Season one group rewatch: the pilot

[jae]

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.

Comments

Re: So much better on rewatch!

[alley_skywalker]

It's interesting that you took the defecting conversation as a metaphor, which perhaps it was also, but I took it at face value. It made Phillip more sympathetic and likeable and Elizabeth less to me. You would think that it would be the reverse, with Elizabeth as the loyal-to-the-end one and Phillip potentially willing to turn to treason, even if it does mean keeping his family together. But I feel like it also makes Phillip more real to me, especially given that they have been in the U.S. so long, with two very American kids, it's most likely that the nostalgia and homesickness would have mostly passed.

The comments about electricity working, etc made sense. When my parents first came to the U.S. (from the Soviet Union/Russia) they took pictures of the open fridge as though it were a landmark. It seems a funny thing to take a picture of, but food in the Soviet Union was problematic, even in Moscow and Moscow had relatively everything. This was a little later than The American's timeperion but the 80s were already starting to see a decline. My parents constantly say that they are glad my brother and I got to grown up here, any feelings of patriotism not withstanding and I see that conflict in Phillip. He's a patriot, he'd have to be to be part of the KGB, but he sees how things are in America and "it's really not that bad." In contrast, Elizabeth comes off as coldly fanatical and to me that was very alienating.

Re: So much better on rewatch!

[sistermagpie]

Oh, I think what Philip is saying about America is true as well--it's got to mean something to him to have reliable food and water. If it wasn't real for him he probably would never have even thought of those examples of things that were good in the US. I can just see it also as a metaphor in a meta way. Elizabeth is, I think coldly fanatical about it. I was thinking about this again in this week's rewatch when Nina was saying that her generation is comfortable with the consumer goods etc. I think plenty of people always felt like Nina and Philip, but maybe there used to be more fanatical people like Elizabeth saying that was terrible.

Do your parents watch the show too?

Re: So much better on rewatch!

[alley_skywalker]

No. My parents don't watch many tv shows and they mostly watch Russian channels that we get on satellite. Maybe if I watching it at home they'd watch it with me (mayyyybe) but I'm at school most of the time so...