The Americans 6.06
In which several people‘s mission goes south, and Stan awakens his inner detective.
Thank the TV gods the only travel agency business in this episode were a) Philip using the agency‘s trouble as an excuse with Stan, and b) Elizabeth showing up there to signal concern/gratitude to Philip in her Elizabethan way. For verily, those scenes had dragged. Whereas this episode brought on suspense and character drama in a good mixture.
Elizabeth telling Philip about the suicide pill, but not what exactly her mission regarding it entails to me ties with her sketching of the window and her mentioning on the phone that things were difficult in Chicago last episode - it‘s the part of her that wants to live and looks for a way out, but she‘d rather die (literally) than admit it. It‘s just the repression isn‘t working so well anymore these days. Her scene with her patient the artist later in this episode, with the artist talking about putting yourself completely into painting, „bring yourself in“ - I think the problem is that it resonated with Elizabeth, but in two, irreconcilable ways. She knows that kind of passion and devotion - for the Cause, however it was defined - and she knows Philip feels it for her. „We chose you because you would never surrender“, Zhukov told a much younger Elizabeth many years ago, and Elizabeth‘s big problem is that she‘s qualified anything other than dying for the Cause (not just deserting, but also plain retiring) as surrendering. Which, btw, is why I‘m pretty certain she won‘t be the one to die (if any of the regulars is) in the remaining episodes. Otoh, Paige might, and I‘m increasingly more concerned about Philip.
Who is an expert liar and doing a pretty good job with Stan at the start of this episode, but it‘s his bad luck that Stan chooses this moment (and the weirdness of the Jenningses both choosing to leave their son whom they hardly see anymore anyway alone on Thanksgiving for work reasons) to gently interrogate Henry what was going on (and I think at this point he doesn‘t do so for other than „what the hell IS going on?“ reasons). While Henry has had it with all the mysterious desertions; as he points out, his parents aren‘t neurosurgeons. Combine this with the circumstances Stan hears about Chicago, and for the first time since the pilot, he starts to wonder about the previously unthinkable, enough to break into the Jennings house. He doesn‘t find anything, and is probably more relieved than anything else at this point (yet), but the suspicion is there, and since we‘re in the final season, it‘s a given he won‘t give it up and will investigate further.
Harvest was probably our last non- P&E illegal, and his final messages were interesting. When he started to talk about his mother, I assumed it was code (just like Elizabeth earlier saying „your mother wants to see you“ had been), but no, the professional message comes later, sandwiched between two very different messages to and about his parents in Russian. Russian being spoken out loud by Philip or Elizabeth is always a very significant moment - last time Philip said anything in Russian, it was at their wedding which he flashes back to at the end of the episode -, so that he does so here in reply to Harvest‘s requests is noticable. He could simply follow Harvest‘s lead, but I don‘t think so; I think he‘s in a very Russian mind at this point anyway. The dying Harvest provides him with just the kind of information Oleg wanted, plus even without detailing her mission Elizabeth told him a lot (up to and including „the summit is in a week“, because that evidently is when whatever her superiors expect to go down will happen), but this is a Phyrric victory given that Harvest‘s death to Philip has to look like a foreshadowing of Elizabeth‘s ordered and so far chosen fate. Harvest sending love to his mother and hate to his father probably reflects Philip‘s torn emotions about the mother- and fatherland at this point precisely.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1283475.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Thank the TV gods the only travel agency business in this episode were a) Philip using the agency‘s trouble as an excuse with Stan, and b) Elizabeth showing up there to signal concern/gratitude to Philip in her Elizabethan way. For verily, those scenes had dragged. Whereas this episode brought on suspense and character drama in a good mixture.
Elizabeth telling Philip about the suicide pill, but not what exactly her mission regarding it entails to me ties with her sketching of the window and her mentioning on the phone that things were difficult in Chicago last episode - it‘s the part of her that wants to live and looks for a way out, but she‘d rather die (literally) than admit it. It‘s just the repression isn‘t working so well anymore these days. Her scene with her patient the artist later in this episode, with the artist talking about putting yourself completely into painting, „bring yourself in“ - I think the problem is that it resonated with Elizabeth, but in two, irreconcilable ways. She knows that kind of passion and devotion - for the Cause, however it was defined - and she knows Philip feels it for her. „We chose you because you would never surrender“, Zhukov told a much younger Elizabeth many years ago, and Elizabeth‘s big problem is that she‘s qualified anything other than dying for the Cause (not just deserting, but also plain retiring) as surrendering. Which, btw, is why I‘m pretty certain she won‘t be the one to die (if any of the regulars is) in the remaining episodes. Otoh, Paige might, and I‘m increasingly more concerned about Philip.
Who is an expert liar and doing a pretty good job with Stan at the start of this episode, but it‘s his bad luck that Stan chooses this moment (and the weirdness of the Jenningses both choosing to leave their son whom they hardly see anymore anyway alone on Thanksgiving for work reasons) to gently interrogate Henry what was going on (and I think at this point he doesn‘t do so for other than „what the hell IS going on?“ reasons). While Henry has had it with all the mysterious desertions; as he points out, his parents aren‘t neurosurgeons. Combine this with the circumstances Stan hears about Chicago, and for the first time since the pilot, he starts to wonder about the previously unthinkable, enough to break into the Jennings house. He doesn‘t find anything, and is probably more relieved than anything else at this point (yet), but the suspicion is there, and since we‘re in the final season, it‘s a given he won‘t give it up and will investigate further.
Harvest was probably our last non- P&E illegal, and his final messages were interesting. When he started to talk about his mother, I assumed it was code (just like Elizabeth earlier saying „your mother wants to see you“ had been), but no, the professional message comes later, sandwiched between two very different messages to and about his parents in Russian. Russian being spoken out loud by Philip or Elizabeth is always a very significant moment - last time Philip said anything in Russian, it was at their wedding which he flashes back to at the end of the episode -, so that he does so here in reply to Harvest‘s requests is noticable. He could simply follow Harvest‘s lead, but I don‘t think so; I think he‘s in a very Russian mind at this point anyway. The dying Harvest provides him with just the kind of information Oleg wanted, plus even without detailing her mission Elizabeth told him a lot (up to and including „the summit is in a week“, because that evidently is when whatever her superiors expect to go down will happen), but this is a Phyrric victory given that Harvest‘s death to Philip has to look like a foreshadowing of Elizabeth‘s ordered and so far chosen fate. Harvest sending love to his mother and hate to his father probably reflects Philip‘s torn emotions about the mother- and fatherland at this point precisely.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1283475.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.