Quicksilver posted:** I liked the show okay up until last season. Now I just want everybody to be outed, arrested and to die disillusioned in Guantanamo prison. Except Oleg. He’s a good guy.**
I quite agree. After that last scene with Liz and Paige walking in the park, I was thinking “wait…they are ending the episode with this?”
As for Oleg, he’s the only one in this series–American or Russian–worth rooting for. Although I would give a thumbs up to Henry were he to figure out what’s going on and rat out mom and pop to Stan.
One last point…Phillip looks ridiculous in that pilot’s getup. It makes me laugh every time I see it. Even funnier was the preview when he’s in that costume and ramming Tuan into the wall.
I liked that last scene with Paige & Elizabeth.
I found it kind of bittersweet. (not sure that’s the right word). There’s this woman who is smart, resourceful, dedicated, strong, and really wants to do good in the world and it got directed in a weird, weird way. I found it interesting that she’s able to understand people almost instinctively and figure out how to get them to do what she wants - and she almost completely lacks the ability to comfort people (so much that even her daughter knows it). It’s not that she doesn’t want to help people (she does want to; from her perspective she’s helping the world in the best way she can), she just can’t connect to people like that - probably partially because of her upbringing, partially just personality. Elizabeth isn’t a “nice” person. A lot of people seem to think that means she isn’t a caring person, but the two aren’t the same.
I’m surprised by how many plotlines have ended with a thud. Mischa spent countless scenes seeking his father only to give up and go home. Gabriel decided to retire without giving a clear answer why. Elizabeth stole records for the Committee on Human Rights but it looks like we won’t hear about that again.
I think the writers are trying to spread one season of plot across two seasons.
If this was the first season of the show, I’d stop watching.
Agree, but I have seen a lot of well-intentioned people who have really lousy people skills - never known a ‘difficult’ nurse or teacher; caring and, say, high functioning autism are not mutually exclusive.
My impression is the relationship between mother and daughter has developed exponentially, which may or may not reflect that time when a daughter first takes control of her personal relationship. I don’t think it’s coincidental that this ep was written by a woman. In the whole 5 seasons I don’t think I’ve seen Elizabeth reveal as much of herself as she has in the last two epi’s.
Also, E isn’t preparing her daughter for ‘the family business’ she’s teaching her to not be afraid as a modern woman, whether in relationships or on the street.
I hear the views expressed here about the show - agree the balance has now shifted, it isn’t really a spy show anymore. We used to get a killing every week or so, is the count one this season?
Really, if you want the spy stuff, maybe leave now because this show is now about an early middle aged couple slowly coming to the end of their career and maybe just getting a hint of that themselves, having their life-long beliefs challenged and dealing with that, and with their teenage children.
Quite soon now, the kids will be at college, and the mother country they think they know will be gone …
I don’t believe any of these plotlines are over. Maybe on the backburner, but certainly they will be returned to before the season ends.
As for Gabriel, while he hasn’t given a clear rationale to Philip and Elizabeth for leaving, undoubtedly the tipping point for him was his intervention with Mischa. Gabriel has spent the better part of his life, more than half a century, fighting for a cause he believes was benefiting the good of all mankind. When he came face to face with a kid who simply wanted to make a human connection with his father, he could no longer deny the reality that what he’s doing is horrible. I think that’s why he told Philip (but not Elizabeth) that Paige should be kept out of it. Philip already has one kid whose life has been hopelessly ruined by the system, he doesn’t want to see Philip losing another kid to it.
My assumption has been that Gabriel’s return to the USSR was ordered. I wouldn’t think someone in that position gets to decide for himself that he’s hanging it up. Or at least would not face a happy welcome if he did so.
Renee being CIA and conducting espionage in the US would be entirely illegal, and this is taking place soon enough after the Church Committee so as to leave them skittish enough not to risk exposure of a domestic operation, particularly against the FBI.
I can see that’s where they were trying to achieve with that scene, and really every interaction between those two characters. But neither of them seems to be able to act when in a scene together. It’s just painful to watch.
That’s funny, because I was thinking that Gabriel, whether he knows it now or not, may be returning to Russia to train Mischa, who showed he has a lot of his father in him in the initiative he took to get so close to finding Phillip. If Gabriel is really adamant about Paige not delving further into the business, he might be able to substitute Mischa and cook up a way that Phillip gets to meet/work with him regularly.
I think all the loose ends are there to be left unresolved because pretty soon the Berlin Wall will fall and Glastnost will orphan the illegals. They will all be out of a job, free to live out their lives as their covers. Philip will rejoice and finally breath, Elizabeth will have a crisis, Paige will remain confused and angsty, and Henry will be left to thrive without knowing anything about the truth of who his parents were.
That would be an interesting end except for the fact that the KGB did have a replacement and the post-Commie government was just as hungry for info as before.
Or nothing at all. The writers first made us suspicious and then Philip. Maybe Stan or his partner get suspicious next and they investigate her only to find that she’s legit. Maybe it’s the investigation that causes problems.
But why would they want to see how he’d take it in the first place? Did they have any reason at all to doubt Stan would want to be as helpful as he could? Is it standard operating procedure for the CIA to (illegally, I’m pretty sure) dedicate resources and agents to spy on and fuck all American FBI agents they intend to debrief? That, despite the fact they already have wonderfully treasonous blackmail burning a hole in their pocket that will do more for them than anything Stan could tell them?
Maybe it is. I’ve been wrong about the show before (but not when the subject is triplexes). But if that’s the road this show is taking, they might as well introduce Stan’s goateed evil twin KGB colonel brother.
My assumption is that there might be doubts about Stan. How much of the nature and extent of his interactions with Nina are known to either the FBI or CIA, hasn’t been made entirely clear (unless I’m forgetting something about that storyline).
If the CIA hoped to make Oleg an asset, continuing cooperation from Stan would obviously be a plus–he and Oleg had a relationship. If Stan’s loyalties are doubted, even in the slightest, the CIA wouldn’t want to make him part of the project; therefore the CIA would want as much information about Stan as possible before moving forward with recruiting Oleg.
The information posted earlier about it being illegal for the CIA to operate in the US, would certainly pose a complication. In real life, wouldn’t there have been intersection between the FBI’s operations with regard to Soviet embassy/diplomatic personnel, and the CIA’s interest in knowing about relationships formed? How could a strict separation of spheres of operation have worked?
I don’t think there have been any hints about anyone doubting Stan’s loyalty. The only thing we’ve seen that’s a problem for Stan is that he basically blackmailed the deputy AG, who is his boss (or his boss’s boss). And that only involves the CIA peripherally. I find it very difficult to believe the deputy AG told the CIA about the FBI’s dirty laundry.
But Stan was never going to be part of that operationally. The only thing the CIA liaison dude who came to Stan and Wolfe was expecting was some professional courtesy. “Anything you can give us about how you gained his confidence, anything we can tell our officers in Moscow?”
I’m inclined to believe Tuan too, but that was an idiotic risk. Also we finally got to see some real payoff from Philip’s assignment with Kimmy. Poor Martha, she’s more or less doing exactly as well I thought she would. And I can just imagine the Centre’s reaction to Henry getting into an elite New England boarding school; Paige could be all but forget about.
Yay, we get to see Martha…as depressing as that scene was, always good to see her. And Kimmy too! And talking about Nina…It’s like old home week on “The Americans.”
Every time I see a scene with Oleg’s parents, I wonder “where did Oleg get the handsome genes?”
Henry’s line “Don’t we want to capitalize on this?” may have been a bit too on the nose, but finally the younger Jennings fits into the overall story in an interesting way. While Paige may have been adrift and searching for a meaning in life, Henry is suddenly seeming very focused and driven toward goals that are VERY different than what their parents have in mind.
I’m thinking that before the season ends, Tuan will begin to seriously doubt his allegiance to the cause and want to leave it. Philip will help, or try to help him get away and start a new life but Elizabeth will intervene and kill Tuan for being a traitor.
Not only would the prep school help burnish Henry’s credentials to potentially become a source (although when would they tell him?), they would no longer have anyone around the house they have to put on a show for. They could save all that for when they go somewhere or have guests over.
The travel agency scene seemed to indicate that they do actually actively run the place. Sheesh, how much can two people do? I was thinking about how long it would take Philip to listen to all the work conversations by Kimmy’s dad, without any voice recognition software to help him get to the juicy parts (I can’t believe he doesn’t fast-forward when it’s a discussion of lunch options).
I enjoyed seeing the phone center lady. But I was unclear on what was going on with that (Eastern Orthodox?) priest. Can anyone else shed light?
