I guess it depends on how long your “ultimately” timeline is. I would say the rise of Gorbachev was a big move in the other direction for several years.
As I see it, the Mischa storyline is letting us know that the series will end with Philip as a hero of the Soviet Union. Possibly a dead hero, but possibly a live hero who returns to find that his status earns him a medal but nothing more. In that case, the series ends with the man who came to realize how good his family had it in America ironically sharing cabbage soup with all of his kids in a dimly-lit Moscow flat.
I tend to think that he will wind up dead, and the irony will be that he’s a dead hero because Elizabeth (who, let’s face it, is a sociopath) killed him to stop him from defecting, before taking the kids back to Russia to live as a family under his name.
For what it’s worth, I think she’s proposing shutting their operation down and going home (and talking up the romantic idea of living happily ever after there) so that Philip’s midlife crisis doesn’t reach the point of jeopardizing the mission such that she has to kill him.
I still don’t think Phillip wants to go home. He had a shitty life in the Soviet Union, he has an awesome life in the US - why would he go back?
I think he’s sick of being a killer for the KGB. As much as he likes the US, I think he’d rather have a cushy desk job in Moscow.
Tuan concerns me. He said he left his post so that he could call his sick foster brother. Then he says he has no trouble driving a classmate to slitting his wrists. He’s a liar and I suspect he really wants to defect.
Does he think he’ll actually get one of those though? It’s got to be in the back of his mind that he’s most likely to get a bullet in the back of his head because He Knows Too Much.
We, as viewers, know that’s not likely - but Phillip & Elizabeth just iced someone and a completely innocent party for a decades-old incident that, even if it went down the way The Centre said it did (and it probably didn’t) still doesn’t really justify tracking that person down 30 years later in a different country to extract revenge.
If I was Phillip I’d be worried the same thing might happen to me if I outlived my usefulness - so “retiring” to the USSR and expecting to put my feet up on a desk in Moscow would be pretty low on the “to-do” list, IMO.
I thought taking a bustwo states away to make a phone call to a sick adoptive brother seemed a bit far fetched. Heading across DC - or even into Maryland or Virginia - and using a payphone somewhere would have been more than enough to cover his tracks. I do wonder what he’s up to - he seems like a shifty character, who’s on his own a lot and probably has his own plans that Phillip & Elizabeth aren’t part of.
Thanks for that 
I wouldn’t knowingly watch either of those films. Fwiw, I’m a socialist who enjoys high quality drama. I’m not politically invested in this story at all, though I would like the marriage to survive and prosper.
Absolutely. I guess if you’re portraying the demise of an entire empire - obliquely- then it will be more persuasive if you have a few story strands; the wheat fiasco, Oleg’s Shakespearean demise, disillusioned Gabriel leaving his post, Misha’s Afghanistan ‘mental illness’ and being refused access to his father, the agriculture secretary taking the fall for superiors, investigation into superiors thwarted by senior Committee members …
He def went rogue with the wrist slashing.
Awesome life in the U.S.? Really? Did you miss all the scenes at est, or staring deadeyed in the mirror?
I don’t know what you’re getting out of those scenes but it’s clear to me that what he’s getting out of them is he doesn’t want to be a KGB henchman anymore and he doesn’t believe in the Soviet bullshit and propaganda. He just wants to be left alone to live a quite life. His best chance to do that does NOT include going back to mother Russia. Perhaps it’s not even remaining in the US. He’s a travel agent. He can maybe find a way to disappear in the world. Now, that may not be entirely realistic, but I’m betting he’d choose a chance to be free than to return.
So, the season finale … surely there has to be a pay off with Renee, and Ollie, and Tuan … and maybe even a montage: Memory lane The Americans 1x13 - Games Without Frontiers - YouTube
Exactly. Given he grew up in a family where two filthy potatoes was considered a feast, random muddy shoes being found was like winning Lotto, and part of his KGB training involved having to have sex with a guy, I just can’t see him thinking “You know what? I hate having a huge house and a sportscar and being able to eat whatever I want and having a computer and a colour TV and travelling for work.”
Elizabeth definitely still thinks of Russia as “home” and tolerates the decadence of the West because it’s part of her job and believes in what they’re trying to do for the Soviet Union to make things better there. Phillip doesn’t buy the PR anymore and is basically realising he doesn’t want to do what he has to do anymore either.
It would not surprise me if one of the upcoming series is about Phillip trying to work out how to extricate himself and the kids from the clusterfuck they’re in without things going spectacularly pear-shaped.
I don’t think the US is what’s making his life miserable…it’s the work he’s doing for the KGB. There is evidence that Phillip is in reality attracted to American life and the freedom it offers. In fact, it was referenced in the first episode of the series, when he proposed to defect. I think the line was something like “…and we know the electricity will work”. Plus, he certainly seemed to enjoy the ride home after he bought the Camaro (hope I have the car right…not sure).
The idea of Tuan defecting is interesting. I agree he’s a bold-faced liar, so I can see where his entire story is a sham. Could be working for the US?
As far as the story arc goes it will be interesting to know whether Stan Beeman will ever find out his neighbor, double date friend and raquetball partner is a KGB spy who killed his partner–and what his reaction will be.
Or has he known all along? He certainly had suspicions in the series’ first episode.
We’ve covered a lot of ground since the pilot.
He did, but then he was shown shaking his head at his paranoia when the trunk was all cleaned up. I don’t think he has had the slightest suspicion ever since. He certainly would not have encouraged Matthew and Paige to date if he had.
They got the mother of his oldest son (forget her name) when she tried that. But yeah, maybe. Not like life as a fugitive from the KGB would be the same as just retiring in St. Kitts without a care in the world. And I think he has more fondness for his homeland than you are giving him credit for.
But in any event, I was specifically responding to a claim that “he has an awesome life in the US”. Present tense. Not “he *seemed *to, back in the pilot” or “he could, if he didn’t have to work for the KGB”. And certainly not “he could have an awesome life in some third country”. “Has.” “In the US.” And I don’t see that at all.
Query whether the travel agency actually makes any legitimate money, or if the Jennings’ nice lifestyle is funded mostly by KGB payments of some kind.
I was a little amused at Philip, in answering Paige’s question, trying to talk around the fact that the “Philip Jennings” name was (presumably) taken from a dead baby. He’s like Casper the Friendly Ghost!
Tom Tildrum wrote: “Query whether the travel agency actually makes any legitimate money, or if the Jennings’ nice lifestyle is funded mostly by KGB payments of some kind.”
That is an interesting question. Probably mostly legit, maybe they’ve got some lucrative contracts but they’ve got to be on the up and up in order to avoid scrutiny, which they could not afford, by the IRS. And the KGB would have to be very discrete even funneling business their way. And given the time that it takes to make a small business run, not to mention parental duties, it certainly wouldn’t leave much time for spy stuff. Maybe they were given a certain amount of time to get established before they were “activated”. But now they have to have employees, who can’t all be KGB types, if indeed any of them are, who are saying to each other, “Hey, where’s the boss today?”
To quote another spy, who ran a small business as a tailor, “I find it best not to dwell on such minutia.”
I think Philip and Elizabeth got a message that just disappearing isn’t much of an option – the Center won’t stop looking for you, even if it takes 40 years.
No pay off at all with Renee or Oleg, but I did enjoy Elizabeth’s advice to Tuan. And the Jennings are staying put for now, which is good because I think Henry might’ve succeeded where Pascha failed.
Yep…not much of a payoff at all…but still an interesting finale that sets up some intriguing possibilities for the final season.
The main thing about this episode that was striking: I’m beginning to wonder if Phil and Liz deep down do not want to return to the Soviet Union. Every time they discuss it, it’s almost as if they are trying to convince themselves it’s what they want to do. One great point I read in a separate review of the episode…you’d think P and E would be ecstatic at returning to their homeland, but whenever the subject comes up, they seem to be more subdued at the prospect than anything else. . They certainly don’t seem to excited about it.
Also revealing was the scene with Elizabeth gazing at her surroundings…the nice house, with the beautiful living room…the well stocked closet full of dresses and shoes. Certainly looked to me like she was thinking “Wow, am I really going to miss living like an American!”
I think it’s also plausible that they know how hard it would be to take Paige and Henry away from the lives they’ve known. Although I will say, it would have been fun to see how that European trip would have played out. I can see it now, just as they nearing the Soviet border…“uh, by the way Henry…your life in the US? Your boarding school dreams, your girlfriend…forget it, it’s over. We’re taking you to the Soviet Union…start learning your Russian, kid”. Good luck getting him to go along with that.
In fact, speaking of Henry, I’m still thinking there’s a chance he will be the one who somehow unravels everything.
One can always hope, anyway.
That was definitely the vibe they presented there. But I think we also saw that they truly are dedicated to their country and their mission, that they would feel like traitors to give up an opportunity like the “Soviet division”.
Some other notes I jotted down while watching:
What a great idea, to make the one Russian dude take a polygraph. And as I thought, he is probably just what he seems to be (I know Oleg helped Nina beat the polygraph, but was it “with flying colors” like this guy?), a future member of the Russian mafia.
OTOH, I’m less inclined than before to think that Renee is “just a woman from the gym”. But the stuff she said could be interpreted in an innocent way, so I’m holding out hope.
Awesome to see Martha again. I’m glad to see they are continuing to try to do right by her, and adopting that cute little girl is a great idea.
I read James Michener’s Space, that Elizabeth was reading in bed. Fun read, but it got me all messed up as to the actual names of the historical astronauts. I decided after that if I was going to read historical fiction (as opposed to non-historical fiction or just straight nonfiction history), I’d rather it be more of the type that fleshes things out in the background but doesn’t actually change stuff–unless it’s more along the lines of obvious “what if…?” alt-history.
I don’t know why P&E seem to think that Henry will accept living in Russia at all. He would hate them for the rest of his life.
It seems to me like the best thing to do for Henry is to let him go off to the boarding school so he will become more independent of his parents and be more prepared for when they leave. (Or if they’re caught.) Wait a couple more years, Henry’s in boarding school and Paige is an adult possibly off in college. Then go home and leave the kids in America to live their own lives.
Leave a trust fund for the kids. Fake a near-death experience and have a heart-to-heart conversation with Stan and ask him to look after the kids if anything happens to P&E. Hope that with Stan’s morals and affection for the kids, he will try to get the government to go easy on them and not take all the money away after he finds out about Philip’s betrayal of him.
Maybe fake their deaths, if they think they can get away with that.
Establish a KGB channel to get letters to and from Paige so they can keep in touch, after the FBI heat cools off.
The Jennings would kidnap, torture and murder Reagan and Chernenko, before abandoning their children.
And I think a return to the USSR is being planned. We saw Misha/Phil’s brother a few episodes ago. With Oleg’s scenes in Russia, I will say this, in real life the people who did the best out of the fall were ex-KGB types. They became billionaires and I hear one or two did well in politics. Philip and Elizabeth return to Russia and become multi millionaires. With homes in Moscow, a big Dacha on the Black Sea and flats in London and the Riviera?