Links and media and etc.

[jae]

The (first?) trailer for "Cardinal" is out, as well as a full scene from the episode. A new trailer for the second season in general is also out.

The ratings for "Comrades" (season two, episode one) are out, and they are mixed, mostly bad, news. Critic Alyssa Rosenberg, who has been a huge champion of the show, was vocally disappointed on Twitter. But others compared it to what happened with Breaking Bad, implying there's reason to be hopeful.

A couple more season two reviews have trickled in: from the New Republic and from The Atlantic.

Crave Online has an interview with Matthew Rhys.

Indiewire on TV's antihero tradition and how The Americans deviates from it with a compelling romance.

Vulture on That Sex Scene from "Comrades."

E Online talks about the most intense moments from some of the premieres of this past week, including The Americans.

And Complex has one more "talking to the cast at the season two premiere" video.

Comments

[katiac]

We do a few times. Like we see them in Zhukov's office 2 years in and Philip doesn't have an accent. And when we see them arrive in the US in 1965, Elizabeth still sounds pretty stilted and "Is it cool air?" and Philip sounds like he's been around forever.

Of course, they may go an entirely different direction, and I'm sure Philip did have an accent along the way--I just kind of imagine in the same way he reads people and changes who he needs to be to fit, that fluidity might transfer over to picking up language more easily as well.

I'm curious to see more of Leanne and Emmett too! They seem a few years older, so I'm not sure if they would've known each other in training, though I guess they could've, but I definitely am interested in how some of those earlier meetings went. And I really want to know what happens with the son. You would think they might want to pick up on that some more as the whole "what happens to the kids if something happens to us and not them?" would play in as a major thread and they have a real life example.

[sistermagpie]

Ah, yes those scenes I remember. My impression is I think more like Jae's, that Philip does, as you say, sound a bit more confident even by the meeting with Zhukov but Elizabeth doesn't have an accent by then. She does still sound less confident in her speaking, though, and it would be great if they had made that a choice, that Philip's confidence is part of a backstory where his language skills are better. I think that would also go along with the fact that we've heard Philip do three different accents on the show so far as well--he's got his standard American one, the Texas drawl he does in the premiere, and that moment of doing the British accent in the motel room. I feel like if I was a showrunner I'd just have to be doing that as part of a larger context of Philip being good at mimicry and therefore accents and maybe also therefore languages.

I was thinking of MR saying there'd be flashbacks talking about how certain relationships were formed, and it occurred to me that we might see earlier years with them. It would be cool if they worked with Philip and Elizabeth when they were new and the Connors were more experienced. That might be a nice way to add to the mystery of who killed them and how Elizabeth and Philip see themselves in them. One of the clips in the previews looked to be Elizabeth in their house looking at pictures of their family. They might go to their house to get spy stuff out of it, for instance, and be seeing the life they'd heard about over the years.

[katiac]

Maybe "accent" isn't exactly what I mean, but more that she doesn't have the natural word choice and cadence down yet to fool anyone into thinking she was born here. And Philip clearly seems to. Like he sounds naturally and confidently American and really nothing he says even in training pulls me out. But Elizabeth will at times sound passable, then say the thing about the climate or the "Is it cool air?" and sound stilted about it and just so markedly different from how Keri portrays her in the later years that it seemed like a purposeful choice to make her a little slower to pick it up. But who knows. She didn't appear to have an accent in the 1964 flashback, so it could very well be another thing like Elizabeth's age change that they decided to do one way for the pilot and then changed in later episodes.

[sistermagpie]

I think it definitely works as what you're saying. Because she also, in the scene where she's got the thick accent, is instructed to use contractions which also goes to the stiltedness. And you're right, I really do think that Philip in their early scenes does sound much more natural. Of course, part of that is that Elizabeth's more wary in general, but it does seem like Philip in the motel scene, for instance, sounds even more natural there when neither of them have accents.

In fact, that just makes me even think of the convo they have in the motel room. Because Elizabeth is parroting things she'd have learned to say, or at least that she had decided before she got there, by saying there's a "weakness" there in the people, and that she could feel it. While Philip actually goes for a more abstract thought, saying it's different than what he expected, it's "brighter" somehow. And given that they've given Elizabeth a clear motivation and therefore a talent that makes her stand out, I figure they do need to have something comparable for Philip.

Not that that's some complicated thing, but he just in general seems to have hit the ground running more than she has.