theamericans | Episode discussion post: "START"

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episode discussion

Episode discussion post: "START"

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

This is a discussion post for episode 610 of The Americans (the season and series finale), 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.)

Original promo trailer

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I had to watch it the moment I got up...

It was an amazing episode. I loved the direction they took, but the execution sometimes less, particularly for the scene where Stan lets them go. Though it did give all the characters a chance to speak out.

Paige's "You think we can trust him?" question was about Stan. I did not see that coming.

Her decision to stay back was logical, her decision to go back to her old life was not. When she sat there, I was half expecting her to take out the cyanide pill which she somehow stole. She had another identity in her hand, she could have just disappeared, like Philip thought to do.

P&E have a lot of faith in the Americans, but I cannot see Henry being allowed to have a normal life at this point.

They also have a lot of faith in the Russians. Going back was understandable, but very risky.

One of the things I liked best about this episode was Stan and Renee and the "with or without you" sequence. At first I thought they were going with the "Renee is a KGB spy" story, which I still hope isn't true. It took me a while to realize they chose something way better - Stan has no idea whether she is or isn't (just like us), and he has to live with it.

The last words were Elizabeth's, in Russian, which reflects back on the end of S1. "Come home", and they did.

I don't have much time for a lengthy review right now, so I can basically just summarise it into one big question:

Was it all worth it?

Discuss, lol.

Edited 2018-05-31 05:44 (UTC)

OK, that was... not what I was expecting, but I liked it? A few unprocessed thoughts:

Everyone survives, at least for the time being. Nothing is given one firm THE END, which I like.

Oleg's pretty much screwed, at least for the next few years. Pawns get sacrificed. I loved the two scenes of his dad - that little choice of sitting down in frustration, immediately standing up again, spreading his arms in the international sign of "what kind of fucked up cosmic joke is this" and walking home to inform his family that Somehow, Things Got Worse.

Paige, ditto. Depending on how well Stan keeps his mouth shut she may or may not get to claim she knew nothing and stay out of jail, but when a character's last scene is of them sitting down with a bottle and begin drinking, that's usually not TV writer speak for "...and then she lived happily ever after."

And Stan. Jesus. Philip actually broke him. And I love, love, love, that they leave Renee's identity open. He repeats that he doesn't care who's running Russia; as long as he's known, they've been the enemy, period. The idea that Philip actually is his friend and a Russian spy, and that he wants to believe them when they say they've never killed anyone, probably does as much to break him as the Renee bit.

Elizabeth buries the cyanide pill along with everything else. That's not her responsibility anymore. So it got a payoff after all.

The mandatory music montages: "Brothers In Arms" (suitable for glasnost, though West Wing owns that song as far as I'm concerned), "With Or Without You" (and someone in the editor's room really likes Bono's howl), and a classical piece I didn't recognize over the final scene in Moscow?

Close but no cigar: At the Russian border crossing, P&E are driving a Volvo with Swedish plates... but headlights that were only available on US models. (I'm Swedish, OK, Volvo details matter to me.)

The final scene reminds me of the final scene of The Wire - Jimmy McNulty looking out over Baltimore before getting back in the car. Philip starts the conversation with "Colonel Ican'tevenrememberhisname told me it would be a hard life, that it wouldn't be some big adventure." Elizabeth ends it with "We'll get used to it" - in (to my ears, at least) heavily accented Russian. I almost wanted to name her Nadezhda there, but let's face it, that's not who she is anymore. They're about to start from zero in a new country again, except with a lot more baggage.

And the irony, of course: we know that Gorbachov's plan will go horribly right and 2-3 years later, the borders will open. And they won't be able to go home.

Again, you might argue that P&E didn't deserve this much of a "good" ending. And again, I'd paraphrase David Chase before the last season of The Sopranos: If you're going to cheer for the bad guys for six seasons, you don't get to demand that they get punished in the finale. (Yes, of course it's more complicated than that.)

I think so

For P&E: We don't know what would have happened if they wouldn't have been sent to the US. Elizabeth said she and Philip might have met on a bus, but most chances are that they would have never met. Why would they even be in the same city?

For Oleg: his actions changed history. I'm still not sure it would have been so horrible for him to tell the FBI what he knows, but if he wouldn't have come and risked everything, the anti-Gorbachev people at the KGB would have succeeded with their plan

Sad that the show is over, though of course, it's always good to see a show end on its own terms instead of starting to suffer from being stretched too thin. And an ending that's probably one of the better ways it could have ended, at least for Philip and Elizabeth (and Stan, I guess - I was afraid he might end up dead), but still rather sad, given everything.

And it’s very right, tonally and thematically for this show, that the costs are enormous. There was no realistic way for them not to be. Paige and Henry – from the moment Phillip and Elizabeth had them – were basically sacrifices to the Cause. Because it was extremely unlikely that there would have been a scenario where Phillip and Elizabeth just never had to leave the US and Paige and Henry would have never known/been pulled into their spy-life.

I don’t know how I feel about Stan letting them go. It’s treasonous, but then, Stan has, of course, already showed willingness to cross that line for people he cares about deeply so it’s not OOC. “I would have done anything do you Phillip” –except it should have been present tense, because he really does more for them than he ever had any kind of duty to. And it’s incredible the weight of what he has to live with – the lie(-or-maybe-not) of his friendship with Phillip, the suspicion cast on Renee, knowing he betrayed his duty as an FBI agent/American by letting the Jennings go…

The scene where Phillip and Elizabeth were discussing whether or not to tell Henry/take him with them was so heartbreaking. Because there was no good option for Henry. Even assuming they had enough time to pick him up, tell him, and give him even the tiniest window of opportunity to decide…even forgetting that there was no way he could make a well-processed choice in the given timeframe…His choices are shit. He’s an American and his entire life is there and basically forced immigration to Russia would suck ass, especially since he’s in his late teens already, not a little kid, not to mention that consumer products aren’t everything but that would be a rather starting drop in the quality of life for him. On the other hand, being separated from his parents and sister, who are his only family, really. Is fucking awful. I get the logic behind not telling him, but he’s robbed of a choice and a real chance to say goodbye. Extra shitty for him.

Man, Oleg gets screwed. I really didn’t expect his storyline to end this way.

Paige…I didn’t expect her to stay, though I get why she decided to try and go back to her old life instead of using her new identify – this way she can openly be close to Henry. (Stan may or may not tell him that she knew, but I’m willing to bet that she can get him to forgive her). After all, Henry was her biggest hang-up about the entire thing. And because, without being able to be close to Henry I don’t see why she’d stay. Obviously, the adjustment to Russia would have been a bitch, but Paige didn’t seem to have that much attachment to anything outside her family. I feel like, unlike Henry, the emotional costs of being split from her parents/family would have been greater than the emotional costs of the “forced immigration” lets call it. Interestingly, though, I never thought Paige and Henry to be so close…

(I did roll my eyes at Phillip’s line in the last scene about how Paige and Henry were fine cause they weren’t little kids anymore. I mean, yea, they need to tell themselves that to get through it and it’s technically true, but I honestly don’t think those emotional costs are really much lower just because they’re older. I really don’t.)

The last scene was very bittersweet. A return home, but they’d spend almost their entire adult lives living somewhere else, being somebody else. I’m sure it feels incredibly strange. Elizabeth speculating on wheat her/their life/lives would have been like if they had living in Russia and in a way it’s a double whammy of lives lost – the normal Russian lives they forewent and now the lives they’d build as psudo-Americans (but very real ones as parents).

And, of course, in a few years the Soviet Union will fall and the borders will open and everything will change dramatically and I do wonder what everyone will think about that.

Shazaam says Tchaikovsky's 6 Romances Op. 6 No. 3

or rather: "None but the lonely hearts" (op6 no 6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PtIHBCuR-Q

Edited 2018-05-31 08:58 (UTC)

Of course it's Tchaikovsky. Thanks!

More later, but for now, damn I knew I was right to be worried about Oleg. The scenes with his father and wife were heartbreaking.

I loved it, too. I've only watched it the once so far, but I'll watch it again this morning.

Her decision to stay back was logical, her decision to go back to her old life was not.

I can see why you'd say that, but I don't know. I think the main reason why she stayed behind was that someone from the family had to be there for Henry--if not to finish raising him (as I'm sure Stan will do), then at least to be able to explain things to him. Which meant she kind of had to go back to her life. Plus, she's a novice spy and not a very good one at that. She doesn't really have the skills she'd need to live out a life under a totally different identity without the help of her parents.

I imagine she'll go to prison once the dust settles and the FBI finishes investigating them. Which, awful. But maybe not any worse than having to start over again in the Soviet Union.

I cannot see Henry being allowed to have a normal life at this point.

He will be poked and prodded by the various intelligence services, but they will quickly realize that his use to them is limited. It's Paige who's going to get the brunt of this.

They also have a lot of faith in the Russians. Going back was understandable, but very risky.

I thought a lot about this! I mean, if they'd gone back before all of the disobedience of this past season, they'd both have been universally lauded as heroes, but as things are, I'm sure there are a lot of their fellow countrymen who would rather they had died (and may still want them dead). And I'm not sure Arkady will be able to protect them, as those same people may now be coming for HIM (as came out in the conversation with Oleg's father).

It took me a while to realize they chose something way better - Stan has no idea whether she is or isn't (just like us), and he has to live with it.

I'm still stunned (in a good way) by this. Like many other people in this group, I didn't see a good way of ending the Renee storyline. I figured they'd have to either reveal her as a spy (in which case it would have been rushed and annoying) or else reveal her as not-a-spy (in which case, why all the teasing?). But this? Perfection. I love that every viewer will get to figure out for themselves what they think about Renee, and the show simply isn't taking a stance on it.

-J

For us, you mean? Hell yes. Best show ever. :)

-J

I was thinking that as they drove through Russia. They were supposed to be heroes, and instead I was afraid they'd be arrested as traitors.

That would have been a really depressing ending.

I honestly don’t think those emotional costs are really much lower just because they’re older. I really don’t.

I don't, either. I do think that's what they have to tell themselves to get through this, though.

And, of course, in a few years the Soviet Union will fall and the borders will open and everything will change dramatically and I do wonder what everyone will think about that.

Throughout the whole show, I've cringed whenever I've thought about how Elizabeth especially would react to that, if she survived the show (I figured Philip would be fine--he'd roll with it). But given the very real changes in her character this season, I don't worry about that anymore. I think she's less naive now, and more willing to see things in shades of grey. She's already had some of those shocks, too, so watching the rest of that happen will really just be a continuation of the road she's already on. She'll be dismayed by what happens next, but not destroyed by it.

-J

Edited 2018-05-31 16:06 (UTC)

They totally could have been, too, had anyone met them other than Arkady.

-J

In which we get to the Scouring of the Shire, so to speak, or to the Grey Havens. I'm so going to miss this show, but this was a worthy finale, and it ended at the right time, neither overstaying its welcome or being cancelled before it could fly.

Of all the endings I speculated about, Phiip and Elizabeth both making it back to Russia, alive, and with each other wasn't one. And yet this feels right, as it comes with a heavy price. They've lost both of their children, and if they've managed to save their country and world peace for a few years, they'll also soon see said country first fall apart and then reconstitute itself in the image of the people they just fought against. And that's leaving aside they haven't lived in Russia for decades, will have to relearn everything, strangers again in a strange country as they were when young and arriving in the US. And that they'll have to live with the knowledge that all they did the intervening years, the murders and betrayals, in the end made no difference (other than to the people they were done to).

And yet, despite all the serious disagreements and enstrangements, their ups and downs, they have each other. Which answers Claudia's question from last episode - what does Elizabeth have left? What Philip has got left. In is a bittersweet ending, and in a way, The Americans was the ultimate take on the "Arranged Marriage" trope; it'll make not just many a fanfiction but a lot of pro fiction dealing with the same subject look second-rate by comparison. Philip and Elizabeth were such rich, complicated characters and their relationship so intense, layered and, among many other things, proof that the old notion of couples not being interesting anymore once they've had sex and gotten committed to each other is wrong - if you can write and act the way the show's team could.

While there was suspense - notably early on until the confrontation with Stan, and then in the train until the Paige reveal - this was not an action-heavy finale but a character driven one, which feels exactly right. The confrontation wiht Stan was something the entire show had been building up to since the pilot, and in retrospect, its fallout was dependent on not one but three relationships - Stan's with Philip, with Oleg, and with Henry. Maybe even his past with Nina, a little. It all felt interwoven - if Oleg hadn't told Stan about the plot against Gorbachev, which he wouldn't have if they'd had a different kind of relationship, then the Jenningses mentioning it would not have affirmed their credibility at a key point in the middle of the ultimate proof that they'd been lying to Stan for the past six years. If Stan hadn't come to know them well enough to figure out they'd come for Paige, and kept this to himself instead of alerting Aderholt, they wouldn't have been able to talk without other FBI agents present. If Stan hadn't felt as strongly about Philip - and Henry - the way he did, none of that might have mattered, in the end.

Or if it had been anyone but Philip on the other side. Elizabeth came to care about some of her assets in varying degrees - most of all Gregory, who in the finale gets a cameo as part of Elizabeth's dream - , but I can't imagine her making herself vulnerable the way Philip did had such a confrontation arisen with any of them, or gambling all their lives on Stan neither shooting nor calling for backup. Incidentally, while I do think Philip was sincere in all he said to Stan after "we had a job to do", I also note he's editing somewhat with the aim of defusing and convincing Stan. ("Only" friend leaves out fellow illegals Robert and Emmet, for example, both of whom Philip classified as friends in situations where one didn't have the impression he was lying, but that's neither here nor there if you have to convince the other guy you did not pretend to feel friendship for him.) There's also the ambiguity of the Renee remark - it's true, Philip has the suspicion without the confirmation, but telling Stan is both cruel and kind at the same time. If it's true, he'll have been warned, if it isn't, that relationship, too, is poisoned from now on. But then, the intermingling of lies and truths, of emotions faked becoming real emotions and the impossibility of having anything clear-cut if you're living as an agent (either Russian or American) has been a theme from the start.

Philip deciding early they should leave Henry because Henry is utterly American and to drag him to the USSR (should they manage to escape) would be terrible for him wasn't entirely unexpected, and that's one of the reasons why I'm glad the emphasis in the fnale was on character over action - we got to see the impact this had on Elizabeth and then on Paige, and continued to have on Philip himself, before, at the moment of border crossing by train, both Elizabeth, Philip and the audience discovered they had lost their daughter, too. Paige electing to stay in the US over staying with her parents made perfect character sense, too. Russia wasn't real to her, a country she'd never seen other than in movies, the reality of spying versus playing at being a spy, which was what she'd been doing, got increasingly difficult to reconcile even in a state of wilful self delusion, and if she'd been trying to live her idea of her mother's life, then last episode's confrontation ended that desire. I'm not sure what to make of her return to the DC area instad of living under her new identity elsewhere, but I suppose unless she's already applied for a job at the CIA, which would in retrospect affirm to all and sunder she had been not just aware of her parents' true identies for the past few years but part of the KGB as well, she's in the clear in that no one can prove she's done anything other than keeping quiet about the truth. Which she could excuse with the extreme emotional pressure that comes with being a daughter. Even Stan doesn't know any better (and can't mention anyway that Paige said "they told me when I was 16", because then he'd have to admit he saw the Jenningses and let them go). She could also declare Philip and Elizabeth basically kidnapped her on their flight and she got away as soon as she could.

Arkady Ivanovich, most sympathetic KGB authority figure to grace fiction: glad we saw you in the finale again, though having to tell Oleg's father about his arrest was not a little heartbreaking as scenes went. (I do hope that Gorbachev will now intervene for Oleg anyway, btw, though as has been said, given the future of Russia Oleg might be safer in an American cell than he'd be there.) Otoh, Arkady welcoming Philip and Elizabeth in Russia as part of the near silent final sequence was basically the stoic Russian equivalent of a direly needed hug, emotionally speaking. (And told us even if we didn't know through world history that their message in the end did arrive in time and with the right person.) I do hope the three of them stay in touch, and help each other through the difficult times ahead.

Lastly: while I'm not on board with all the creative choices (too much time on the travel agency's woes, show), I find I'm okay with never knowing whether or not Renee is a spy. Either revealing her as one or confirming she wasn't one would have felt anticlimactic, whereas Stan having to live with the uncertainty just like the audience feels like an show-appropriate ambiguous note.

In conclusion: I wasn't kidding with the LotR comparison. This was an elegic finale - our antiheroes return to their homeland, which has changed so much, as have they, that it can never be the return they dreamed of when they started their journey. They expected to die but did not; their emotional losses, however, will never be undone. They themselves are anything but innocent and have in fact fallen. But they also returned from this. And they have each other, there, at the end of things.

Lol! Of course.

But I meant for all the characters in the series.
The ending reminded me a lot of American Beauty, where there is no real happy ending for anybody, but perhaps somewhat hopeful for some.

I'm not saying there is even a yes or no reply to my question. To me, it's all about the shades and it has always been that way with this series. No one is completely bad, but no one is completely good either. The characters have always been allowed human flaws, which is unusual for television.

Regarding P&E, I would say that my question only makes sense if we look at their life in the US. So, was everything they did worth it in the end? Yes, they probably paved the way for glasnost and a more stable East/West relationship. But they also lost their children. What they did was for the greater good, but there was a huge personal loss as a result. Is that a price they would have paid gladly, had they known the outcome before going into their mission?

I guess I feel like it's not my place to tell the characters whether their various sacrifices were worth it, so I don't really have an opinion on that.

I think Philip would say no, and Elizabeth would say yes.
I think Stan would say no.
I think Paige would say no.
I think Oleg would say yes (though through gritted teeth).
I think Arkady would say yes (at least in 1987, and probably for a few years yet).
I think Martha would say no (though with a shrug--she's making the very best she can of that 'no').

-J

This show has always been a tragedy and it had a fittingly melancholy, tragic ending. The Jennings lost their home, their children, and the mission that they dedicated their lives too since they were teenagers. They return home to a Russia they haven’t seen for decades, to god only knows what new roles and lives. We viewers know that the August Coup against Gorbachev doesn’t take place until 1991, but all of the hardliner forces against him in the KGB and elsewhere are still in play for the Jennings to deal with now. Since Elizabeth betrayed them, I can’t help but feel that the next few years in Russia for the Jennings are going to be fraught with tension and danger. And then the whole government collapses and things get even worse. How long will the Jennings survive now that they’ve gone home? We’ll never know. The last we see of them, Philip looks lost and speaks to Elizabeth in English. She replies in Russian that they’ll adjust and work it out. But will they? When she gazed out over the nighttime skyline of Moscow, she could imagine an alternate life for herself there, but not one for Philip.

Oleg will likely rot in a US jail for an unknown number of years and may never see his family again. Arkady fears for his own future. Stan had his entire world turned upside down. As he said to Philip, the Jennings turned his entire life into a joke. Renee? We’ll never know if she’s another illegal, and we’ll never know what will happen between her and Stan. Claudia? Who knows. She probably got back to Moscow about the same time as the Jennings, but we’ll never know. Henry has to live with the fact that his parents were Soviet spies and that they and his sister fled the country and abandoned him into the care of their next door neighbor. Appropriately enough for the ignored/neglected Jennings kid, we only got a glimpse of Stan talking to him, so there will be no emotional reckoning or payout for the audience to see how he deals with the devastating news that Stan delivered. Our last real glimpse of Henry is of him impatiently blowing off his parents’ farewell call because he had to get back to a game of ping pong. And Paige finally took her first true independent step and stayed behind all alone to face an unknown future in the US.

It was such a perfect ending for this show. It was always a show about a marriage and a family but also about what happens to people who dedicate their lives to an ideology. We saw in Elizabeth’s dream flashback that when she was with the first true love of her life (Gregory, not Philip), that she never wanted children. But the reality of truly losing her children was so unbearable that it left her speechless with grief and shock. Henry probably will hate them for a while at least. Paige left them while she was still herself roiling with a sense of anger and betrayal. Philip and Elizabeth have to carry that emotional pain with them for the rest of their lives. At the end, all they have left is each other. Will they make it as a couple? I honestly don’t know. When Philip suggested to Elizabeth that he might stay behind in the US a couple of years to monitor the kids, that was a quietly momentous acknowledgement that he was willing to choose the kids over her since there was no real guarantee that he’d ever be able to get back to Russia if they split up now. And who knows? He might have wanted to stay in the US just for himself.

I’m saddened beyond belief that our last glimpse of Oleg is of him hunched on the floor in an FBI holding cell. I’d like think that Stan eventually gets over himself just long enough to help arrange some sort of reduced sentence or spy trade or whatever else sort of deal to get Oleg released, but we’ll never, ever know.

The only thing in the finale episode that truly surprised me was Paige getting off the train and leaving her parents forever. Her whole life has been wracked and ruined by her quest to make sense of her family and win her mother’s love and approval. It took right to the end of the show for her to realize that she never knew them and that she didn’t belong in their world no matter how much she tried to fit in. She has no one and nothing now. We can all speculate forever about what she’ll do next, but we’ll never know. That’s very sad but also very liberating to me as a viewer. All of these characters have internal lives and fates that we’ll never see, but that happens in the real world all the time, too. People come and go from our lives and we often never know what happened to them. Sure, social media now has made it easier to stay superficially in touch with people if we chose to, but it’s not the same.

I’m going to miss the hell out of this show but I love this ambiguous, heartbreaking ending more than I can say.

[I'm also going to miss reading all of the thoughtful commentary by everyone in this community every week. I've gained so much insight into this show from everyone here. So thank you everybody for all of your great posts over the years.]

Edited 2018-05-31 17:09 (UTC)

I don't see Paige's decision to return to DC as her returning to her 'old' life. I see it as her returning to her 'own' genuine life for the first time. She's been motivated all of her life by an intense need to connect with her family and in particular with her mother. She finally left them and that version of herself behind. What she does now is anybody's guess, but she's finally making independent decisions that aren't motivated by trying to bond with her parents.

Not one of us guessed exactly what would happen, and I think that's a huge win for the writers (and whoever edits the episode trailers).

Seeing a lot of "Stan would never let them go" reactions elsewhere, and I completely disagree with all of those. Is he kind of an idiot for doing it? Probably. But we're all idiots in love, and yeah, Philip and Stan were best friends. Easy enough to see how the Stan we grew to know over the years would eventually be unable to pull the trigger on the man he loved better than either of his wives (YMMV). Even assuming Stan couldn't get past his personal feelings, the double whammy of Oleg and Philip/Elizabeth pressing on Stan the immediacy of stopping Gorbachev's enemies worked. (I would love to see/read an epilogue, set years later, when it is brought home just how important it is who leads Russia - and any world power, really - and Stan comes to appreciate the warnings he received. If Stan is standing in for America proper, that's even more poignant)

I just believe there was A LOT going on with Stan at that moment, and it was totally in keeping with the Stan that we knew all along.

I really appreciated the super high stakes of this season - the very future of world peace. Watching this show with the last thirty years to think about was intense; you know how it really ends, but you have to come to grips with how it all came together, and what was sacrificed along the way. And Philip's ultimate "what was it all for" contrasted with his own desire to not see his country fall apart - *long whistle* - that was the best of the character arcs for me. So many of you were talking about how his death was telegraphed over the last few episodes - the funeral suit and so on - as was Elizabeth's, and if they are Russia to Stan's America, what a statement it all makes.

(With that in mind - Elizabeth burying, but not destroying, the suicide necklace almost reads as metaphor to me as well. Just not enough for it to be a blinking neon sign)

There wasn't the total ambiguity of The Sopranos ending, but the scent of it was still present. The David Chase line about not getting to root for morally corrupt characters and see them punished for their crimes seems to have been an influence, but also, in the context of the show, we know they are punished. Stan has to live with his betrayal, has the spectre of a possible spy in his household, has the obligation to be there for Henry. Oleg had more nobility in his pinkie than half the rest of the characters, and may never see his family again (there's a parallel between him and Philip, too - neither will see his son again, and each has willingly entered a prison of sorts). We know that ultimately Elizabeth will have to see the Russia of her memory strive to become more American in too many ways (I LOVED that they went to McDonald's, and that at that moment they are probably having a bit of a "last time," and the audience knows the whole time that the first McDonald's in Russia opens only three years after this episode takes place; I remember when that was headline news).

I was certain P&E would be shot on entering the Soviet Union. I was tense and upset for the entire ending montage, positive that someone would have followed Arkady and done them all in. Now, looking back at the episode in total, and the one before it, I'm more convinced that may have actually happened to Claudia. It all depends on whether the message reached Gorbachev's loyalists in time or not.

(Another quick thing on this - I find it difficult to believe that the attempts to subvert Gorbachev via the summit would have been the only way his opponents were seeking to get rid of him at that particular moment, especially since we know what's coming in 1991. I think it likely there was enough going on that he would have been able to marshal his own resources to out his more violent detractors. Hence my belief that Claudia may have been captured and maybe executed on return. Also, there's no way, after Elizabeth shot and killed Tatiana, that some of the conspiracy came to light as Tatiana's own weapon was right there with the body).

Okay, now, to go plot out the Americans/X-Files crossover I've been dying to see written, in which Renee is Marita Covarrubias. :-D

Edited 2018-05-31 17:53 (UTC)

Such a great comparison.

I do think that's what they have to tell themselves to get through this, though.

Elizabeth says it flat out, Henry's the same age she was when she started working. I think on some level, she and Philip truly believe, the kids are all grown up, and whatever comes next is not their responsibility. After all, they didn't have the luxury of parents who could guide them through it all.

I don't think Paige is necessarily that screwed. In order foe them to bring charges against her, hey'd have to prove that no only did she know/suspect what her parents were doing, she'd have to actually have participated in some way. And that's a pretty heavy lift, assuming that Paige is a decent liar, and I think she'd be ok at that, given than she'd have more time to plan out her story than she did when Stan accosted them.

Of course, Stan knows, but the only reason he knows she was involved is because they told him. I can't imagine that after everything, especially giving his own involvement in Jennings' escape, that he would turn Paige over. (Not to mention that I think they only told him that she knew, not that she participated.)

I think you misunderstand my question.
It's not about telling the characters anything.
I was looking for a discussion on what the characters may have thought themselves. I explained it more in the comment above yours.

All of the things that all of the characters have experienced, good and bad, add up to a point in this episode where - at least to me - this question underlines everything. In the end, what did they all achieve and at what cost? It's a very human thing, trying to weigh the pros and cons of an action before you commit to it, but also to look back and maybe regret things.

P&E escaped back to the homeland, but they lost both their children. They "won" their mission, but they lost something irreplaceable in their personal life. It's food for fanfiction, their life from this point on. How will they relate to each other? With resentment, love, regret? Will they find joy and contentment in being heroes (for a time, at least)? Or will the loss of Paige and Henry outweigh all of that?

I have no straight answer myself.

Had time to mull over things a bit longer now, and despite my upset over Oleg -awful for our last sight of him to be him alone in that cell -I think this was the perfect ending for the series.

All the way through I was tense, waiting for something violent and terrible to happen (I also thought the Jenningses, and Arkady would be shot in that final scene, am so glad the show eschewed such melodramatics) and it didn't, but there was still terrible violence done - emotional violence, that is. All through the series, Philip and Elizabeth have been wreaking it on others, now they're suffering it themselves, losing their children in this way. Yet they still have each other, so at least - unlike Paige, unlike Oleg - they're not alone. Maybe Philip will re-connect with his brother and finally might Mischa Jnr. Maybe Philip and Elizabeth will meet Gabriel again. They're not completely alone and without resources in Moscow at least (though here's hoping they never bump into Martha).

I'm glad Henry and Stan have each other, but poor Paige! What will become of her? I do understand why she made the choice she did, but her future looks pretty bleak to me.

Loved that the Renee affair was left ambiguous, though undecided whether it was cruel of Philip to tell Stan about his suspicions.

Damn, I'm going to miss this show. And I'm going to miss talking about it afterwards on this community. It's been such a pleasure over the years. Thank you, all.

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Episode discussion post: "START"

Treon's thoughts

general review

no subject

Was it all worth it?

no subject

Classical piece

Re: Classical piece

no subject

Jae's comments on Treon's thoughts

Was it worth it?

coming back as heroes

The emotional costs for the kids / The fall of the Soviet Union

Re: coming back as heroes

The Grey Havens

Re: Was it worth it?

Re: Was it all worth it?

Re: Was it worth it?

no subject

Re: Treon's thoughts

Not so much a review, just a bunch of random thoughts on watching the finale

Re: The Grey Havens

Re: The emotional costs for the kids / The fall of the Soviet Union

Re: Jae's comments on Treon's thoughts

Re: Was it worth it?

no subject