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

[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.