Episode discussion post: "Echo"

[jae]

Aired:
21 May 2014 in the U.S. and Canada
25 May 2014 in Israel
7 June 2014 in the UK

This is a discussion post for episode 213 of The Americans, intended for viewers who are watching the show on the U.S./Canadian schedule. (Feel free to dive in to the discussion even if you're coming in late--and you should also feel free to start a new thread if it seems too daunting to read through what's already been posted first. If you're reading this at a point where you've already seen subsequent episodes, though, please take care to keep comments spoiler-free of anything that comes after season two, episode thirteen.)

Original promo trailer

"The Americans Season 2 Episode 13 Promo - Echo [HD] The Americans 2x13 Promo" (Watch on YouTube)

Episode recaps

From Grantland
From Time
From the Washington Post
From Rolling Stone
From the AV Club
From Hitfix
From IGN
From the Huffington Post: Karen Fratti, Maureen Ryan
From Vulture
From Variety
From the Tampa Bay Times
From Sound on Sight
From Collider
From Paste Magazine
From Gawker
From the Cloture Club
From tv.com
From tvrage.com
From Headline Planet
From spoilertv.com (in French)
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From GAMbIT Magazine
From showratings.tv
From Comments Enabled
From Boob Tube Dude
From Unreality Primetime (UK)

Comments

QR's Final Episode Rambliew

[quantumreality]

BOOOYAH! LAST EPISODE! *gets popcorn*

Dis gonna be gooooood! :D

- Hmm! Fred looks like he's getting a little confused at all the rapid-fire instructions about getting the paint. Wonder if he's ever had to do anything like this for Emmett or if it was more along the lines of feeding Emmett financial and technical paperwork, things that could point the Soviets to where to look for more solid intel. Anyway, now or never, big guy. Go get 'em! Walk that floor like you own it :P

- Huh! Sandra still has good Stan-radar.

- Damn, Elizabeth had it rough at fourteen! And I guess with it being - what, 1956? Doctors might've been somewhat thin on the ground in some places (Health outcomes tended to improve through the 1960s and 1970s and then stalled out in the 1980s), and Elizabeth wouldn't have been in a position to bribe a doctor to get her mother into a hospital.

- Huh! Philip lived in some town in the ass end of nowhere called Tobolsk. And with the slow rebuilding outside of the cities it's not surprising teenage gangs probably flourished for a while before the police really bothered to crack down.

- YES ASSKICKER PHILIP! :D No wonder Henry's so fearless sometimes.

- WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO, FRED?????????? Aw, man. You tried to get wise with the guard and you got shot. And very dead. RIP, big guy.

- Paige at the anti-nuke rally!

- You do not store a 5.25" floppy disk like that without a protective covering, you silly clucks.

- The programming language looks too "modern" for the 1980s. In those days, even source code storage space was at a premium so people used short variable names and minimal indentation. That said it could be LISP or Smalltalk or ADA. However, the actual code on the screen looks like a variant of Haskell, which was only invented in 1990. ANACHRONISMS, DO YOU SPEAK IT, WRITERS?

- Haaaaaaaa OMFG Henry. You're such a kid. :P And Paige is all, "Well, we weren't the bad people! (>_<) "

- Hmm! Looks like Paige has a new cause. But her parents don't seem to be totally buying it because, well, church.

- Having read Harry Potter, I tend to be kind of skeptical when the "Greater Good" gets invoked to explain sometthing.

- Daaaaaaaaamn, Stan-boy, pilfering FBI spying cameras? Naughty-naughty! You're gonna get life in Leavenworth if they find out about that, if not the firing squad, buster.

- I'm not crazy about Philip and Elizabeth dumping all over Paige in this scene.

- And now Philip must be Clark! Wonder if shit is gonna get real here! :O

- Dun dun DUN she got a gun! :O

- And an even BIGGER DUN-DUN-DUN! Larrick is missiiiiiiiing!

- And the Jenningses swing into action!

- Stan looking extra grumpy is kind of funny, actually.

- Heh! Arkady leaves him a little advice. :P

- HAAAAAA OMFG THIS IS AWESOME. Stan's having a surrealistic dream :P

- Aside: Sandra has nice legs, NGL.

- It's kind of ironic that even as Elizabeth tells Jared a truth ("what I really look like") she's lying to him about what happened to Kate. It was nice to see her all motherly to Jared, too.

- DAMN IT LARRICK. Stop being your murderously creepy self and go kamikaze the Soviet embassy in Washington or something.

- Oh god, Gaad, get that fucking Reagan picture off the wall. It's tacky.

- Also, in all seriousness, I cannot stand the way Reagan is idolized for playing John Wayne against the Soviets while domestically undertaking policies that have possibly permanently changed the distribution of income and wealth in the USA unfavorably for people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

- And now the FBI know Jared's missing! The tension gauge ratchets up! :O

- O HAI LARRICK.

- And Paige has finally had it. She just wants off the damn merry-go-round, heh.

- Jared is stumbling around the edges of the truth about Kate! :O

- Oh, damn it, Larrick showed up. Party pooper.

- HA FUCK YES LARRICK IS GONZO. Bye-bye, asshole.

- Oh, no, Jared got hit in the crossfire :(

- Aw, man. He was just a teenager with a crush. :(

- HOLY CRAP JARED OFFED HIS OWN FAMILY??????

- Welp, Stan-boy finally reached the limit of what he was willing to do just to keep Nina alive. I do believe this is the end! :(

- Nina's definitely shaken, and even Arkady looks somber as he leaves.

- Aw @ Paige and Henry sleeping in the car! I also rather liked the scene at the picnic table. Paige is reluctantly enjoying the outdoors while Henry, oblivious to all the undercurrents, happily flies his kite.

- "Can't wait to do that again." *cracks up, is ded of LOL*

- Oleg is having a sad as Nina gets kicked out of the KGB!

- Y HALO THAR CLAUDIA.

- "They want Paige to be next"! HOLY CRAPCAKES I DO NOT EVEN. :O

- And it looks like Kate pushed Jared to act, and sent a KGB mook over to bump off Emmett, Leanne and Amelia if they wouldn't let Jared join the "second generation illegals" program.

- And yep, just like Emmett and Leanne, Elizabeth and Philip are all like "HELL NO," even though the KGB is now using their children against them.

- DAAAAAAAAAAAMN Philip! :O Laying the law down to Arkady! :O And then Elizabeth rationalizing getting Paige to become a Soviet agent anyway! :O

tl;dr: Talk about a wham episode!

The program

[lovingboth]

It's MATLAB - it confesses to being such in comments. Although the commercial version wasn't out yet, it was available at universities (contains at least one error - Pascal predates Algorithms + Data = Programs to the point that the compiler in the book is labelled as a subset of it!)

I am going to pass on whether it's valid early MATLAB.

Lying to Jared about Kate

[lovingboth]

Is she? As far as everyone knows, Kate is 'missing' and she tells him that she'll let him know when she knows for sure.

Reagan picture

[lovingboth]

The surprise is that it's not been up since January 1981.

Re: QR's Final Episode Rambliew

[thesquawk]

"Also, in all seriousness, I cannot stand the way Reagan is idolized for playing John Wayne against the Soviets while domestically undertaking policies that have possibly permanently changed the distribution of income and wealth in the USA unfavorably for people at the bottom of the economic ladder."

to be fair I don't think the show is doing it on purpose - that's the way things were at the time. but the two are so totally interlinked - the whole idea of communism is an existential threat to the conservative religion that was behind Reagan and probably is still most of the controlling interest in American society today... (This is obviously separate from the domestic terrorism / dictatorship of Stalin, though that was also generally over by the time of the show)

which is why I really have no trouble rooting for P/E :P

[maidenjedi]

Right now I just want all the Agent Paige stories ever.

[quantumreality]

And I have a fanfic plot bunny lurking in the shadows about Paige actually going along with Elizabeth on the Soviet-spy thing. :D

Agent Paige stories

[jae]

Does that mean you're going to write them? :)

-J

Stan Knows About Martha?

[darjeelingandcoke]

Okay, I'm going to need a little time to process this one, but one thing with critical implications for next year:

In Stan's dream, Martha is clearly taking files off the top of the mail robot and putting it in her purse.

Does Stan on some level realize that Martha's up to something?

Re: Stan Knows About Martha?

[lovingboth]

It's a bag rather than a purse, and possibly quite reasonable to do depending on how many files she needs to carry, but yes, especially combined with her being replaced in her chair by a dead KGB man.

[alley_skywalker]

SO RELIEVED AND HAPPY! So relieved I almost cried. I was SO afraid they'd make Stan into a traitor. I mean...I suppose it would have been hard to keep him on the show if they had, now that I think about it, but STILL. So relieved.

Looks like Nina might have to go. It's too bad, she wasn't a bad character and she was useful too. (I do wonder if we'll get a Stan-and-Sandra-get-back-together thing going on next season. I think I'd actually like that.)

Of course Elizabeth would think it might not be a bad idea to make Paige into an agent.

I DO feel like this needs to be addressed though. This whole second-generation-ops thing is… Well, I mean, we don’t know enough about Jared. We don’t know what kind of person he really was etc and obviously there are people willing to betray their country: Phillip and Elizabeth and other ops use them all the time. BUT I really hope they don’t go this way with Paige. Mainly because I feel like this show underestimates patriotism. It took forever for Stan, an FBI agent of all people, to finally make the right choice. I don’t think it should have. But even if it should, I’m still bothered how the Soviets come out looking like far more devoted to their country on average that the Americans. I honestly don’t believe this is actually the case. But either way, I feel like if they go this way with Paige it will make no sense character wise. Yes, Paige wants to do good/make the world a better place but better place =/= communism (aka socialism Soviet-style). It doesn’t mean betraying your country. Finding out your parents are spies for an enemy country (which is what the USSR was to people during the cold war) would FAR MORE LIKELY destroy your relationship with them than make you want to join “the cause.” (Especially, since realistically, the Soviet Union wasn’t a better place; at the very least it really wouldn’t come off like that to most people, who didn’t grow up there anyway.) I don’t know where they will take this, maybe nowhere really, but I don’t think Paige is the sort of person who would go for this sort of thing. No, she is no overtly patriotic, but how many people would REALLY be up for betraying their country? And Paige doesn’t come off as even a generally socialist-minded person either.

Second generation stuff

[lovingboth]

Quite.

"Hi, we want you to betray what you think of as your country in order to further the interests of one you've been told is the evil enemy and which you can never visit yourself. Not until the final victory of communism, which you don't believe in, anyway. Speaking of belief, did we mention they don't believe in God? Oh, and you'll have to ditch the activism you are doing, because that could affect your security clearance too. What do you mean, you're upset at your parents living a Total Lie, including to you?"

While watching thoughts

[lovingboth]

Gosh, at we at the end of the season?

Why point out where the phone number is for? He doesn't need to know and it's better if he doesn't.

Long silence in the kitchen.

Some pauses in the car too, like before "That must have been hard". Oooh, some Philip backstory...

.. cut off by something so dramatic that it gets a background track :)

Obviously #1 priority is the shoes. I like them listening to the scanner and not visibly going to his rescue. I'm surprised neither change expression when they hear that he's dead - much better than being captured alive, I'd have thought.

Presumably that's a genuine aerial view of the time, rather than being manipulated to look old.

Argh, no paper sleeve for the floppy?!? And just one?!? (In terms of having local backups when, not if, the floppy fails, perhaps because it wasn't kept sleeved - the source code is MATLAB, and we're about a couple of years before that was commercially released, so it isn't going to be particularly large.)

Ha, after someone's (been) sacrificed in a more permanent way, and with all her parents have done this season. Including letting others be sacrificed.

Oooh, how clever of Stan. It wouldn't work if it wasn't a scripting language like MATLAB.

Not wanting kids is one of the bigger lies for Philip, even if it's really 'more' and 'with you'.

Ha, red wine in the fridge again, and oooh there's the gun.

This is going to be difficult to explain - a motel reservation is enough to do this?!?

Ha, at the love advice from the KGB.

Ha, at walking past Martha taking advantage of the mail robot. Oh, dream.

Why go to the cabin?? Apart for the dramatic reason of getting one of P&E, Jared and - ha, yes - Larrick in the same spot, absolutely nothing good can come of it.

Stan looks like he's trying for the part of a zombie.

Doesn't Gaad look a bit like a young Reagan?

Ha, at the very innocent looking meeting.

How did Larrick find him, unless Elizabeth talked?

"Where's mom and dad?" Yes, it is totally weird.

Ooooh, note that Jared doesn't even think of raising his hands. Why does Elizabeth take him along, when Larrick hasn't addressed anything to him?

Bit obvious, that 'gun in belt' shot.

What's in Jared's pockets? Whaaat?!? No way would Larrick want to turn these two in.

Nicely choreographed fight, but I'm still not convinced Larrick would lose it.

Ha!!! at Jared's confession.

Lovely looks at the family day out. What's Henry going to do in the future...

Would Nina be shown the note?

This has been more crushing to Philip and Elizabeth than just about anything else.

I like the way Oleg can't look at her as she goes past. I don't think this is the last we'll see of her.

Hmm, not convinced by the explanation. Or the 'Paige is next' twist. Guaranteed to alienate Philip and Elizabeth, especially after what has happened.

How did he know where Arkady would be?

That's too obviously a setup for season three. Why send Philip on a dangerous private mission and then go 'Oh, well, they could be right?' Her letting Paige do more with the church would be more plausible.

Love advice from the KGB

[lovingboth]

I wonder if this was part of what made Stan decide to dump Nina (in it...)

'Don't behave with her how you want to behave - she is too different and won't respect you' is one way of putting someone off.

[georgley]

Nina! That whole storyline hit me much harder than I thought it would. I wasn't the biggest fan of the character last season but I've so enjoyed her interactions with Oleg and Arkady this season. It was pretty heartbreaking watching her escorted out in silence.

I'm always so excited to see Claudia. I wish Margo could come back to the show full-time. She reminds me of Nina a bit in that it is so hard to tell what her true motivations are.

I'm very interested to see where they take the Paige storyline next season. I like the conflict that can bring up for Philip and Elizabeth. I do think it will be hard though for the audience to sympathize with Elizabeth if she does want to tell Paige about them (it's also a big shift from her position in the pilot). I'm intrigued as to how they will address that.

I'd read a few people speculating about Jared having killed his family so I didn't feel totally shocked by it in the end.

Mostly, I think I'm just in shock that this season is already over!

Paige and Elizabeth

[katiac]

I'm excited about where things could go with Paige. Whether or not the KGB's plan succeeds it has the potential to bring up a lot of great stuff for Elizabeth/Philip and also Elizabeth/Paige. I really think a lot of what is driving this isn't even as much her crazy USSR stance but the feeling she's never been close to her daughter, has never been understood by her daughter, is now losing her even more, and has this little carrot of opportunity dangled where she could have her daughter understand and be close to her. That has to be so tempting.

Things I have problems believing

[lovingboth]

That Larrick would turn Philip and Elizabeth in, rather than kill them.

Where's the proof for the authorities that they've done anything? There will probably be some (and we know there is) but he doesn't know what, where or most importantly if it will be found. They're not going to talk, so the investigation might as well be carried out while they're dead, and it's possible that they could be exchanged for US spies = get away with killing his 'brothers'. They're certainly not going to be executed.

That anyone would seriously suggest Paige as an agent.

See above, plus if they're going to do it, Henry would be a lot better - he's younger and sexism means he's more likely to get a better job.

That Elizabeth would come around to the idea so quickly.

Re: Things I have problems believing

[alisonx]

Hmm I had other problems with the finale and didn't really think about these but yeah no.1. is the most weird - except it makes sense in that they are totally trying to show that in Larrick's story he really is the hero. And really, apart from his evil looks, he really is the more noble of them all, not wanting to kill, and really being innocent in this whole mess. So in that respect i understand but yeah that could jave been a bit more spelled out?

Just the idea of Paige knowing who she really is is chilling. Like I know lots of kids would probably feel relieved to finally know the truth and be grateful that their paranoia wasn't misplaced, I really think it would destroy her, I don't think she would get mad for a time and then understand and become a kgb spy. I think she would run away from that lunatic asylum and never look back.

Tobolsk! Diptheria! Jared!

[katiac]

Finally, something on Philip! Tobolsk! Scrappy like Henry! Of course we get cut off before the story finishes. I like how his story has him as alone forced to figure it out independent of any outside forces (parent/older sibling) there to intervene or help.

I also like how Elizabeth's story of nursing her mother through Diptheria at 14 paints Elizabeth as dedicated, strong, resolute, shows her devotion to her at the same time we're seeing how she and Paige are miles apart.

I am intrigued by the idea of Jared being the one who did it, but something in the way it played out kind of left me feeling... I dunno, maybe let down? Or like I was watching someone act out a performance rather than that this was really happening and these people weren't actors at all? It's not that the actor who was Jared wasn't great--he was--I just find it a little hard to wrap my mind around a few things logistically, how he could've been so okay to smile at Philip after just shooting his family, how he could've acted so well in front of his own parents, who were trained to sniff out lies AND know him better than anyone, and finally how he could've pulled off the executions themselves against two trained, experienced agents. Even if Kate gave him some training, all the neat headshots I guess gave me the impression more of a professional like Larrick than a 17 year old kid.

Re: Tobolsk! Diptheria! Jared!

[quantumreality]

Actually, he sounded at first like he did off his own family, but then he disjointedly talks about a "he" as though an experienced KGB assassin was in the same room ready to do it if the Connors wouldn't let him go.

Unfortunately Jared is dead, so the last piece of any info about what really happened is gone to the winds.

Quick thoughts

[alisonx]

So overall I have REALLY loved this season and have really enjoyed a lot of the broader character strokes. I especially loved episodes like A Little Night Music, New Deal and Martial Eagle. I'm devastated we're finished with Season 2 already, I feel like it's gone by SO FREAKING FAST. I can't wait to rewatch all the episodes together. Overall though, in terms of personal enjoyment I have to say Season 1 would probably win over Season 2 - not an assertion on quality, I think I was just in a happier place when watching S1, didn't overthink it, and just let myself be swept away with the brilliance of the show, whereas this season I have had more time to take pause and pick holes :(((

I liked their twist a lot, but I do have to agree it was done rather clunkily. As much as I do like the actor of Jared, the show is better than a death confession, with him spluttering blood out of his mouth. Yeah rewatching this conversation, the initial bit of dialogue going in is a bit awkward but so heart wrenching too oh my goodness. You could really feel the horror pulsating from P/E hearing this confession.

I also have problems with how quickly Larrick was able to find both Philip and Elizabeth. He stakes out the house and sees Elizabeth, nice job Larrick. Then he out of nowhere instinctively knows where Philip is going? and then arrives back to the woods where he easily finds Phil and Jared? Unless I'm missing something major, which I really could be, this made not much sense to me.

I'm writing this while rewatching, and they're doing this really weird shaky-cam thing as Elizabeth walks to the house. Stop! Wow rewatching this, Jared's actor is laying some really great clues and lil' nuggets for rewatch :) The close up of Larrick putting the gun in the back of his jeans is a bit of a clunker shot as well.

I liked that I didn't really know what was going to happen with Stan and Echo. I couldn't see him betraying his country but I couldn't see destroying the status quo for Nina either. Noah did a great job! Don't really see why Arkady said "don't tell her you love her so much." It makes sense to the story and going towards Stan's decision, but in terms of character, I don't really see why Arkady would say that if he wants to get Stan to betray his country, due to his great love affair with this beautiful russian woman who loves him too. Although Joel reassures us she'll be back, I doubt she'll be back in the same capacity, but I have faith in the writers they'll do her character justice!

At least we all have more of a reason to dislike Kate, beyond the fact that she was a crappy handler, she also had a factor in a kid MURDERING HIS PARENTS AND SISTER. yah.

I loooved Claudia's return and the whole 2nd-gen illegals thing, that playing field is so rich with stories :)) Though I do have some skepticism about how far an American kid who's grown up in America will go for their parents' cause. I think with Jared, the idea was that Kate was a romantic interest for him and spurred his motivations and totally screwed with his psyche and this entire betrayal of identity warped his being so entirely. I don't think they will go so far as to actually make Paige into a 2nd gen illegal in s3 and in some ways that tease is a bit of a bluff I would guess. But Philip and Elizabeth's tension over their perspectives over that will be awesome to watch. Also can I just say my favourite part of the episode was Philip saying " we swore we would never tell. it would destroy her" and although I don't think that was word for word Elizabeth's dialogue in the pilot, it totally reminded me of it and that connection was enough to make me SUPER IN LOVE WITH THAT SCENE along with all it's other brilliance <3

Also the scene between Arkady and Philip was my second fave of the night! When world's collide.

Re: Quick thoughts

[alisonx]

I'm sorry the way Annet trembles with the paper and the shot of it falling to the desk!! <33 It's the quiet moments where I really love this show

Silly thought

[lovingboth]

It'd be amusing if the only reason Stan didn't hand over the program was that his tieclip camera didn't get a good enough picture of the computer screen to do so.

Sistermagpie's thoughts on first watch - Echo

[sistermagpie]

So all this plot stuff happened and yet I'm mostly excited about finding out where Philip is from. LOL!

But like I said above, I think they must be gearing up for the whole conflict next season, which might mean we need to get more backstory for both the Jennings. Also Paige, btw. At this point everyone's talking about Paige being recruited as if it's just a case of them doing it or not, but Paige has her own personality and beliefs that will no doubt make her far more difficult to control.

It's a nice conflicted set up, actually, in that Elizabeth is the one that wants to tell her the truth now (which she wants) and give her something big to believe in (which she wants) but Philip is the one committed to keeping her free to choose who she wants to be instead of being molded to someone else's agenda--something Paige wants but probably can't see that Philip is actually championing. That's why he's more okay with the church.

Back to the Jennings, I love that convo in the beginning, particularly how Elizabeth turns to Philip obviously expecting him to share something about his childhood like a normal person and it takes him an inordinately long time to accept that he's going to even do it. "Mischa, would you like to share something about yourself with the class?"

But then their stories are so different. Elizabeth's is about duty and has no villain. She doesn't blame the illness for existing or anyone else for not helping her. It's in response to Paige's complaints and giving her parents a bad time--Elizabeth WISHED she could have given her mother a bad time at 14 but her mother was too busy POSSIBLY DYING for her to do so!

Philip's story picks up a similar theme--presumably he chose a memory understanding he should do so. In his story his fellow Soviets aren't just not helping him but actively attacking him, and they're bigger and stronger! But he must get the milk back to his family. It's really a great story for what will come later, that Philip's telling a story where he's simply trying to survive and feed his family even at 9.

As Katiac and I were saying on twitter, it's both a reversal of their pilot convo and yet not. Back then Philip wanted to tell the kids the truth and E was slapping him and reminding him they "swore" not to. Now she wants to tell them and he's horrified and saying they "swore" not to--but their priorities are the same. Philip was willing to tell to make them free to live the lives they wanted in their own country. Elizabeth is willing to tell them to bond with them in the Cause.

When you think about it, it's definitely the area of the relationship they need to pursue now. Until now their philosophical differences have mostly been focused on Elizabeth "forgiving" Philip for not being enough of a true believer, worrying about his enjoyment of the US etc. They've never done it from the other pov where Philip is the one backing off from her fanaticism. This is going to be new for them--maybe especially for Elizabeth.

ETA: Forgot to say, when I was imagining what the conflict was going to be, this is the only one I came up with-but I didn't think the show would go there with Elizabeth. But when imagining it the one thing I imagined was Philip at some point telling Elizabeth that he wasn't Gregory--the guy who proudly told him that he and Elizabeth would happily sacrifice their families for the cause ("You don't have a family, do you, Gregory?"). That was planted right there, and then it was clear that Elizabeth wasn't quite on the same page. But now they're going to have to argue about it straight on.

Re: Sistermagpie's thoughts on first watch - Echo

[alisonx]

As Katiac and I were saying on twitter, it's both a reversal of their pilot convo and yet not. Back then Philip wanted to tell the kids the truth and E was slapping him and reminding him they "swore" not to. Now she wants to tell them and he's horrified and saying they "swore" not to--but their priorities are the same. Philip was willing to tell to make them free to live the lives they wanted in their own country. Elizabeth is willing to tell them to bond with them in the Cause.

Thank you! This is what I wanted to articulate but couldn't!! Thanks <3

Treon's thoughts

[treonb]

What an episode! I didn't see any of it coming.

First for the stupid things:
- Loved Henry jumping up on the counter and missing
- Loved Paige's Tab too. Where do they get these things?

More seriously:
- Stan has completely lost whatever shreds of respect I still had for him. Leaving the note is one thing, but I was sure Stan would somehow save her. No, Nina, don't go! :-(

- Jared and Kate - I have to think about that one.

In any case, the idea of the KGB going for the kids is a very interesting set up for next season, though I still think that they'll need to be 3rd generation illegals before they could pass a serious security check. And Philip's very naive if he thinks his little talk with Arkady will scare away the KGB.

- The body-count in this episode, and the goriness of it all, rivaled the pilot. It was obvious P&E would go for the prize first and only then see if they can save Fred, but it was still very sad. They could have probably tried to save him first, and the shoes would have still been there.

Going for the shoes first

[lovingboth]

There was a chance they would be caught if they tried to rescue Fred.

I don't think they went anywhere near him - aren't all the police cars going the other way?

Post-second-viewing: Jae

[jae]

My thoughts, in point form:

• Boy, is Philip ever from out in the middle of nowhere! I guess that shouldn't surprise us--it was clear that he was never any sort of Moscow elite.

• I was actually surprised that Stan didn't end up giving the Soviets Echo in the end. Like alley_skywalker, I was very, very glad--I think him agonizing over the decision for a long time and then choosing in the end not to help Nina was much more consistent with his character all along--but I was still surprised. Relatedly, I had been wondering how on earth they were going to get out of revealing Stan's earlier betrayals to the FBI (which would have resulted in him getting summarily dismissed and then arrested) even if he didn't go through with the handing over of Echo, though I'm convinced that he probably did manage get away with it in a way that was mostly realistic.

• Even more surprising, though, at least to me: all the people (including Noah Emmerich!) who have been putting it as "Stan didn't betray his country," because he had quite clearly already done that in smaller ways throughout the whole season. I think it's really important not to forget that. It's not that I blame him at all, but there's no way you can say that his hands are clean when he turned over FBI files to Oleg and negotiated clandestinely with the KGB's Rezident. I suppose it's a bit like the smaller transgressions that Philip and Elizabeth have committed all along themselves, in not completely adhering to the rules all the time--the things he's done weren't a huge betrayal of the organization that he works for, but you can't say that they're not at least a little one.

• The expositiony reveal of Jared being the killer didn't bother me in the moment I saw it for the first time--I suppose because I actually did believe he'd have been desperate enough under those circumstances to want to make Elizabeth promise to tell the Center and Kate what he had done to save them. It bothered me on rewatch, though. It wasn't awful, but I think it had a pretty simple editing solution--if the'd cut his speech short and revealed more of the details through Claudia at the end, it would have been fine.

• Much more than the exposition factor, though, the part that bothered me was the notion of him believing his parents didn't love him because the family had been a lie--it just seemed inconsistent with a Jared who took up the same sword as his parents and went into the family business himself. It would have seemed more consistent with those acts if he'd tried to push his discomfort with the lying and the struggle with his own identity aside in some big sweeping gesture and cast his parents as heroes who ultimately had to die to save their family's secrets. Also, though I'm ultimately okay with Jared being the killer, I still think something closer to what lovingboth had envisioned would have been even better: if it had been a betrayal or a slipup on Jared's part that had gotten them killed by someone else. In the end, though, that's just nitpicking, and I quite honestly have few complaints with what amounted to a really great plot twist. It wasn't just there for the shock factor or to get talked about--it was something that will have very real psychological repercussions in the characters for years to come and lead us right into the conflict the show is setting up for season three.

• I suppose I should probably feel angry at Kate for manipulating Jared, but I really don't at all. She was doing her job, just like Elizabeth with Brad or Philip with Martha. And she was doing it well, and to be honest, that pleases me after all of the suggestions we had that she was just an incompetent. The toilet paper roll was a good "triumph under pressure" moment, but it was good to get an indication that she was good at the long game too.

• A couple of people here have said that they just can't envision Paige getting involved with the KGB because it would necessitate betraying her country. I can't agree. When the writers decided to have Paige "get religion," they could have easily had her gravitate toward a traditional American right-wing church, but instead they've led her toward this lefty, activist church that has seen her protesting the nuclear movement alongside her youth pastor and the rest of his flock. She's proven herself more than willing to go against her country's government when she thinks what they're doing is wrong, and she clearly idolizes lefty dissidents. I feel like this has got to be deliberate on the part of the writers, and not just as a move to make her Christianity somewhat more palatable to her parents. I actually find myself kind of agreeing with Elizabeth that as far as illegals' kids go, Paige is much more suited for the programme than many others might be.

• As far as the upcoming conflict between Paige's parents over this issue goes, though, I can see both sides of it. On Elizabeth's end, it's clear based on some things that have been articulated overtly in the last couple of episodes that Elizabeth strongly identifies with Paige, but at the very same time, she feels isolated from her and misunderstood by her. Given that, I can absolutely conceive of Elizabeth wanting to spark and build the sort of "us against the world" relationship that she feels is currently lacking between them, and which being that sort of allies would inevitably foster. And yet at the same time I completely sympathize with Philip in that after this horrendous season, the last thing he wants is for his kids to end up like him. Which they absolutely would do--all they need to do is look at Jared to see just how much like them that job would end up making their kids. It's important to remember, though, that Elizabeth didn't just make a snap decision and then try to impose her will on a horrified Philip--she didn't even say "this is it" for Paige, she just said "what if this is it?" It's a question, one they're going to have to discuss.

• Which brings me to a point that I think really needs to be made in the midst of so many people saying that they don't buy this turn, and that's that the second-generation illegals programme was completely real (it wasn't called exactly that, but that was certainly the gist of what they were doing in real life too). Several children of illegals who went on to work for the KGB themselves in a similar capacity are known, and probably many more were never found out. There is absolutely no reason to think that children of this sort of spy couldn't possibly be brought around to serving the same cause their parents served, given the right psychological makeup and the right kind of nudging in that direction. Because it actually happened, with real people.

• I did like the way Philip's confrontation with Arkady laid out very clearly the terms of what they're willing to keep doing and the point beyond which they're both willing to quit (and he didn't use the word, but I think it was clear to both Philip and Arkady in that moment that quitting would mean defecting). If the KGB approaches Paige without their permission, they've got to be willing to lose their strongest living assets. It was good to know that Philip and Elizabeth are on the same page about that, too, even if they're not on the same page about all of the issues surrounding it.

• One of the things I really love about this show is the fact that so little of the tradecraft is handwaved, so I was disappointed by one thing that ended up being unexplained to the bitter end: how Larrick got the tracking device in the backpack. I actually don't mind a bit of implausibility--on a show like this, I just need possible, not likely--but I feel like the writers missed a bet in not giving us any sort of explanation at all.

• And speaking of Larrick, I was also just generally disappointed that Larrick himself didn't end up being revealed as something deeper than he appeared on the surface. I do buy his motivations for what he was doing toward the end, but I feel like he was still written in more of a black-and-white way as a kind of action-movie villain than this show has leaned toward with any other characters. Because they did such a good job providing him with realistic motivations, I feel like they wouldn't have even needed much to make him a sympathetic character who we ended up mourning rather than someone we're relieved to see dead.

• Sandra noticing that something was going on with Stan other than "just" the dissolution of their marriage, even other than the affair, was the first thing that's given me hope for their relationship all season. I think it's probably still doomed (mostly because Stan isn't willing to put in the work to repair it) but that was a good reminder that even in doomed relationships, there are parts that aren't all bad.

• I was spoiled for the use of Golden Earring's "Twilight Zone" (Joel Fields was talking about it with someone else on twitter last week, and I knew immediately which song they had to mean) but that didn't make it any less thrilling for me. It's weird, but this show has an uncanny knack for choosing songs that were not only meaningful to me as a child/teenager when they came out, but which became meaningful to me again in a different way later in life (it's happened three times now).

• I felt a little sad that Fred's death didn't get the attention his character had earned, overshadowed as it was by Jared's death (and the revelation that immediately preceded it). It's appropriate for the character--he died in very much the same anonymous, under-the-radar way he had lived--but there's still something tragic about it. The only person who mourned him at all was Philip, and that lasted only the five seconds or so it said to acknowledge that he'd sacrificed himself that day.

• I'm also wondering: does anyone else think it was Arkady's relationship advice that ultimately pushed Stan over the edge into not saving Nina in the end? "Don't tell her I love you so much," heh.

• What did people think about the inclusion of the kids conversation between Clark and Martha? I've said this before, but it's occurred to me that since Martha has stated point-blank that she's not at all sure at the moment whether she can handle his decision, that gives the show a way of eventually ending the Clark and Martha relationship in a way that's not deadly to Martha.

• I know dream sequences aren't very beloved in the world of prestige television, but I actually really appreciated Stan's. He's been so opaque to me so much of the season, it was great to get that little peek into his subconscious. I especially like the way that Martha putting the files into her bag happened behind Stan's back, suggesting that even in his dream he didn't really understand consciously that it was going on, but it still registered on a subconscious level.

• Stan is really just completely alone at the moment, isn't he? There isn't anybody else on the show who's quite that isolated. It could be argued that he did it to himself, of course, but it's still sad.

• These surprise vacations are definitely the most overtly suspicious thing that Philip and Elizabeth do within their own family. That's much, much weirder than slightly-off parenting techniques or explosions over religion.

• I'm usually right there with the characters when I watch this show instead of evaluating things from my own perspectives, but there was a moment that made my blood run cold as me: when Clark asked Martha if she even knew how to use a gun, and Martha answered: "The guy at the gun shop showed me, it's pretty easy." I'm sorry, Americans, but that is one screwy aspect of that country of yours....

Overall, I'd have to say that it wasn't perfect, nor was it my favourite episode of the season, but like the first-season finale, it was very satisfying in pretty much all of the right ways.

-J

Re: Post-second-viewing: Jae

[lovingboth]

Yep, Stan has definitely done his share of betraying.

Oddly enough, I prefer my twist, especially the variant explaining the backpack, and the ending where Stan shoots Larrick thinking he's a burglar in his friends' home too :)

What they've given us is effectively psychopathic Jarred, capable of murdering his sister because she was in the way of getting what he wanted, and being more than ok with that..

.. and I wonder if this is why they try so unconvincingly to make Larrick look a little bit nicer, because two psychopathic killers is perhaps one too many.

Philip sees this with horror in Jarred because of his own behaviour this season. Would it be easier not to feel guilty about it all? This is why I am fine with the treatment of Fred's death: it's deliberately distanced from Philip and Elizabeth.

And they don't know what a purse is :)

[soupytwist]

I thought that was really good! Not the best episode of the season, but given how good the season has been... damn, that worked.

WHAT AN OPENER AAAHHHHHH.

I loved Elizabeth and Philip actually sharing details of their earlier lives. And given their later conversation about telling Paige the truth, I think the callback to the pilot is 100% deliberate: and it works in so many ways, to say how they've changed as a team and a couple, but also how they are the same.

I'm sorry, I laughed at the ye olde floppy disc. The fact those soft ones were actually literally floppy is just inherently hilarious to me. Heeee. And the reveal that Stan recorded it!!

(Although... I always felt like, if Stan were to be really close to giving the Soviets everything and then decide he couldn't do it, even to save Nina, that he would be making that decision BEFORE he went into the room... does that make sense? Like, by the time you're actually recording stuff you shouldn't be recording, on that level, that's already a crime. That is itself a big deal. Although I guess it's arguable that he thought he could go through with it to save Nina, but it was after that he realised he couldn't, and I do think that's what we were meant to get from the episode.)

Paige talking about sacrifice aaahhhhhh. I love how close Philip and Elizabeth are - BONDING AS PARENTS "I know, I wish I could tell her about the real heroes" works so well at the time and then later, bam, comes back big time.

How often is Philip at Martha's? Him having to leave is so sad. And displacing the big conversations onto Martha is not a good pattern... although I do like that it's not just about Philip's feelings, Martha also explicitly talks about what she wants, whether she wants this situation. I really hope she gets out okay. Martha's gun is revealed! a ladysmith. And given the big deal made of it - "do you even know how to use this", going to the firing range - I think we can officially say this is going to be a BIG THING next season. I predict Martha having to shoot someone.

When the phone rang I literally said, out loud, "oh shit elizabeth is calling"!

I totally get that they had no time to plan an escape, but surprise vacation is a TERRIBLE IDEA. Like, I am 100% on Paige's side here, this reads as ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

I also literally said out loud (because this show is one of the worst/best for making me talk to my screen) "oh my god we saw martha just putting files in her bag!!" and then "wait that was a dream?"

Larrick is seriously scary. Which does make his insistence that he's going to bring Philip and Elizabeth to justice rather than just shoot them seem pretty... hollow? Weird? I mean, I can sort of see him having all sorts of mental issues given what's happened, but the cold, calculating, utterly ruthless person we've seen so far didn't seem to have any of that apply.

I hate the giiiiiant Reagan picture, and also, dude, Gaad, you are LATE with your patriotic ridiculousness!

I am so, so sad for Nina. NINA, I WILL MISS YOU. YOU WERE GREAT. PLEASE DON'T BE DEAD. (Given that we're actually shown nothing of what's happened to her, am I being too optimistic to hope she might either make it in the USSR or not ACTUALLY be being shipped home at all? Like, she clearly has to leave the Rezidentura after Stan has not given up the goods, but could she maybe go somewhere else, incognito? Or something? Possibly I just want to keep seeing Annet Mahendru, because she's been such a great actor for two seasons now and I don't want that to end!

Henry is so good at rolling with the punches - I love that he seriously just gets on with it, whatever wacky shit his family pull. Random family holiday in the middle of the night? Mum and dad gone for hours? let's play parcheesi!

The whole thing with Larrick getting Philip and Elizabeth was super tense and really well done. The Jared reveal was...also intense, even though it's not my favourite solution to that plot, I think it does work. It makes me sad though. Grannie's right, it's a tragedy.

I think they're clearly going to end up telling Paige SOMETHING, and I think the show was right to bring in the "second generation illegals" thing there. Paige is SUPER SUSPICIOUS right now. Like, she has currently stopped snooping, but she is absolutely convinced something weird is happening, and at some point that IS an issue. Elizabeth is not wrong that that search within Paige - for truth, as well as for personal achievement/fulfillment - needs to be dealt with. But of course Philip's ALSO right that that Paige is going to be seriously upset by it if she finds out, even if she then ALSO decides that she wants to change the world that way.

...And then it ends on the MOST ARCHETYPICALLY AMERICAN SCENE EVER. Very appropriate, show. I see what you did there.

Nina and surprise vacations

[lovingboth]

Sending Nina to the same Siberian(?) base as Vasili would be amusing.

A surprise vacation is one thing, but this was a surprise crap vacation. No need to get up in the middle of the night for this one.

SIBERIA!!! SIBERIA!!

[apolla_savre]

PHILIP IS SIBERIAN!!! IT WAS MY HEADCANON AND NOW IT'S CANON!!

TOBOLSK!! ONE OF SIBERIA'S MAIN CITIES!! AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT CITY!!

*EXCITED JUMPING*

Re: SIBERIA!!! SIBERIA!!

[sistermagpie]

I thought of you. Also, even though I know little about Siberia, I was totally pulling for it for Philip. It was a little gift.

Trying to wrap everything up

[treonb]

The more I think over the finale, the less I'm enthused, and I feel it has a lot to do with the way the season progressed. S1 was more procedural, S2 was more arc-based, and therefore several episodes were spent moving things into place for a big finale. But then, when the big finale comes, I feel the writers went overboard with trying to wow us. They succeeded with me, btw, until I started thinking about it.

I had hoped Stan wouldn't hand over the Echo program, but I was also hoping he'll redeem himself by coming up with a plan to save things. Sort of the way Gaad turned things around. Not becoming a double agent in itself isn't enough for me. He might have been able to save Nina if he was willing to sacrifice himself, but he didn't even try.

The entire 'tell Paige now' and then Philip threatening Arkady came completely out of left field, and I prefer pretending it did not happen.

Jared and Kate - maybe. I can understand some of it, but not all of it.

I really liked the Larrick arc. Except for the fact that he was about to turn over P&E - the more I think about it, the more I agree it doesn't make sense. He wanted to kill Emmet and Leanne, so what changed?

Same goes for Elizabeth's insistence on not telling the kids. I really don't see what changed. She knows Paige, she knows how she feels right now (ie, "I'm not a liar"). How will telling her her whole life was a lie, and to what extent her parents went to make her believe it, help in any way? Even if she doesn't tell the FBI immediately, she'll be running off to Kelli or Pastor Tim.

Things like Philip's depression were completely ignored. Was it building up towards something and I missed it, or is it just going to stay around till the next season?

Compared to the S1 finale, which actually tied up everything nicely, I feel that here they tried to both wrap everything up, and open a whole new can of worms that we wouldn't see coming,and it was just too much.

Re: Trying to wrap everything up

[wendelah1]

I agree with everything you wrote here except I wasn't ever wowed. It was a very underwhelming, so-not-believable-yet-so-predictable season finale.

The entire 'tell Paige now' and then Philip threatening Arkady came completely out of left field, and I prefer pretending it did not happen.

Me, too, except I assume they are setting us up for next season, which is going to make it impossible to ignore if I decide to keep watching the series.

Things like Philip's depression were completely ignored. Was it building up towards something and I missed it, or is it just going to stay around till the next season?

They did spend a lot of time on it only to ignore it this episode. I'm guessing his depression is unchanged and will stay around until next season. He and Stan can be depressed together.

Compared to the S1 finale, which actually tied up everything nicely, I feel that here they tried to both wrap everything up, and open a whole new can of worms that we wouldn't see coming,and it was just too much.

Exactly.

I finally watched the finale

[wendelah1]

The thematic arc of this season was to depict the price officially-sanctioned deception and violence takes on the individual, the family unit, and the state itself. Beginning with the very first episode, we watched as lives were lost and people sacrificed for what is arrogantly referred to by both sides as the greater good. It's a theme that ran through the first season as well: the illegal Robert's family is destroyed, Stan's family is already coming apart in season one, but the scene in the hotel room at the beginning of this season signaled a change in focus.

Last season's finale brought Elizabeth and Philip back together. This season's finale shows us how easily that connection could be severed in the future. We watched as three families are destroyed, two as a direct consequence of official government orders: the scientist's family because he is kidnapped by Philip and Elizabeth on the orders of The Center, Jared's family because he is seduced by Kate into believing that his family is a lie and that his true identity is to be with her and "do great things." Like the scientist, like Robert's wife, like the soldiers at the training camp, like the computer programmer, and the busboy, and Lucia--and Nina, too, Jarod's parents and sister had to be sacrificed for the big lie, "the greater good."

There's an emptiness inside so many of characters on this show, with devastating consequences in their personal and professional lives. Stan Beeman's family fell apart because of the emptiness at his core, which he attempted to salve with an affair with Nina. We don't know yet what is at the root of his pain but sacrificing her in pursuit of his allegiance to the big lie surely has only added to it. His self-loathing is evident--and deserved.

Philip Jennings is at a crossroads. He knows what he is, and has for a long time. Keeping his family--his children--safe and happy has been the thing that kept him going for a long, long time. With the threat to his family now openly exposed as The Center, it is going to be increasingly difficult for him to justify what he does. We shall see.

Elizabeth Jennings believes the lie, and has devoted her life to serving it. Will she sacrifice her daughter at the altar of the greater good, as commanded by The Center? Is she that deluded? Tune in next season. We shall see.

Although I have no problem with Jarod as the murderer in theory, the way it was depicted left a lot to be desired in dramatic terms. The scene in the hotel room at the beginning of the season just didn't match up with the story Jarod told Elizabeth and Philip in the final episode. A dying declaration is admissible as evidence in court because someone who confesses on their deathbed is assumed to have no reason to lie. Unless he did have a reason to lie--to protect Kate perhaps--we are meant to believe him. Elizabeth and Philip do appear to believe him, even though the physical evidence contradicted his story. Is it sloppy story-telling on the part of the writers? Or have we still only been shown a half-truth? The FBI investigation is still ongoing. We shall see.

For The Center to insist on forging blindly ahead with their plan to recruit Paige despite how the Jarod situation blew up is just evidence of how arrogant whoever is currently in charge there really is. In other words, it's totally believable.

Agent Frank Gadd's picture of then-President Ronald Reagan nicely parallels the portrait of Lenin hanging in the Residentura.

I have been a member of several "crunchy granola" churches since the mid-eighties. Whatever the writers (and a few members of this forum) might believe, practicing a "liberal" version of Christianity does not predispose one to or signify a readiness to betray one's country by working for the KGB. It doesn't necessarily even lead to voting the Democratic ticket. I might be insulted if I wasn't laughing so hard.

I hated the song they had playing over the scene switching at the beginning of the episode the first time. It was loud and distracting and just awful-sounding. If there was a way to filter it out on subsequent viewings, I would.

Overall, I was underwhelmed by this season as it progressed. Consequently I'm already feeling somewhat disengaged from these characters and this show, and the third season is a long way off. Will I come back for the third season? Probably, but we shall see.

Re: I finally watched the finale

[sistermagpie]

I think the Jared situation is supposed to be solved, despite, I agree, a lot of problems given what we saw before. It doesn't even seem like the FBI is still investigating beyond knowing it had something to do with espionage. It's just really hard to imagine this kind of messy domestic dispute happening in a way that so much looked (and sounded it seemed) like a hit.

I don't think the show made any connection between being in a crunchy granola church and being a KGB agent--though I've seen some viewers make that odd connection. I think the show's point is just that Paige as a person is someone who is attracted to sacrificing for causes bigger than herself. The two causes have nothing to do with each other except by accident at points.

[shapinglight]

I wish I had managed to make this comment just after I watched the finale, but better late than never, I suppose.

Mostly, I liked it (and Philip's Lenin disguise when he confronted Arkady still makes me laugh), but I have to confess to a very vague feeling of disappointment, and I'm not even sure what it stems from. I think it may possibly be from the impression (which isn't borne out by the facts) that Philip and Elizabeth ended up getting away from Larrick rather easily. This is ridiculous really. They didn't at all, and Jared's revelation and death was highly traumatic. However, the impression remains. I think Larrick was such an impressive villain (the best so far in this show) that I expected more somehow. Dunno.

Otherwise, I felt sad for Nina and hope she will be back, but I never thought there was any chance that Stan would betray his country, even for her. I did end up liking Oleg a lot, and I certainly didn't to start with. I hope his family can perhaps pull some strings and make sure that Nina's punishment isn't any worse than Vassili's.

Anyway, roll on season 3.