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: Claudia

[quantumreality]

I'm personally feeling a little protective over Paige because she's getting a bad rap this season, heh.

Re: Claudia

[jae]

I feel protective over whoever's getting crapped on at the moment, so yeah. :)

-J

Re: Paige

[saraqael]

I started this season totally soured on Paige, but after this last episode I've totally got my Paige love back, for the craziest reason though. The show was pitching how great she's doing as junior spy and that grated on me because she's clearly not doing a great job. But this last episode with her utterly blowing her cover and running towards the sounds of the gunshots while yelling, "Mom!!!" made it so obvious that she's doing all of this out of love for her mom (whether she herself realizes this or not) was really endearing to me. Poor Paige. In so many ways, she's still just the little kid wandering around her weird house trying to make sense out of her faux-family. Poor kid.

Re: Paige

[sistermagpie]

so obvious that she's doing all of this out of love for her mom (whether she herself realizes this or not)

Sounds like somebody else we know. I've always thought that was at the heart of Elizabeth as well. She had to co-sign her mother's choice to "not blink" in sending her off, always feels the need to present that as just the way a mother "should be" (remember one of Paige's first questions about her grandmother was whether Elizabeth would ever do that to her).

Plus there's that memory of her mother saying that the ceremonies or soldiers weren't for her father because he was a coward. I always took that as Elizabeth learning that if she ever faltered she wouldn't be loved. Philip was the first person who didn't seem to value her primarily for being a good soldier.

I really really hope this is where they're going with the Paige story. There's, imo, very little dramatic interest in Paige being a badass spy even if Elizabeth ultimately sees she shouldn't make the same choices. Elizabeth, imo, needs the challenge of difference. Plus not only is Paige American etc. but she has a second parent who offers an alternate way, even if she instinctively responds better to her mother's.

Re: Paige

[saraqael]

Yes I agree that Elizabeth is equally motivated by love for her mother and wanting to make her proud as she is by being a 'true believer' in Soviet ideology.

Re: Paige

[sistermagpie]

One more thought about this, but I think this is also underlined in all the Paige/Claudia/Elizabeth scenes where they're literally trying to teach Paige to love Russia and hate America, whether or not one would put it in such an extreme way. There's a pattern of focus on all the ways Paige can be like them and none on how Paige might be independently.

Even the music conversation starts with Elizabeth saying Paige's preference about music and Claudia dismissing it and being sure she just needs to hear this music. It's a cliche thing for an older person to say about a younger person, but in this case there really is an aggressive molding going on here, and an erasure of anything about Paige that could conflict with that.

Paige herself responds better to stuff about her mom--she remembers seeing the Nutcracker and the character in the movie reminds her of her mother. She apparently has taken to Claudia too, but that might be mostly because of how she's connected to her mother.