The Americans
So, a post about The Americans - IMO, one of the best TV series ever made. Up there with The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad - all those shows that are always mentioned when people talk about the third - ie. the current- golden age of American TV (only just found out it's called that).
I haven't really anything new or interesting to say about the show, I don't think. But having re-watched all six seasons of it over a period of about two months I'm not quite ready to let it go again just yet.
Spoilers for The Americans behind cut. Also brief spoilers for Picard.
The night after I finished my The Americans re-watch, I couldn't sleep. This happens to me very, very rarely. I lay there thinking about the final scene, of Philip and Elizabeth - or Mikhail and Nadezhda, as I suppose they should be called by then - looking out over the lights of Moscow, which they haven't seen for nearly thirty years. Probably, there were a lot more lights than they remembered.
They were both sad, thinking about their children who they might never see again, but as always it was Elizabeth who was the strong unflinching one, and who didn't just think the kids would be all right but that she and Philip would be too.
"We'll get used to it," she says, in Russian - the last words in the show.
I found myself wondering how she would cope in a year or so's time when the USSR has ceased to exist and they're are no longer returned 'heroes.' Would she find herself in the grip of existential angst, like Philip in...well, every season except maybe the first, when she realised the cause she'd dedicated her life to was gone? Would she even blame herself for not doing what Claudia and the hardliners had wanted her to do?
I suspect not somehow. I think she'd be more likely to displace the blame mentally onto them. But you never know. She's a very complicated person, despite seeming simpler than Philip many times during the show because she never wavered in her beliefs.
I also wondered how she'd feel when Philip met up with his son Mischa - presuming here that Philip would make the effort to get in contact with his brother and family, who already know Mischa - since she would still have lost her own children.
And I wondered if Philip would ever bump into Martha in Moscow. How incredibly awkward that would be.
Most of all, though, I wondered about poor Oleg. What happened to him seemed so unfair. He'd done none of the terrible things that Philip and Elizabeth had done. In fact, in most ways, he'd been quite heroic. I felt so sorry for his poor parents too.
There is one spark of hope, though. When Arkady told Oleg's dad that Oleg had been caught and his mission had failed, he was partly wrong. The mission had in fact succeeded, because Elizabeth changed her mind. Maybe Arkady and Oleg's dad were able to get Gorbachev to intercede on Oleg's behalf after all.
I'm going to tell myself that anyway, just as I'm going to tell myself that Anton was still alive when the USSR collapsed and was able to go home again, as I doubt there'll ever be a The Americans reunion ten years after the show or anything. Though it would be interesting, wouldn't it, to see where the showrunners imagine everyone would be ten years later.
I did finally manage to get to sleep and only later realised that I'd not once wondered what happened next to Paige and Henry. I guess I just assumed that Stan would look after Henry, and that maybe Paige would find a way to convince everyone she'd been abused by her parents so she'd be forgiven, as it were. After all, it wouldn't really be a lie, would it, even if the abuse was unintentional.
Of the six seasons of the show, I really can't say which I think was the strongest. I know that season 3 had two of the toughest scenes to watch - so tough, in fact, that I had to fast forward one of them. This was the death of Anneliese. I just couldn't watch it. Almost did the same with the death of the South African police guy, but mercifully that was very short so I managed to get through it. Season 3 also contains the notorious death of the old lady while Philip is putting the bug in the mail robot scene. When I originally watched the show, I thought this scene really didn't work because of all the moralising and how it seemed to affect Elizabeth. I didn't think that nearly so much this time. In fact, the only scene where I found myself thinking, "Nah, that would never happen," was early in season 2 when Elizabeth meets up with Claudia, who is very upset about the death of Emmet and Leanne and for some reason confesses to Elizabeth that she's revealed her identity to someone she's met and it hasn't gone well.
That, if it had been true, should have been the last we saw of Claudia. But given what we knew of her from season 1 and what we learn about her in later seasons, I just didn't believe it at all. And the worst of it is, I think we were meant to believe it. But since it never gets mentioned again and seems to be utterly irrelevant to everything - ie. it's never a plot point again - I think the showrunners realised it was a mistake and hoped everyone would just forget about it.
Most upsetting scene for me personally was the death of Hans in early season 5. Horrible. Almost couldn't watch that either.
Most painful relationship in the show: Martha and 'Clark', hands down. Poor, poor Martha. But Elizabeth and Young-Hee is pretty painful too.
Such a great show. And because it's set in the 1980s, it can never date either. Wonderful.
On an altogether less exalted note, I was quite enjoying this Picard series until the arrival of Romulan Legolas in the most recent episode I watched. What on earth were they thinking?
This entry was originally posted at https://shapinglight.dreamwidth.org/3798441.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I haven't really anything new or interesting to say about the show, I don't think. But having re-watched all six seasons of it over a period of about two months I'm not quite ready to let it go again just yet.
Spoilers for The Americans behind cut. Also brief spoilers for Picard.
The night after I finished my The Americans re-watch, I couldn't sleep. This happens to me very, very rarely. I lay there thinking about the final scene, of Philip and Elizabeth - or Mikhail and Nadezhda, as I suppose they should be called by then - looking out over the lights of Moscow, which they haven't seen for nearly thirty years. Probably, there were a lot more lights than they remembered.
They were both sad, thinking about their children who they might never see again, but as always it was Elizabeth who was the strong unflinching one, and who didn't just think the kids would be all right but that she and Philip would be too.
"We'll get used to it," she says, in Russian - the last words in the show.
I found myself wondering how she would cope in a year or so's time when the USSR has ceased to exist and they're are no longer returned 'heroes.' Would she find herself in the grip of existential angst, like Philip in...well, every season except maybe the first, when she realised the cause she'd dedicated her life to was gone? Would she even blame herself for not doing what Claudia and the hardliners had wanted her to do?
I suspect not somehow. I think she'd be more likely to displace the blame mentally onto them. But you never know. She's a very complicated person, despite seeming simpler than Philip many times during the show because she never wavered in her beliefs.
I also wondered how she'd feel when Philip met up with his son Mischa - presuming here that Philip would make the effort to get in contact with his brother and family, who already know Mischa - since she would still have lost her own children.
And I wondered if Philip would ever bump into Martha in Moscow. How incredibly awkward that would be.
Most of all, though, I wondered about poor Oleg. What happened to him seemed so unfair. He'd done none of the terrible things that Philip and Elizabeth had done. In fact, in most ways, he'd been quite heroic. I felt so sorry for his poor parents too.
There is one spark of hope, though. When Arkady told Oleg's dad that Oleg had been caught and his mission had failed, he was partly wrong. The mission had in fact succeeded, because Elizabeth changed her mind. Maybe Arkady and Oleg's dad were able to get Gorbachev to intercede on Oleg's behalf after all.
I'm going to tell myself that anyway, just as I'm going to tell myself that Anton was still alive when the USSR collapsed and was able to go home again, as I doubt there'll ever be a The Americans reunion ten years after the show or anything. Though it would be interesting, wouldn't it, to see where the showrunners imagine everyone would be ten years later.
I did finally manage to get to sleep and only later realised that I'd not once wondered what happened next to Paige and Henry. I guess I just assumed that Stan would look after Henry, and that maybe Paige would find a way to convince everyone she'd been abused by her parents so she'd be forgiven, as it were. After all, it wouldn't really be a lie, would it, even if the abuse was unintentional.
Of the six seasons of the show, I really can't say which I think was the strongest. I know that season 3 had two of the toughest scenes to watch - so tough, in fact, that I had to fast forward one of them. This was the death of Anneliese. I just couldn't watch it. Almost did the same with the death of the South African police guy, but mercifully that was very short so I managed to get through it. Season 3 also contains the notorious death of the old lady while Philip is putting the bug in the mail robot scene. When I originally watched the show, I thought this scene really didn't work because of all the moralising and how it seemed to affect Elizabeth. I didn't think that nearly so much this time. In fact, the only scene where I found myself thinking, "Nah, that would never happen," was early in season 2 when Elizabeth meets up with Claudia, who is very upset about the death of Emmet and Leanne and for some reason confesses to Elizabeth that she's revealed her identity to someone she's met and it hasn't gone well.
That, if it had been true, should have been the last we saw of Claudia. But given what we knew of her from season 1 and what we learn about her in later seasons, I just didn't believe it at all. And the worst of it is, I think we were meant to believe it. But since it never gets mentioned again and seems to be utterly irrelevant to everything - ie. it's never a plot point again - I think the showrunners realised it was a mistake and hoped everyone would just forget about it.
Most upsetting scene for me personally was the death of Hans in early season 5. Horrible. Almost couldn't watch that either.
Most painful relationship in the show: Martha and 'Clark', hands down. Poor, poor Martha. But Elizabeth and Young-Hee is pretty painful too.
Such a great show. And because it's set in the 1980s, it can never date either. Wonderful.
On an altogether less exalted note, I was quite enjoying this Picard series until the arrival of Romulan Legolas in the most recent episode I watched. What on earth were they thinking?
This entry was originally posted at https://shapinglight.dreamwidth.org/3798441.html. Please comment there using OpenID.