Episode discussion post: "The Day After"
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theamericansAired:
11 May 2016 in the U.S. and Canada
This is a discussion post for episode 409 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 four, episode nine.)
Original promo trailer
Overnight reviews
From Vulture
From the AV Club
From Hitfix
From Slant
From the New York Times
From the Washington Post
From the Wall Street Journal
From Entertainment Weekly
From Inverse
From Geeks of Doom
From People's World
From Mstars News
From the Young Folks
From Celebrity Dirty Laundry
From TV Fanatic
From tv.com
11 May 2016 in the U.S. and Canada
This is a discussion post for episode 409 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 four, episode nine.)
Original promo trailer
Overnight reviews
From Vulture
From the AV Club
From Hitfix
From Slant
From the New York Times
From the Washington Post
From the Wall Street Journal
From Entertainment Weekly
From Inverse
From Geeks of Doom
From People's World
From Mstars News
From the Young Folks
From Celebrity Dirty Laundry
From TV Fanatic
From tv.com
general comment
Date: 2016-05-12 05:48 am (UTC)It alway tends to peak before the final episode and yet deliver towards the end.
This was one of those less action-packed episode. The title was so fitting! It really was the day after, except 7 months later and quite a few things had happened.
Tatiana and Oleg are now in a relationship. She is still hiding something and he still seems to trust her way too much.
Philip and Paige are once again having their usual father-daughter bonding activities. She seems more relaxed or perhaps resigned to her faith as Pastor Tim appeaser. Graduating from the regular car to the Camarro was juxtaposed with Elizabeth drugging Young Hee's husband to frame him. Success and failure all at once.
Philip tries to help Elizabeth out, so that she doesn't have to do it, because he sees how much Young Hee has started to mean to her. But there really is no way out of it, considering Elizabeth's statement after having watched The Day After: "This is why we're here." She is willing to sacrifice everything for the cause. At least, she has been so far. How far can she be pushed?
We learn that Martha is "alive and free" in another one of those confiding talks between Philip and William, to which William scoffs sarcastically - I think. Their relationship reminds me of the one that other KGB couple (names?) had with their asset. I suspect William's faith will be much the same as that guy's.
When seeing Alice's pregnant belly in the last episode I thought that not even the KGB would be that cruel and have them killed. So it seems Pastor Tim will stay alive for the rest of the season, at least until the baby is born. Unless the trip to Ethiopia is indicative of "an accident" in the works.
Side note for the shippers out there: Stan and Philip playing squash again and sharing a water bottle. Why don't you just get a room... ROTFL!
But on a more serious note, I rather like their friendship, much like I found Martha and Clark's marriage nice. Neither are/were real, but they are glimpses into normalcy away from all the heightened reality of this show. So it was especially sad seeing Elizabeth lose her only friend that we know of on the show.
The Day After Reviewed
Date: 2016-05-12 09:41 am (UTC)Most of all I remember what it was like to live at a time where we - meaning I and most people around me - thought that the two superpowerls blowing the world to kingdom come was a very real possibility. To have this ongoing fear. It wasn't a "sudden panic" sensation, more of a constant awareness thing. Onen of the reason why everyone was so giddy about Gorbachev and glasnost way before the Wall fell already was that it eased that constant mental pressure and suddenly, WWWII and nuclear armageddon wasn't so much in the cards anymore.
I don't think I saw The Day After on tv until a few years later, but I read a novel dealing with the same theme, and, yeah. What I didn't know at the time and only learned rather recently about (I think there was some type of a birthday anniversary of the man in question?) was the incident Oleg tells Tatiana about. Surely, if one single person ever saved the world, that Soviet officer who (correctly) guessed it was a computer malfunction, not US nuclear missiles approaching, was it. The Oleg and Tatiana scene had other things to convey as well - that they're lovers now, and that, like Nina, Tatiana has a way poorer background than privileged Oleg, son of a politbureau member - but Oleg confiding that story was to me the core of it. Tatiana is disturbed but doesn't refute Oleg's conclusion that Russian tech is way behind; she says that it's his job (as head of the Science department at the Rezidentura, lest we forget) to help with that. Meanwhile, in another subplot, William tells Philip in reply to the question whether William trusts the Americans over the Russians re: the use of biological weapons, no, he doesn't, but he trusts their containers actually work. It made me wonder whether the show will carry us as far as Chernobyl. The flawed-due-to-lack-of-money tech (and the inflexible bureaucracy) are about to ensure the end of the Soviet Union as much as anything else.
The officer in Oleg's story made a brave choice. "It's a big decision to make for one single person" says William to Philip when asked why he informed them at all about the latest possible bio weapon if he doesn't want them to report to the Centre. William wants to share the responsibility for not reporting. Philip can see his point, but Elizabeth's reaction to The Day After on tv was to recall the only country to have actually used nuclear bombs (twice) was the US and that therefore they need to share this intel with the centre. And yet's it's not her biggest decision of the episode; that, because it's incredibly personal, is to go through with the reason she originally befriended Young Hee for, which is now officially revealed. As a lot of people guessed, it's because Young Hee's husband Don is a position to get William that level 4 access. Which means the KGB needs leverage to blackmail Don with. Which means that Elizabeth-as-Patty, after searching Young Hee's house in vain for something to use against Don, proceeds to set him up the way the Polish dissident leader in s1 was (minus the "rape and battery" look): she drugs Don and makes it look as if he had sex with Patty.
Earlier, Philip advises Elizabeth not to go through with the plan, "not because of me, because of you", because he can sense she doesn't want to do this to her friend. But Elizabeth being Elizabeth, she does go through with it. Note that in this episode, too, as in the one two eps ago, the show repeatedly has Elizabeth looking in a mirror, which it used to do with Philip during his various crisis moments in s2 and s3. And while Elizabeth does go through with it (and Don, waking up, believes what she wants him to believe), she doesn't return home relieved but shattered. If Elizabeth is steering towards to a crisis of conscience, I think it's very fitting that hers isn't about to kill or not to kill, or to have sex with someone, but about betraying a personal relationship that's real for the state. It connects with Gabriel having brought up the Purge (and having taken part) twice now, and Elizabeth as the hardcore believer in the Cause, holding to that ideal as her justification. Earlier in the episode, Young Hee and Elizabeth talk about their mothers, and Elizabeth, in what is a slip of persona, tells Young Hee after hearing about Young Hee's tough mother that hers was hard, too. (Patty's mother walked out on her children and husband in the backstory Elizabeth told Young Hee a couple of episodes ago, as far as I recall; it's Nadeshda's mother who was hard and imprinted her with the "sacrifice for the Cause above all" ethic.) Elizabeth allowed herself to relate to Young Hee as herself, which means she's just not gone through yet another mission but did something devastating to her friend. We'll see what this will result in.
(BTW, it did occur to me that all around good guy Don might inadvertendly foil the KGB by immediately confessing to his wife that he slept with her best friend, thereby nixing the blackmail opportunity. In which case Elizabeth would have destroyed that friendship for nothing, but then again, I suspect whether or not William actually gets access to Level 4 as the result of her actions will be beside the point in terms of how this affects her personal development.)
Meanwhile, in another subplot: Paige has fun learning to drive (btw, that was another "I remember!" moment to me, because my driving lessons in the 80s from my father were similar) and not so joyfully keeps up her Pastor Tim Watch. Pastor Tim proves he didn't become a Youth Pastor without having real teenager reading skills and tells Philip Paige comes across as constantly worried and unhappy to him, instead of the cheerful facade she presents, and wants to have another chat with the entire Jennings family. (Well, not Henry.) Pastor Tim, you don't. Trust me, you don't.
Philip and Stan have taken up their squash matches again, with Stan noting that Philip these days is in far better condition. What with all the complaining Stan does about his new boss, I'm really curious about whom they've cast and what this guy will actually be like. (Stan isn't exactly an objective source.) During the long "Day After" watching sequence we see Stan and Matthew have joined the Jennings clan (minus Henry) for watching this, so I'm assuming Stan inviting himself over for dinners as much as Henry drops by at his place is back on, too. Given vacations are over for E & P with this episode, I'm curious whether or not Stan will notice Philip is looking more harrassed again, and if he does, whether he'll finally reciprocate in the "friend offering a shoulder" department.
Trivia: I know that song from the crosscutting between Paige's driving and Elizabeth's framing of Don, too. There's a German version, too, which I heard performed just the other day. "Völlig losgelöst von der Erde..."
Poor Young Hee. Even if Don immediately confesses and thus won't get turned into a KGB tool, her marriage has just taken a blow, and her friend whom she bonded so much with isn't her friend. (BTW, another reason for the seven months time jump; no matter how instantly Young Hee liked Patty, if she'd known her only a few weeks I doubt she'd have trusted her enough to leave her kids and house with her for the weekend.)
While watching thoughts
Date: 2016-05-12 12:00 pm (UTC)Gosh, don't US learner drivers need a sign on their cars to say that they're learning?
Oh, Pastor Tim is going away for a while. If he died in Ethiopia, Paige wouldn't suspect anything.
Paige's 'more normal' is a crash back to reality for Philip.
I wonder if it's supposed to be significant that they're playing racquetball rather than the more common (here, anyway) squash.
'Free? I can't remember what that feels like.' William is suddenly curious about getting to get level four. Ah, 'I don't trust us with it'.
I don't remember being that impressed by The Day After, because of having seen (although not on TV - that didn't happen for a couple of years) the much earlier BBC film The War Game. TDA always reminded me of Blofeld's joke about destroying Kansas and the world not noticing for a while in Diamonds Are Forever.
On the slippery slope of lying to the Centre. Very interesting that Elizabeth doesn't say she couldn't do that. And she's right about the US having used an atomic weapon twice.
Ha. Did anyone not see Oleg and Tatiana happening eventually?
Ah, they're mentioning Stanislav Petrov - a friend will be very pleased. It's somewhat surprising that no-one's mentioned the KAL-007 incident a few weeks earlier, especially as there's a Korean family being featured.
Finally Elizabeth gets to nose through the house.
Paige is right about the way to go.
Young Hee's video collection is odd: would anyone who wasn't Russian have The Twelve Chairs as the only Mel Brooks film? And would this family have only two Korean films? (And how many people hide the porn behind things the kids might want to see?)
Nice professional detachment - 'yeah, they're faking that' - watching the porn, and a big sigh at not finding anything after a long night looking.
No, she doesn't want to do it, hence the pause in their office and the thoughtful look on Elizabeth's face before getting him to 'rescue' her.
(Low camera means not having to bother about most of the background to the phone box!)
Philip's turn for the look after the enthusiastic 'sure, sure' to Tim.
Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly. I've got a chest I need moving... Another look as he gets out of the car.
And another look as she prepares to drug him.
Philip being particularly nice to Paige.
Given that he was clearly not ok, why bother to attempt to seduce him? Especially when she was going to make it look like something had.
Why do I think something is going to happen to the car?
Ha!! I was thinking that she'd need to do something like that to make him think sex had happened!
Well, the car survived.
.. but clearly the relationship with Young Hee isn't going to.
It's the 'people being very thoughtful' episode.
Two songs in this, and I don't recognise either.
Blackmail
Date: 2016-05-12 12:09 pm (UTC)'She made me very drunk, then tried groping me, and the next thing I remember is waking up in bed'.
Re: The Day After viewing party
Date: 2016-05-12 05:09 pm (UTC)Yahoo song
Date: 2016-05-12 05:11 pm (UTC)*storms out in a huff*
;-)
I didn't recognise the second song, but apparently jaegecko knows it well...
Re: The Day After Reviewed
Date: 2016-05-12 05:16 pm (UTC)To be fair, Paige's worried and unhappy face can be noted from space. Her forehead is almost permanently crinkled. And frankly, it always was.
Henry was there on the couch.
It's also the themesong of Deutchland 83. (And was particularly memorably performed in Breaking Bad!) I think D83 uses the English version, interestingly.
Re: Yazoo song
Date: 2016-05-12 05:17 pm (UTC)Re: Yazoo song
Date: 2016-05-12 05:26 pm (UTC)Re: Yahoo song
Date: 2016-05-12 05:37 pm (UTC)Sistermagpie's thoughts on first watch - The Day After
Date: 2016-05-12 06:06 pm (UTC)Many people felt Pastor Tim was seeing Paige more clearly than Philip in this ep because he saw she was burdened, but I didn't get that exactly from their scenes. I think Philip just knows exactly what's going on with Paige, how burdened she is and why--Pastor Tim doesn't get that she doesn't want to be seeing him so much but Philip does, especially when she lists all the time she's spending there. He tries to make it sound normal, saying "You should go to that!" about the good-bye party as if it's like the old days when she'd want to go instead of an order.
But the problem is I think more that Philip, like his wife, has a much higher tolerance for being stretched thin and working. He's used to just sucking it up and doing it with nobody caring if you're burdened or not.
It's nicely ironic, though, that Tim thinks he's still the one who's the relief from the problems when he's now actually more like the actual problem.
Pastor Tim's line was more ominous--he's noticed that Paige doesn't seem happy enough and is now going to cause trouble over it. Paige has basically failed in her attempts to convince him everything's fine. So Philip's now getting her relaxed to meet with him again and be convincing. Plus he probably thinks she'll get a little break if Tim's going to Ethiopia. She can rest up just like Philip has. Maybe give that Darwin muscle a rest.
William's becoming an even more interesting character who seems to have a cool arc of his own going on. He started out so isolated--literally unable to even much smell or touch things, much less have connections to people. His wife was sent away and he felt powerless to speak up. Philip is beginning to seem like a much more important figure to him, with the two of them able to have frank conversations about whether or not they actually trust their people with this stuff, and how to make the right decision based on what's right independent of their orders.
I like him running his idea past Philip. He seems to feel that he still doesn't have Philip's courage to just make the decision himself (Philip did exactly this back in In Control, albeit about something he was more sure about). He and Elizabeth both, I think, sometimes look to "soft" Philip to do stuff they're not comfortable with. Like maybe Philip will tell William not to tell about this virus, Philip can put the family first. But ultimately they need to do this stuff for themselves because Philip doesn't take on everyone's fights.
In the end it's always going to come down to the one person making the decision like Petrov did. One of the other good things about it, too, is that it wasn't just an emotional decision. It was more like William and Philip in In Control. For all Elizabeth's occasional claims that she's the one not acting on emotion, that's exactly what she's often acting on.
Still, it's great to think of Martha affecting this other spy she didn't even know about. He naturally looks at all the downsides of her new life, but she's alive and free (relatively).
Elizabeth is still making the same decision as always, to make herself do what she doesn't want to do because it's a sacrifice and therefore the right thing. Even when Philip gives her that out. But it's probably not as rewarding as it once was. This is why, again, I feel like bringing up Gregory last week was so interesting. Because while it wasn't what they were arguing about, there is a subtext of Elizabeth being proud of how willing she is to sacrifice as if that's always the right choice. And we know what's at the end of all these sacrifices for Elizabeth--the fall of the USSR.
About time we got some Philip/Paige scenes (now we just need some Henry and his parents!). I really liked the post-movie convo. It reminded me of that convo where Philip told her she had to forgive Pastor Tim. Philip's the one who doesn't want her in the business, but it's so natural to him that he always makes it sound reasonable and not so bad. Like first when he logically explained how they had to think about what Pastor Tim felt now.
Or here where for the first time he actually defended his work. Elizabeth, in Stingers, tried to promote their cause about fighting for people etc. but Paige didn't want to hear it. Here Philip just quietly (extra quietly so Henry wouldn't hear) told her this is actually why they do what they do. Yet when she asked him if he was helping he honestly said he didn't know. It wasn't an easy answer, but it made the whole fight seem very real and human and kind of tragically noble. If I were Paige I would have been very affected by that. Not to the point of wanting to be a spy, but I would have a hard time reconciling that with any idea of the Soviets because simply terrible. Elizabeth's speeches could leave that impression more.
One of the reasons Paige is bad at working Pastor Tim (to the extent that she is--it's not like she's terrible at it) is that she doesn't really seem to get why she has to do it. It's like a punishment for her and she treats it as such, like something imposed on her, moping and sighing her way through debriefing and listing all the time she's spending at church so she has no time for homework. They haven't yet tied in Paige's early activism and Elizabeth's attempts at tying it to their spy work to Paige actively helping them and feeling like she's part of the team.
I like Oleg and Tatiana's conversation and the reminder of how little in Oleg's life relates to just about any other Russian. This scene brought in both his different daily life (not sharing the apartment) and his access to private info about Petrov.
Great comment from elsewhere to Don: Don, your wife's beautiful friend calls you up to rescue her, then she wants you to move something in her apartment, then she offers you wine. Are you not paying attention to the plots of those pornos you're watching?
Elizabeth and EST
Date: 2016-05-12 06:47 pm (UTC)That's a pretty great breakthrough and sometimes Philip hasn't ever really been able to do. Even his memory at the start of the season--one he's been trying to work through for a while--didn't seem to be something he was able to come to such a clear understanding about.
It reminds me of his struggling attempts to say something at the end of S3 when he's interrupted. It's so different than any of Elizabeth's scenes where she's very clearly stated how she thinks she feels about something, like with Brad or about her mother sending her away. Even if she's fooling herself about some things she is able to talk about her past and how it informs her feelings now.
Philip is by contrast so damned strangled about all of it. We know almost nothing about his background--like he's repressed it to the point it's totally cut off. Even his background with Irina seems to be about some other persona that haunts him.
The one clear memory/story we have about the milk took him a whole season to get out to the end, and even after bringing it up at EST he seemed frustrated that he hadn't worked out anything about it. Elizabeth gave him, it seems, a bit more comfort just by hearing it, but he still didn't seem to get a clear idea of how it affects him now. Like he said to Martha he was wondering about things in his past and if that's why he's so whatever now, but he still seems to lack understanding.
And we're now, what, 8 eps in? And since that first ep and the one scene in the second Philip's past has never been brought up again. He obviously feels something and desperately acts out on it (saving Martha, going to Gene's grave) but he still doesn't put these things in context of his whole upbringing rather than what's happening in that moment.
Re: Yahoo song
Date: 2016-05-12 07:26 pm (UTC)Re: Elizabeth and EST
Date: 2016-05-12 07:31 pm (UTC)Re: Yahoo song
Date: 2016-05-12 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-12 08:57 pm (UTC)(And oh man, Philip's face at hearing Paige talk like a spy. Oh, HONEY. I also said that a lot when Philip explained he was doing better cause he was sleeping more these days.)
Only I think it's actually more about how the real building blocks of life are the things like teaching your kid to drive. Laughing with your friend. Getting to tell someone about your family. And while they can build their own versions of some of those things (Philip and Elizabeth were pretty loving and caring this episode, and also omg Elizabeth basically talking about Gabriel by calling him "dad"!), their lives as spies have inherently taken a bunch of those things away from them. This is stuff the show's talked about before, but not quite as explicitly.
And I think that's why we have the conversation about Martha. She's apparently in Moscow and alive and technically not imprisoned, but this was about whether that's enough. Is it worth it? Philip's not sure. William is the voice of Philip's doubts here.
I kind of love that William gets Philip enough to know he can suggest not telling the Centre, and let rip with his real feelings about the technical problems the USSR was having. The Americans might be awful but they've got containers that don't break. I found that so moving, because there was such a concerted effort to hide those problems, to make out that the USSR was able to keep up, but in the end that PR failed. It made me think of Elizabeth in the 1990s and how much my heart is gonna break for her.
Small things being important - loads of people watching The Day After is super effective at showing that overriding sense of impending doom. Even before Paige started asking about it, before it inspired Elizabeth to go and destroy a friendship she genuinely values, the movie clips rammed it home. And that was all in the details of mundane life, destroyed. Those details are how the story of the Cold War and nuclear holocaust take root, the way we make sense of them.
I love that their using literal truth of the Cold War not only is way more compelling than anything they can make up, but also gives us the way the Cold War developed as a story the two superpowers were telling each other. We can see that from the outside now, because we know how it ended. They didn't.
Talking of small things being building blocks of a life, I love Elizabeth's red hat in this episode A LOT omg.
I feel super bad for Don, who was REALLY TRYING not to cheat on his wife. Although Elizbeth fast forwarding the porn was kind of hilarious because again, you know real spies must do a SURPRISING AMOUNT of exactly that.
Henry is now ten feet tall and I am traumatised.
Oh and the only other thing I have to mention is Oleg. I don't think anyone's SURPRISED he and Tatiana are getting it on, but he seemed unexpectedly...chatty. And Tatiana really wasn't. I wanna know about this, writers, come on.
Fastforwarding the porn
Date: 2016-05-12 09:51 pm (UTC)It was also sort of what happened in RL later on.
Re: Blackmail
Date: 2016-05-12 09:53 pm (UTC)And unless Don goes to Young Hee now and confesses, his excuses later might be seen as excuses. Why should Young Hee believe him?
Treon's thoughts
Date: 2016-05-12 10:17 pm (UTC)- We had two Russian spies actually considering not telling their country of a new threat, because that might be a bigger threat, and we also had Oleg's story, about a Russian officer going against orders and in fact saving the world from a nuclear war. There's a sort of despondency about the way it's all being treated. The self-made threats might be bigger than the American ones, and there's not much the Russians can do about it.
- Philip tells Paige he's trying to prevent a disaster, but he's not sure that the decisions he's making won't lead to exactly that (re the virus). William confided in Philip because he didn't want to take responsibility for the decision, but that means he's forcing the decision on P&E. I don't think Elizabeth is bothered too much by it, because for her everything is black and white no matter what, but it's not so easy for Philip.
- If the USSR needs better missile detection systems, shouldn't they get agents working on that, instead of the virus which might not be used against them?
- Phillip gets more sleep, and Elizabeth stays up all night.
- Why is the Church expecting kids to show up in the mornings?
- I was sure something was going to happen to the Camaro, but no. The drive went by without a hitch, and so did Elizabeth's mission, apparently. "Major Tom" as a background for this is really foreboding.
- How old is Paige supposed to be now?
- Paige is now also playing computer games, I'm not sure we saw that before. I still wonder why the KGB got them that computer.
Paige's age
Date: 2016-05-13 01:04 am (UTC)Either she just turned 16 or is about to turn 16.
Re: The Day After Reviewed
Date: 2016-05-13 04:07 am (UTC)Re: Breaking Bad, Gale's karaoke stint, yes.
Re: Blackmail
Date: 2016-05-13 04:16 am (UTC)Another variable: as soon as the demand for level 4 access for William is made, Don has to know Patty isn't who she claimed to be. So how strongly does he feel about giving access to a spy (even if he doesn't know on whose behalf, the guess there is obvious) to biological weapons research versus maintaining his marital peace (or possibly his marriage, depending how he thinks Young Hee is going to react)? It could also be that he decides the greater good comes first and confesses after the blackmail, at which point he can incriminate William (since he has to be informed whom he's supposed to grant access to). This is one very risky plan.
Re: Treon's thoughts
Date: 2016-05-13 04:28 am (UTC)I'm also reminded of the submarine incident in season 2. Kate told Philip that the Americans must have set them up by letting P & E steal faked plans, which lead to the submarine with the new tech being destroyed. But in the same episode, we also get Arkady and Oleg talking about this, and in their conversation, the possibility is raised that it wasn't a cunning US ploy but the people back home insisting on rushing the production and using the US origin tech untested in a submarine that wasn't equipped for it. Oleg having access to this type of information via his father really is highly useful for the show to include information our main characters wouldn't have access to. You can bet nobody will tell Philip and Elizabeth about Petrov saving the world from nuclear armageddon by Soviet computer mistake!
Re: Yazoo song
Date: 2016-05-13 05:48 am (UTC)Re: Yazoo song
Date: 2016-05-13 05:50 am (UTC)