The Americans 5.02 - 5.07
The personal and the professional have always been mingled on this show, but now it's tighter than ever. Stan, who originally made the tape, after all, so that Oleg would be cmpromised in the same way Oleg and Arkady once wanted Stan to be compromised and blackmail-able, by now post Nina's death, Oleg volunteering the information re: biological warfare and so many things is willing to go on the mat and blackmail his own government rather than allow the tape to be used on Oleg in Moscow. Stan keeping his job after that one is perhaps the most unrealistic detail on this series. Also the CIA listening. (As evidenced by the fact nobody shows up to the meetings Oleg goes to in the middle of the night.) How the hell would Stan know whether or not Oleg gets blackmailed? He's not in contact. It's not like they live a few decades later and can text each other for updates. Still, it's fascinating character development if you consider this is the same man who three years ago killed someone just for being a Russian KGB officer post Amador's death.
Meanwhile, Philip, like much of the viewing audience, considers the possibility that Stan's new girlfriend might be one of theirs and tails her (and there's no professional reason to do that) to make sure, and the discovery that the latest mission which Elizabeth and he thought would fill them with righteousness again (evil Americans poisoning Russian wheat), to the point where they actually shared this info with Paige, actually is pointless in that regard because no such plan exists, and thus the latest hapless bystander of many whom he and Elizabeth killed died for nothing. This comes with a series of flashbacks to his early childhood about his parents, the point of which keeps eluding him, but in the latest episode it leads to him finding out what his father's job was. BTW, I loved that going into the scene you think Elizabeth, who's now been assigned to a psychiatrist, will use what she's learning there about trauma when Philip ponders why the hell he keeps having these flashbacks, but no, Elizabeth the pragmatic instead gives him the sensible (and as it turns out correct) advice to ask Gabriel, based on the fact that Philip's KGB file is bound to include more intel on his parents than he can ever know and Gabriel as their handler would have read it all.
Gabriel's own professional/personal crisis comes in the person of Misha Jr. who makes it all the way to the US with Irina's fake papers, only to be failed by his bio dad's handler who in turn has had a heart to heard with Claudia who pointed out that given Philip has an ideological reliabability question mark in his files anyway as far as the Center is concerned, letting him meet his son who just illegally left the USSR, earlier spent time in a mental hospital for calling the war in Afghanistan a joke and whose mother defected is a really bad idea. Gabriel, survivor of Stalinist purges as brought up last season, takes her point and acts on it, but is troubled, because, as he tells her later, he's never lied to Philip and Elizabeth before.
(Btw: interesting. Gabriel has no reason to lie to Claudia about this detail at this point. But: never? In decades as a handler? Wow.)
Philip can hardly remember his father and doesn't know his son by Irina at all, but just as knowledge of the later's existence affected him since he found out, the reveal that his father was a guard in a gulag is troublesome as well. Otoh, the show has never hidden that the actual father figure he had, both to learn from and rebel against, was and is Gabriel, and so it's no wonder that after Gabriel's announcement he'll leave and return home, Philip and Elizabeth in the last scene present him with Paige. The personal and political, ever tighter mixed: on the one hand, Paige's one and probably only chance to meet Granddad (whom she can actually talk to, as opposed to Elizabeth's dying mother, because he speaks English). Otoh, potential junior spy Paige meeting the über-handler, something Elizabeth and Philip regarded as unthinkable not that long ago. It's both.
Martha's silent cameo in a Moscow department store reassures us she lives (in freedom, as much as you can in 80s Russia) and was unexpected treat, but I wonder whether it was just that, a treat, or whether she and Oleg, who has this seasons's Russian-in-Russia storyline, will actually meet and interact. Otoh, Oleg just decided to chance it (no wonder, after the CIA guy keeps not showing up), otohl, I still can't see his continuing investigation into administrative corruption going anywhere good for Oleg. And on a very cold level, Martha is potential leverage if you need a favor from the Americans. He does know who she is, after all, he was privy to the relevant files.
Henry the math whiz: supposedly, the "what's up with Henry?" will go somewhere other than "alienation of teenage son", but it would be nice if that came with Henry having more than one or two lines (if that) an episode.
Elizabeth and Philip are currently playing parents to another teenage son, Tuan, as part of their assignment, and it's eerie and fascinating because otoh Tuan (sole survivor of his family thanks to the Vietnam war) is an hardcore ideologist full of youthful anger against the US, otoh, it's becoming increasingly clear that when he keeps asking whether they won't come more often, he doesn't just do this for professional reasons. And what will become of him if their assignment ends? Which would already be the case, given what they just learned, if not for the fact the female Russian exile could potentially teach CIA agents which makes the mission valuable again.
Elizabeth at first denies Philip's comment that she likes the wheat expert, her target, but in fact the guy turns out to be her type, as he's not in the poisoning grain but rather in the feeding the world business, a wannabe world savior, so I'm wondering whether this is going anywhere. Other than him teaching her Tai Chi, which I have to say is something perfect for Elizabeth, far more than EST.
In the latest episode, a Mary Kay seller showing up at the Jennings‘ step brings a wave of past guilt, and Elizabeth checks out the house of her Korean target/friend from last season, only to find out the woman doesn’t live there anymore. Philip’s sense of guilt is about killing; Elizabeth’s is about life destroying (in this particular case at least), and thus I wonder whether this season, she’ll be faced with a situation/choice where she has to do it again - or not.
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