Question of the week #5

[treonb]

 The characters on The Americans have complicated takes on their position, which side they support in the American-Soviet conflict and why.  Each one acts out of a differing mixture of self-interest and ideology, but some aren't aware which side they're really helping, while others have switched sides.  

So here's this week's question: Did you change your mind about any of the characters as the show progressed?  You can expect spoilers for the entire first season in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

Comments

[jae]

I'd say the closest I've come to completely changing my mind about a character so far is Claudia. I really disliked her toward the beginning, really saw her as bad in a black-and-white kind of way, but in the last three or four episodes of season one, she took on some shades of grey and the show managed to convince me of them.

My opinion of Stan is also different than it was toward the beginning, but that one feels more like adding layers than changing my mind. Case in point: at the time of the pilot, I would have never believed that he would shoot a Soviet diplomat in the back out of anger, but the show made me believe it because it convinced me that the potential to do something like that was what was under the rigid control. Based on some of the snatches of possible second-season plots that we've gotten from the producers, I'm a little bit afraid the show will move too fast on adding new layers to Stan and I'll have trouble believing it, though. I hope that won't end up being the case.

As far as ideology goes, it took me a few episodes to get a handle on where Philip was ideologically--whether he'd really totally bought into the rah-rah America stuff and was just going through the motions on the rah-rah-Soviet stuff, or whether it was more complicated than that. I eventually came to think of him as completely unideological, though. I think he sees the good and bad in both systems and can convincingly argue for either, but isn't a true believer of either camp.

-J

[treonb]

I eventually came to think of him as completely unideological

I get that feeling too. Did the show address that? We know he signed up to be a KGB agent, so he must have had some ideology to begin with. Did he change his mind at some point?

[jae]

The show never has addressed it directly, but from all the stuff I've read written by former KGB agents, it's not as unusual as you might think. Some of them were super-duper-ideologues, but others just ended up doing intelligence work because it was valued in their culture, they were good at the work, and they needed to do something, after all.

From his flashback scenes with Irina, I do think Philip must have been at least somewhat more overtly ideological in the past, but that could have been just him doing his chameleon, "fitting in whereever" thing. Now that he's somewhere else and subject to different cultural pressures, he's fitting in differently.

-J

[quantumreality]

I read Stanislav Levchenko's "On the Wrong Side", and it seemed like for him, it was the sheer 'holy shitballs we got this awesome thing done under everybody's noses' factor - the pleasure of doing a good job, basically, rather than any overriding Young Pioneer sense that Communism was the inevitable end of history.

[jae]

*nods* And if you think about it, that's probably true for a lot of Americans in similar jobs too. I mean, not that they don't believe in the supremacy of the American Way and all that, but I can't imagine it's the overriding factor for all of them. Pure ideologues are rare birds.

-J

[maidenjedi]

Re: Philip, ideology.

I don't think it's about ideology for him at this point in his life - it's about his family, what works for his family, how he keeps his family together. I think he has come to believe his children can have a better, less stressful life than he had - he sees a world where they won't have to make the choices he and Elizabeth had. And he does not see that happening in the USSR. The politics of it all? Something that other people do, not Philip. So, basically, I agree with you that he's essentially unideological.

[jae]

Yeah, I guess the big question with Philip is whether he ever was explicitly ideological. Like, he would have had to play the game to get where he ended up, but how much of an awareness was there that that's what he was doing? Like Elizabeth, he was awfully young when all this started, so he might actually not have had a strong conception of that.

I think what it comes down for him to is that he's so good at "passing" that he can kind of fit in anywhere, and it's not just an act--he's actually influenced by the thinking and the people that are around him. But take him out of that environment and put him into a different one, and it'll be the same there too.

-J

[treonb]

I'd say Nina and Martha.

At first I thought Nina was way out of her league with the smart FBI agent managing to blackmail her into turning on her country. But very quickly I realized she's really the in control. She managed to turn the tables around, and has her FBI handler wrapped around her little finger.

As for Martha, she started off being the 'dupe of the week', so I didn't really care for her. But now I feel that Philip is twisting the knife every time he leads her on.

[jae]

I go back and forth on whether I think Stan or Nina is in control, but either way I still think Nina is in more danger.

-J

[quantumreality]

I think mainly, Stan Beeman.

The Soviet characters are already very intriguing and interesting, since the show focusses on them to begin with. And the show kind of makes you want to root for them. :P

But Stan... hmm.

I think he's spiralling out of control, and that's not usually "him". He gave the impression of being a tightly-controlled, standoffish Federal agent when we started out. The only hint that he might be emotionally invested is when he starts sounding like a conspiracy theorist to his wife, and his suspicions get exploded when he sneaks into the Jennings' garage to try and get something on them.

But since then, he's proven to be almost a loose cannon and the dangerous thing is, Agent Gaad both is unaware of this, and is aiding and abetting it without realizing it, and it all started when that West German explosives guy came in. Instead of trying to figure out, through back channels, if the KGB had had an internal factional tussle over the usefulness of the bombings, he just simply leaped to some really risky plots: trying to capture Arkady (who was luckier than he knew to have burnt his hand) or convincing the CIA to send covert assassins straight into Moscow.

Nina also struck me as interesting. She initially seemed very cynical about the Soviet system, using her position to secure a little scratch for herself while counting the days she could stay in the USA, and then when offered a lifeline out of the Soviet thumb, took it (although I would say her choice was coerced by the crappy alternatives).

But since then she seems to realize she was appreciated more than she realized: Vasili liked her and was attracted to her, and Arkady decided she was smart and capable enough to promote twice, the second time into the holy-crap-this-is-SERIOUS job of managing Directorate "S".

In short, the Soviet Union is actually offering her the chance at real power and prestige when the alternative is to be forever on the run, ducking out and being a cipher in some city or town and always being checked up on by an FBI agent.

If she hadn't told Arkady she was a double agent, I believe she would be on the serious fast track to getting into the Politburo within a decade. Foreign Minister Nina has a nice ring to it. ;)

Even so, she'll probably rise to Rezident, and that's no small feat since it involves coordinating both legitmate diplomatic work as well as the covert stuff.

[jae]

Nina's been entirely consistent, though, in a way. As you point out, we met her when she was gaming the system, but she's still doing it now, on a whole new level.

-J

[treonb]

Wow, you're right. I didn't even think of that :-)

[quantumreality]

That's true! She could still duck out of the USSR embassy and go into hiding, leaving egg on Arkady's face.

I think now it's a different kind of gaming where she still hides something of personal benefit.