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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While watching thoughts

[lovingboth]

There's going to be more Stan in this episode.

Smoking again. I do love the bokeh'd light of her lighter in the background, through the door window, as the shot focuses on Philip.

A very different looking FBI department from Stan's old one! Case meetings in the open and everything...

'I'll come down soon.. I'll come down now'.

The shot of the mail robot was deliberate too.

Ah, they do know Oleg is there. Pointed reversal of authority between the pair of them.

Why's Philip using a calculator rather than a spreadsheet?

I am now wondering where I've seen the actor playing Patrick in the bookshop now. Oh, of course, Frank's VP in House of Cards.

People you wouldn't ask for advice on your relationship: #1 Stan.

"You're a good friend." "Yeah..."

Is Elizabeth going to use him killing his wife as leverage or offer to do it herself as leverage?

Ah, the classic morphine overdose method and, yes, she is offering.

There should have been a lot more supervision meetings like this in the show - a really interesting mix of personal and professional, even in the short bit we see: keeping her alive, despite the pain, until the end of the summit.

"Don't tell her we talked about this". Does Paige know Philip is retired and what does she think about it?

Dealing with "murderers, drug dealers and corrupt politicians" - this is what Stan was doing in his previous department!

I like the way that he leans back on the toilet to make sure he's out of the way of the x-rays!! I do wonder about anyone coming into the room though.

Another spend on the music licensing budget, another Talking Heads. As no-one's talking...

Philip working in another way.

Nice shot of the newly un-blonde Elizabeth going off in the distance.

"You have to keep this to yourself" - Reagan's dementia wasn't exactly a secret.

Skipping over Tchaikovsky's homosexuality there..

Oh come on, Elizabeth, be honest with Paige about the sex. You can tell she doesn't believe you.

.. especially as you get to 'yes' anyway.

I'm still amused / annoyed that there are so many scenes in parks at night (and toilets come to that) and not once do we see any cruising.

"And whose fault is that?"

Elizabeth is going to kill her at some point.

Yet another work debrief in this episode, this time from Henry.

How long has it been since someone pointed a gun at Elizabeth?

Ah, this is more like Elizabeth! She's a bit lucky the angle of the gun was right..

.. and along comes Paige. 'No, I don't have sex with them, but I do sometimes get their brains splattered all over my face...'

Why is she whispering when she would be deafened by having three gun shots go off very close to her ears?

The lighting is very dim, but is there something incriminating left on the ground as she leaves?

Re: While watching thoughts

[selenak]

"You have to keep this to yourself" - Reagan's dementia wasn't exactly a secret.

Hm, not sure about this. I seem to recall the stories didn't start until his last year in office or therabouts, but then again I wasn't in the US at the time. Or, wait - we're in 1987. That is about that time.

Skipping over Tchaikovsky's homosexuality there...

Which didn't exist as far as official Russian history was concerned at the time, methinks. (Depressingly, it got written out of history again more recently.) Certainly not when Claudia was young. Otoh "he had a lonely life" was maybe her euphemism. Though I thought she was more drawing a parallel to herself.

Re: While watching thoughts

[saraqael]

My friends and I started speculating that Reagan was developing Alzheimers' back around the time he made that on-the-air crack about outlawing Russia and launching the missile strike on them. That was in 1984. We all started watching his press conferences and public appearances very carefully after that looking for signs that he was slipping. It was bad enough that the Reagans had astrologers in the White House, supposedly just to help determine the best dates to schedule meetings. That was nutty enough. We just assumed at the time that if the President was secretly losing his mind, his handlers would step in and cover it up as best they could. Supposedly his thinking did not become seriously impaired until after he left office, but I don't think we'll ever know for sure.

Re: While watching thoughts

[sistermagpie]

"Don't tell her we talked about this". Does Paige know Philip is retired and what does she think about it?

I think she definitely knows. If he was working he'd be training her too and they'd be talking about whatever she's doing.

The lighting is very dim, but is there something incriminating left on the ground as she leaves?

Besides the big corpse? LOL.

Apart from the big corpse...

[lovingboth]

:)

It was a very short cut, but it looked like some blonde hair.

Philip and Paige

[lovingboth]

If Paige does know, which is likely although Philip was never as much as part of her training as Elizabeth was, then what does she think about it?

Here she is, risking her freedom - and if it's not clear that it's also risking her life too after this episode, it never will be - for an abstract notion and there he is stopping helping defend his motherland, the country of his birth.

If he's prepared to do that, why wouldn't he be prepared to betray them?

(One of the options for the 'what happens in the end' poll: Philip attempts to save Paige and/or Elizabeth from something by turning, and probably fails to do so...)

Re: Philip and Paige

[sistermagpie]

I admit, I'm sort of partial to a story where Paige gets Philip in trouble in a way reminiscent of kids informing on their parents in the USSR. Because she'd be so focused on promoting herself as the good soldier she "finds Philip's lack of faith disturbing" and tells Claudia about it possibly without understanding the consequences. Naturally she would consider herself the more committed soldier already even without having much done anything.

She'd be following in Mom's footsteps to a point there. But that might get complicated because Philip isn't really betraying them, he's working for Russia too.

Re: Philip and Paige

[quantumreality]

I'm wondering what it might look like from Paige's POV if she gets arrested. Would she even have a trial? Or would she just be "disappeared" for a months-long interrogation followed by summary execution?

There are some illuminating symmetries to Nina's situation here, too, I think.

Re: While watching thoughts

[quantumreality]

I think the calculator thing shows Philip's background and generation. If you were circa 40 yo in 1987, you grew up with slide rules and *maybe* mechanical adding machines. So Philip might not be used to using spreadsheets to track all of his invoices right down to a line by line day to day thing, but would probably be doing his P&L on a weekly or monthly basis.

(today I think it'd be almost routine, since you could separate out the accounts payable and receivable by date, etc)