The Americans 3.12
Apr. 24th, 2015 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakLondon report interrupted by tv review courtesy of Itunes
Compared to the previous two finales, this was low key and action free, as far as physical action was concerned; the most graphic physical thing that happened, Philip murdering Gene and framing him for Martha's bug as a suicide, wasn't staged as a suspense moment - poor Gene was hopelessly outmatched - but as another point deeping Philip's self loathing. Similarly, there was no external threat in Berlin with Elizabeth and Paige - Elizabeth constantly checking whether they were being tailed wasn't because they actually were but to make emotional points - Elizabeth has no "off" switch as a spy, and what Paige takes away from this is increasingly evident even before the final scene.
Moreover, the finale, apparantly (correctly) confident that the show wouldn't get cancelled and there'd be at least another season, left several plot threads dangling - Kimmy, Lisa and Maurice - and prevaricated with others; one of the few criticisms I have is that we don't get to see Martha, or find out what happened to her until Philip and Elizabeth talk about Philip's murder/frame job of Gene, at which point it's obvious Martha is still alive and still hasn't left Washington. Whereas the other ambiguous open ended plot thread, Nina and Anton Baklanov, was okay by me; no, we don't know whether or not Nina means it when she says she can't continue like this, trying to buy her own safety by an ever lenghtening chain of betrayals, or whether she's using something true make Anton Baklanov trust her more, the way she did with Evie, but then with Nina this ambiguity of both being possible is part of what makes the character. For now, I'm tempted to go with "she means it", if only because it's mirroring Philip and Paige in the main plot of the episode.
But before I get to the Jennings clan: allow me to point out smugly that way back when Stan first brought up Zidaina possibly being a double to Oleg, I did say in my review this could, beyond exposing Zidaina and/or helping Nina, actually become Operation Turning Oleg, mirroring exactly what the KGB had planned with Stan in s2 - using his love for Nina to get him to compromise himself with a treacherous act, then use said act as leverage to blackmail him into becoming a mole. So when Stan, in his justification scene with Gaad, presented the tape with Oleg on it (while still asking for the Nina trade), I had that "I knew it!" moment which a fan enjoys now and then. :) Mind you, I'm not surprised Gaad was ticked off, or that the Nina rescue did not happen the way Stan imagined/hoped it would. Both in terms of spy show realism - the spy trades made during the 80s usually involved high ranking CIA operatives, not someone like Nina - and in terms of good storytelling choices; Nina's plotline with Baklanov is far from played out, and I really do want to know whether she'll use the increasing closeness to continue to try and buy her freedom or whether she meant what she said, all of which would not be possible if the trade had happened. Meanwhile, things with Stan and Oleg are about to get VERRRY interesting next season. This will be the second time Stan will try to be the American handler for a Russian asset, and he's not likely to have romantic fantasies about Oleg (not that I would object to Stan/Oleg fanfiction of the foeyay type!) or see himself as the hero there. If things get that far - it's also possible Oleg will decide to go for broke and confess all the first time Stan tries to use that leverage against him, but otoh, Oleg has very good reason to know that confessing didn't help Nina in the end. Meanwhile, none of this is going to make things better for Arkady, who has risked his standing at home by antagonizing Oleg's father on Oleg's behalf, but as much as I like Arkady (which is a lot), turnabout is fair play, so to speak. Like I said, this is exactly what he told Nina and Oleg to do to Stan.
And now to the Jennings family. Philip and Sandra at EST did smack a bit of artificial "we like the character and now that Stan has finally accepted the divorce, we couldn't justify keeping her around via scenes with him, so we thought of this!" Don't get me wrong, I actually buy Philip finding himself at a Stan-less EST meeting about sexuality, because the whole thing with Kimberly and the flashbacks to his training (and the "making it real" conversation with Elizabeth) must have rubbed in just how much the sexual part of being a spy, the utter divorce between emotion and physicality, have impact their impact. And I like Sandra, too. But Philip's definitely in need of ann adult confidant who doesn't believe in the Cause, and who doesn't have to be sweettalked into doing his bidding. But I am not sure that I buy he'd pick Sandra (an American, who for all that she's Stan's EXwife is still likely to share his loyalties, not to mention that while Stan has moved on, he's going to be less than thrilled his BFF and ex are becoming EST buddies), if that's where they'll be going next season. But we'll see.
Elizabeth and Paige through the episode are an exercise in misreading each other. (The one thing, imo, which Elizabeth doesn't misread in this episode and sees in fact more clearly than Philip is that he can't let Martha find out from other people that he murder-framed a colleague of hers, he has to tell her himself.) For Elizabeth, meeting her mother, saying goodbye and having Paige there to hold her grandmother's hand is a profound experience and she thinks this has solved Paige's issues with the big revelation, has reconciled Paige to her parents' Russian-ness. For Paige - who throughout the episode refers to the woman in question as "your mother", not "grandmother" - everything that happens underscores instead how awful her parents being spies is. I already mentioned Elizabeth's instinctive checking for tails. Then there's lying to Henry, constantly, and the fact this whole visit to a dying woman has to happen in secrecy at all. Paige praying in the bathroom also underscores that if Elizabeth assumed Paige's choice of religion as a cause could simply be switched to communism once Paige knows the truth, she was completely wrong. Paige's reactions throughout demonstrate that she doesn't think spying is something good or worthy (or glamorous, but then Elizabeth never tried to sell that one - I don't think it would have occured to her it might work on teenagers), she thinks it's horrible. Part of it is certainly Paige wanting her certainties back, and an age factor, but part really seems to be an abhorrence for the quintessential deceptions that are part of any spy's life. (No matter which nationality.) And that answers the seasonal question of whether or not Paige would even want to become a spy (let alone one for the KGB) very clearly indeed. Calling Pastor Tim and this time telling him the truth about her parents is both a betrayal and a rejection, though I doubt Paige sees it as either in the state she's in. But it's going to have very final consequences.
It's also intercut with Philip's and Elizabeth's conversation where he's starting to talk about his need to believe that what he does actually is making things better for anyone (i.e. he doesn't believe it anymore), when he's interrupted mid breakdown by the fact Reagan is making his "Evil Empire" speech on tv. (I remember not the speech itself but the reporting the next day in the newspapers back then. Teenage me was torn between rolling her eyes and being afraid World War III would start and we'd all get blown to kingdom come, because once you call an entire country evil and use that kind of rethoric, you sound like you want to start not a cold but a hot war, thought I, and hoped it would turn out to be over the top rethoric after all. ) Elizabeth starts to pay more attention to it than to Philip's confession-in-progress, which you could call an emotional betrayal, though otoh it's also entirely possible she sees the speech as the answer to the question Philip has just asked, the statement he's made, that he needs a reason to continue to do what they do. For Elizabeth, Reagan at his most Cold Warrior IS a reason.
Compared to the previous two finales, this was low key and action free, as far as physical action was concerned; the most graphic physical thing that happened, Philip murdering Gene and framing him for Martha's bug as a suicide, wasn't staged as a suspense moment - poor Gene was hopelessly outmatched - but as another point deeping Philip's self loathing. Similarly, there was no external threat in Berlin with Elizabeth and Paige - Elizabeth constantly checking whether they were being tailed wasn't because they actually were but to make emotional points - Elizabeth has no "off" switch as a spy, and what Paige takes away from this is increasingly evident even before the final scene.
Moreover, the finale, apparantly (correctly) confident that the show wouldn't get cancelled and there'd be at least another season, left several plot threads dangling - Kimmy, Lisa and Maurice - and prevaricated with others; one of the few criticisms I have is that we don't get to see Martha, or find out what happened to her until Philip and Elizabeth talk about Philip's murder/frame job of Gene, at which point it's obvious Martha is still alive and still hasn't left Washington. Whereas the other ambiguous open ended plot thread, Nina and Anton Baklanov, was okay by me; no, we don't know whether or not Nina means it when she says she can't continue like this, trying to buy her own safety by an ever lenghtening chain of betrayals, or whether she's using something true make Anton Baklanov trust her more, the way she did with Evie, but then with Nina this ambiguity of both being possible is part of what makes the character. For now, I'm tempted to go with "she means it", if only because it's mirroring Philip and Paige in the main plot of the episode.
But before I get to the Jennings clan: allow me to point out smugly that way back when Stan first brought up Zidaina possibly being a double to Oleg, I did say in my review this could, beyond exposing Zidaina and/or helping Nina, actually become Operation Turning Oleg, mirroring exactly what the KGB had planned with Stan in s2 - using his love for Nina to get him to compromise himself with a treacherous act, then use said act as leverage to blackmail him into becoming a mole. So when Stan, in his justification scene with Gaad, presented the tape with Oleg on it (while still asking for the Nina trade), I had that "I knew it!" moment which a fan enjoys now and then. :) Mind you, I'm not surprised Gaad was ticked off, or that the Nina rescue did not happen the way Stan imagined/hoped it would. Both in terms of spy show realism - the spy trades made during the 80s usually involved high ranking CIA operatives, not someone like Nina - and in terms of good storytelling choices; Nina's plotline with Baklanov is far from played out, and I really do want to know whether she'll use the increasing closeness to continue to try and buy her freedom or whether she meant what she said, all of which would not be possible if the trade had happened. Meanwhile, things with Stan and Oleg are about to get VERRRY interesting next season. This will be the second time Stan will try to be the American handler for a Russian asset, and he's not likely to have romantic fantasies about Oleg (not that I would object to Stan/Oleg fanfiction of the foeyay type!) or see himself as the hero there. If things get that far - it's also possible Oleg will decide to go for broke and confess all the first time Stan tries to use that leverage against him, but otoh, Oleg has very good reason to know that confessing didn't help Nina in the end. Meanwhile, none of this is going to make things better for Arkady, who has risked his standing at home by antagonizing Oleg's father on Oleg's behalf, but as much as I like Arkady (which is a lot), turnabout is fair play, so to speak. Like I said, this is exactly what he told Nina and Oleg to do to Stan.
And now to the Jennings family. Philip and Sandra at EST did smack a bit of artificial "we like the character and now that Stan has finally accepted the divorce, we couldn't justify keeping her around via scenes with him, so we thought of this!" Don't get me wrong, I actually buy Philip finding himself at a Stan-less EST meeting about sexuality, because the whole thing with Kimberly and the flashbacks to his training (and the "making it real" conversation with Elizabeth) must have rubbed in just how much the sexual part of being a spy, the utter divorce between emotion and physicality, have impact their impact. And I like Sandra, too. But Philip's definitely in need of ann adult confidant who doesn't believe in the Cause, and who doesn't have to be sweettalked into doing his bidding. But I am not sure that I buy he'd pick Sandra (an American, who for all that she's Stan's EXwife is still likely to share his loyalties, not to mention that while Stan has moved on, he's going to be less than thrilled his BFF and ex are becoming EST buddies), if that's where they'll be going next season. But we'll see.
Elizabeth and Paige through the episode are an exercise in misreading each other. (The one thing, imo, which Elizabeth doesn't misread in this episode and sees in fact more clearly than Philip is that he can't let Martha find out from other people that he murder-framed a colleague of hers, he has to tell her himself.) For Elizabeth, meeting her mother, saying goodbye and having Paige there to hold her grandmother's hand is a profound experience and she thinks this has solved Paige's issues with the big revelation, has reconciled Paige to her parents' Russian-ness. For Paige - who throughout the episode refers to the woman in question as "your mother", not "grandmother" - everything that happens underscores instead how awful her parents being spies is. I already mentioned Elizabeth's instinctive checking for tails. Then there's lying to Henry, constantly, and the fact this whole visit to a dying woman has to happen in secrecy at all. Paige praying in the bathroom also underscores that if Elizabeth assumed Paige's choice of religion as a cause could simply be switched to communism once Paige knows the truth, she was completely wrong. Paige's reactions throughout demonstrate that she doesn't think spying is something good or worthy (or glamorous, but then Elizabeth never tried to sell that one - I don't think it would have occured to her it might work on teenagers), she thinks it's horrible. Part of it is certainly Paige wanting her certainties back, and an age factor, but part really seems to be an abhorrence for the quintessential deceptions that are part of any spy's life. (No matter which nationality.) And that answers the seasonal question of whether or not Paige would even want to become a spy (let alone one for the KGB) very clearly indeed. Calling Pastor Tim and this time telling him the truth about her parents is both a betrayal and a rejection, though I doubt Paige sees it as either in the state she's in. But it's going to have very final consequences.
It's also intercut with Philip's and Elizabeth's conversation where he's starting to talk about his need to believe that what he does actually is making things better for anyone (i.e. he doesn't believe it anymore), when he's interrupted mid breakdown by the fact Reagan is making his "Evil Empire" speech on tv. (I remember not the speech itself but the reporting the next day in the newspapers back then. Teenage me was torn between rolling her eyes and being afraid World War III would start and we'd all get blown to kingdom come, because once you call an entire country evil and use that kind of rethoric, you sound like you want to start not a cold but a hot war, thought I, and hoped it would turn out to be over the top rethoric after all. ) Elizabeth starts to pay more attention to it than to Philip's confession-in-progress, which you could call an emotional betrayal, though otoh it's also entirely possible she sees the speech as the answer to the question Philip has just asked, the statement he's made, that he needs a reason to continue to do what they do. For Elizabeth, Reagan at his most Cold Warrior IS a reason.
