Episode discussion post: "The Colonel"

[jae]

Aired:
1 May 2013 in the U.S. and Canada
19 August 2013 in Australia
22 August 2013 in Ireland
24 August 2013 in the UK

This is a discussion post for episode #13 of The Americans, intended for viewers who are watching the show on the Australian/Irish/UK schedule. There are no subsequent episodes after this one at the time of posting, but for the sake of future participants in the discussion, I'll still remind folks to take care to keep comments spoiler-free of anything that comes after season one, episode thirteen. :)

FX's original promo trailer:

"Season Finale: The Colonel" (Watch on YouTube)

FX's official "Go Undercover" replay with commentary from the actors and producers:

"Go Undercover: Season Finale Recap" (Watch on YouTube)

New reviews/recaps:
From The Guardian (UK)
From Unreality Primetime (UK)
From The Daily Telegraph (Australia)

Reviews/recaps from first airing:
From the AV Club
From Vulture
From Hitfix
From Think Progress
From the Huffington Post
From Collider
From Television Without Pity
From We Might Just Love TV More Than You
From jae at dreamwidth

Comments

[lovingboth]

Gosh, no comments yet.

What a good episode and conclusion to the series, tying up some threads while allowing others to continue unravelling.

One marriage is dissolving, another is back on course. Can Stan be turned? With his marriage going, and having betrayed Nina at least twice now, it becomes possible to believe that it can... but before he recognises Philip and Elizabeth for what they are?

And who will find out first, him or Paige?

I would have liked a tiny recognition of the difficulty in finding the location of the receiver for the bug - it was presented as knowing the direction the big was broadcasting. Um, no.

It would also be nice if, for once, the scriptwriters showed they were aware of more than one WW2 battle. This must be at least the third mention of Stalingrad...

[lovingboth]

Oh, do non-Europeans know the background of the Peter Gabriel song, Games Without Frontiers, that's used at the end?

Jeux Sans Frontières, known in the UK as It's a Knockout, was a game show involving teams from towns competing in a variety of "silly (physical) games". They'd be national rounds, and the winners would compete in international episodes.

It's spectacularly ironic for a UK audience now that the main BBC presenter of It's a Knockout for many years, Stuart Hall, has been revealed to have a secret life of his own, sexually abusing a string of girls over the years in question. This came out months after he had been given an OBE in the 2012 New Year Honours list for services to broadcasting and charity, and he's now in prison.

[sistermagpie]

I remember reading about that guy--I had no idea the connection to this song. I think somebody did once explain to me that "It's a Knockout" was a game but I'd forgotten it. I don't think I knew any details about the game, though--it does make sense in the song, definitely.

[katiac]

And who will find out first, him or Paige?

I'm really hoping it's Paige because I think that could open up an interesting dynamic, and Philip and Elizabeth's relationship and their family dynamic is the thing I'm most interested in. Plus, Paige can find out without it stopping the story, or drastically changing it in the same way. Like, it's hard to imagine Stan could find out without the relationship completely changing. I guess they could go a blackmail angle, but realistically it seems most likely that if he ever finds out, they're captured, on the run, or else one of them is forced into being a double-agent. It completely changes the relationship because Stan doesn't have a lot of good reason to stay quiet.

But with Paige, she very little reason to tell someone and a whole lot of compelling reasons not to. Yes, the whole idea of spying on the US being wrong would guilt her, but I can't imagine she would tell anyone if it meant sending her parents to prison, her and Henry becoming wards of the government, and their lives being upended. She loves her parents and they love her. It could create a lot of great conflict if she eventually found out this secret about them and it could change that relationship and put some pressure there without having to end the spying part.

One thing I was just thinking about in the finale is the way Philip and Elizabeth handle big disagreement in the field and how it mirrors the pilot--and also kind of mirrors the issues they bring into their romantic relationship. Elizabeth is too intractable at times and has a hard time listening to anyone's opinion when they conflict with her own. Most of the time she shuts conflicting opinions down and goes ahead and does whatever she wants. Philip reacts to this by lying and going along with it like he'll just do it her way, but then sneaks off and does whatever the heck he wants instead. They do it in the pilot with Timoshev, where she shuts down any discussion of "should we consider defection for the kids?" and then he sneaks off to turn in Timoshev in the night. Then also again here where she shuts down any other options besides her meeting the Colonel and he sneaks off and leaves a note. It's kind of interesting how one communication problem kind of feeds the other, or exacerbates it, at least, in the way they play off each other.

[sistermagpie]

And Paige could also possibly be given another false story in ways Stan couldn't. Like if her parents told her they had some other secret job, like spying for a different country or whatever. Stan would know if they were in the FBI or not!

Not wanting to get into any spoilers, but I did read something that the creators have said about the direction they might go in next season in a very general way, but I won't say anything if spoilers are being avoided!

I totally hadn't thought of that way their behavior mirrors the pilot. And also in both times something unexpected happens that changes everything so they come together. In the pilot it's that their relationship looks like it's over with Elizabeth just accepting that Philip has betrayed her and being ready to probably die rather than defect. Then Timoshev confesses and Philip just kills him, which brings them together.

Here Philip realizes that it's Elizabeth who's in danger and runs off to save her, which brings them together in the escape.

[katiac]

Yes, and Paige has the interesting aspect where they could stretch it out for a long time without completely changing the game. Like Stan discovering much of anything that made him suspicious would probably point towards a quick end, or something where one/both of the Jennings had to start spying for the US in secret. Which would be an interesting turn, but really make it where they couldn't go back to the way things are now. So I kind of suspect they'd keep going with the actual spying for the KGB as long as it's feasible from a story standpoint, only switching it up closer to the end of the series.

But Paige finding out slowly opens up so many possibilities. She probably would have no idea what was going on at first, perhaps coming to some incorrect conclusions that cause tension, getting more suspicious of her parents' activities. Which would then in turn cause things to heat up for Philip and Elizabeth having to be under the constant threat of surveillance in their own house, and from a person they can't just get rid of or disappear from if she starts getting suspicious. And if they are forced to tell her another lie, like that they work for the FBI, how much more devastating does it then become when she finds out the "truth" she was told was yet another lie?

Elizabeth finds so many convenient ways to tell herself that her lies somehow aren't as bad as Philip's or "don't count" for this reason or that. Philip generally seems to put up with this from her, perhaps understanding she simply can't empathize very well and look at it from the other side, so she really DOES believe everyone else's lies are somehow different and worse. But Paige has shown no such indulgences of her mother and tends to call it like she sees it, which we saw a lot of during the separation. I don't imagine she'd let Elizabeth get away with nearly as much hypocrisy as Philip does.

I also simply find it one of the most fascinating angles that you have two genuinely decent people, who truly love their children, and yet have carried out such a massive and devastating deception of everything about their lives down to the reason they were conceived. Such great potential for meaty issues to be raised for everyone involved.

[sistermagpie]

I was just thinking recently how the creators, I think, said they got the idea for the show from the way CIA agents give their kids "the talk" when they get old enough where they reveal their jobs, and how that plays into the teenage feeling that your parents aren't who you thought they were. It also made me think how so many good shows deal with parents who lead secret lives that really overturns the thing we've come to expect for decades where the kids are cool and the parents, just because they're parents, are clueless and boring. Shows like this flip that and the kids are clueless while the parents are nothing like the "boring" people they appear!

Anyway, yes I agree, with Paige there's just more ways they can go. With Stan you have the danger of him looking stupid, and we know just where his imagination would go once he got suspicious. That's why they had to keep him from catching the Jennings doing weird things. But with Paige it's wide open. She could suspect just about anything, and pull in things that aren't even related to their secret just because they happened. For instance, she might see Elizabeth as the one who's truly shady due to the separation and Philip's more easygoing demeanor, even though she's clearly started to notice patterns throughout her whole life. Where Stan's life is arranged around counter-intelligence Paige might be more on the lookout for her parents being swingers or something. Or just imagine if she caught sight of Martha! Or her mom going to a bar! She's closer to the evidence, has been studying them forever, but also has way more reason than Stan to consider them as Russian spies. She's lived with them as totally American for years, would probably not even be able to get your head around either of them speaking anything but English, and she doesn't even know that Directorate S is real in her world.

Plus, as you say, the whole thing's purely emotional for Paige. Just as the Cold War can be a metaphor for the Jennings marriage, spying can be a metaphor for adolescent disillusionment. Paige, unlike Stan, loves her parents and loses everything if they're found out, plus she doesn't have Stan's drive to catch the spies (setting up a more Hank/Walt dynamic from Breaking Bad if you watch that). The betrayal is personal and it's also her parents worst nightmare. We get why they'd keep lying even if lying makes it worse. It's totally believable that Paige would lie for them if she found out, but that would completely change their relationship not just to Paige but to their work because Paige would see what they're doing as acting against her. Philip might be able to explain it (truthfully even) as being more about preventing war and not hating the US but I can't imagine Elizabeth being able to convince Paige she isn't a dyed in the wool Soviet who hasn't been won over by America in 15 years. She'd probably wound up saying something "But I don't hate you guys! You have good qualities under the capitalist corruption!" or something.

[treonb]

I'm actually hesitant to comment, because I don't trust my memory :-)

I just remember being quite satisfied with this ep. I liked the part where Philip is determined to do the 'dangerous' mission and realizes only too late that he had sent Elizabeth into the line of fire, and that we as the audience know how everything is getting so messed up.

I think Stalingrad is not just a battle for Russians. Sort of like the Battle of Gettysburg. There may have been others, but as far as national memory - that's the one.

[lovingboth]

Obviously it is a major battle, but what it really is is the only thing the script writers know or expect the audience to have heard of. There's yet to be a major Hollywood film on the 900+ day siege of Leningrad, or Kursk, or Operation Bagration or.. yet all of these were far bigger and more significant than anything the Americans or British were involved with.

In relation to Elizabeth's back story, it means that her father must have been in the Red Army prior to 1941, because she's supposed to be from Smolensk, and that was overrun within a couple of months, and if that's the case what was he doing for the first eighteen months of the Great Patriotic War? Most of the pre-1941 Red Army was killed or captured in that time. It would have been much better to say he was captured in say the Vyazma pocket.. ooh, and then you could have him collaborating in order to survive and ending up being shot by the NKVD.

[treonb]

I admit my knowledge of Russian history is very limited :-/

As for Elizabeth's back story - maybe he was on business elsewhere? Or maybe they've moved? (though I suppose those flashbacks of hers as a girl were from Smolensk?)

But I can't see her being accepted to the KGB and Directorate S if her father was a traitor.

[katiac]

I went ahead and assumed (until we're told something differently) that they stuck around Smolensk during her childhood, though I suppose that could easily not be the case since I think they only ever showed the inside of an apartment. It's a little tricky to say anything for sure since they established one thing in canon during the pilot, then changed her age when the series got picked up.

There also seemed to be a continuity issue with Henry's age in one of the episodes, since they specified he was ten, but then dated a flashback as her being not yet noticeably pregnant in summer 1971, which would make him barely nine at the time of the pilot. So those things make me hesitant to get too attached to details presented in flashbacks. I think they try to get generally close to what they're going for, but don't necessarily have someone making sure all the details fit.

[lovingboth]

In that single disaster, the Red Army lost more men than the combined death toll for the Federal and Confederate armies for the entire American Civil War = about 50% more than the death total for US forces for the whole of the Second World War.

It wasn't the worst one they suffered in that year either.

[jae]

I read at least some of the references to Stalingrad in the same way Treon does. Like, there's no way Nadezhda's father actually died in the Battle of Stalingrad when she was two--it's not realistic for her to be that old, and as Katia pointed out, it's inconsistent with other references to her age, anyway. But what is realistic is for the details of the history to have been hazy enough in Soviet schools during that time period, and the prestige of having been at the Battle of Stalingrad to have been so great, that either Nadezhda's family or even a young Nadezhda herself just assumed he'd been there and died there.

-J

[treonb]

You're giving me way too much credit ;-)

But that's quite an interesting idea, that Elizabeth grew up on an incorrect history, and even assuming that her mother knew what happened, she really has no way to verify it now.

[jae]

Right. I find it easy to explain that particular inconsistency away because those kinds of misconceptions of family history actually did happen back then, with surprising frequency (I know it from the East German end of things, but it's basically the same issue).

-J

[treonb]

Oh, they happen nowadays too :-)

[shapinglight]

I only joined the community very recently and am hesitant to comment at all, but I did just want to say that I was glad that Claudia turned out not to be evil. At least, not on a professional level. Obviously, what she did to the CIA guy was horrible.

But she didn't let Elizabeth's personal animosity towards her affect her professional relationship with Philip and Elizabeth. Not in this episode anyway.

That could all change in season 2, I suppose.

[jae]

Hey, welcome! It's great to see you here. :)

I totally perceived Claudia as "evil" early in the season, and actually had a bit of a cognitive disconnect once they started humanizing her (starting with the worrying about her weight and playing Pac-Man)! But I agree with you--by the time this episode came around, I too was glad that they were giving her an extra dimension by seeing the way she was fighting for Philip and Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, though, it looks at this point like Margo Martindale won't be back for the second season (she has another full-time show that premieres this fall, and apparently there are contract issues with her guest-starring on The Americans? or something?). So who knows what they'll do with the position of their handler!

-J

[shapinglight]

Yes, I did happen to see a picture of her quite by accident in the new show she's in. I suppose if it gets cancelled early things could change?

I'm sorry she's gone from The Americans. On the other hand, at least her departure was set up properly, and at least she went out in a good way - ie. doing her job like a professional, but getting recalled. Maybe they'll play it that Philip and Elizabeth will come to regret requesting that she be reassigned.

[jae]

Oh, believe me, I'm definitely rooting for the show to fail (while simultaneously feeling a little bit guilty about that ;).

And yeah, it's great that they set up her potential departure! I appreciate so much the way they value consistent narratives on this show.

-J

[shapinglight]

Same here. I think the only time that hasn't quite worked for me was when it came to Stan's reaction to the death of Amador. I get that Amador was his partner, and any of their number being killed by the KGB would make them all angry, but Stan made it seem like his feelings were personal, and I never got from what went before that he felt like that about Amador.

However, that's not so much a failure of the show to provide a consistent narrative, I suppose. More a failure of the actors. At least in my personal perception. It may well have worked fine for others.

[jae]

Oh, definitely. Lots of us have been critical of "Safe House" (the Amador death episode), for that and other reasons. Check out the "Safe House" post for a pretty brutal critique from a lot of the members.

I, for one, definitely blame the writers rather than the actors for that. If they'd showed some of the Amador-Stan friendship scenes in the episodes leading up to "Safe House" rather than flashing back to them, it would have come across totally differently (and been much more effective). The good news, though, is that the writers have said publicly that they weren't happy with the way their storytelling worked there (and they mentioned the Zhukov-Elizabeth relationship as a similar problem), so they're likely to take steps to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen again in the future.

-J

[shapinglight]

That's very interesting to know. Is there a link to that conversation?

Sorry for my very late reply, btw. I've been away.

Also, I didn't mind so much about Elizabeth/Zhukov. I think (unless I'm remembering it wrong), they set that up reasonably well in the pilot. Plus, Zhukov was a very minor character. Amador, however, was not.

It's a shame, because all the other relationships - including Elizabeth/Gregory, which is one we don't see that much of compared to Stan/Amador- were set up so well.

[jae]

And I'm sorry for my very late reply! :)

I'm not 100% sure where that conversation took place, but if you page back on the "episode discussion" tag until you get to that episode, I bet it was there.

-J

[shapinglight]

Hi. Thank you. And yet again apologies for the very late reply.