“Cheer on” is an interesting choice of words. Philip and Elizabeth are fascinating and entertaining characters. If they had been caught and stopped in season 1 if it would have deprived us of five years of high quality televised entertainment.
That said, I am absolutely looking forward to them being caught this season… partly because they deserve to face the music for what they’ve done, and partly because it will make for great television (particularly Stan finding out, although I assume it won’t happen while he reads poetry on the toilet).
Does that count as “cheer on”?
SlackerInc wrote: To sum that up more succinctly: if you understand that the writers of the show are sympathetic to P & E, that they consider it fundamentally “a show about a marriage”, but you refuse to share that sympathy, that’s not “watching wrong”.
That would be the best summation of my attitude toward the show. I’m fully aware of the writer’s sympathies toward P and E, I just don’t share them.
So again, if you don’t even get that the show is trying to “humanize Russian spies”, you’re watching it wrong. If you do understand that but just say “screw that, I’m not going along”, you’re watching against the grain. Does that make sense?
Bingo…you again hit the nail on the head. I know that the writers are trying to humanize the spies, that almost seems a given…but I’m not going along with it, and I will be perfectly frank and say that my political views figure in to my approach. The main reason for my antipathy toward P and E is that—as Just Asking Questions points out— they are trying to defeat my country. It really comes down to that…all the rest to me is window dressing. If that’s against the grain, I can live with that assessment.
Turning to the last episode, while good, I agree with those who think the murders of the hockey player and his wife were difficult to believe. The FBI would have made sneaking into that house almost impossible…that house would have been surrounded by agents 24/7, not to mention the possibility of having them inside the house as well. Those two assets were too valuable to leave anything to chance.
Three questions…
Does anyone think it’s possible the Russian’s kid could finger Elizabeth?
Does anyone agree that Paige’s continued missteps will eventually unravel the mission?
What is the Elizabeth Body Count-to-Scenes with Henry score now? Is it 8-4 in favor of Liz?
Thanks for asking. I’m pretty sure you’re right, Elizabeth’s kills have doubled up on Henry scenes 8-4. Mail Robot scenes are, regretfully, in last place at a total of one.
I watched the episode only once, but my memory is that the scene was set up with the child watching television–and not turning to see Elizabeth. The implication was that he’d have no idea who had killed his mother and stepfather.
I think this part is wrong. These assets have been burned. Only Genadi ever had any value, as the courier they were intercepting, and they even made the point that after years of that, they’d never gotten anything useful from him. After defecting, that value is even more “zero”, and now it’s just about the FBI cleaning up after the operation is effectively over. Yes, they need to make an effort to help them, but it’s not an all-hands-on-deck, do-or-die kind of thing. Just take a look at how Stan had been talking about it all season - it’s a leftover case from his last job, and a major annoyance. It’s clear the agents see it as babysitting, not much more.
It’s akin to the whole theme of the show - to us, it’s high drama, high stakes, but to the characters, it’s just their job.
Henry got quite a bit of screen time this week…made up a ton of ground. I believe the Body-Count-to-Henry- To Mail Robot Scenes Scoreboard now stands at:
Elizabeth Body Count 8
Scenes With Henry: 8
Mail Robot: 2.
I want Philip & Elizabeth together. Alive? Dead? Russia? US? Cuba? China? defecting? imprisoned? I don’t care about any of that. I don’t even need them to be physically in the same place. But I want them to be emotionally united when this all comes to a close (or to have been so before their death(s)). I cheered when Philip said he was coming, not because I want the mission to be successful - but because I want them to be in it together.
When I watched this episode last night, I didn’t realize the significance of the exchange, but thinking about it this morning, it seemed like portentuous foreshadowing: When Henry comments about her mom smoking, she remarks “I always smoked. But you’re an adult now and I don’t need to keep it a secret anymore.” Does that apply to ALL the secrets she’s keeping from him? And if Henry’s reaction to her offering a cigarette (“NO, I was just kidding, are you tyring to give me cancer??”) is any kind of foreshadowing, then I think he won’t take the BIG revelations too well. (Henry’s increased screentime leads me to think he’s going to be let in on the family secret eventually.)
I was about Paige’s age when this show is taking place. But I was totally the Art Cinema geek that Liz puts the moves on in this episode. I even went to see “Riffifi” in a theater too! (And that 20-minute heist scene is MAGNIFICENT!) I hope he doesn’t end up with an icepick in the back of the skull…much like everyboy else who crossed Liz’s path this season. I did kind of wonder what was really going through Elizabeth’s mind while watching the heist scene – was she thinking “Yeah, but if they just did that, they’d get the job so much faster…” ?
Another fantastic episode. I loved Philip being guilted into helping out, and I’m glad to see the cat-and-mouse spy vs spy stuff ramping up again, with Stan back in the fold.
The only question is whether Chicago is where it all goes wrong, or whether Chicago is the one last happy chance that P&E ever have to work together and remember the good old days, before it all goes wrong.
Agree with Don Draper above. I’ve never been great at spotting foreshadowing, but the cancer line really stuck out, especially since others here have predicted that E would wind up becoming terminally ill.
The preview clips looked very interesting. During season five, I opined that Henry would unwittingly be the one to unravel the whole thing. After seeing the clip of Henry riding in the car with Stan and telling him about his parents’ penchant for unexpected travel, I’m even more inclined to go with that theory.
Plus, did anyone see the other preview clip–it was about a second long–of Stan looking at a photo of the Jennings family? How much longer can it be before Ace Detective Beeman finally puts two and two together???
I think this is the most screen time Henry’s ever gotten. Elizabeth accepts him becoming an adult; Philip is the exact opposite. So is the boy Elizabeth is going after the same boy Paige was going after? :eek:
I wasn’t sure about that either, but according to IMDb, this episode (“Rififi”) is the only one the actor is in, so far. (I think IMDb updates as the episodes are shown.)
Yeah, that should be fun. I re-watched the Paige vs. Philip scene from last week, and even though he was going easy on her, it’s clear that Philip has some moves. Stan won’t even see it coming
If Henry is an important enough character to get to say “Previously, on The Americans…” then surely Mail Robot must be afforded the same opportunity before the season is over.
Outstanding episode. I was floored when Philip laid his cards on the table right from the get-go.
I am a big film buff and Francophile, but I have never seen “Rififi” or “Bob le flambeur”. Netflix thinks I will like them and they are now the top two discs on my queue.
:eek: