In
these games without borders, knowledge is the most dangerous weapon. The Season
1 Finale of FX’s The Americans saw
the KGB and the Jennings bring the gun to the proverbial knife fight. My review
to follow, but first, I need to catch my breath and think of an episode
specific reference.
If
you couldn’t juggle, and I told you I could, you’d probably be mildly
amused. I’d then pick up three apples
off the table, prove to you I could juggle, and you’d probably ask me “how did
you learn to do that?” It would spawn a three-minute discussion about juggling,
and you’d be anywhere from nonplussed to moderately interested. But, if I then told you I could juggle on a
high wire, you’d immediately call bullshit, and tell me to prove it. You’d be skeptical, right up to the moment
that I stepped out into the void, three bright red apples dancing in my face as
I stepped, one foot in front of the other, suspended on a half-inch strand of
braided cable above a taught net. If I
told you that the writers for The
Americans managed to take a bunch of disparate strands of frayed narratives
and half-stories that may have seemed orphaned at times, and wove them together
as a tight central narrative, you might say, “oh, cool. That’s… kind of what they are supposed to
do.” But, if I told you they
simultaneously pivoted from one season, prepared for the launch of another, all
while maintaining an edge-of-your-seat thrill-ride of an episode that was
smart, action-packed, and believable, you’d tell me to prove it. I’d tell you that my words couldn’t do it
justice; you’ll just have to watch it.
But, here we go.
The
important thing about this season has been the perspective. We have been extremely insular as to what we
know regarding the Jennings, and regarding Stan. They are the two sides of this coin – they
stand for the FBI and the KGB. They
stand for the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. We
assume that what they know is what is true.
As the episode begins, we are told of the meeting between SecDef Caspar
Weinberger and White House Chief of Staff James Baker to discuss “Spetsnaz.”
The initial thought is that this is an intelligence bonanza. The discussion to inform the Jennings’ of
this is between Claudia and Elizabeth, who have absolutely hated each other
this entire season. I believe the
writers felt trapped by the performances, and the raw emotion and unvarnished
animus between Keri Russell and Margo Martindale’s characters.
In
that discussion, Elizabeth tries to cross lingual swords with Claudia. She
tells Granny she is amazed she has the handler job since she knows “nothing
about people.” Granny counters with one
of the most glaringly obvious, yet completely unstated truth about herself that
Elizabeth, and by extension, we the viewers, had yet to consider: She knows everything about the Jennings, and we
know nothing about her. She knows their children, where they frequent
to eat breakfast (that’s how she first makes contact with Phillip), and
everything about their marital strife.
What do the Jennings/We know about her?
We don’t even know her last name.
We don’t even know if Claudia is her real name! In fact, it probably
isn’t. We call her Granny or Claudia. We
think she is close with Zhukov, or was. It’s clear that she has been silently
winning this power struggle, even though her beating at the hands of Elizabeth
made the Jennings think they’d put her in her place. She pulled a rope-a-dope
on them.
As
we barrel through the episode, the Jennings start to return toward a state of
normalcy in their partnership. They look like the Phil and Liz of the start of
the season. Unspoken messages, caring for one another – it all is probably
unplanned, but they are very good together in this episode, and it seems to be
predicated on the notion that they have begun to consider their children first,
before their own safety and security1.
Stan’s
efforts to please his wife fall flat, and then his efforts to please Nina and
resuscitate his own marriage blow up in his face thanks to Philip’s wild
driving. As we begin the episode, the moves Stan makes mirror his moves
throughout the season – starting out wise, and ending up going awry. At the beginning of the episode, he plays
defense contractor Kenny Rogers (because he’s a gambler! And because I don’t
remember his name.) like a fiddle, leaving him to start screaming at the
glass. Had he pressed for names, he
might’ve been able to sit on the titular Latin professor/Colonel, and he’d have
everything he needed to cinch the nooses around the necks of his neighbors, put
his mistress on a jet to the west coast, and devote his efforts to his own
marriage. But, he doesn’t. He overplays his hand with Nina, and she is
able to pass along intelligence that comes through in the nick of time to save
the Jennings.
Which
brings us back to “knowing.” Now that we
know that Claudia is in the Jennings’ corner (I suppose next season we’ll
understand better why it is she decided to keep from them her true nature),
it’s important to identify the hook of this episode – that the Soviets thought
the meeting with the General was a trap, and the recording outside the
Weinberger house was the safe mission.
Once it became obvious which was the trap2, the episode
became a DC based mini version of the Bullitt car chase scene, only Phillip
didn’t lose seven hubcaps or pass the same VW Beetle sixteen times3. The intelligence they had at the time was
shaky, but in ways they didn’t consider.
Once all the pieces were on the table, the KGB was able to put it
together faster, and escaped by the skin of their teeth.
I
mentioned juggling on a high wire with the disparate major story arc strands at
the beginning of this post. This is
where we stand on the storylines:
Major
Intelligence
We
are currently at a place where the Weinberger clock is burned. The KGB knows this. The pivot to the new source of intel is the
Colonel. He is also burned, but the KGB
does NOT know this.
Claudia/Handler
Situation
It
turns out Claudia really was friends
with Zhukov, and really did want
Elizabeth to kill Zhukov’s murderer. It also turns out that she has had their
best interests at heart all along, but that they (and by extension, we) just
couldn’t see that, most likely because she wouldn’t share it with them, and
they were skeptical from the start. She’s been reassigned, but I bet they’ll
withdraw that request between this season and next. Though they may never be
inviting each other over for fondue in the near future, I assume there will be
a respectful détente between the Jennings’ and Claudia. We may even get a Claudia backstory episode,
featuring 62% more Claudia/Zhukov sexy time!
Nina’s
Exfil
Up
until the end of “The Oath,” Nina’s exfil had been all she’d wanted. She wanted to escape the Rezidentura, and
start a new life in the United States. Instead, once she learned that Stan had
a hand in, or was directly responsible for Vlad’s death, she recommitted
herself to the KGB, and is now working to avoid the hangman’s noose in
Russia. While I’d initially thought her
death would come once she was uncovered as the mole, I am now betting it will
be at the hand of Stan, once he realizes she is a triple-agent. She is also playing Stan extremely well. He is pouring intel, and has no idea she is
working him for every bit of it.
The
Jennings’ Marriage
I’m
betting the actress who plays Martha (Alison Wright) looked at the script and
thought two things:
1) Awesome! I’m only in this episode for like, four seconds! Easy paycheck!
and
2) Ah, shit. Phillip isn’t leaving Elizabeth’s side4. I'd better call my agent, because Martha's not lasting much longer.
It’s
good to know that we’ll get back into the rebuilding of the Jennings’ marriage,
fake or real, though, that means that Martha is going to meet an untimely end,
with Clark drifting off into the ether.
I guess Martha’s parents are going to have to die as well. That’s sad.
Ah, well. I would bet that the
Jennings’ marriage rebounds, to the point that they have a “vow renewal”
ceremony that actually serves as them speaking their vows for the first time.
This
show, which was predicated on the notion of a troubled “marriage” between two
Soviet spies, their handler, and their FBI neighbor, remains the same. The show has not been drastically altered –
they are still playing chess. But, the pieces
have been shifted on the board, significantly.
As I
stated earlier in this review, the writers juggled on the high wire. Every part of the significant portions of
this show were altered, connected, and brought to a place where we could put a
comfortable pin in them. I feel good
closure from this season’s storylines, and yet, I still feel that there is a
massive reservoir of storylines left to tell.
The writers were able to pivot exceedingly well, avoid the show being an
information dump, spoon-fed us nothing, wrapped up an extremely complicated
season, and whet our appetites for what is to come.
1-We
also learn a bit about “the rules.” While we the viewers have been wondering
how Phil and Liz have kept up lives of international intrigue and espionage
with two children at home sleeping, we learn from a half-awake Henry that the
children are not permitted to wake their parents at night, and that their
parents’ room is off-limits. Paige
violates this trust, and catches Liz in the midst of her reverie listening to
tapes from a relative (I assume it is her mother.) In the end, Elizabeth covers
her tracks by folding laundry, but the time between Paige’s reassurance (she
didn’t look 100% reassured) and her initial suspicions gave her the feeling
that the sense of protection in knowing that her parents were just down the
hall each night as she slept was shattered, and that she and her brother were
completely unsupervised at any given time, and vulnerable.
2-I
love that the FBI was watching the Weinberger tape from inside a parked panel
van with a fake business on the side.
Makes me think of this scene from the Simpsons:
I mean, there has to be some enterprising florist who named
their business Flowers By Irene, no matter their name, right?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062765/trivia
discuss the hubcaps and green VW Beetle.
While these are technically continuity “errors,” this is still a
phenomenal and iconic scene.
4-As
I watched the bullets hit the windshield of the Jennings’ car, I thought to
myself, “You know, I’m kind of tired of shows and movies where the bullet holes
are in the direct line of the passengers of the car, but they somehow just
evaporate once they make it into the interior of the car. I mean, they are planting squibs on these
windshields to go off – you’d think they’d do some basic spatial geometry, and
just make Stan Beeman a terrible shot.”
Then, Elizabeth started bleeding, and I thought to myself, “I need to
start trusting these writers more.”
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