The Americans Season 3

Cafe Society
821

Charlie…you bring up an interesting point about the Paige story line.

However, you mentioned a couple of scenarios where Paige would be at risk of going to prison, and I wanted to ask about that. She can protect her parents by not saying anything, but how would she go to prison? She hasn’t yet committed any crime, so they can’t charge her with anything.

Until she actually becomes a spy, and commits an act of espionage, wouldn’t the only serious risk of Paige going to jail would be conceivably to charge her with aiding and abetting? To be honest, given the circumstances, I don’t think they would charge a teenager who is probably scared out of her wits and trying to sort things out with a crime of that magnitude.

I also think that if she decides to protect her parents by being silent, that doesn’t mean she will have definitively made the choice to become a spy…remember, at this point she still has absolutely no knowledge of the future the KGB has planned for her, and its impossible to predict how she will react to that once she finds out.

822

I agree that it’s unlikely that Paige would face any charges. But as a minor, she would essentially become government property (under the guise of being made a ward of the court). She would have no say about her living circumstances.

Paige would be seen as a valuable source of intelligence by the US government. Federal officials would want to know every detail about who she’s seen with her parents, when either parent was absent and for how long, what she’s overheard them say on the phone (or anywhere else), and on and on. The assumption would be that even if Paige wasn’t aware of the nature of meetings or absences or conversations or random remarks, any or all of them could yield information that would lead US officials to Soviet agents, safe houses, drops, targets, procedures, and resources in general.

Paige’s life as an autonomous individual would be effectively over.

(And of course foreknowledge of this likelihood could be used by P&E–or by Gabriel–to keep Paige in line.)

823

The idea of “keeping Paige in line” is a salient one, and something I hadn’t thought about.

I’d hate to be repetitive, but if Phillip’s character stays consistent, is there any way there can NOT be a confrontation between him and The Centre over Paige?

Sherrerd is correct, they are going to do whatever they can now that Paige knows to keep her quiet, and they won’t hesitate to threaten her with who knows what if they think the operation is at risk. Is Phillip going to stand for that?

The whole family is in a pretty tough spot, don’t you think?

824

Fwiw, I think Paige is just going to take her time, like she did with religion. A whole bunch of questions, a lot of reading and linking stuff up in her head.

Going to be tricky when she asks about operational matters … but maybe P&E will relegate their role to supportive staff - driving cars, lookouts, whatever.

Anyway, anyone got plans for this evening :smiley:

825

In Season 2, the Centre assigned a handler to train and indoctrinate the newly-recruited son. I wonder if they’ll assign a handler to Paige.

826

I like how Oleg & Tatiana are starting to realizing that the “mountains of intelligence” they’re getting from the mail-bot bug is useless crap. :wink:

827

I like how Oleg & Tatiana are starting to realizing that the “mountains of intelligence” they’re getting from the mail-bot bug is useless crap.

Well said! “I wanted a Payday and got a $100,000 bar”…who among us hasn’t been cheated by a vending machine at some point along the way?

I also like how Oleg seems to follow American sports…one one episode last year, he talked about Washington Capitals tickets, and he was up on the USFL in this episode as well. Pretty amusing.

828

Oleg seems to be up on all kinds of American culture. I seem to remember another incident where he showed himself knowledgeable about some other American cultural item.

The most interesting thing for me in watching this epi was the realization that I didn’t care about anything in this epi except for two things - Paige and Martha. Those are the only two plot lines that interest me in the slightest.

The key moment of the evening? It was Paige’s crummy attitude. If I was her father, my first reaction would be … well … I come from a different time I guess. Corporal punishment of kids is really not a good thing.

But at the very least, I would sit her down and tell her that her kind of defiant, disobedient behavior was simply not acceptable. But how would I back that up?

Again, I want to suggest the best thing for P&E to do would be to run a game on Paige. They do that so successfully. They have so much experience with it. P got Martha to believe he was an American security expert. P got Analise to believe he was a Swedish diplomat. E got that couple (Maurice and I forget her name) to believe she is just another member of AA but for some reason she can get lots and lots of money for info about Northrup. (That is the right company isn’t it?)

Anyway, I think they have done that sort of thing before as well. They can set up an illusion and convince people that some ridiculous proposition is true. Then, they seal it with something fearful so if the target tells anyone about it, something terrible will happen to them.

So why don’t they do the same thing to Paige? They need to get her to get into line. She came into their bedroom and asked what they were talking about. So they told her. Then she just turned her back and walked out and ignored them asking her to come back. What a little snot!

Why not bring in another KGB agent who speaks perfect English and make Paige believe he is an FBI agent investigating her parents and about to arrest them. And the only way he won’t arrest them is if Paige does something that if found out, would get her life in prison. If they pull it off, Paige will rush to defend her parents and commit any kind of treasonable act to save them. Then, for the rest of her life, she will be terrified to open her mouth about anything for fear they will all wind up in prison for life. Even better, why not make Paige believe they already have some evidence that she has already done something that will get her a huge prison sentence and a felony record. She will never get a good job and etc. OK. That may be going a bit too far. But I doubt she’d figure that she could just hire a lawyer and get off. After all, who would pay for her lawyer? Her parents? Not likely.

I’d love to see that happen. Paige is just getting “too big for her britches” … so to speak. What a snotty attitude she has developed!

829

One thing I don’t get. Why is visiting the USSR such a big deal for the Jennings? They are travel agents for fucks sakes. The Sovs used to plead for tourists. All they have to do is book a ticket for some group or say its a recce trip for checking out potential. … and get the KGB to help and meet families.

830

I’m still watching, since there’s nothing else on I’m interested in at that time. And out of deference to the very ardent fans here, I’ll keep my opinions of the show’s shortcomings to myself.

But I do have one question that some of you guys who take detailed notes may be able to answer: Did anyone from the FBI tell Martha that John-Boy’s pen was bugged?

My recollection of her first interview was that the examiner asked her questions about all kinds of office supplies, and never told her that it was his pen that was bugged, or even that the investigation is about a bug – for all most of the office knows, they’re trying to find out how an important document went missing, or something. AFAIK, only Stan, John-Boy, and Token know that the pen was bugged, and I assume the examiner would swear them to secrecy on that point.

If so, Clark telling Martha to practice saying “I have no idea who put the bug in the pen” might be what nails her.

831

The only reason I can think of is that they don’t want the US government to be able to find any connection whatever between the Jennings and the USSR. Given what we’ve learned about the US’s surveillance of its own citizens, it’s not unlikely that anyone who traveled to the USSR got put on some kind of watch list.

832

I can’t believe we missed it -all season long it’s been in front of us: Granny is coming.

More than anything in her life Paige craves family context; Granny will bond Paige to the motherland.

What a beautiful set up. Blog post coming later >>>>>>

833

But Granny is dying very soon according to Gabriel. How could she be well enough to travel to the United States? I do think Paige is going to meet her grandmother, but I’m not sure how yet.

Kind of a filler episode this week, but I did enjoy Paige’s interrogation of her parents.

834

I will try one last time to suggest P&E should run a game on Paige. The real Granny doesn’t have to travel to the USA. They could just get a fake Granny and present her to Paige as the real one. Surely the KGB has some lady working for them (or retired) who could handle that assignment.

835

“Granny” as in Philip & Elizabeth’s former handler played by Margo Martindale, not “Granny” as in Elizabeth’s mother.

836

Ha! I think either is absolutely possible. And they might even keep us guessing about that for one more week.

The thing about real granny is all we know is there won’t be many more cassette tapes - that’s all we have on timescale. Terminally ill people travel all the time with cancer. It’s doable within the context we know.

And so is Margo Martindale showing up …

I’m guessing they both will.

837

I don’t see them running any kind of game on Paige…I’m not sure she believes anything they would say anyway…and I don’t think P and E (or at least P) would be up for that. Plus, it would have to be extremely elaborate, and that would be too risky.

Paige’s attitude is understandable…in fact, I like it. She’s just found out her life is a complete sham…how would you feel?

By the way, I joked about this earlier…but Paige is no dummy, and she now has INCREDIBLE leverage over her parents. P and E need to be extremely careful.

Also, someone earlier posed the idea of P playing Gabriel…I think that is correct. I love it when P gets in Gabriel’s face.

838

My thought was that Elizabeth would take Paige to the USSR which would make for a very interesting story. They could take a legitimate trip to Europe and then have agents sneak them to Russia and back for a few days when they are visiting Berlin or something. Paige (and Elizabeth) will see first hand for better or worse what Russia is like in the early 80’s, i.e. a shit hole. Maybe the hypocrisy of the government will become apparent.

I am also on board with being surprised that The Center didn’t have some kind of plan as for what they should do when the kids figure out what is going on. Maybe they thought that the ruse could be kept up forever.

839

That was my thought too. Wasn’t Paige asking to go on an international trip with her church earlier this season? Perhaps the church trip will be their cover.

840

Wasn’t she looking through the window when they discovered it?