Episode discussion post: "Tchaikovsky"

[jae]

Aired:
4 April 2018 in the U.S. and Canada

This is a discussion post for episode 602 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 six, episode two.)

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Comments

Re: Replacing family

[jae]

Maybe her entire self-image is so centered on being an ideological warrior that she simply can't see any point to just being herself. It's not that she doesn't value a normal life. Perhaps she doesn't value herself living a normal life. She sees no value or purpose in just living a normal, ideologically uniformed life.

In the story I wrote about Elizabeth, I took her back to the time (which we know about from Gregory) that she left Philip briefly when she was heavily pregnant with Paige, and this was pretty much exactly my take on how she would have felt then. A huge part of her really, really WANTED that normal life, more than she ever had before, but she had such huge self-loathing about that desire and felt like it made her weak and less of the great ideological warrior she thought she had to be. (Which is, of course, why she would have gone right back to Philip the next day.)

-J

Re: Replacing family

[saraqael]

Is your story online?

What's so interesting about Elizabeth is that on these hugely important but incredibly intimate details, she is still a cypher. We're back to puzzling out her reaction to watching the 'normal' Moscow women in that movie. "Huh."

Elizabeth, what does that mean??? Huh.

She's so mute about her own desires for herself. Or maybe she isn't. At the end of last season, when Philip said that they deserved to have a life, she said, "I can't." That might end up being true. It is possible that Elizabeth cherishes being a warrior for what she perceives to be the greater good so much that she is content to put herself and her family second, and she would be content to die for the cause. As much as I, the viewer, want her to survive and be happy in a non-spy life, Elizabeth might not want that at all. I don't think she's motivated by hatred of the West so much as she is by love for an impossible ideal. If she goes down in flames in pursuit of that ideal, would that be a bad fate for her? Not for her.

Re: Replacing family

[sistermagpie]

But then, that's where the children complicate things. Because Elizabeth herself has obviously chosen the ideological life long ago. She'd immediately say she chooses that over a normal life--likewise, if Philip has to choose between Elizabeth and a normal life he'll always choose Elizabeth.

But now there's the question of the kids. Does she really want them to have this life too? Because that's not exactly the same thing.

Elizabeth and happiness

[jae]

I personally think she absolutely has desires for herself, but she doesn't think she should have them. And so she could almost certainly be happy outside of being a spy, she'd need an awful lot of therapy first. ;)

-J

P.S. My story is called "Five Points Down", and it's here.