theamericans | Episode discussion post: "START"

Interesting... I'm trying to think what she does know and it doesn't seem like very much? She met Elizabeth's other back-up agent, who's now dead, and Claudia, who's probably going to be arrested for plotting against Gorbachev anyway. P&E never told her much about what they were actually doing.

Anyway Philip and Elizabeth have gone home to be heroes of the Soviet Union and possibly the best KGB agents ever, the authorities would probably give them anything they wanted and the number one thing they'd want would be for Paige and Henry to be safe. If the KGB really didn't want Paige to run around the US, they'd probably kidnap her and take her back to Russia, not kill her.

In the critical response to the finale, one of the things that has divided people is the use of music. And if you'd asked me on the night the finale aired, I would have told you that neither of the songs really worked for me. One of the things this show has always done well is choose songs that never quite penetrated the public consciousness to a great extent, so that lots of viewers had either never heard the songs before or hadn't heard them in many years. By going with songs that had either been used to classic, widely talked-about effect in other Big TV Moments (in the case of "Brothers in Arms") or were just so ubiquitous that you associate them more with being overplayed than with any particular emotion (in the case of "With or Without You"), the show broke that pattern, and it felt pretty jarring to me. (Also, it doesn't help that I don't like either song very much, but I admit that's just me.)

In the days since the finale, though, I haven't been able to get either of them out of my head. And while I'd have sworn at the time the finale aired that there would be no way those two songs would attach themselves emotionally to those show-moments in the way other songs used on the show always have for me, I have to admit that when that subconscious soundtrack is playing, I'm running those moments from the show through my head again, too. I still would have preferred different, less overtly popular songs, but I can't really claim they didn't do their job.

What does everyone else think?

-J

I had a similar reaction to it--though I was humming the U2 song a lot. But then, I'm still constantly humming Don't Dream It's Over, another song I never particularly liked!

I would note that at least once before they did something similar and pulled it off. Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight is not only really well-known but is totally associated with the beginning of Miami Vice to the point that people thought it was really audacious to even use it. But it worked for me beautifully!

Ooh, of course they did this once before, you're right. Maybe it's good, then, to have those super-popular bookends!

-J

That's what I thought, too. I thought that he was being completely open and honest with Stan. For the first time in all the years they've been friends, Philip could finally be 100% honest. I think he wanted to be honest with Stan because he loved him. Stan was the only friend he'd ever had. But at the same time, I'm sure that he was also trying to disarm Stan with this sudden flood of genuine, heartfelt truth because he knew that it was the last thing that Stan would have expected. If they'd continued to try to bluff their way out of the situation, Stan would have killed them. If they'd made a sudden move, Stan would have killed them. But bare your soul to him? That left Stan defenseless.

I was watching the episode with my sister. When Stan showed up, she said, 'Oh no, they're going to kill Stan!' The whole time that Philip was talking, my sister and I were both convinced that Philip might still just shoot Stan at any moment if he thought that Stan wasn't believing him.

Philip also has been taught to "make it real." Everything he's saying to Stan here is true, but Philip is no doubt making it completely true to himself in that moment the same way he would "make it real" with any source.

The feelings are real, but he's also focusing on them to the exclusion of any other mitigating feelings. Of course he wouldn't say his life was just shitty--he had things he loved in his life. He loved his kids. Had genuinely happy times with them. Fell in love. But in this moment talking to Stan he's only concentrating on the shittiness of living the lie, which was a genuinely shitty part.

It's not, for instance, like Elizabeth with Paige in the last ep where Elizabeth is defending herself by getting real. Though they're both getting to voice feelings they haven't been able to to this person in the past.

The Nussbaum article is what prompted me to post this question here. I don't entirely agree with her that Philip was 100% just using his friendship to gaslight Stan. Her take on the scene is too Machievellian to me. I see it as more 70/30, friendship over spycraft. This was Philip's final opportunity to be honest with the only friend he'd ever had. It's true that he carefully edited his comments about how long he'd been in the US. I think he gave credit to Elizabeth for uncovering the Gorbachev plot to present her in as heroic terms as possible to soften Stan's view of her, but I really do think that Philip genuinely wanted Stan to let them go because of their friendship and not just because Stan was temporarily overwhelmed by all of this emotional manipulation.

Of course, as I said to Jae a comment above, I do think that Philip would have killed Stan at any moment if it looked like he wasn't getting through to him. Philip's priority was ensuring that he and his family could escape.

I also thought that Elizabeth was ready to shoot Stan at any moment, too.

"With or Without You" worked for me, especially since I loved the montage and feelings it portrayed. "Brothers in Arms" didn't (though it did get me to run through Dire Straits again).

In general, the more popular songs worked better for me, since the less-known songs also had more obscure lyrics which required me to read them and understand them in order to appreciate what they wanted to say. Having a "With or Without You" sign in big bold letters over Stan and Oleg might be cliche, but it's also very clear.

As far as popular songs, they also had "All Out of Love" and "99 Baloons" (I think?).

Did they ever use American songs?

Interesting. So that still leaves it open as to her next step.

I can see that happening, but I can also see them all getting together in a few years and Henry wanting to know. Right now, P&E feel like they're losing their children forever, but reality will change very soon.

I had the opposite reaction to these two songs. 'Brothers in Arms' worked well for me. I found the U2 song 'With or Without You' to be too much of an anthem.

I was talking about this elsewhere and someone offered this comment about Electric Sheep (they also felt the Vulture list might as well have just been randomly generated):

"And while I don't dislike "Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep," I agree that it's overrated -- unlike something like "Walter Taffet," which explores very specific and rich thematic material with a light touch, "Electric Sheep" takes much simpler ideas and draws waaay too much attention to the fact that it's Saying Something about them.

But I think that's also why a lot of people like it so much, to be honest. In a lot of other episodes, it's easy to miss the underlying thematic stuff and see the story as just a random collection of incidents. In "Electric Sheep" the layer of meaning that unites and elevates everything is much more accessible. In that way it reminds me a lot of the early Mad Men episode "Babylon." That one ends with this portentous musical montage that I found annoyingly on the nose, but to a lot of viewers this was the point that hooked them on the series, because it reassured them that there was more going on with the show than just soap opera shenanigans."

Yes, I thought that too actually. He was deliberately making himself look beaten and weak to seem less threatening to Stan.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't rank Americans episodes like that, even if I wanted to. Even Electric Sheep isn't all bad for instance. It's just the protracted death scene of the old lady, which feels like it strayed in from a different show altogether.

That...is incredibly frustrating and almost certainly exactly why people love that episode. Gah.

-J

Thanks for that. Yeah, I thought he looked spooked somehow. It was another of the many moments in the episode when I was waiting for someone to start shooting.

Did they ever use American songs?

Huh! They must have, right? I mean, they used a LOT of songs. But you're right, all the ones that are occurring to me are not American. In fact, they're from everywhere OTHER than the US.

-J

A couple come to mind: To Love Somebody by Roberta Flack and the Eddie Rabbitt song Philip line dances too. Drivin' My Life Away I think?

Right! Of course.

-J

Thinking back on the songs I listened to at that time they probably were more often not American, I think.

I was also thinking back, because I started wondering where American music disappeared to in the 80s. But, of course, there were a lot of very popular Americans too, like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Springsteen.

Where did they use "To Love Somebody"?

First season, "Only You." Gregory's death.

-J

Never mind the Russians - she doesn't know anything that could hurt them, apart from being able to talk about Claudia - it's Stan I'd be worried about in her place. She knows he committed treason by letting the three of them go.

Even if he's not able or willing to kill her to stop her talking - and what can she say about life with two Soviet illegals that Henry can't? - with him around, she can only go for option 3, because he knows she knew.

With no KGB support, the idea she could last more than a few days is laughable. The Paige we've been shown couldn't even do sex for cash to survive.

I thought Electric Sheep was meh rather than an absolute stinker.

The whole setup of the episode was bad in that, after telling us that lots of people could fit a bug to the mail robot - bad enough in itself - Philip and Elizabeth 'had' to go somewhere completely undisguised without any scouting of the location. Then Elizabeth hears a noise, uncharacteristically stupidly goes off to investigate, and unsurprisingly ends up being seen. Given the totally unnecessary lack of disguise, as soon as that happens Granny Minutes Tolive has to die, so it actually happening is completely unmoving and uninteresting - Jae's comment at the time that she was a device and not a person is spot on.

It could have been about the 'how', if it were difficult to find a way to kill her without it being obviously murder and so avoiding the subsequent investigation (not that this version of the FBI ever did look for fingerprints!) But no, we get 'Oh, here are my suicide pills' very early on, and the show expects us to care about the 'if', when it is screamingly obvious that there is no 'if'.

What saves it from being really bad is that the episode had nice stuff about family and death and killing and faith, particularly in the scenes between Philip and Gabriel. You could edit out Granny and have an episode that actually worked.

For me the really bad one is S01E09, Safe House, where there is no saving it because it all stinks. Shockingly, I see this insult to the viewer's intelligence is #14/75 on the Vulture list.

To recap, Philip spends the night with Martha. In the morning she says 'Oh, my boss is planning to assassinate a KGB agent', and as Philip is leaving, Amador tries to detain him because he's jealous that it's not him who's sleeping with Martha. Amador is stabbed, but it's not poor Philip's fault because it's Amador who pulled the knife.

Amador ends up where he was always going to end up - in the trunk of the car, stabbed or not - because he's seen Philip out of disguise, and off they go to the safe house of the title..

.. where Philip and Elizabeth, knowing that the FBI are going to kill someone on their side, don't actually bother to ask Amador who, where, when, and how. Instead of actually torturing him, they accept a simple 'I know nothing' and are busying giving him pain relief.

Rather than, oh, report the plot to anyone. Even when Amador finally mentions that it's Arkady who's the target. (Because hey, why not just reveal your second biggest secret just because someone he knows is a KGB agent says it's past the time the op was planned?)

Philip and Elizabeth also know that there is a mole in the KGB - we know it's Nina, of course - but they don't bother to even attempt to find out who. In one scene, Stan is sure Amador didn't tell them who it is, but even he doesn't even bother to say that perhaps he was never even asked about his biggest secret!

Then when Arkady has a hurt hand and decides not to go on his run, Stan goes and kidnaps someone else anyway. Gadd is only slightly annoyed at the potential international incident (being ordered to kill the known KGB resident in retaliation for a series of murders by the KGB is one thing, kidnapping a random diplomat on your own initiative is quite another!)

Then Amador finally dies - of the stab wound, saving Philip and Elizabeth from actively murdering him, as they were planning - and they leave the body in a way that screams the KGB dunnit rather than making any attempt to hide it while pointing the FBI at, say, a cuckolded husband being responsible for his disappearance despite knowing that there are plenty of those in Amador's life.

To cap it off, kidnapped Vlad then goes 'yep, I am KGB' to Stan, thus allowing him to be lightly shot in the back of the head with a relatively clean conscience.

Had there being a second episode as bad as this in series one, I would never have bothered watching series two.

Edited (Too many caps :)) 2018-06-08 10:17 (UTC)

At the end of series five, Elizabeth tells Tuan that he won’t last in the spy business, that he can’t do it alone and needs an ally.

At the end of series six, who's Paige got?

And Tuan was a lot more competent and driven than she will ever be.

Episode discussion post: "START"

Re: Is Paige safe from the... Russians?

The two pop songs in the finale

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