Episode discussion post: "Urban Transport Planning"

[jae]

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

This is a discussion post for episode 603 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 three.)

Original promo trailer

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[shapinglight]

Just watched the episode and am still shaking a bit. Nothing is going right for Elizabeth, is it, in this quest for the lithium battery? That's two potential sources she's had to kill, which in itself is a huge clue for anyone paying attention. Felt so sorry for the poor warehouse guy. Not so sorry for Elizabeth herself, though I do feel for her. The cooking scene with Claudia and the conversation with Philip after she's had to throw the food away, in which she makes it so clear that she doesn't want the USSR to 'modernize' not only sets her up to be left behind by history but also is the final straw for Philip, sending him back to Oleg.

The Oleg/Stan conversation was my favourite scene of the episode. So much in it I can't really begin to unpack it. I am afraid, though, that the FBI are going to add two and two with these related murders (the general and the warehouse guy) and figure that it all began when Oleg arrived in town so he has to be responsible in some way.

Great use of the Leonard Cohen song at the end.

[quantumreality]

I really liked that "I don't WANT to be like them" part. It resonates in a way that's clear in hindsight, 30 years later. Both Philip and Elizabeth are right - yes, the Soviet Union did need to change, but not by combining all the worst traits of Russian corruption and unregulated capitalism, which is what happened after the USSR fell apart and Yeltsin took the helm. If it had been anyone but him, Russia might have saved itself a lot of pain and agony and Putin never would've gotten a foothold.

[shapinglight]

I really liked that "I don't WANT to be like them" part.

That was a great speech. Of course, Elizabeth has always been more hard line but working alone for the last three years seems to have made her worse, which is ironic given that she herself told Philip to quit because she could see he couldn't take any more.

[saraqael]

The way they filmed the scene of Elizabeth throwing the Russian food into the sink really provoked a visceral reaction in me. They shot it in close-up and the wet plop noise it made when it hit the sink seemed extra loud.

How symbolic that Elizabeth ground up her Russian comfort food with an American garbage disposal.

I agree about the Leonard Cohen song. It seemed to take on a foreboding air. Dance Me to the End of Love Love me to the bitter end.

Garbage Disposal

[sistermagpie]

It reminded me of a shot in Ordinary People where Mary Tyler Moore gets a similar hostile shot with a breakfast she made that her kid doesn't want to eat.

Needless murder?

[treonb]

That's two potential sources she's had to kill, which in itself is a huge clue for anyone paying attention.

I don't think she really needed to kill him. She could have told him that she didn't interview his girlfriend yet and that she'll let him know once she does. That would give her at least a week to pull off the theft. Once that's done, it becomes public knowledge anyway.

cooking with Claudia

[(Anonymous)]

Why was it so important to throw the food away so quickly ?

[saraqael]

I thought this episode was brilliant. Elizabeth’s fury at Paige for breaking protocol was breathtaking (and terrifying) to witness. Yes, Paige screwed up badly (as we’ve all noted here) but Elizabeth’s anger was so blazing that I thought that there was more to it than just angry officer chastising a young recruit. Paige is in terrible danger, much as Elizabeth wants to downplay that or kid herself that it’s just a temporary situation that Paige is working out in the field. Philip talked to Paige simply in the context of father/daughter. He was concerned about her feelings, but Elizabeth was all, “YOU DON’T GET TO TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS!1!1!1! YOU CAN’T COME HOME AGAIN!1!1!1! THIS IS A WORK NIGHT!1!1!1! GET OUT OF HERE!1!1!1!”

Lordie, Elizabeth. Project much about your own inner turmoil? Was this the moment that Philip decided to work with Oleg? Or was it when Elizabeth physically recoiled at the very notion that Russia might be opening up to the West and then vented about how much she hates every single thing about America and never wants Russia to change and neither do the Russian people) Maybe Philip had been holding onto the hope that Elizabeth was open to change, but now sees that she is a hardliner through and through. She hates change. She will never change. She will go down in flames to ensure that nobody else in Russia will ever have a chance either. When Philip gently pointed out that she hasn’t had any contact with an actual Russian person back in the motherland for 20 years, she snaps back that neither has he. On this very fundamental, crucial issue of change they are utterly opposed.

Elizabeth’s (much calmer) talk with Paige later only reinforced the fact that Elizabeth is willing to die for her beliefs and her work. She is at peace with her likely pending death. Or is she really? Maybe she’s like the general she just killed, ‘caught up in something’ and unable to see a way out.

My favorite scene in this episode was the conversation between Stan and Oleg. That scene only lasted…what…two or three minutes? But there was so much history covered, and so much said (and unsaid). Even the way the scene was staged and the way the actors moved and looked at each other was perfect. Stan’s brief but to the point apology: ‘they took my tape and used it against you and I fought with them and finally made them stop,” was met with Oleg’s incredulous reply. “That’s it?” Oleg went through hell and Stan thinks that just apologizing puts that business in the past between them? It’s clearly not enough because Oleg is simmering with understated anger when he points out that they threatened him AND his family. It doesn’t matter if Stan apologizes now. The fact is, Stan taped Oleg secretly with the intent of using the tape against him if the need arose. Stan fundamentally violated Oleg’s trust. And then Oleg brought up Nina, another subtle / not so subtle reminder that Stan can’t be trusted. Will these two ever be able to move past these issues and get back to being spy bros? I don’t know. I hope so.

Did anyone else laugh when Sofia declared that the coworker she’d blabbed to was a Soviet and Soviets know how to keep secrets? I think this woman may be the biggest blabbermouth in the show’s history. She’s quite endearing, but she is also an utter hazard to herself, her kid, Gennady, the FBI… everyone. On the topic of who can/can’t keep secrets, I wonder if Elizabeth was always planning to kill the warehouse guy, or if it was a last second decision because he mentioned that his girlfriend was in company security. She knows that the odds are high that he would have told his girlfriend about the ‘audit’ he’d just participated in because he’d figure that since she was in security, she would have already known about it. Elizabeth knows how to keep secrets. She shared just enough with Philip that she thought he could safely know, but no more, even though I think she wanted to tell him more about her mission.

Other thoughts
- I started to wonder how much of Claudia’s ‘lessons’ about Russia are truly meant to educate/indoctrinate Paige, and how much is meant to reinforce Elizabeth’s own nostalgia for the Russia of her childhood. What better than feeding Elizabeth the feel-good food that her own mom used to cook for her when she was a kid before mom gave her over to the KGB, to make Elizabeth feel good about now giving her own daughter to the KGB? I still don't trust Claudia at all.

- The show continues to tease that Renee may be a spy. If she is, which team is she on: KGB, CIA, or other? If by the end of the series we discover that she is just an innocent civilian who loves Stan, I will laugh because I think viewers have been conditioned to think that everyone is a spy. Either way, the fact that they including this, “Stan, I want to be FBI! Can you pull some strings to get me in?” scene hints that we’ll be seeing more from Renee.

- Did Philip put himself in financial risk to expand his business only because he needed more money to pay for Henry's schooling, or did he expand the business because he simply likes being a businessman, but in capitalism businesses must always either grow or die? We know that Henry got a scholarship to start at his fancy boarding school, but that may have run out after the first year. He's been there three years. Scholarships don't last forever. Maybe Philip took the financial burden for keeping Henry in school all on himself to avoid having to turn to the Center for money. I think the Center would have provided the funds but then they would have had even more leverage over Henry's fate than they already do behind the scenes.

Saraquel and Urban Transport...

[sistermagpie]

Elizabeth’s anger was so blazing that I thought that there was more to it than just angry officer chastising a young recruit.

Honestly, I thought it still wasn't enough. Not that I needed her to be more angry, but the later scene with Paige seemed to leave them just where they were before, with Paige insisting she was totally mature and she "got it, Mom! I did a bad thing" and Elizabeth again encouraging her and ready to send her right back into the field. Sure she didn't let her spend the night at home, but the mom/daughter walk and talk was pretty close. Hans wouldn't have gotten that.

I wonder if Elizabeth was always planning to kill the warehouse guy, or if it was a last second decision because he mentioned that his girlfriend was in company security.

Definitely last second, imo. I think we saw that play out with him unfortunately mentioning his girlfriend (or fortunately for Elizabeth). If she was planning to kill him presumably she'd have had a better method.

- I started to wonder how much of Claudia’s ‘lessons’ about Russia are truly meant to educate/indoctrinate Paige, and how much is meant to reinforce Elizabeth’s own nostalgia for the Russia of her childhood. What better than feeding Elizabeth the feel-good food that her own mom used to cook for her when she was a kid before mom gave her over to the KGB, to make Elizabeth feel good about now giving her own daughter to the KGB? I still don't trust Claudia at all.

There definitely seems to be something of that in there. After all, it's not like Paige has any actual memories of this stuff. And yet these lessons, according to Elizabeth, just fill her with more rage when she's reminded she's back in the US. (Which she chose to stay in when Philip wanted to leave!) Her hatred of the USA seems to be driving her almost more than the hope of a Soviet future at times.

It was a funny presentation of food, actually. I'll have to watch it again to be accurate, but it seemed like Claudia was presenting this as great peasant food that helps them survive through all those famines and wars. But during the famines they would not have access to any of this stuff.

I wondered, actually, if a reason Philip doesn't tend to respond as sentimentally to Russian food as people often expect him to be (twice I've seen him accused of actually thinking it's crap by viewers) is because he doesn't have a lot of happy sense memories about food because he really just didn't have a lot of it. Things presumably got better as he got older, but the only food associated with his childhood we've seen on the show is hot water with an onion in it and black moldy hard sawdust bread rations.

Did Philip put himself in financial risk to expand his business only because he needed more money to pay for Henry's schooling, or did he expand the business because he simply likes being a businessman, but in capitalism businesses must always either grow or die?

It seems like he might have been speaking truthfully to the guy at the school in that he sunk a lot of money into the business but won't get the actual money for a while. So it's a cash flow problem that's pretty standard when a business expands? I'm not a business person at all, but there was a good storyline about this on Mad Men.

But like I said below, I feel like they're retconning a bit to put Philip in a role he wouldn't really be in with that school.

[shapinglight]

On the topic of who can/can’t keep secrets, I wonder if Elizabeth was always planning to kill the warehouse guy, or if it was a last second decision because he mentioned that his girlfriend was in company security.

I'm pretty sure she hadn't always planned to kill him. It was his mention of his girlfriend's role that did it. Elizabeth had only just begun to work him. Ironically, he only opened up to her about the girlfriend because she was being so friendly and confiding and making him feel important.

Renee the spy

[treonb]

I'd be really disappointed if she's not after him for something. She acting too weird, and it's not just conditioning.

Though regardless of whether she's a spy, I didn't get this new idea to get into the FBI.

Scholarships

[lovingboth]

They'd be expected to last throughout in the UK.

My review

[selenak]

In Svetlana Alexejevich's Zinky Boys, about the Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan and after, one of the many aspects that caused an utter disconnect and alienation among the surviving Afghanistan veterans was that when they had left, full of the usual propaganda, there had been a Soviet Union, and when they returned, there simply wasn't anymore. There were Russia and several other states, but the Soviet Union was gone, and the war they fought wasn't regarded remotely like The Great Patriotic War everyone had been taught to revere but like something shameful and lost. During that scene with Elizabeth and Philip in the kitchen, I had to think of those passages in the above named book.


Regardless whether they end the series dead or in prison, the country and the cause for which they as young people signed on for, killed, betrayed, risked their lives and gave up their physical autonomy for will be irrevocably gone. And it's not like Philip will be proven any more right in his hope/belief about what "the people" want than Elizabeth will be - yes, there will be a few years of openess, but the corruption will be even worse than it used to be (how much money did Yeltsin and family squirt away to the US again?), there'll be an oligarchy, not a democracy awaiting, and then you get Putin and his promise of restored "strength" stripped of any of the ideals young Nadeshda and Mischa once had. It's more obvious with Elizabeth that she's motivating herself via a phantom Russia she thinks she's recreating in Claudia's kitchen and living room, but Philip's Russia isn't any more real, either, in the end. (And is it Russia he's hoping for? With Arkady, at least, and probably Oleg, I suspect they want something along what Gorbachev did, which was not a dissolved but a reformed Soviet Union. Which was an illusion, too.)

There's a lot of disconnect despite attempts to connect through the episode. In the season opener, Philip hanging out with his staff and joining them at square dancing might have looked like connection and successful assimilation, but in this episode, his attempt to be the ultimate American motivational speaker for his employees comes across as downright embarrassing, and the reaction among the staff is bewilderment and apathy. Philip Jennings, travel agent, might be who he wants to be, but it's not really working out right now, not with his mind half at matters back home, "home" meaning both his famiily and his country of origin. He can be good at being a travel agent. But what he really is, is a spy.

Elizabeth in the episode talks about the disconnect with Pilip to the Russian priest who married them and actually does talk to Philip, telling him bits and pieces about what's troubling her (just enough to confirm what Oleg told him about her possible assignment) yet stopping short of going against orders. But her attempt to draw Philip into that phantom Russia via shared food (an echo and counterpart of him bringing her caviar a few seasons back, which did connect them then) does not work out the way she wants to, and not just because he's already eaten (yet at least gets a taste). It's because they have very different ideas of what Russia/the Soviet Union is or should be about these days, and what its people want.

(BTW, have to repeat what I said in the review of the season opener - this is far more interesting than if it was a self conglaturatory US versus USSR finale we're steering towards.)

Now, when they both point out that the other hasn't talked to anyone from back home in more than two decades (and each does not mention General Up To No Good and Oleg, respectively), I'm assuming they really meant "someone not in the spy business" anyway, because of course they did talk to other Russians - but spies or former spies like themselves. (Or the occasional dissident whom they either killed or ruined in other ways, let's not forget those.) And given that I doubt whether we'll see Philip's son Mischa again, chances are they won't any time soon. They can only guess and hope they're right.

Philip eventually decides to go through with Oleg's request (and not a moment too soon for dramatic purposes, yet another episode of him in Hamletian vein would have irked), and there's the sad irony that him returning to spying for the good of the mother country would, in theory, be something Elizabeth would be very proud of - but what he sees as good is no longer what she sees as good, and it will be directed against what she works for. Given their collective experience at spying, I wonder how long before she catches on?

Then again, this season shows her as quite capable of delusion where her family is concerned. The anger that burst through at Paige's panicking (which was also directed at herself) gets eventually surpressed in favour of yet more declarations that Paige is good at spying (to the priest). And well, she's not. Anyone who at age 19 is still naive enough to buy "it was a suicide" under those circumstances really should stay the hell away from the intelligence business.

Meanwhile, the Oleg & Stan reunion: basically asks for an AU where there's bitter reunion sex in addition to that conversation. Only half kidding. Also, I loved that scene. And can understand why Oleg doesn't really buy Stan's declaration of innocence (despite the fact Stan's not lying in this case), because a) Stan made that tape in the first place, and there could only have been one intended purpose, and b) this is actually what Oleg and Arkady were planning to do to Stan via Nina. But for that same reason, he's also not really displeased at Stan seeking him out again, and, methinks, not just because Stan is the only person with whom he can reminesce about Nina.

Lastly: I'm still in the dark as to what the point of the Gennardy subplot will be, other than to show Stan is anxious not to lose another asset and this time to fulfill his promise of extraction above potential further use.

Re: My review

[quantumreality]

I actually thought Philip's travel agency spiel was interesting. He's a spy, and he knows (or should!) how to read people and connect with them. And given that the US economy as a whole is in an expansionary phase, it's perfect timing for him to want to motivate his staff to sell more travel packages and find ways to get more money from customers.

And I don't get the vibe that he's ever been a bad boss - but his employees clearly are pretty diffident types for the sales and travel world. I wonder if he originally hired people who he knew wouldn't ask a lot of questions about his comings and goings and it's biting him as he tries to get the money rolling in.

So hopefully motivational!Philip gets some extra $$ coming in. :)

(Aside: I did wonder if he was manufacturing that financial problem for extra realism with the school, but it is indeed equally likely he'd rather not have the Centre subsidizing Henry's education.)

Re: My review

[sistermagpie]

During that scene with Elizabeth and Philip in the kitchen, I had to think of those passages in the above named book.

I feel like both of them in their own way knows they'll never go home. Elizabeth is basically planning to die and maybe Philip is too now.

Though I think Philip understands his position more realistically. He probably could go back to Russia and make a life for himself just as he could in the US. He just wouldn't completely belong in either place, but he's used to that. Elizabeth needs to believe she represents the USSR. Personifies it almost.

(BTW, have to repeat what I said in the review of the season opener - this is far more interesting than if it was a self conglaturatory US versus USSR finale we're steering towards.)

Absolutely. Elizabeth seems to be really projecting all her frustrations on the US, blaming it for changing the USSR, even, as well as all her personal unhappiness. But as the general said when she said her country was in trouble, "Who's fault is that?"

I'm assuming they really meant "someone not in the spy business" anyway, because of course they did talk to other Russians

To me the line really means "someone who lives in Russia now" as well. Claudia would consider herself someone from back home, but she's just as disconnected as they are. Oleg and General Up-To-No-Good are knee deep in the conflict there.

I do actually wonder if Elizabeth's being happy that Philip is "doing something" for the motherland could override her anger at his working against her ideas of what's good for the motherland.

The anger that burst through at Paige's panicking (which was also directed at herself) gets eventually surpressed in favour of yet more declarations that Paige is good at spying (to the priest).

It occurred to me, too, that both Elizabeth's reactions to Paige's mistakes were the same, although they had opposite expressions. She killed the Navy guy to protect Paige from the ugly side of the business. She yelled at Paige for exposing herself to the ugly side of the business--she didn't want Paige to see her hunched over a fresh kill.

I will not be surprised if Elizabeth slaughters the Courier couple next week. She's got to keep up her weekly tally!

Re: My review

[saraqael]

Regardless whether they end the series dead or in prison, the country and the cause for which they as young people signed on for, killed, betrayed, risked their lives and gave up their physical autonomy for will be irrevocably gone. And it's not like Philip will be proven any more right in his hope/belief about what "the people" want than Elizabeth will be - yes, there will be a few years of openess, but the corruption will be even worse than it used to be (how much money did Yeltsin and family squirt away to the US again?), there'll be an oligarchy, not a democracy awaiting, and then you get Putin and his promise of restored "strength" stripped of any of the ideals young Nadeshda and Mischa once had. It's more obvious with Elizabeth that she's motivating herself via a phantom Russia she thinks she's recreating in Claudia's kitchen and living room, but Philip's Russia isn't any more real, either, in the end. (And is it Russia he's hoping for? With Arkady, at least, and probably Oleg, I suspect they want something along what Gorbachev did, which was not a dissolved but a reformed Soviet Union. Which was an illusion, too.)

I agree that what Arkady, Oleg, and Philip have in mind is likely a more reformed Soviet Union, not a broken up Soviet Union. The difference between them and the hardliners is how much tolerance they had for loosening social freedoms and reforming the existing economic structures to jettison all the corruption that was killing their economy. I'm sure they all love Russia, but they are citizens of the Soviet Union. Any of the Russian characters who survive the finale of the show would be blindsided once the Soviet Union breaks apart into individual nation states. The Soviet Union was a superpower. Then individual components? Not so much.

Sistermagpie's thoughts on Urban Transport Planning

[sistermagpie]

I've never been so happy to see Philip in a mustache. Not just because it's cringeworthy watching the travel agency stuff, but I've got a limited number of eps left with the guy and it's bad enough they seem to have really decided his backstory isn't worth sharing, but I don't want time wasted on the travel agency and The Forum as well.

Loved the Stan/Oleg scene. Oleg was in fine form pretending to have trouble with his wife to distract Stan and bringing up Nina, obviously mixing in the truth there.

No idea what's up with Stan's wife. She seems like another ditz like Sophia "the Soviet liar" is. Theories that she's really some sort of plant seem a bit silly to me after watching her. It could be that she gets herself into trouble or stumbles on something in her attempts to play at being a spy. (At least she's not doing that on the job like Paige.)

The Henry stuff seems like they're kind of retconning some things to put Philip more in the position of a striver Capitalist who's overreaching and outclassing himself trying to keep his kid at that school. Last season Henry seemed to be saying he was getting a full scholarship and there's no reason that shouldn't be still going on. Actually there's probably more reason now because Henry's a star hockey player. He's the kind of kid everybody at that school would prepare to take credit for and he's Ivy League bound. They're not going to toss him out to public school. They're banking on him being a big donor one day. He's a sound investment. That's why they wanted him to begin with.

Elizabeth continues to be desperate with Paige. Not just because of her disastrous instincts in this situation and others, but even when she spoke to her afterwards the scene's still written and acted as a regular teenager insisting to her mom that she's responsible instead of somebody who understands the danger. When Elizabeth said anyone else would have been finished by now I hoped that was a prediction because yes, they would have. This is pure nepotism.

The Russian cultures lessons still seem a bit weird--there's no reason Paige would need to know any of this and there's nothing in them that suggests that Paige has developed even a minimal interest in Russia or Russian culture. She seems like she'd obviously be just as happy making spaghetti. In fact, it's actually pretty rude the way Elizabeth is openly trying to get Paige to think of herself as Russian. That's essentially asking her to erase her identity and replace it with other peoples' filtered second-hand memories. Does Paige ever admit it if she doesn't like the food or whatever? Because she might be all into the "I Hate America/We're All Russians Here" club now, but eventually that would grate because she's never going to be Russian. Especially not by continuing to live her entire life in the USA.

Elizabeth's holding on tighter than ever now, just as Philip seems to be letting go. Interesting moment when Elizabeth claims that she knows what people in Russia want (they agree with her, of course) and Philip reports that things are changing according to the newspapers and reminds her she hasn't actually talked to anyone there in years. She says "Neither have you," but Philip didn't claim to speak for them. Elizabeth even claims that any reports of changing attitudes in Russia are American propaganda--an American plot to "make Russians like themselves."

I heard someone describe their conflict here as Philip wanting "the American dream" and Elizabeth wanting to kill it, but that wasn't what I saw as the conflict at all. It was about an end to the Cold War, which Elizabeth didn't seem to want. Anything short of the worldwide revolution she'd reject--possibly because she just needs things to say the same.

Actually, her conversation with Paige included a surprisingly honest moment when she said it was okay if random dudes got shot in the face every week because she didn't have to be afraid. Zhukov said as much back in S1. Elizabeth even framed the whole thing that way to Paige. Gabriel, too, said that he realized back during the Purges he told himself he was setting a good example when he was actually acting out of fear. That's what this is about.

Elizabeth killing that guy was a bit eye-rolly. I guess we're supposed to see the Centre getting sloppy in that they obviously hooked her up with this guy specifically without finding out his girlfriend is in security, so that made her have to suddenly need to kill him. But come on. She had to literally jump up to get her arm around his neck and the guy didn't even use his size and weight accidentally to his own advantage in a panic as he died.

Next week I assume she'll kill that Courier couple.

Philip and Oleg meeting at the end for their Casablanca moment was great and man, I hope they allow these two to have a relationship.

Maybe an advantage they have is that part of their arcs is that they're really not ideologues either way. Their arc was about disillusionment already. Neither of them seem to think Gorbachev is the second-coming. They just know things have to change. Philip, especially, probably doesn't expect there to be a place waiting for him in the new world any more than there is now, but he saw what Elizabeth was fighting for and knew it shouldn't be that.

[quantumreality]

I actually expected this to be the episode where Paige starts getting ideas about using sex to get information, but that'll be later I guess.

Elizabeth reading Paige the riot act and then making down-home Russian cooking with her and Claudia is an interesting combination. But did she HAVE to kill that guy? She could probably have gotten away with him keeping his lips zippered for a few days before he nudges someone and asks why they didn't tighten up security like the auditor said. And with Elizabeth as master of disguise chances are many to one against he wouldn't immediately recognize her at the plant.

Philip is a spy but also a dad and knows Paige, being rattled, wants to feel safe and secure, but Elizabeth won't let her have it, which gives me feels. :|

It kinda sucks that Oleg doesn't believe Stan, but then again there's no real way he can cross check. It's kind of ironic that if Stan were to step up surveillance on Oleg, he'd scoop up Philip in no time. :P

[beer_good_foamy]

Once again, the question of what everyone is fighting for when History steps in and writes the script far beyond what any one character can control. Not that they don't try.

Talking about Russian famine food. Paige: "You never got sick of it?" Elizabeth, laughing: "That wasn't an issue." For all her idealism, Paige is 100% middle-class American, incapable of understanding hunger. See title of show. And then Elizabeth bringing Philip some. And having to throw it away because he's filled up on Chinese (how's that for a 2018 nod?) while the actual Russians eat pizza and talk about baseball.

"They want us to be just like them. I don't want to be just like them! And neither do the people back home!"
"You haven't talk to the people back home in over 20 years."
"Neither have you."

And so Phillip dresses up once more and meets with Oleg, in service of... what, exactly? While Elizabeth kills another innocent in service of... what, exactly? All down the drain.

[shapinglight]

Talking about Russian famine food. Paige: "You never got sick of it?" Elizabeth, laughing: "That wasn't an issue."

I did wonder at Paige in that scene (not for the first time). Presumably, Elizabeth and Claudia are trying to instil in her, if not love, then at least admiration for the USSR, but they keep making it seem like a pretty grim place. And now the food is all the same.

Treon's thoughts

[treonb]

Elizabeth finally came out and said it - she looks forward to dying for the cause. With all this talk about her going to die, I'm now 99.999% sure that it's not going to happen. But Philip should probably watch his back. Maybe the show's going to end with a showdown between those two?

Elizabeth comes to the priest - just to talk? And he finds himself in the position of marriage counselor as well. There's a big difference between Paige and the children he teaches. Russian children growing up in the US would have some notion of their parents' culture, and their connection to it. I'm not even sure how much Paige cares about all the Russian stuff. She researched KGB operations, not Russian foods.

My heart goes out to Gennadi (and Sofia too, though it's all her fault). He had to decide on a moment's notice whether to defect or not, and then he discovers he might be all alone forever.

Re: Treon's thoughts

[saraqael]

With all this talk about her going to die, I'm now 99.999% sure that it's not going to happen.

I think most viewers expect that Elizabeth will get some sort of exciting last minute reprieve because that's what happens in most stories. It would be a real kick in the gut if she actually does die. What if, even after realizing that she does have the option to change her fate, she chooses death?

Re: Treon's thoughts

[shapinglight]

Elizabeth comes to the priest - just to talk? And he finds himself in the position of marriage counselor as well.

This felt scene to me like she was using the priest as her confessor, which is weird considering she's a confirmed atheist.

While watching thoughts

[lovingboth]

Elizabeth is panting a lot.

Nice cut from her to Paige, plus the reveal that Philip is talking at her.

Both look at the sound of the car arriving...

"Are you OK?"

Ha, typical Elizabeth to tell Paige off like that!

Then Henry interrupts with domesticity.

I like the shot of Philip folding his arms in the blurred background, and his sigh later as Paige is sent out into the night.

"She's pretty much seen it all now." "Not all of it."

Interesting that Elizabeth doesn't tell Philip to stop being nosey.

He didn't kill himself!

Ooh, Elizabeth is talking, a bit, and Philip is pointedly not saying he already knows some of what she's talking about. He's being a better spy than she is at the moment.

Stan giving up when being smoked at!

Elizabeth at the travel agency, shock.

A more thoughtful chat between Elizabeth and Paige, then some sales talk from Philip.

The FBI isn't more enthusiastic.

.. but the hockey chat is.

Probably not who Oleg wants to open the door to, and both of them know that.

"Bullshit".

Tender home stuff for the first time in ages.

What was the problem with eating it all?

"What the Washington Post?!?"

"You haven't talked to anyone back home for over twenty years." "Neither have you."

This is more than half the cast being tired of their job episode. (Again.) Pointedly ironic that Philip and Elizabeth are currently further apart than they have been in a long time.

'Please tell me the FBI's secrets, darling.'

He does really know how to let people down.

I'll show you mine, please show me yours.

That's dumping him in it. And her, because once the FBI has said that, she's stuffed if she stays.

'Oh, you won't see your kid.'

I was just about to type that saying his girlfriend works in security too wasn't going to do anything for his life expectancy when Elizabeth doesn't disappoint...

Back to cruising in the park.

Re: While watching thoughts

[quantumreality]

"She's pretty much seen it all now." "Not all of it."

I just realized this is the dun-dun-dun moment when Elizabeth is probably going to hit her hard wall with how far she wants Paige to go.

Paige being, well, Paige, might take it into her head to hook up with someone as a way to get info. :O