I enjoyed the season as a whole… but I have to say I enjoyed the early seasons more where there was more of a mix of espionage with emotional stuff. The balance has tilted drastically away from the action and excitement this season. It’s still excellent, one of the best shows on TV, but it’s not as much pure fun as it used to be.
I did love Elizabeth’s little confrontation with Tuan. “You are bourgeois and weak.” “You are going to die alone.” Zingers back and forth!
Tuan-True believer mentality coupled with youthful impetuousness. Elizabeth is right thinking it’s going to get him killed.
Renee-Maybe the is-she-or-isn’t-she thing is not going to be resolved, just to remind folks that in this business you don’t always get all the answers. v
Can anybody with more historical knowledge than me relate the significance of the titular “Soviet Division”? Was this a real life thing?
I saw it as “you are bourgeois and weak.” “You’re going to break and not just compromise, but destroy your mission in a giant pile of crap, because you don’t have what it takes. Especially not on your own.”
But really, I think even Tuan was shocked at how much blood there was. And I don’t think he thought through what would have happened if his parents had been late or hadn’t gone upstairs. (And yes, if teenage boys needlessly dying is a bourgeois concern… I’ll proudly be bourgeois.)
I’m assuming that the importance of the “Soviet Division” is that now, Kimmy’s dad’s job will be entirely about the USSR. So instead of those tapes maybe having a crumb or two of information - they will chock full of useful conversations. They now have a tape recorder spying on the head of spies. That’s not something that you give up. (Maybe they could work out something where Tuan is Kimmy’s new best friend/boyfriend 
).
I’m also wondering how do they get Brad & Dee & Tuan out of there - wouldn’t it raise suspicion? “Hi, we’re your new best friends who moved in right after you did. And the second that you moved back to Russia, we moved out of our house instantly - no forwarding address.” wouldn’t that make his bodyguards (who noticed something with Philip) check something out? Maybe?
Also, Martha’s getting an un-sucky ending. Gabriel has (indirectly) done what he could for both her and Mischa to put them in place for something good.
I doubt they would take a chance at paying them direct when they could just send clients their way.
This was a quiet finale. I felt awful for Henry to see his dream crushed like that. I hope he gets to go to the school.
Glad Martha got a happy ending to her story That kid was adorable.
Right on the money, thirdname. Henry’s reaction to being denied boarding school should tell you that his anger would be ten times that if he were confronted with being unwillingly relocated to the Soviet Union.
For all of the “where’s Henry” mockery of the early seasons, it’s clear that of the two Jennings children, Henry is much more driven than Paige. He seems to know where he wants to go in life and how to get there. In addition, I think he’s much more in tune with the idea of being an American than Paige. In the first season, he was all geeked up about seeing an American astronaut speak at his school. Now he’s showing interest in the FBI, and he wrote a glowing paper about his visit to Stan’s office, complete with the patriotic flourish of how the FBI is “protecting and serving our country, etc”.
Meanwhile Paige is reading the works of Karl Marx. I think she’d be fine living wherever he parents take her.
Henry?? No way is he going to accept living in the USSR…and I’m getting more convinced he’s going to be the key character in the series’ final season.
It didn’t occur to me until last night’s episode that there is a potential parallel between Pascha and Henry. Pascha is the angry, unhappy young man that Henry would become if the Jennings abruptly uprooted the family and moved to Russia.
I can’t think of a way that Tuan would be involved with the Jennings next year, but I hope he comes back. Not because I like him (I have resolutely changed my mind about him), but because after his speech I want to that self-righteous little prig to find himself smack in the middle of a gunfight with the FBI alongside the Jennings. That way, Philip and Elizabeth can kick ass while that smug know-it-all cringes and cowers and cries for his mommy. “Petty bourgeois concerns” - Tuan, you’re lucky Elizabeth didn’t beat your skinny ass to death there and then.
I am glad to see Martha is going to get some happiness in her life. But…it’s Martha; poor, hapless Martha. Somehow I see this as set up for yet another crushing disappointment next year.
Where was Oleg? Did I miss a scene?
Calling nearwildheaven – great use of R.E.M.! Their 1984 song “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” was playing at low volume, as Kimmy and her friends were smoking pot. I can attest that that was the PERFECT song for that time, place, and situation.
Trust me on this one. 
Elizabeth was more amused than hurt by Tuan’s outburst since he is her 20 years ago, a true believer, someone who will not stand from deviations from “the right path”. Tuan is an Elizabeth-sans-her life experience.
One thing has not been noted. Elizabeth grew up in Smolensk. It was on the invasion route that Army Group Center took and suffered greatly at the hands of the Germans, especially with Einsatzgruppen. So like Tuan, she has good reason to distrust the West. Philip came from Siberia, which was spared the war, at least directly and in fact saw quite a lot of development as Soviet Industry relocated there to avoid the Luftwaffe.
Oh Renee! Girls got game
I hope not. I experienced the scene as a true grace note for Martha.
In the USA she had little chance for motherhood, as adoption agencies notoriously prefer to award children to married couples. In the USSR, Martha has the chance for which she’s waited all these years.
To be fair Elizabeth would probably kidnap, torture, and murder Reagan before doing the laundry.
Agreed. Sans life partner too; which is key. Phillip may’ve gotten pissed off at Tuan, but Elizabeth was genuinely trying to help him with her advice.
Well she did tell Gabriel earlier that her tutor kept trying to set her up with men, but none were “suitable”. So it sure looks like the Centre decided since getting her a husband didn’t work maybe a child would be a good way to keep her happy (it’s sure the perfect way to keep her in line).
Just an update on the timeline: The “bombing in five minutes” was in August 1984, so this episode took place in autumn of that year, I think.
Gorbachev will take power in March 1985. He will talk about various reforms throughout 1985, but perestroika won’t be officially launched until March 1986, and glásnost will get going well after that – late 1987, I think.
Really took me out of it at the start, to think that their covers would hold up to a CIA investigation following the suicide attempt. Or, maybe the CIA just mailed it in, and didn’t care who the mixed family was that was banging on the front door immediately before the attempt was discovered. :rolleyes:
Elizabeth’s advice to Tuan, to ask his bosses to send him a partner/bedwarmer is probably the classiest “you need to get laid” I have ever seen.
That’s helpful.
I guess the big question is do they jump forward for the final season, and if so to when …
I agree that’s left a bit vague. The flight attendant family is the Morozov’s only friends, as far as we can tell, and presumably not a secret from the CIA. Are they confident that the CIA will only do a cursory background check into them? Presumably their covers will fall apart instantly… (Obviously the potential suicide just makes the matter more critical.)
Hang on, though. What suspicion would that raise? Would they really think, not only of the baroque scheme that Tuan came up with, but the “bourgeois concern” Philip had? If not, it makes no sense for these friends to be there for anything but coincidental reasons. And the “cover story” (that Pascha was simply suicidal because he is having such a tough time in the U.S. and wants to return home) is airtight.
Maybe it would. But then what would they do about it? The whole family would be “on the wind” by that point.
Indeed.
And I do assume Henry will get to go to the school now.
If they had taken him to the USSR, I wonder how it would have gone down once he reached the age of majority and glasnost freed people of travel restrictions. Couldn’t he have bolted for the American embassy? Or maybe even do that before becoming an adult?
One aspect of it that wasn’t clear is that Philip talked about telling him right *before *crossing the border. Was that meant to imply that he would be given a choice? Like, “if you want to never see us again and basically live as an orphan, not to mention being interrogated intensely by the FBI and being unable to pass any future background check, you don’t have to go with us”? Otherwise, why wouldn’t they wait until *after *crossing the border?
Heh, Matthew Rhys said when he read the script, he kept looking for the stage direction (Elizabeth shoots Tuan in the head.)
Nah, I think they are taking mercy on her. I even think people have mostly misinterpreted her apartment scene, because middle class Americans in 2017 are so used to an insanely high standard of living.
Oleg, sadly, did not appear in this episode.
That transformed Martha’s life in a single sentence. In fact you could see it in her face - marvelous actor. I know it’s pathetic of me but I really want her to have a life worth living
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was inspired! No fan of Elton John but at least it’s his only good period … and to Elizabeth looking over her wardrobe, shoes and kitchen white goods …
Somewhat belatedly, the point of the defecting family would seem to be to provide a warning to the Jennings’, esp. when your teenage son doesn’t fit into the world you force him to join you in.
Did anyone else think Paige parked that car where she did on purpose, not just in that location but taking that route back to it; confident or over-confident, the girl is literally tempting fate …
Sad as it is, do we need to see Ollie to know his fate, perhaps we will anyway at some point.
Damn, that was a proper tease with Renee, did Stan’s radar tweak or is he still the same old dumbass cluelessly surrounded by spies!
Cynical! But, sure. And it does make emotional sense: a man they’d try to fix her up with is highly unlikely to be a true love match–but a tiny child might well genuinely come to love her and regard her as her mother. (And after all, a happier Martha might eventually attract a man who hasn’t been assigned to be with the American defector.)