Episode discussion post: "Harvest"

[jae]

Aired:
9 May 2018 in the U.S. and Canada

This is a discussion post for episode 607 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 seven.)

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Paige's Ideological Convictions

[quantumreality]

Paige becoming a social-gospel New Deal Democrat was feasible as a part of her personal evolution - provided she never found out about her parents. Once she did, though, all bets were off because her life just went off the rails.

Even then her life was still salvageable. All she had to do was simply involve herself no further and not let her parents draw her into the second-gen illegals program. P&E didn't even want Paige or Henry to ever know in the first place because they sensed, probably instinctively (which is playing out now with Paige), that their children simply didn't have the context for why they did what they did - and wouldn't be able to appreciate what a very serious business it can be.

It is really ironic that Elizabeth has essentially created a miniature 1920s-era Russian revolutionary in Paige, so utterly convinced that she knows what's right and unwilling to countenance that there could be viable alternatives.

And that version of Paige is going to get twenty to life.

Re: Paige's Ideological Convictions

[sistermagpie]

In a way it's not even that she thinks she knows what's right. It's that she wants Elizabeth and Claudia to know what's right. As I mentioned someone said about her in this ep, when it comes to expressing those beliefs for herself she manages a couple of cliches before falling back on an appeal to their authority.

She's really not on fire for her cause any more than she was for Jesus. She just sees these beliefs as defining her group. If Elizabeth became disillusioned tomorrow Paige would go right along with her.

In this ep Elizabeth tries to give her an out but of course Paige can see that if she got out she'd no longer have the only relationships that mean anything to her. She'd still have Philip, but she's never been able to handle his way. He's alone--more alone than almost any other character at times. He never has any easy answers for her.