Kind of strange, since that’s the reason he decided to stay in the US at the end of Season 5.
What was remarkable about that murder was that’s how they train you to do it in the commandos. You don’t just slash the victim’s throat, the way John Amos did to the newbie in Die Hard II. It takes him along time to die that way, and it’s noisy and messy. Instead, you ram the knife into his neck and then rotate it, so you not only cut the windpipe but all of the major veins and arteries as well. Death is instantaneous.
***The Americans ***must have one hell of a technical advisor to have taught Kari Russel that!
We are over two years later now though. He could have worked for a while and then handed it off somehow.
I wonder how in the dark Paige still is about what her parents do. Has Elizabeth gone over all the honeypot stuff with her yet?
A lot can happen in 3 years. Operation Kimmy could’ve ended awhile ago, but in the interim Philip’s come to terms with just how horrible going “back home” would be for Paige & Henry. He’s as closed to being “retired” as the Centre will allow; no active assignments, but he still has to monitor dead drops and can be reactivated whenever they want.
Sounds as though they’ll discuss honeypot operations in the next episode or so.
I get a lot of time’s gone by, but the promotion of Kim’s dad was presented as a big thing. I’m just surprised they didn’t dwell on it a bit more.
Am I the only person who thinks that the soundtrack is intrusive and unnecessary? I thought it was distracting to the point of annoyance.
I’m surprised that the Centre has been so nice with Philip, who’s one hell of a security risk. Agents work better in teams, so I’m surprised that the Centre didn’t make Elizabeth a widow and marry her to someone more devoted to the cause.
Sherrerd wrote: " Also, the husband did seem to be pretty devoted to the sick wife." Plenty of guys are devoted to sick wife but get their sex in non-emotional contexts.
Paige is far too valuable to the Centre for that.
The guy in the hotel is someone different. The husband was in “Gilmore Girls” and the hidden gem “Street Time” on Showtime.
Most critics have assumed that the showrunners planned the broad outlines of the last two seasons together once Landgraf told them they would get that much runway to wrap things up. But this premiere makes me VERY much doubt that. So many of the plots from last season were left in a state that implied we would pick them up with a time jump of no more than a month or two. I don’t believe for a second they knew a three year time jump was coming when they wrote the last few episodes of last season. Oh well.
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I just think that’s how it works; from the Soviet pov you spot long term potential and invest early, hoping for a long career and promotions. Whatever we think of Stan outside work, from the FBIs perspective he’s had some strong results.
yep, afraid I agree. It was def busy.
I’m rewatching this weekend. Fwiw there are at least three dudes E is working (she says their names to the handler after watching the film and Paige has gone to the car):
Haskett
Voller
MacLeish
I used to write a blog about this show. For old times sake I covered the first five minutes here >>
The crazy thing about The Americans is you can sometimes write as much about the pre-credits sequence as you can for full episodes of a lot of other drama. S6E01 is even more concentrated than usual and serves to remind us it’s a hell of a thing the Fields and Weisberg have created.
Many, maaaany dramas use first scenes to subtlety signpost the direction of travel for this seasons meta ideas or themes. Using a Crowded House hit from the 1989-90 time frame, The Americans also does this, though lyrically:
“There is freedom within, there is freedom without
Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup
There’s a battle ahead, many battles are lost
But you’ll never see the end of the road
While you’re traveling with me”
If you need a further clue as to where we’re going, this sequence features only two cast regulars Philip and Elizabeth. Oh yes. Oh dear.
Still in pre-credits we witness successful travel entrepreneur – and most dapper - Philip living his American dream in expanded offices, before he slips into a red leather interior and the push button sun roof slides back. Intercut, we see Elizabeth has bedded one honey trap in DC, seems to be setting up what might be a blackmail sting on the husband of an invalided artist and reads a paper crossing the street while taking handbag photos of another target. In between she’s looking fraught, but who wouldn’t with three costumes changes (and wigs!) in roughly 50 seconds of screen time.
Finally, there’s no neat segway; ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ jams up against the jolly series theme, but just before it does we learn this:
“When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won’t win”
So maybe there is hope for these two yet. For the record, we’re now 5:40 into S6.
Notes:
1st target: Voller: seems to be the hotel room guy
2nd target: Haskard: seems to be the husband of the artist
3rd target: Macleish: in the pre-credits is photographed exiting the DoE speaking with negotiators
Fwiw, including ‘Julie’, Elizabeth has six in her team watching that one entrance.
Here’s the podcast for this epi: The Americans insider podcast for Episode 1 of Season 6, “Dead Hand" (AUDIO).
Keep in mind that none of those things actually *belongs *to him. In the CNN series on spies, it was pointed out that everything an illegal has was obtained by fraudulent means. If he’s caught, he forfeits it all and is looking at 15 years in Federal prison on each count (unless, of course, he’s traded back to the Motherland at some point).
Even Moscow warns its agents that nothing they have belongs to them. It’s all supplied by the Centre so they can fulfill their mission.
He stopped being a spy three years ago and has since grown the travel business. In his mind he’s developing his business. Sure he might still get caught but not by his own actions. So he’s doing his thing, inc. enjoying consumerism.
It was a bit much. They’ve always used contemporary pop songs to highlight plot developments in an unsubtle way that is reminiscent of who shows in the ‘Eighties would use pop songs in music video style, so it’s appropriate in drawing the viewer into the the milieu of the period, but yes, in this episode it became obtrusive. Hopefully they’ll tone it down in the future.
Keri Russell, and yes, the fighting and weapons use in the show is technically very good, far better than you see on most action-oriented shows. Russell is actually better at weapons handling and fighting than Ryes is, to the point that I think she’s probably had some tactical shooting and professional fight training outside of the show’s technical advisors, or is just naturally good at it. There aren’t very many fights in the show, but those that are have been very well choreographed and look like real fights, with professionals like Elizabeth and Philip using brutal and effective fighting techniques to end a conflict quickly.
The show is clearly setting up the anticipated conflict between Philip and Elizabeth, and also for Stan to discover their perfidy at some point. It is pretty clear that Renee is a spy, but it doesn’t seem like she works for the Center, because if she were she would be coordinating with the Jennings. So, she’s either an undercover countersurveillance agent (either within the FBI or independent DOJ investigator), or she’s a spy for a third party (Israel, perhaps) working in deep cover. Poor dumb Stan, of course, is clueless as ever.
Stranger
What can you point to that makes it “pretty clear”? I speculate it’s true, as others have done. But so far I’ve seen nothing to make it clear to me.
I don’t want them to tone down the music.
Junction, I enjoyed your writeup; but it’s “segue” in that context, not “Segway“ (you’re not talking about a scooter). Also, I can’t believe he would have had an eight track player in a late-model car in 1987, and I don’t think she is setting the artist’s husband up for blackmail but rather just trying to see his briefcase, as she mentioned to Claudia.
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I resisted that interpretation longer than most. But at this point she’s either a spy, or they are playing the world’s longest tease of a red herring.
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Was that an 8-track player he had? It looked to me like a Blaupunkt or some other high-end radio/cassette player you can remove from your car to keep it from being burgled.
Indeed. Why else would she have scenes, but other than encouraging Stan to not change jobs (when he told her he’d had enough) I’ve got nothing either.