Heads up; The Americans returns for season 5 this coming Tuesday, March 7th 2017. With all that’s going on in the world today I think we can all appreciate being able to distract ourselves from reality with a perion drama set in an era when hostile Russian agents would stop at nothing to infiltrate the highest levels of government & society. Hooray for escapism! 
I quiver with anticipation. (Where did they leave off?)
From memory: Martha exiled in the Soviet Union; Paige seems more eager than ever to join the family trade, or at least get her feet wet.
Gabriel suggested to Philip and Elizabeth that it was time for their mission to end, and for them to go home to the motherland.
Philip’s long-lost son (well, the son he didn’t know he ever had and has never met) was making plans to skulk out of the motherland and, possibly, track him down.
Paige was flirting heavily with Stan’s son, Matthew. Actually they’d gone beyond flirting to making out, much to Philip’s chagrin who demanded Paige not see him.
Elizabeth seemed to be warming up to Pastor Tim. She was, however, not all that impressed with EST.
The Jennings & co. are (I think) unaware that the bug in the Mail Robot has been located.
Dylan Baker’s character was last seen dying after exposing himself to the bacterial agent he was busted trying to smuggle out of the U.S. While it could be presumed he just died, the cutaway in his last scene seemed to suggest that he was just about to reveal important info on the illegals.
Arkady had a new lady-friend, who was being sent to head a residency in African and asked him to go with her.
The Asian couple whom Elizabeth was working on were left dangling.
Martha was found out and shipped off to the U.S.S.R. That’s possibly the last we ever see or hear of her, but the show did depict some of Nina’s life after being shipped out.
Gaad and Nina were both iced.
Henry was as oblivious about everything as ever.
I think you mean Oleg, not Arkady.
In the last episode, Arkady is expelled from the US for taking the rezidentura too far (bugging Gaad’s office, Martha marring a KGB officer, retiring Gaad). He’s given 48 hours to leave the country.
Which means that Oleg’s lady friend, Tatiana, has been ordered to head the Washington rezidentura until Arkady’s replacement arrives, then stay on to smooth the transition. No Kenya for her. Meanwhile, Oleg has asked to be transferred back to Moscow to be with his family.
So they’ve most likely set up a new-look rezidentura for season 5, depending on how much time has passed.
:smack: I forgot that.
Yeah, last year they did a major clean-sweep of numerous long-running plotlines and characters: Nina, Martha, Gaad, Arkady (but fortunately not Oleg). I recall the producers said they envision this series running six seasons, no more. Seems like they’re gearing up for the endgame run of episodes. I expect some serious plot twists to start happening.
Yeah, I can’t remember the last time I saw a show do so much spring cleaning in a season, which makes me think they definitely have a clear direction they want to take with the show. So hopefully that works out for the best.
You mention Oleg, but he’s part of the sweep, ostensibly anyway. I mean, I can see him staying in Washington now that Tatiana has the job (he didn’t know she was staying in Washington when he told Arkady he wanted to go home), but their last scene together seemed final. It also feels like we aren’t going to see him in Russia (at least not in an official capacity) because of how poorly Arkady spoke of KGB work inside Russia. On the other hand, I don’t know anything about season 5, so I’m talking out of my ass.
I liked Oleg as a character, will be sorry if he’s not around.
The Americans Season 5; No longer a period piece.:eek:
Good news, it looks like he’s still going to be part of the plot this season. Also I wasn’t expecting to see “William” again; you’d think the FBI would’ve just cremated him. :dubious: His corpse was looking awfully pink for someone who’s been dead for a few weeks.
Looks like between what Oleg’s doing back in the USSR and what P+E are doing around regarding that defector, that there is an agricultural subtext to at least the early part of the season.
Why do they need to show Oleg in the USSR working in the Soviet anti corruption bureau or whatever. How does it make any narrative sense, unless he too is shortly to have a sudden brain hemmahorage induced by a 9mm?
How did they know precisely where William was buried? For a show that is usually meticulously careful about things like that, it seemed like a bit out of the blue.
I’m very interested in the new storyline with Tuan and the Russian family. Was it clear to anyone whether that Russian family was defectors, or legitimately posted in the USA on diplomatic business? I thought it was the second, but the AV club review called them defectors.
I assume that will connect back to the Russian family in the USA, given that both relate to agriculture. Seems unlikely that we’ll just have a season of Oleg storyline totally unconnected to anything else, although I do like the actor quite a bit.
I thought that they were working with the Department of Agriculture - some kind of official technical exchange. (And the AV club gets things wrong fairly frequently).
The food comparisons were interesting (there were a ton of scenes of food being purchased, prepared, and served). I am interested to see what they do with Oleg there.
The passport line looked like the costumes had come from a turn of the century period piece. It was striking.
How about those over sized military hats?
I’m thinking the family was legitimately posted the US, but the father decided to defect after they got here. I would explain how the whole family got out. Also did anyone else notice that the guy fell into the grave and Elizabeth shot was Hans (the South African agent she’s been training)? I didn’t notice until the encore showing.
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They’re still wearing them (as of some recent footage relating to the assassination of Kim Jong Un’s brother) in North Korea. Apparently they believe it’s an impressive look (as opposed to a comic look). I think they’re wrong, but it’s their dictatorship!
I don’t believe it was explained, but the showrunners may assume we will assume that Gabriel bought or extorted or tricked the exact coordinates out of someone who possessed them.
If the show isn’t intended to last all the way to the break-up of the Soviet Union, presumably that approaching end will at least be established as inevitable. And to do that, some storylines set in the USSR itself would be essential (I would think). Oleg’s experiences will, perhaps, reflect themes familiar to historians of that political upheaval. For example, we’re already seeing a lot of references to the privations suffered by the population so that the USSR government can continue prioritizing its dwindling budget on the military and on espionage.
(I have some hope that Martha may come into Oleg’s story; she is there, after all.)
I had just assumed the guy who drove up to them in the car was someone with inside intel. Probably a low-level worker at the base, but who kept his ear to the ground. Undoubtedly, he wasn’t supposed to know about the burial site, but that’s something I imagine that - as hush hush a deal as it was - still got whispered and gossiped about at the base. Certainly, workers wouldn’t talk about it to people outside the base (unless they were spies, of course), but somebody might say “Hey! You wanna hear something really messed up? Y’know why we’ve been told not to go over to that stretch of woods behind the base…”)
Alas, poor Hans. You were such a good and loyal trainee to Elizabeth. Here’s a surprise bullet in the back of your head for all your troubles. You don’t even get your own coffin! You have to share a space with sad-sack William for all eternity! You wont even get a stamp like William did.
Watching this episode, I got a weird idea for an “Americans/Stranger Things” crossover, with the Jennings taking in Eleven and busting into the base to cross over to the Upside Down, and Wynona Ryder getting in Keri Russell’s face and yelling “FUCK YOU FELICITY!”
To be fair it was kill him now or let him live and start a pandemic.
When they showed that brief Fargo promo with the couple in the diner, I thought it was Philip and Elizabeth in costume at first.