I had considered since the start that the oddity of Stan moving in nearby was going to lead to an ending where they turn to him to defect.
(And why didn’t they just move soon after? Knowing Stan doesn’t seem to have helped their operations all that much while endangering them several times.)
But the idea posted about one of them defecting and the other not intrigues me. It does seem have been part of the storyline as it’s been building lately. I’d go with Philip defecting but Elizabeth not.
Going to cause problems when the kids need to spend time with “weekend dad”.
Well, the Jennings were able to provide intel on Stan that almost led to him being compromised over Nina. He did let somethings slip, esp during the aftermath of the Reagan assassination attempt, so Stan and Phillip being “friends” has had dividends.
I think the brick that’ll bring the wall down has already been plucked out. It was clear the bodyguard who was watching when the Jennings showed up at Pasha’s house the night he tried to commit suicide was suspicious of them. They obviously didn’t just “show up” unannounced, and were looking for ways to get into the house when the parents arrived. How could the bodyguard not report the incident and get some kind of investigation started?
I also think that they will include a final Fleetwood Mac song to complete the trilogy (Tusk from Ep 1, The Chain from the middle seasons) but I hope they don’t go that on the nose by using Don’t Stop. I am hoping Big Love will be the one that they will use - the tension within the song would work well in an action sequence or it could be used as a final commentary on a sacrifice made for loved ones, or similar.
A lot of ideas in this thread are more than plausible. I am expecting a grey ending somehow. Maybe one of Paige, Elizabeth or Philip dies but I can’t see there being an outing of family as being deep cover - given the length of time after the end of the Cold War Anna Chapman and her comrades lived in the US, I think they’ll hold true to real life and have the FBI have some sort of knowledge of the program, but still being in a very difficult position in terms of being able to stop it. As a result, my main prediction is that most of the apparatus for the deep cover program will still be in place by the end of the series.
Tomorrow night, we’ll know more about the direction the final season will take. Advance information is that Oleg will return to the US; it’s now 1987 and Paige is definitely working with her mother while Philip is ‘retired.’
Though the overt theme of the show, according to its creator, is that it’s the story of a marriage, it’s hard to believe that no geopolitical commentary will play a role in the show’s ending. It seemed to me, last season, that Oleg’s experiences in the USSR pointed to an anti-corruption theme becoming very important in the wind-down of the show. But if he’s returning to Washington, DC, that theme seems less likely to be a focus.
I agree with those that say the Jennings family won’t survive the end of the show intact. One member, at least, will die or be deported (in a prisoner exchange, perhaps, as happened with the ‘illegals’ whose stories brought creator Joe Weisberg to this topic).
The idealism that’s been fueling Elizabeth and Paige seems likely to be severely tested by the fall of the USSR and what will follow. So I agree with those who suspect a melt-down by one or both of them. (Murdering Father Tim? I’m less certain about that one. Maybe taking Stan hostage? That could be pretty spectacular.)
By the way, the Oleg actor, Costa Ronin, shows up in the new season of Homeland. He’s not quite so sympathetic there as he is on The Americans, to say the least.
Stan could stumble onto the truth and be faced with a dilemma: Turn them in and admit he’s been living next door to a sleeper cell for years without realizing it, or keep his mouth shut and try to cover it up.
Stan isn’t much good at covering anything up, and he isn’t much better about uncovering the truth. I feel kind of bad for Stan because, really, he’s completely incompetent at everything he does. He’s a shitty father, a failure as a husband, he isn’t a very good counterintelligence agent, couldn’t make a deal to save Nina, and frankly he’s about to get fleeced by Renee who is almost certainly another Soviet plant sent there to fuck with him. The only thing Stan really has going for him in the entire show is that Henry sort of idolizes him, and how that is going to work out somehow in his favor is unclear.
Poor Stan. However this series works out, whether he gets promoted or fired, protects or pursues the Jennings, gives up on est or goes full woo, in the end he’s still going to be Stan. And nobody wanna be Stan.
He’s not even very good at that. I mean, yeah, he killed the guy, but he’s agonized over it since and confessed to his boss. I kind of want to pull Stan out and give him a hug because he really needs one, but once he figures out (if he does) that his best buddy Philip has been lying to him this entire time, he’s never going to be able to trust anyone ever again. He might have to switch his preferred brand of beer, or just move straight to cheap bourbon. I kind of hope he dies a hero’s death before he figures out that Renee is spying on him because his life has just been pathetic and I don’t see it going anywhere but down.
Tony Soprano at least had friends. Stan just has Philip and the agent who got killed over a frumpy-looking secretary. With Tony Soprano I always felt like death was deservedly coming to him. With Stan, he’s just going to die lonely and alone unless someone runs over him with a truck or Elizabeth sticks a knife through his kidney.
Isn’t there a key difference between Elizabeth and Paige … Elizabeth feels she owes a huge debt to the state (for not visiting her father’s treachery on her and her mother), and for what the father did. So E is loyal to the state, and with a backdrop of the Great Patriotic War (WW2). Paige on the other hand is young and idealistic, she’s all about justice and equality, etc. Stuff not as much in evidence in 1980s USA as you might hope.
E surely has to retire with the coming of Gorbachov; maybe it’s just the start for Paige. If Paige is to carry on the family business then there has to be a plausible exit for mum and dad.
I can almost imagine Stan sponsoring Henry into the intelligence community and neither ever having a clue, however Stan’s girlfriend is a probable fly in that ointment.
I’d also like to see Martha come home and at least visit her parents.
I think that the last couple of episodes might jump ahead in time to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The family might feel safe and just settle down to run the travel agency when leaks start showing. Maybe Martha reaches out to the US embassy to try to make a deal to come home and gives up what she knows, or maybe someone from the KGB jumps ship with a bunch of files about the program.
Since this is sort of a speculation thread with a slightly different focus, I decided to make a regular season 6 discussion thread. Premier is tonight.
You are in the Renee is an agent camp?
Do you think then deterioration in relations and the Russian assertiveness, both of which have occurred *after *the premiere of this show, have affected storylines? Only reason that explains last seasons “Oleg in Russia” plot, as a "fuck you"to Russia.