theamericans | Episode discussion post: "The Great Patriotic War"

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theamericans

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

This is a discussion post for episode 605 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 five.)

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From:

sistermagpie

If you're going to kidnap her, why not do it now??

The idea was that it wasn't supposed to be a kidnapping. Jim would convince Kimmy to take a side trip across the Iron Curtain. Once there they'd plant drugs on her (despite her not even smoking much anymore) and throw her in prison. Then they'd tell Breland she'd rot there if he didn't give them info.

Do American safe houses normally have that much space to hide behind the fridge?

You'd think a safe house would be a lot more safe. It was totally easy to follow Stan to it, break in, hide, kill everyone, and sneak out. A fire escape? Really?

From:

saraqael

What Elizabeth had planned for Kimmy was essentially a kidnapping, it was just to have been prettied up by having Philip lure her across the border where 'someone' would plant drugs on her. I'm quite sure that both Kimmy and her father would have been killed afterwards, and damn the consequences. There's no way that the scheme Elizabeth suggested would have ended with Kimmy safely returned to American soil.

You might think that a safe house would be a lot more safe, but actually not, I suspect. There was a safe house in the subdivision where I lived as a teen in Northern Virginia. It was just a house like any other house out there. [This I know, btw, because of a hilariously brief article in the local paper all those years ago, about a woman who was pulled over by police for apparent drunk driving, only to turn out to be an agent who'd been drugged in the safe house and was now trying to get back to HQ. I kept that article for years because it amused me so much. There was a "secret" CIA location in that town, too (which everyone gossiped about so it wasn't so very secret after all.)]

From:

sistermagpie

Right, but I meant that's why she wasn't just kidnapping her in the west somewhere. They'd lose the figleaf cover of her being in jail for drug possession.

That plan would have ended about as well as the one with Gaad in Thailand. Worse because it would have created a major international incident.

From:

lovingboth

Yes, Kimmy was going across the border whether or not she wanted to.

From:

sistermagpie

I don't think she was, actually. That's why they wanted Jim. They were trying to create a fake story where she was arrested behind the Iron Curtain.

From:

lovingboth

Do you remember the terrible S01E09 where Philip and Elizabeth had stabbed and captured Amador who they knew has info about the FBI's plans to kill someone in the KGB but barely ask him about that, never mind start torturing him?

How would that go down with their superiors? "Well, yes, we did have an idea, but we were too busy giving pain relief to someone who we knew knew more than they were saying to actually make him talk...' Book the Siberian holiday now.

Ditto 'Well, yes, we were told by someone in a position to know that the local head of the KGB was planned to be killed, but once we knew he was alive, we didn't need to actually tell him directly...'

Ditto 'Well, yes, we had been told of a mole earlier, but although we had someone who may well know who it is, we didn't bother to ask...'

Stan is sure Amador didn't tell them who it was, but he doesn't even bother to say that perhaps he was never asked!

Here, what would be the response to Philip coming back from Greece, saying "She didn't want to go to Bulgaria.."? Would Elizabeth go "OK, you tried"? I think not!

Philip would be told to get her over the border willingly or unwillingly.

From:

sistermagpie

Iirc, Philip stabs Amador in self defense and it's only when Amador himself *tells* them that there's a plan to capture Arkady that they know anything about it. And he waits until the plan would have already happened before he says anything for that reason. So there's not really much reason to torture him. Not that it would have worked, probably, since he's already dying.

Philip would be told to get her over the border willingly or unwillingly.

Elizabeth didn't say anything about Philip kidnapping Kimmy by force--that would require a plan beyond just telling Philip to do it. She wanted to send him so that Kimmy would go to Bulgaria willingly. She didn't give him any instructions about how he's supposed to smuggle her across borders on his own--that's hard to do and probably not something he could have done himself.

Philip himself seems to be going on that idea when he tells Kimmy not to go to Bulgaria with anybody. Once she's in Bulgaria there's police ready to arrest her and plant drugs. There was no kidnap plot in case in Greece.

From:

lovingboth

Philip was just leaving Martha, having been told about the assassination plot, when Amador confronted him. So they knew about it, and who Amador was, before they kidnapped him.

Philip getting into Bulgaria with Kimmy in the boot / trunk would be easy. You got checked entering the East, not leaving the West, and obviously they're on board.

From:

sistermagpie

Philip hears they're planning to kill some KGB agent. They question Amador the whole time they have him. He tells them Arkady is the target when the time has past. They tell Claudia. Not sure what they're supposed to be doing wrong. He's in pain and dying and they're questioning him. Torture wouldn't make much difference.

If anybody can just throw Kimmy in a trunk and drive her to a Communist coutry then Philip's warning to her becomes meaningless. He would have warned her not to go to Greece at all.