The Americans 3.06

[selenak]

This episode is the first time we see, rather than getting hints off, Gabriel bringing on the full handler ruthlessness as he pursues a policy of divide and conquer, pushing both Jennings' separately to push, in turn, the KGB agenda with the respective teenage girls. Note he doesn't bring Paige up with Philip at all, nor Kimberly with Elizabeth, but in both cases positions himself as secret keeper from the other. Though that's least of it in terms of emotional manipulation; he brings on the big guns by resurrecting Irina's story about a son from s1. (Now stationed in Afghanistan.) It may be the truth, or a complete lie; Philip wasn't sure then, the audience can't be sure now, but the important thing is that Philip is ready to believe it now.

During the baptism scene at the start it struck me that Tim's hairstyle and "Jim"'s hairstyle are practically identical, supporting the theory that Philip uses bits of his Paster Tim annoyance for Jim, but I hadn't expected him to hit on "I got religious!" as an excuse for Jim not to have sex with Kimberly. Which was hilarious, but by itself wouldn't have worked long term, because it was certainly a turn-off for Kimberly. What I had expected even less, though, was that the pushed-by-Gabriel-with-story-of-son Philip would then bolster the "I got religious!" story with something that manages to be both true (for him) and an emotional hook for Kimberly with her daddy issues: by giving Jim Mischas unknown son and Philip's emotional torn-up ness about this. A Jim who previously endeared himself to Kimberly as the cool guy suddenly finding religion would probably not have remained attractive (in whatever way); a Jim who found God because he discovered he has a son and desperately wants to be there for him, wants to be worthy and a better person for said son? Is someone missing-her-father-Kimberly can feel drawn to and identify with even more. But, and I think the way Matthew Rhys plays this makes it clear, this is a two way street; telling Kimberly a (modified for Americana) truth and her response makes him feel a genuine connection now, too.

The whole thing is cross cut with Elizabeth and Paige, and Elizabeth (who's been told by Gabriel that contrary to her claim she's not doing anything to "prepare" Paige further) telling Paige a modified truth as well, but one that's far more calculated ("we were civil rights activists and did some illegal stuff" is actually, from a pragmatic pov, a good intro for someone like Paige, something she can identify with, as opposed to if Elizabeth had tried to sing the praises of socialism), except for the last moment: when Paige asks "so you're saying I should do more" and Elizabeth retorts "no, I'm trying to say I'm more like you than you thought", that is an emotional truth for Elizabeth and not just said because Gabriel gave her marching orders.

Speaking of emotional truths surrounded by professional lies: Nina tells Evi that she loved both Stan and Oleg and was whatever they wanted her to be. Now that's part of Nina's efforts to make Evi confess to her, but that doesn't have to mean it's a lie; after all, there was no need to tell Evi about two lovers in order to win her sympathy, one would have sufficed. So until the show says otherwise, I'm going to take this to as close as we can get to how Nina actually felt about about her s2 situation.

And of course Nina reports what Evi said. Another thing I admire about this show is that it doesn't glamourize what type of state the Soviet Union actually was in order to win audience sympathy for the main characters. (I also find the economy of storytelling here great; we don't need to see Nina actually make the report, her eating hungrily while in the room with Oleg's father says it all far sharply than if we'd gotten a dialogue scene.) (Conversely, it doesn't paint the US in rosy colours, either; in addition to the ongoing digs about American money for fundamendalists in Afghanistan that would come to bite them later, this week we get a reminder of Reagan's cosiness with the Apartheid regime and denouncing of the ANC as terrorists.)

Elizabeth's silent scene during Philip's earlier outing with Kimberly shows how deeply the whole Kimberly situation disturbs her as well, but of course she doesn't say anything, she secretly smokes instead. Which leads to the priceless scene with Paige. (Of course Paige and Henry know when Elizabeth is smoking. As a non smoker with a secretly smoking mother in the 80s, I can say: you ALWAYS notice.)

The Zidaina-Stan-Oleg storyline doesn't progress this week; instead, one of Stan's old friends dies which gets him a visit from Sandra when she drops off Matthew. (And suddenly I wonder: Kimberly will expect to hear more from Jim about his son now, maybe even see photo, and he can't tell her "he's in Afghanistan", but he could use Matthew and the Stan-Matthew situation as a template.) Stan also has a date with Tori and brings her along to another dinner chez Jennings, in which we get a brief EST versus Christianity sparring, though not a hostile one. (You can tell Henry isn't impressed with either, though.)

Lastly, I think Martha has mixed feelings about the "no more secret files from the mailbot" situation; on the one hand, she used to complain about this, otoh, that's presumably how she took files home for Clark to look at...