theamericans | Season one group rewatch: the pilot

jae posting in

This is the discussion post for the pilot episode in the group rewatch of season one. When you rewatched the episode, was there anything you noticed that you didn't notice the first time (and any subsequent times) you saw it? What things about it did you perhaps view differently after having seen the later episodes?

You can expect spoilers for the entire first season in the comments.

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From:

sistermagpie

The scene with the knife is really hard to get a handle on without knowing just how they usually interacted. I think, like you say, it can't be that unusual because she doesn't react like WTF? when he does it. So I would assume there were other times when he just did something like that to see if she felt like sex, and by this point she'd be comfortable with that, I'd think. But here I think the change is that she says no and he keeps trying, pushing the boundary a little. When she pulls the knife it is, I agree, a lot of "Why is it such a crime when you're my wife?" but that doesn't contradict the idea that he's basically saying why can't they have a husband/wife relationship that's basically real?

Like, I said that Elizabeth was just having sex for her job, but I didn't mean she never had sex with Philip. I think it's just that she keeps a very tight control over sex with Philip that's based on the premise that they're not really married and that's what he's challenging. Like why does he always seem to be only inches away from being a stranger/enemy to her?

I was surprised at Zhukov here too. I'd totally forgotten that meeting with Elizabeth. It sets them up as being in cahoots against Philip. But I can make it work in my head because Zhukov, for all he might believe in Philip as a good match for Elizabeth, might still see that Philip might take the pragmatic way out if things got hot. So maybe he's at a point of thinking he needs to acknowledge Elizabeth's warnings about him here? I don't know. The trouble is Zhukov seems much more allied to Elizabeth throughout, including in the scene where they both meet and Philip seems more nervous around Zhukov than Elizabeth does. It's like if Zhukov does have good feelings about Philip, Philip doesn't seem aware of them.

I don't know, I guess maybe I just have to assume that the election of Reagan and things going south at the KGB has put Zhukov in a very specific frame of mind that makes him question his own previous support of Philip.

It's interesting to me too that now that Philip has committed to the KGB again, part of integrating his new life along with going off the reservation to beat up the predator could also be deciding to be friends with Stan. Like he's just going all in and trying to work out a friendship in his "real" life instead of his covert one. The fact that Stan is FBI maybe makes more sense to him because even if he's on the other side, he's in the game and would understand, so he's less of a victim like Martha. Philip's a little terrified of Stan.

From:

katiac

Like, I said that Elizabeth was just having sex for her job, but I didn't mean she never had sex with Philip. I think it's just that she keeps a very tight control over sex with Philip that's based on the premise that they're not really married and that's what he's challenging.

Oh, okay, I see what you're saying. I definitely think Elizabeth would control every last detail, both to make it as "okay" as it could be in her head, and also to give Philip those little constant reminders she was controlling the closeness factor, and he'd better not forget it. On another note, I kind of wish we'd seen a little taste of an interaction closer to the present but before the pilot. It's so hard to determine how much of Elizabeth's behavior is just par for the course, and how much was due to the stress over Timoshev. So many things could fit.

I was surprised at Zhukov here too. I'd totally forgotten that meeting with Elizabeth. It sets them up as being in cahoots against Philip. But I can make it work in my head because Zhukov, for all he might believe in Philip as a good match for Elizabeth, might still see that Philip might take the pragmatic way out if things got hot. So maybe he's at a point of thinking he needs to acknowledge Elizabeth's warnings about him here? I don't know. The trouble is Zhukov seems much more allied to Elizabeth throughout, including in the scene where they both meet and Philip seems more nervous around Zhukov than Elizabeth does. It's like if Zhukov does have good feelings about Philip, Philip doesn't seem aware of them.

Right, the Zhukov stuff swings so wildly one way to the next. Like, in the pilot flashback scene, Philip looks nervous... but then is that really because of Zhukov or because he's meeting the woman who's about to be his "wife"? Zhukov comes up and smiles at Philip in an almost grandfatherly way, and really, IMHO, isn't particularly warm with either Philip or Elizabeth in the flashback. Now certainly, in the other flashbacks and in the pilot scene with him and Elizabeth, we definitely see he has a strong sense of favoritism for her. A daughterly vibe, really. But I have a hard time seeing him as anti-Philip, because then it doesn't fit in my head that he would've matched up the girl who was like a daughter with Philip, or that he would've kept pushing Elizabeth so strongly to give Philip a chance romantically, which not only seems really pushy (!) but practically against what KGB policy has been shown to be.

Plus, there's the factor that Elizabeth says in "Trust Me" something to the effect of, "If I said anything at all, it would've been so long ago..." in terms of reporting on Philip. That and the "you reported on Philip several times over the years" makes me think Zhukov already had that information before those meetings with Elizabeth took place, and yet still was very pro-Philizabeth. So I'd guess your thought about the Reagan situation putting more pressure on things is probably the best one. Otherwise it just makes it hard to piece together.

It's interesting to me too that now that Philip has committed to the KGB again, part of integrating his new life along with going off the reservation to beat up the predator could also be deciding to be friends with Stan. Like he's just going all in and trying to work out a friendship in his "real" life instead of his covert one. The fact that Stan is FBI maybe makes more sense to him because even if he's on the other side, he's in the game and would understand, so he's less of a victim like Martha. Philip's a little terrified of Stan.

Yeah, I mean like there's the angle where Philip is trying to get close to Stan from a job sense--it's good intelligence and it makes them safer if he sees Philip as his friend rather than "could be a spy guy." And then it's also a nice little piece of symmetry where Elizabeth is having to challenge her previous boundaries and put a relationship first (hers with Philip) above the KGB and then at the same time Philip is sort of testing out a new sincere friendship with the FBI neighbor across the street, which probably feels risky to him in some similar ways. And, it probably carries some of the same trepidation for him that Elizabeth feels actually having to open her heart to someone because all indications are that Philip hasn't ever had a close relationship with a friend either.

From:

sistermagpie

Totally hadn't thought about the Philip/Stan Philip/Elizabeth parallels but that's true. Stan's proved himself 'safe' in that he doesn't know they're spies yet, but Philip knows he was suspicious and that he's a guy looking for them. He's got good reason to think that keeping your enemies closer is a good idea. But at the same time he seems so genuinely wanting a friendship with the guy--and I also noticed this time that Stan gives a little meta-comment on Philip's character when he says that even though there's "something off" about him he thinks he's a good guy. Which in many ways is his character--he's a spy and an assassin, but deep down he's a good guy, basically.

The pilot's fascinating because they say it's a good idea to start every story by asking "Why is this night different from all other nights" -- i.e., why does the story start here? You want to start as close to the beginning as possible. The story starts with Timoshev being taken and the boat being missed. That's the thing that changes their lives. So it's so hard to know how much of what they're both feeling is new. With Elizabeth you've got her stress over this man coming back into her life and seeing how that effects the way she interacts with Philip, as it would. With Philip it's Timoshev that starts him thinking about defection in a real way, because that's his ticket. Did he ever think about it before? Would he have reacted the same way without Stan moving in across the street? Does Elizabeth's current behavior play into it too? It's hard to tell what everything in their lives was like the day before the pilot starts since Timoshev sends both of them down different private thought patterns hidden from the other.

From:

katiac

This is completely just my own opinion with nothing to support or deny it either way, but I would hypothesize that for Philip the idea of defection had at least come up in some corner of his mind. Like for Elizabeth, it's the absolute last thing she'd consider, but Philip is so much of a pragmatist, that I would have a hard time buying it completely came out of left field and he'd never thought about what could happen to the kids if they were captured. I don't think he hated the spy life, but I think he was well aware of the risks and the more attached they became to Henry and Paige, and also the older and more world-wise they got, the more that would have to play into his thoughts. And I think it does in Elizabeth's too, but she's so good at blocking out and shutting down things she doesn't want to think about, and he is more pragmatic.

And the same with Elizabeth and her feelings towards family/Philip. It doesn't make sense to me that it came completely out of the blue and one act of killing Timoshev caused such strong feelings to form, but rather that some basis for those feelings had been there and kept in compartments up until the point that their interaction in the garage shook everything up. It could appear that she was ice cold in the pilot, then all cuddly towards the kids in the second episode, but then I think that had more to do with stress of Timoshev because the kids don't really seem fazed. Paige says, "I love you too, mom," in a "duh" voice, not a "OMG mom is saying she loves me" voice. And I also think things with Gregory weren't just perfect one second, and then she dumped him in an instant for Philip, but rather that she'd probably recognized at some point along the way that things had become more complicated and she wasn't really the same person she was at 24, causing that connection to be not quite as blazing as it had been when they'd first met.

Edited (tyop) Date: 2013-08-31 09:24 pm (UTC)

From:

sistermagpie

Yes, I agree. I think that the Timoshev situation brought stuff to the surface that had always been there. I was struck this time also at how Philip's decision to make a deal comes after the scene where he's at the assembly. I felt like he was just looking around and thinking how much easier it would be to just truly fit in with these people. He's fine singing the national anthem, it's just that he's at that moment so aware of how he's really acting against them. I'm sure it's not the first time he's been aware of feeling perfectly at home in that setting, Timoshev's just brought all the anxieties about it to a head, just as he brings Elizabeth's doubts and wishes about Philip and her family to a head. Until this ep they've been "sleepers" in every sense of teh word!