marriage.
Philip hates Russia - it's bleak, and the food stinks unless you're rich or a member of the apparatchik.Philip likes good food. Philip will not return to Russia (alive)
10
It's all relative. Now that American capitalism has shown Philip it's backside, perhaps Russia would appear in a better light.
If Philip in fact plans to return to Russia, he plainly sees a distinct possibility that he won't survive.
" Poor Martha "
I wish I had a dime for every time so many ( me, included ) have used those two words together.
It's as if "poor" was her first name.
2
I think it's a fantastic twist that we can now see Elizabeth as heroic because she won't throw in with the KGB's plot to carry out a coup to overthrow the government. What a great twist - we are given a reason to root for Elizabeth as a good guy, even as we can imagine she is headed into the maw - whether the KGB's or the FBI's. Neither will understand or care Elizabeth is acting now in an honorable way to defend what she swore her life to, against the traitors. Brilliant! Kudos to the writers!
50
Let’s remember that Elizabeth is making Al Capone look like a piker when it comes to killing people. Has anyone kept count of the number of people she has killed this season? How many has she done in during the series?
8
The redemption of the Eric von Stroheim "Man We Love to Hate" character is something we've seen before.
Darth Vader tossing Emperor Palpatine down the Death Star II shaft...
Hannibal Lecter having old friend Dr. Chilton for dinner...
The Man in Black taking down the Major's group in last week's Westworld...
I just don't know if we're willing to buy into Elizabeth in this similar vein, but she did take a pass on two killings after Philip called her out and we do have Claudia as a counter-balancing true villain we want to see get her comeuppance.
7
Yes, Elizabeth is now defending the Soviet version of rule of law. Gorbachev became the head of the Communist Party through a process that we Americans would not see as democratic, but which Elizabeth sees as lawful and proper within the framework of the Soviet Constitution. A coup against Gorbachev would destroy that whole framework of legality that people did value at the time. And then what? Once the Party's rule was upset by these coup plotters, all bets would be off. Pretty scary for someone like her.
4
Claudia’s stern warning to Elizabeth to “keep quiet”, was very ominous. We all know what Claudia is capable of.
25
Agreed. Claudia is a true believer. Even if she's lost Elizabeth, Claudia/Centre could kidnap Paige to use against P&E. Paige would probably go anywhere with Claudia, willingly...she is still in the naive/flattered that she's included in Elizabeth's life stage...
12
Elizabeth is not nearly as effective operating solo as she is working alongside Philip. She has seemed more contract killer than spy this season, some of that at the direction of Claudia. With her eyes now open there may be a chance for Team Jennings to get back together for some last-ditch redemption. But how will the dissension-riddled Team Nina (Oleg + Stan) factor into the outcome?
It's interesting how invested we've become in speculating who survives. I too wonder whether Philip, the character who has experienced the most growth toward a moral point of view, even if it is just to a place where he is sick in his soul of all the killing, is doomed.
11
What if the reason that the ominous Claudia was so calm and willing to explain all to Elizabeth is because there is a backup spy (or assassin) firmly planted in Stan's bed? If Elizabeth reneges due to Claudia's truthtelling, it doesn't matter.
The appearance of the mailbot...not once, but twice this season...seems to me a signal from the writers' room. Of what, I do not have any die. Maybe they move on to another series.
5
Renee plants a timed bomb inside the robot and turns the robot into an assassin? :-0
If that robot had exploded when Stan and Aderholt were in that contained hard-sided elevator cage.......
Or just outside the CI office?
1
The mailbot is getting its own spin-off.
9
A haunting paradox: As Elizabeth joins Philip in 'seeing the light,' their lives may be more in jeopardy than ever. OR could the trio of P and E and Oleg give the FBI the kind of Russian intelligence that might save their skin? Stranger things have happened in this series, but it seems the screenwriters wouldn't have time to pull such an unlikely twist off in a measly two episodes.
6
Oleg might do well under Gorbachev and not need to be saved by the FBI. I've also been thinking that P&E would be a great help to both the FBI and CIA because they know so much. They could resolve so many cases.
6
This isn't going to end happily. The show embraces darkness. Get ready for something grim.
Oleg won't make it out of DC alive. Jilted and betrayed girlfriend issues.
Why didn't Elizabeth take one of the smaller paintings? (Did the smaller ones remind her too much of herself?)
5
I think because the large one was a self portrait and it showed the agony & pain of Erica during her illness. I think she took that one because she knew she was going to destroy it.
5
I think Elizabeth saw herself in that face. She saw herself in many of those portraits, to be honest--she spent a great deal of time quietly contemplating them while sitting with Erica. But that big one had nary a speck of color: it was all dark, in line with Erica's instructions to "focus on the dark parts". So she did. She focused on the dark, and in so doing, learned to "see", to create a new worldview, a new self.
It looked like a portrait of “Stephanie” on Erica’s clipboard in her bedroom and is similar to the drawings FBI has of Elizabeth. I was surprised Elizabeth didn’t take it to destroy evidence of her having been there.
1
I'm going to miss Thursday mornings with a pot of coffee and these amazing comments! Sigh.
Where to start. Oh well, Renee. Wither thou? Reviewers and commentators have rightly said to reveal her this late as a Soviet seems wrong--this show does not do contrived twists, just not their style.
If she is a Soviet angling to get into the FBI, she could be used not as a storyline of her own (too late!), but in order to discredit Stan and get him suspended from the illegals search and banned from the vault.
When the FBI do a deep dive on her cover before hiring her, it might flag up some questions leading to suspicions. If those look serious, Stan might be sidelined on ice until it's sorted..
Stan is the one honing in on the Jenningses. Aderholt may not be buying. So, if Stan gets taken off the case with no input, it may give P&E breathing room to escape or otherwise save themselves. Renee could trigger that.
Might be that Renee (my first choice) is with a branch of the Supremacists that Stan put away. Maybe they sent her to get into the FBI thinking she might have access to other anti-Supremacists operations where undercover agents are working.
Maybe her cover identity will not be as good as a Soviet would have, so the FBI checks will out her. She made that mistake many episodes ago about the name of the university she attended. Something is off.
Bottom line is this character must have a purpose?
16
At this point I think if there is anything to Renee, its going to be a deliberate loose end. The FBI finds and deals with the illegals, Stan maybe doesn't survive or loses his job, but wait, Renee is now working in the FBI and at the very end, the camera reveals that she is an agent in deep cover..... the saga continues after our story ends.
28
All good theories on Renee.
I still think that she’s there to keep an eye on, and possible kill Stan, Philip and Elizabeth and is KGB. Just speculation but she is just too happy and appears fake.
12
Renee is going in for an interview next week. What if she looks at all the sketches with fresh eyes and recognizes Phillip and Elizabeth?
1
What a superb, Incredibly intense episode!
Elizabeth brought about a death--something she has done countless times--only in this instance, it was an act of mercy and profound humanity. She even tenderly kissed Erica's forehead, something I don't think we've ever seen her do, ever--kiss or embrace another human being outside of a sexual context.
And in so doing, "Elizabeth" would also, in large part, die. I loved the metaphor of her disassembling the dark, tortured portrait (of herself), laying it out across the bare floor, and then wrestling with the decision to destroy it by fire--or else to bundle it up and hide it away from the world, to make it secret--and finally, yes, to incinerate it, as Nadezhda arose from the flames and ashes.
Nadezhda could not kill the Russian envoy. Nadezhda could not kill Jackson. She was now a human being.
(Quibble: Erica did not choke on bile, which would be more of a yellow-green--she was choking on, and aspirating, the large amount of liquid morphine she'd previously ingested. Liquid morphine has that dark-green, tarry appearance. Elizabeth used the paintbrush to make her gag and vomit up the morphine she then aspirated, with Elizabeth holding her nose to speed matters up.)
38
Thanks for the morphine clarification.
I do believe, though, that the big painting was a self-portrait of the artist.
9
Liquid morphine given in an IV is clear. When Elizabeth was drawing up the morphine previously, it was clear. (I'm a cancer survivor and have seen my share of liquid morphine.)
9
But Erica had been receiving morphine by mouth, no? My best friend died of pancreatic cancer, and she took her morphine orally; it was dark, blackish green, just like the stuff that Erica vomited. Yet the stuff we saw Glenn squirting into her mouth in a previous episode was clear. Odd! I'm guessing that this time, they went with the dark green stuff for visual impact (choking on clear liquid would not have been as dramatic, nor as obvious as to what was happening). Best wishes to you for continued good health, Suzie.
It all started unraveling when Henry shared to Stan about all of his moms strange travels. Combined with missing thanksgiving dinner at Stan’s, this spells doom. Though I find the quick leap Stan has made to carrying around a torn photo of Elizabeth for identification purposes a little to easy from the writers. Liz was so cautious she wouldn’t even keep Russian left overs in her fridge but she happily posed for a grinning photo with neighborhood FBI employee.
Not sure what to make about Phillip spending his last dime on a suit. I must say my jaw dropped when I saw good old pastor Tim in the coming attractions.
35
Uproxx suggested Philip is buying his burial suit.
5
GAH! It took everything I had not to mention next week's trailer, which has actually informed my thoughts when writing about this week.
A poster a few week's ago asked that others not refer to trailers as he/she never watched them on purpose soas to enjoy the ep with a clean slate--so I suffered maximum control not to mention that bombshell.
I won't really spoil anything, but for those who have seen it, I yelled "WO!" at the tv when Stan was talking to Aderholt. This season, every whispered or quiet bit of dialogue seems to carry the biggest whammy. Great direction.
And since you mention PT: That scene has possibly confirmed what I always suspected--that the annoying scowler Paige and her stupid behavior--after her parents told her something they never should have told a too-young teen--might lead to their downfall.
But we shall see.
If so, well done, Paige Perpetual Loose Canon Jennings!
Elizabeth won't have Russian stew in the house and Phil is not supposed to watch a Soviet film.
But hey--tell a young girl that shocking secret years before she needs to know in order to fulfill her second generation destiny. Then sit around chatting about your secret life with her minister, thinking that shoe will never drop? Dopes.
What could possibly go wrong?
Chickens....roost....you crazy spies!
7
The trailers are there for all to see. It's absolutely not out of bounds to speculate based on the trailers and it's selfish of one to expect others to refrain from discussing them just to preserve that's person's desire to remain uninformed. That person has a choice to avoid the discussions.
Renee is to be the new Martha. The Center saw the value of a Martha and decided to plant one of its own in FBI personnel via Stan. Her fate in the FBI, when she gets in, will depend on the fate of Stan (if he gets the Jennings and gets promoted, she gets promoted, if he fails, she's stuck in a no-or-low clearance job). Her, and the Center's, vested interest is, when the Jennings get caught, that they be dead, rather than Stan be dead.
8
For shame!!!!
Nobody, absolutely nobody, can take Martha's place.
In a series with quite a few excellent performances - Margo Martindale - for example - Alison Wright's brilliant performance as Martha, in my opinion, is the best.
1
Uh oh for Team Philip...failed call to Henry, apologetic adieu to Stavos, purchase of casket-worthy suit...with the business failing, if there's not an outright suicide in the offing, he leaves himself open to a Claudia prepared "murder-suicide" to end the Jennings' careers/lives. Then we're a series fade out with Stan warily eyeballing Paige and Claudia chatting after their funeral.
(As for Renee, it's clearly the casting of someone as estimable as Laurie Holden that has Twitter all atwitter. Were it someone unknown in the role, I doubt we'd be as suspicious; and therefore more at risk of some eleventh hour red mischief.)
With the imminent return of the Pastor of Disaster, my revised most-likely to die list: Philip, Elizabeth, Claudia, Stan, Paige, Dennis, Henry.
19
Nice of Philip to try to talk to Stavos. But that scene let us know old Stavvie noticed chicanery and unexplained goings on.
If Stan continues his detecting on P&E, surely their place of business will be in his sights. And who better to interview than a recently fired formerly loyal long-term employee? Someone who is out of the office. Who, we now know, will add fuel to Stan's gathering blaze.
17
The "Pastor of Disaster:" Yes, IMPROV, it appears Dollar Bill is going to drop a dime.
8
Someone with something going on in his apartment that he didn't want Phillip to see, or the writers made us want to think that.
1
I've been saying that I'm on team marriage, half joking. But, if everything that they are fighting for or against dissolves in the larger geopolitics, what is left? The country they pledged allegiance to is already gone. Maybe Elizabeth's sudden lack of killer instinct is right on target.
7
Maybe the most interesting outcome is that they live to see the fall of the USSR. Then they have to wresle with it being all for nothing.
6
Ann, speaking as a physicist, it's hard for me to say it was all for nothing. Soviet education, even with the mandatory socialist propaganda classes in school, was generally much more rigorous than in America. Since they hewed to the idea of "scientific socialism," their school system made a priority of math and science education. American science has benefited when countries with more rigorous educational systems than ours have oppressive political systems that drive their best scientists to emigrate. The Soviet brain drain made a huge impact on American science. For all the oppressiveness and ridiculousness of the Soviet system, they did beat us when it came to teaching math and science. That was probably part of their undoing right there. They educated people a bit too well for their system to survive in its ham-fisted ignorance.
8
I, too, will balk if it turns out Renee is an agent, planted to keep watch on Stan. Hitchcock taught us long ago the definition of suspense: the audience knows what the characters onscreen don’t, whether it’s the bomb under the bench or the possible secret identity of Stan’s girlfriend.
If Renee turns out to be pivotal it’ll be a crummy deus ex machine and sloppy writing for a carefully crafted show.
17
I agree. At this stage of the game, I think we have to think that sometimes, an attractive, too-good-to-be-true, domestically-and-professionally-talented girlfriend/wife is just that: an attractive, too-good-to-be-true, domestically-and-professionally-talented girlfriend/wife.
Perhaps the "is she or isn't she?" element--in terms of Phillip wondering about her identity--is meant to wryly mirror the "are they or aren't they" question going on in Stan's mind with regard to the Jenningses.
21
I think they have done enough to plant the possibility that Renee is a spy so it won't be a deus ex machina. But if she is a spy I feel really sorry for Stan!
1
My personal theory is that she's a spy planted to keep an eye on Philip, through Stan, rather than on Stan himself. If she gets a whiff of P(and maybe E's) turning on the USSR, through her marriage to Stan, she takes him/them out. And maybe Stan too. She showed up when Philip started having doubts, right? As long as he behaved and stayed out of Elizabeth's way, they let him be, but they've been watching...
2
A phone call to Henry, being fitted for a new suit when his business is going down the tubes...is Philip preparing for an exit? Is there a way out for either of them and who gets them first, the FBI or Claudia? Either way, it's shaping up to be a tough ending.
30
In an article on the Vulture site, one of the writers for the show says the suit purchase was just Philip's attempt at retail therapy.
19
When Phillip was being fitted for the suit, after having called Henry and getting no answer, I was thinking that maybe he is preparing for Phillip Jennings Part Deux. He dresses the part of someone who can be trusted, someone who is affluent, and perhaps he is headed to Henry's school to meet with Henry's friend's father, whom Henry told about the problems at the travel agency. Perhaps he is going to ask for financial backing or for that family to take care of Henry?
17
I think Claudia is and always has been the greatest risk to P&E there ever has been.
She'd take out all four Jennings without a moment's hesitation if she tells the centre it is necessary-then go home and have a shot of vodka and listen to Tchaikovsky with out a backward glance.
Granny is a stone cold killer who has survived Stalingrad and every purge and regime change since then. She did not do that by having scruples.
She overdosed that young woman married to her dead agent then dispatched the baby to the USSR after promising she'd relocate her due to her husband's service.
She stood hidngi with a gun ready to kill Gregory (before Liz talked him around0---a- long-term and loyal asset if he became a liability and wasn't useful any more.
Granny has "form" and no loyalty whatsoever except to the cause. Everybody is expendable no matter how much they've done once Granny decides you are a problem.
Stan isn't their only problem, now that P&E are on Oleg's side.
31