A thread for The Americans on FX

I'll have to watch last night's again--I drifted off, tried again at 11:00, same problem. They always play the previous week before the new one.

From what I did see, didn't seem like a great episode, except for maybe the Stan-Oleg meeting.

Philip imagining a world where they could make classic russian meals and eat them with Stan at some day in the future was both naively optimistic and heartbreaking in the face of his dawning realization that Elizabeth is still completely locked in

Case in point: no recollection of that all...

xp I thought it was funny that they told each other they'd not spoken to anyone from back home in 20 years while they've both super secretly done that just in the last week or two.

This week's wasn't the most riveting episode I've ever seen, but the story is moving along at a pretty good clip this year vs. last year.

Sucks that Elizabeth has had to kill two unfortunate people at the end of the last two episodes all because they're trying to rush this operation and seem to be not very good at finding targets for her.

What do you make of Renee wanting to join the FBI? If she's Russian, that seems like a really clumsy attempt at infiltration--I'm guessing there's something more nuanced going on.

It’s a prequel to her character from the X-Files

Thinking about the last scene, though, would Elizabeth--who is generally meticulously careful--have left herself as vulnerable as she did?

not really? she's done stuff like that loads of times

she only killed the guy because he told her his girlfriend worked for security

I was talking about the episode from two weeks ago--the scene in the park. It seemed unlikely to me she would walk into a situation where someone who was clearly wavering could simply pull a gun on her.

Ah ok

I'd forgotten about later should-have-been-betters like Man on the Moon and Larry Flynt. He was directing so infrequently they felt like events at the time, and Carrey and Harrelson were good. They just didn't seem to say with me for very long. The first produced a great song and video, though (not directed by Forman).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_JnCWT-_O8

Oops.

It seemed unlikely to me she would walk into a situation where someone who was clearly wavering could simply pull a gun on her.

Yeah I think they're trying to make it clear Elizabeth is being pushed too hard/fast for results due to the looming conference/dead hand shit and shes not taking the care with her turning people she normally would

BTW was that basically his brains splattered all over her face? It looked well grody.

late to this subject but just wanted to say i loved s05 and its episode after episode of philip and elizabeth staring miserably out of car windscreens. like a whole season of Abba's The Visitors. Probably helped that we watched the whole season in like a week, though - can understand it must have felt excruciating watching it week-to-week.

this season is blitzing past, so strong. elizabeth is just disintegrating before our eyes. s05 feels like the slow crawl before s06's rollercoaster dive.

is anyone going to make it out of this series alive?

It'll be funny if the only person who dies is Henry, in some freak hockey accident.

Elizabeth's been shown to kill anyone who gets in the way of the mission. I wonder if she'll end up killing Phillip?

xpost lolll

I've long thought the series would come to an end with a standoff between the two of them.

Def getting a scene with Philip Stan and Oleg, right?

Stan putting the pieces together is one of the things I'm looking forward to the most.

Yeah I think Renee is some kind of FBI/CIA shadow keeping tabs on Stan since his Oleg bromance. She'll follow Oleg one day and see him with Phillip, and boom.

Maybe they'll skip forward to 2016 for an epilogue where Paige meets up with George Papadopoulos. I don't know how it will end--in a more general sense, whether it will be a dark ending or something that resembles Philip/Elizabeth/Stan/Oleg turning the page and moving on.

They're making it exceedingly clear that Elizabeth will not live happily in the US into her golden years. She'll either be in prison, back in the USSR, or dead.

back in the USSR

as foretold by The Beatles.

Loving this season so far but the only thing that bothers me slightly is that they haven't given themselves enough time to tie up all the loose ends. What about Kimmy? What about Pastor Tim? What about Martha? What about Philip's son?

Kimmy isn't really a loose end and can easily be explained away or never mentioned again. Pastor Tim has been farmed out to South America so ditto really. Martha I wholly expect to appear at some point.

Philip's son is the one that feels like a misstep and could just be quietly forgotten, but he could equally be the hand grenade the blows up Philip and Elizabeth's marriage and illusions altogether.

Yeah I guess you're right about Kimmy and Pastor Tim. I thought the omission of Kimmy was strange given that she (or rather her dad) was the entire reason why they stayed in the US at the end of the last season, but then I keep forgetting that we've now jumped three years ahead in time.

I feel like the real 'oh shit' moment was Philip and Oleg finally meeting. If Stan can turn him Oleg then that's a direct line to Philip and Elizabeth and then the whole thing blows up.

Feel like the defection of Gennadi is going to play a part too, but who knows.

If the show ends with some sort of present-day scene I kind of want somebody to end up as a shady oligarch

I'd settle for it jumping forward to the end of the USSR/fall of the Berlin Wall.

Philip's son is the one that feels like a misstep and could just be quietly forgotten, but he could equally be the hand grenade the blows up Philip and Elizabeth's marriage and illusions altogether.

Definitely feeling like this will come up again.

Also I literally cannot remember Philip/Elizabeth's son's name (lol) but the weird way they are minimally reminding us of his existence via phone calls with Philip feels like they are laying the groundwork for something.

Agree that Martha's the one story that needs, or at least deserves, some kind of resolution. I wouldn't mind if Frank Langella turned up again...I'm not misremembering, am I? He just went back to Russia, right, he didn't die.

I feel like Martha already got that last season with her brief revisit, in the supermarket and with gabriel and that?

Frank Langella's voice is in the new Destiny video game which is a bit weird.

i agree that they could leave martha as is and it would feel narratively sound. she got enough of a postscript and through that we understand the hell she's been condemned to

Right, her arc seems tied up to me. I can't imagine any good reason to bring her back other than fan service (which is something this show seems to avoid).

flash forward and she’s partnered with Philip Jr’s mom

Pretty good episode--can't get enough of the line-dancing. I've gotta say, a lot times I have no idea what's going on when Elizabeth is out in the field on an operation (like the opening scene last night, which was so dark I couldn't see anything). I don't worry much about that. She's out there doing something for Mother Russia. Next week's preview looked really promising.

(like the opening scene last night, which was so dark I couldn't see anything)

I'm glad it wasn't just me! I guess it was intentional.

Maybe the pair ratio of wins to fails has always been lopsided and we've only just seen mostly the wins, but iirc every single thing Elizabeth has done this season has failed. When's she gonna snap?

*pair's

I really liked the Philip/Elizabeth/Paige scene where Philip walked right up to the line about what really happened in the park.

re: the dark opening sequence

Listening to the podcast now, it was absolutely intentional that it be pitch black.

i agree that they could leave martha as is and it would feel narratively sound. she got enough of a postscript and through that we understand the hell she's been condemned to

Alternatively, she's collateral/a bargaining chip for later down the line.

It would have felt more narratively sound if we'd never seen her again after she got on the plane.

Stan's line to Philip about having more things means dealing with more, good or bad, with the later childhood flashback where kids were scraping food out of a pot was relatively subtle. I liked how that played out.

re my earlier post, I'm happy to see Kimmy again!

Kimmy's the anti Henry, he looks 3 years older every season, she looks a year younger.

When Oleg told Philip this was the last time they could meet in person I groaned. I wanted a whole season of Philip and Oleg teaming up to battle Elizabeth (and Paige).

And Paige really is turning into her mom, I guess, sleeping with that dude to gain access to...his boss's office, I guess?

Like someone else suggested upthread, what I want is a spin-off season of Philip and Stan hitting the open road.

Oleg should come along, or at least be a regular guest

finally caught up this past week and man is the tension reaching unbearable levels this year. i'm thinking that their downfall stems from paige, who keeps making careless mistakes. would be tragic if she's the one caught, and then aderholt recognizes her from that dinner in the first episode, but i'm thinking that's how it might shake out.