Discussion topic

[sistermagpie]

I found myself thinking about this last night seeing a commercial for the show. :-)

What do you think Philip and Elizabeth's relationship was like before they came to the US? We know they met in 1962 and arrived in 1965. For those 3 years they'd have been training together in the USSR. They'd be speaking English to each other, but Russian, presumably, to others at least at times. They'd call each other Philip and Elizabeth and pretend to be those characters to the extent they do that when alone in their bedroom now. (Iow, they're Elizabeth and Philip but can talk openly about spying.) That means they probably could talk about how they felt about their work, their mission etc. They'd be studying things together. They'd be asking questions as Russians about the US together.

They still seem very careful with each other in the 1965 scene, Elizabeth refers to herself as living with "a strange man" even by 1968 (Philip reacts to this, but we don't know what he's thinking exactly), she didn't feel she could confide in him, didn't trust his commitment, but could judge him enough to think he'd make a good father, for instance. Yet her memory of icicles on the trees when their train left Moscow is, 20 years later, a bond.

So what do you think about this in-between beginning of their relationship? Before they actually became "Americans?"

Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Comments

[jae]

I had to think about this for the story I wrote for you, and some of it made it into his thinking process in the final scene while he's sitting in the Denny's (though checking back, it looks like most of that paragraph got cut in the end). Basically, I think they lived apart until they got to the U.S., and mostly trained separately, but also were paired up on specific training tasks and also just generally got thrown together to get to know each other a bit as their cover identities. I wouldn't compare it with the kind of talking they do in their bedroom now, though. I mean, they were just figuring out who their own cover identities were going to be, so this fellow spy who was going to be their partner was only one thing on a very long list of things they had to be worrying about.

-J

[sistermagpie]

Oh right--I didn't mean that the intimacy was the same. Just that they would be Philip and Elizabeth, but they wouldn't "be" Philip and Elizabeth the way they are to someone like Stan. They could openly talk about what they're really doing.

Interesting to think that they'd be kept separate most of the time--I mean, if they've been chosen to work together (and it doesn't seem like these pairings were completely random--according to Gabriel Elizabeth had the chance to turn one person down) is it better to have them really get to know each other to see if there's any immediate problems (they like each other too much, not enough, don't work well together) or keep them from knowing each other that well until they get to the US together.

Either way there's no way of telling how being in the US is going to affect things, but it's just as fascinating for me to imagine them in this kind of limbo imagining things about this other person based on the little they see. Philip looking for evidence that he is right to be devoted, Elizabeth looking for evidence she's right not to be etc. Maybe there's even some casual interactions that got blown out of proportion by the other person or misunderstood.

[jae]

I didn't mean that they'd been "kept separate" most of the time, as if the KGB deliberately been keeping them apart or something. But based on the early scene we saw of them arriving in the U.S. together and sleeping in the same room, it sure seemed to suggest that they a) didn't know each other very well yet, and b) definitely hadn't lived together/slept in the same room. That suggests that in the Soviet Union they were trained separately for much, but not all, of the time. Possibly mostly under supervision with little time alone to talk.

-J

[sistermagpie]

Oh, I knew what you meant. That's what I was talking about--that it was a decision to just train them as two agents who saw each other when training without being "a pair" even as trainees with a special relationship. Of course, this also brings up when they had private time to talk with other trainees--would Philip have more down time with other men Illegals and Elizabeth with women? Presumably they'd be living in some kind of communal arrangement. They'd have somebody to talk to--but even there they wouldn't feel free to just say anything, I assume.

What I meant by them imagining things about the other person was just the way you'd imagine things about, say, another person you knew in your class but didn't know well. Someone who's in many ways a stranger, but in this case they know how important they're going to be in their lives, because they're going to be in an arranged marriage. So they'd be watching each other in a class and in any small conversation they could or couldn't have and trying to get information about the person from it.

[jae]

The reearch I did for Five Points Down was of course murky about illegals training, but I did read a couple of things that suggested that much of it in real life was completely individual. It's always hard to know whether the show is following that or taking another route. (The only glimpse of training we've gotten was the sex worker stuff, which of course is pretty specialized.)

I definitely think they had to have been curious about each other, in any case. Probably each pretty shy about their curiosity in their own way, too.

-J

[sistermagpie]

One of the thing's that always so great about the show is how they manage to remind you that especially as kids they would have been a weird mixture of experience and innocence. As adults it comes out more just on the emotional side, but they do a good job when they talk about or refer to their early life of making them seem like ordinary teenagers or young adults no matter what else they're doing.

I think part of it is maybe that they're both remarkably not cynical characters.

[lovingboth]

This is one of the odd things, and I wonder if it's based on reality.

Certainly, if I were running the programme, they'd be speaking US English from day one of being accepted onto it. Apart from learning other accents or and another foreign language or two, they'd be speaking nothing but US English. Certainly not Russian or any one of the Soviet Union's other languages. If they do so, even if unexpectedly shouted at in Russian or a sentence in the middle of a conversation, warn them once and kick them off the course for a second offence.

Similarly, once a couple have been selected, they'd be paired up from that point.

How long are they supposed to have been married for?

[sistermagpie]

I did assume they had to speak English after a certain point--when we see that flashback of Elizabeth at 17 she's got a thick accent so she obviously needed to work on it.

But I assume that being in Russia they may have had times when they were still exposed to that language or had to speak to people who simply didn't speak English, at least occasionally. Not that many people in Russia have perfect English speaking skills. Many of them would be interacting with Philip and Elizabeth, of course, but I assume if they're in Moscow if they're not sealed in the one building not allowed to see anybody outside of their instructors, there'd be some Russian.

But I do think they were also trained not to react to Russian or speak it by accident.

I think on the show they've been married since they came to the US, so 1965. That motel room was like a parody of a honeymoon and presumably the first time they'd spent the night together. I think they lived as husband and wife since they got to the US.

[theplatonicnonyeah]

I think that by "married" it means there was a fake certificate produced in Russia to provide a legal contract for their status in the US. I doubt there was a ceremony. In fact, I think it would be a nice touch if the show made them renew their vows in a more ceremonial way, but obviously not religious.

[sistermagpie]

We know they definitely didn't have a ceremony--Elizabeth makes a point of mentioning that at Clark and Martha's wedding. I guess they must have covered having some legal paperwork filed in the US just in case somebody looked up their marriage--why not? But I suppose they could have chosen any date for that either before or after they actually arrived. They might have gotten a wedding license upon arrival and just filed that.

It's interesting since Elizabeth made that comment in The Vow--I would bet both characters would actually like some sort of ceremony even if it was just themselves doing it. I wouldn't put it past these writers to even come up with something that wasn't literally that but read as being that symbolically. (At this point the closest they have is that last scene in The Colonel where Elizabeth saying "Come Home" pretty clearly makes the marriage real.)

[jae]

The "speaking English all the time" thing isn't actually based on reality, but I agree, it's a totally sensible thing that you can easily imagine the people behind the illegals programme deciding to do.

We don't know how long "Philip" and "Elizabeth" have supposedly been married, just how long they've been in the U.S.

-J

[soupytwist]

That's SUCH a good question. I really am not sure. Because like J says, they clearly don't know each other that well in the flashbacks. It doesn't seem they've had much chance to become a duo yet in the way they have later.

But they also must have spent SOME time together. Maybe it was mostly in, like, classroom settings - they'd be together to do whatever training it was that day ("now pretend you're going to grocery store and buying cereal.") but go back to separate places, maybe dorms, at night?

I also think that while they might not have felt bonded by their experience at the time, it makes sense that it would become more and more meaningful. Not just as their relationship changes anyway (although that definitely would not make them LESS likely to begin to see those memories a bit differently) but also as they spend more time in the US and are increasingly alone. Being the only other person you've seen in months who really gets what you've gone through...even with a bad start, that matters.

[sistermagpie]

Yes, that's just what I was thinking when remembering that "icicles on the trees" memory. I'm sure Elizabeth, if she ever thought of it earlier, probably first remembered it as a personal memory of herself. She was remembering leaving her home for good. So in that later scene it's almost like she might be realizing for the first time that this is a memory they could share--does he remember there were icicles on the trees then? And he did. So it's like those earlier memories become shared memories when at first the were solitary ones.

This also makes me think it's interesting how that first meeting is one of the only things we get mostly from Philip's pov--Elizabeth's never said anything about what she thought about Philip when she first met him, what her first impressions were. But then they had Gabriel drop that tantalizing hint that this was definitely part of a longer story for Elizabeth where she turned down her first partner. If that's true than just as Philip could look back and think he knew in that moment that this was the person he would be loyal to, Elizabeth might look back and think she knew in that moment this was somebody she could maybe trust. Despite the fact that she really didn't trust him for years.

LOL! Who knew that The Americans could be so much like Proust??!

[treonb]

It's hard to argue with canon, but I think they took it too much in the direction of a traditional arranged marriage. You spend so much time and effort on your agents, you want to know that they can pull off looking like a married couple, not have their first alone time once they're on US soil.

Also, I think most spies were first sent to a third country to build up their background, and only then sent to their target country. Coming from another country also solves most of the family/history issues.

[sistermagpie]

But then, it's not unheard of at all, especially in 1965, for a couple to not live together before marriage, so it might just read as a newlywed thing as long as they didn't look really hostile in public!

We know the Jennings don't have anything in their background about being from another country, but I do assume their journey to the US had a stop in a third country first.

[treonb]

There's a big difference between an arranged marriage where the couple only meets as a couple for a few times before their marriage, and not living together before marriage.

It's not a question of whether you have sex, it's a question of whether the other person is a stranger.

[sistermagpie]

But they wouldn't have been strangers, regardless.

For instance, look at the early episode of MM when a character's just gotten married. After his honeymoon he says he's surprised to find out how funny his wife is. That was I think an intentional reminder that it wasn't unusual then for people to date and in some ways not know each other a lot by our standards.

In the one scene we see of P&E they're left alone and told to converse the way two people would who were getting to know each other (albeit using fake background information) so three years later they'd presumably know each other. I'll bet they'd actually have a lot of drills like that because that's how they're learning their backstories as living things. After all, they even have a huge thing they have in common with their job. That alone would probably give them an air of being intimate because they'd be talking about things (when alone) about what their next move is, etc.

Of course, arranged marriages are also something that could happen in the US even today. I don't know how immediately identifiable they are when they're out on the street etc.

[treonb]

You're right, you don't need much to pull off looking happily married. But I'd still expect them not to wait until they're in the US to start living as a married couple. Let's say Elizabeth couldn't stand Philip's snoring, you'd want to know that before they get there.

Also, arranged marriages certainly do happen in the US today.

[sistermagpie]

Of course, something tells me that after growing up living in a communal apartment it would not occur to Elizabeth that anyone would care about Philip's snoring! :-)