# The Americans: Season 6 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 28, 2018, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379 "2018-03-28T22:50:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/161 "2018-04-13T18:24:39Z")
At the end of the last season, E told Tuan that if he didn’t find a partner, he’d get killed. Now E has no partner, and due to bad luck, she’s had some close scrapes. P should have been there, but he has his own crises. Now E needs to get into a secured warehouse. I predict that she’s going to enlist Paige as her partner, and that something terrible is going to happen. Maybe Stan and Aderholt are going to visit the warehouse to investigate the colonel’s death? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/162 "2018-04-13T18:26:58Z")
I would find that too coincidental (he was a general by the time he died, BTW). He had access to many things, not just those sensors. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/163 "2018-04-13T19:47:38Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I agree though that the Centre would not want them to go bankrupt. (That’s embarrassing for Philip though.) Whether they care about Henry’s schooling is another matter. They don’t seem to have plans to recruit him. This has been rankling me for quite a while. Why _wouldn’t_ the Centre want to recruit Henry? There has been a great deal of discussion about inducing Paige since before she even knew about her parents’ real occupation. And even after she RATTED HER PARENTS OUT TO PASTOR TIM, she was still being “groomed”, while Henry was almost forgotten. Why is there so much focus on getting Paige into the business while Henry is ignored? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/164 "2018-04-13T20:03:42Z")
They don’t believe that Henry is capable to do the job. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/165 "2018-04-13T20:32:14Z")
The scenes around the zharkoye didn’t make sense. Claudia and Elizabeth were cooking it in secret, and then Elizabeth told Phil that, although she knew it was not allowed, that she had smuggled the tuppewrware full out just for him. He took a bite and then Elizabeth dumped the supposedly incriminating food down the disposal. It is a simple stew of beef, carrots, onion and garlic. How incriminating could it have been? ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/166 "2018-04-13T21:12:22Z")
Philip ate one bite of the _zharkoye_ and then went back to his Chinese food and business concerns. The scene tells us how far he’s turned his back on Russia, and that Elizabeth knows it. I bet she’s upset. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/167 "2018-04-13T21:25:15Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > This has been rankling me for quite a while. Why _wouldn’t_ the Centre want to recruit Henry? There has been a great deal of discussion about inducing Paige since before she even knew about her parents’ real occupation. And even after she RATTED HER PARENTS OUT TO PASTOR TIM, she was still being “groomed”, while Henry was almost forgotten. Why is there so much focus on getting Paige into the business while Henry is ignored? It’s a fair question, and just saying that Henry isn’t smart enough isn’t by itself a persuasive answer since they’ve clearly recruited other children regardless of the problems that have resulted. I think the real answer is that Paige fits better into the narrative of the story (and is the better actress), and by focusing on her instead of both children it avoids any kind of comparisons between how they are treated, but quite frankly even allowing the Jennings to have children (which would divide their loyalties to the state and make them more likely to defect) much less trying to use untrained and unconditioned children in active spying roles really doesn’t make any practical sense. It makes for good dramatic tension and conflict, but it isn’t logical, and exposing Paige on active operations that any trained operative could do better is nonsensical if they want to use her in a deep embedded position within the US government. You just kind of have to let this plotline go as it will and accept it without questioning it too much. > [@LH75](#): > > The scenes around the zharkoye didn’t make sense. Claudia and Elizabeth were cooking it in secret, and then Elizabeth told Phil that, although she knew it was not allowed, that she had smuggled the tuppewrware full out just for him. He took a bite and then Elizabeth dumped the supposedly incriminating food down the disposal. It is a simple stew of beef, carrots, onion and garlic. How incriminating could it have been? I don’t think the zharkoye was really the issue; it was, both for Philip and Elizabeth, and for the viewers, a conflict between loyalty to the old ways (a homemade peasant stew) and adoption of the new (Chinese takeout). Like many marital disputes, it played out over an issue of no consequence. Anyway, Stan wouldn’t know zharkoye from Dinty Moore. What I did find curious was Philip’s comments about how they might be able to eat zharkoye openly now that there was a Pizza Hut opening in Moscow? Has he convinced himself that if political tensins cool that he and his family will be able to live openly as former Russian spies? They’ve pulled off enough shit that they couldn’t even defect without consequences (and really, how much do they have to offer in exchange for immunity? That the KGB is running an Illegals program?) and if the Soviet Union flips to acquiesence, the first thing it is going to do is try to eliminate evidence that they were ever running an active ‘wet’ operations program on American soil, which would put the Jennings family at extreme risk. Philip has really bought into the American mindset, but he can’t really believe that they’re going to get a second act if they lose KGB support (as the viewers have the foresight to know will happen). I think things are not going to go well for Philip in particular. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/168 "2018-04-13T21:59:50Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > … What I did find curious was Philip’s comments about how they might be able to eat zharkoye openly now that there was a Pizza Hut opening in Moscow? Has he convinced himself that if political tensins cool that he and his family will be able to live openly as former Russian spies? I don’t think so. But he might be envisioning staying in the West, even if not in their “Jennings” lives. He might be picturing picking up stakes and moving to Canada using identities they’ve concocted themselves. Because as you imply, the KGB would be highly unlikely to just let both Elizabeth and Philip ‘retire,’ no matter how chummy the USSR and USA might become. And defecting is even less likely to work out well for them. It does seem clear that Philip has no intention of willingly returning to the USSR, while Elizabeth is longing to do so. But of course the showrunners will have other plans for them. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/169 "2018-04-13T22:25:45Z")
Until this season, all those discussions about whether to retire and where to retire were coloured by the children. We’ve moved on from that pretty smartly, as I guess is appropriate given the jump. The talk now is of the future of US-Soviet relations while the subtext is of course the marriage itself. Even the offer of food can be seen in that light. I found myself wondering when these two last had sex, and it stuck me it may not have been often since back in the day of S5. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/170 "2018-04-14T00:06:44Z")
The characters or the actors? ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/171 "2018-04-14T00:56:30Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Obviously they know that. They never wanted her to become an agent. The idea is to get Stan to share with her more. They want him to feel for her and confide in her more so that she will feel better. Agreed. Even if the was younger Renee would never be able to join the FBI (assuming she’s a foreign agent), but she’s not attracting any attention as an FBI agent’s wife. > [@hajario](#): > > Another interesting plot point is the travel agency going under and the Jennings going bankrupt without Elizabeth knowing about it. Will Phil be happy to go back to Russia to escape all of that or maybe use his skills to steal some cash? I still think as resources are getting tighter the travel agency might be used less for money laundering and more to fund the Centre’s activities. Also as has been pointed out Phillip got cocky and over expanded when the market was shifting away from full service agencies. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > …ETA: Don’t submarines have the authority to nuke the enemy without authorization from above if they see abundant evidence their own government has been taken out by a massive nuclear strike? British submarines basically do. Every British submarine carries a handwritten letter from the Prime Minister with instructions on what to do if the UK is attacked and Her Majesty’s Government ceases to exist, but even if those instructions are just to go to Australia there’s no mechanism that would prevent the offices & crew from launching anyway. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Which leads one to wonder: if he hadn’t let that slip, would Elizabeth be boned? And can she carry out her mission when a guard (going out with someone in security) is missing? Maybe if she hurries, before he’s missed. Yep, if she act’s quickly enough it won’t be an issue (which isn’t to say dots won’t be connected afterward). > [@Horatius](#): > > I was thinking she would set it up as a suicide. Leave him hanging in the hotel bathroom, and it would be hard to tell that he’d been strangled prior to being hanged, even if they thought to look for it. It was spur of the moment, but I’m sure she can in support staff to help with cleanup and have the security guard vanish off the face of the Earth as far as anyone is concerned. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > …I still think she’s Israeli or someone other than KGB… Well she certainly looks like she could be Swedish, but that’s even more unlikely than Soviet or Israeli. > [@LH75](#): > > The scenes around the zharkoye didn’t make sense. Claudia and Elizabeth were cooking it in secret, and then Elizabeth told Phil that, although she knew it was not allowed, that she had smuggled the tuppewrware full out just for him. He took a bite and then Elizabeth dumped the supposedly incriminating food down the disposal. It is a simple stew of beef, carrots, onion and garlic. How incriminating could it have been? It wouldn’t be incriminating, but the Centre would’ve gone overboard it conditioning Philip & Elizabeth to eliminate any trait, habit, or taste that could mark them out as being Russians\*. Until they started training Paige they weren’t able to pass a single bit of their culture down to their children. Philip still can’t (other than bonding with Henry over hockey while Elizabeth to share a lot more with Paige with Claudia acting as an ersatz aunt or grandmother). \*The USSR had many nationalities, but they both appear to be ethnic Russians. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/172 "2018-04-14T01:27:04Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Henry would be shit as a spy. And while it would be relatively easy to launder money through the travel agency in the still-mostly-cash era of 1987, the fact that Philip is ‘retired’ means the Centre has no interest in supporting him. In reality, the “Illegals” got very little support from the KGB other than operational funds and were expected to support themselves with their ‘cover’ jobs, which actually paid vastly more in real value than the salaries they ostensibly banked back home. We don’t know how Henry would be as a spy because he’s an underdeveloped character. Paige certainly didn’t look like she has the chops to be one (first chance she got, she blabbed to Pastor Tim), but they are breaking her in anyway. If the Center reached the conclusion that Henry attending a prestigious, connected school was a good long term goal, they wouldn’t tell Philip to pound sand if he told them he couldn’t financially swing it himself. They would find a way. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/173 "2018-04-14T01:44:42Z")
Speaking of schools; did anyone else think it was a little odd that Gennadi & Sofia’s son apparently attended a regular public school instead of the [Soviet Embassy School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Embassy_School_in_Washington,_D.C.)? :dubious: I understand it was necessary for dramatic purposes, but in-universe wouldn’t that raise eyebrows at the Embassy? ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/174 "2018-04-14T01:57:45Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I don’t think it’s fair to say Philip rebuffed her zharkoye. He said it smelled amazing. It was just bad timing. Well, Elizabeth came in all smiles with the zharkoye. How often do we see Elizabeth genuinely smile at him, especially recently? Then she admitted she was breaking a rule to bring it home and we all know how she is a stickler for the rules. Philip and Elizabeth are definitely on the outs lately, so to her, this was a big gesture on her part. And Philip’s response is basically, “Yeah your drought-famine-wars peasant food that you made to bond with our child smells amazing and I’ll take one tiny bite that I hope will placate you, but I’m really stuffed on this plentiful, westernized take out.” I don’t think Philip quite realized he was rebuffing Elizabeth, but I think it’s pretty clear she feels that way, and it’s accented by her unceremoniously dumping it down the drain and her reaction to a future zharkoye dinner party with Stan. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/175 "2018-04-14T04:43:45Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > This has been rankling me for quite a while. Why _wouldn’t_ the Centre want to recruit Henry? There has been a great deal of discussion about inducing Paige since before she even knew about her parents’ real occupation. And even after she RATTED HER PARENTS OUT TO PASTOR TIM, she was still being “groomed”, while Henry was almost forgotten. Why is there so much focus on getting Paige into the business while Henry is ignored? The most obvious answer is that everyone involved (P&E plus Paige) think it’s far too likely that, if they tell Henry the truth, he’ll turn them in. It was quite lucky that Paige ended up not betraying them (more than she did) and P&E might well judge that she’s a better candidate for that sort of recruitment than he is to begin with. I can also certainly imagine that part of the family dynamics is an understanding that Paige was brought in, which P&E both were initially against, which hugely and profoundly risks and changes her life… and in exchange for that, implicitly if not explicitly, Henry gets left alone. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/176 "2018-04-14T09:12:09Z")
With respect to “Dead Hand”, the system was not designed to scare Americans. It was to placate jumpy people in the Soviet hierarchy. After [Operation RYAN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYAN) and Able Archer, the Soviets realised that “_holy shit, our own hotheads might start a war_”. This was done to reassure them "_look even if the Americans kill us all, we’l still manage to retaliate._ ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/177 "2018-04-14T09:54:32Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Speaking of schools; did anyone else think it was a little odd that Gennadi & Sofia’s son apparently attended a regular public school instead of the [Soviet Embassy School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Embassy_School_in_Washington,_D.C.)? :dubious: I understand it was necessary for dramatic purposes, but in-universe wouldn’t that raise eyebrows at the Embassy? Well, he was a sports player and she worked at a news agency. Who knows … I like that Gennadi goes to Stan for marriage advice. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/178 "2018-04-14T15:23:20Z")
Someone with a failed marriage can at least tell you where he went wrong. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/179 "2018-04-14T18:39:31Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > Well, he was a sports player and she worked at a news agency. Who knows … > > I like that Gennadi goes to Stan for marriage advice. I liked how Sofia indignantly told Stan how Russians know how to keep secrets. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/180 "2018-04-14T21:20:33Z")
LOL. You could see ‘wtf’ flickered across Stan’s face for just a second. That marriage needs asylum, I just don’t think it’s political asylum. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379.md?page=10)