Episode discussion post: "The Walk In"

[jae]

Aired:
12 March 2014 in the U.S. and Canada
16 March 2014 in Israel
29 March 2014 in the UK

This is a discussion post for episode 203 of The Americans, intended for viewers who are watching the show on the U.S./Canadian schedule. (Feel free to dive in to the discussion even if you're coming in late--and feel free to start a new thread if it seems too daunting to read through what's already been posted first. If you're reading this at a point where you've already seen subsequent episodes, though, please take care to keep comments spoiler-free of anything that comes after season two, episode three.)

Original promo trailers

"Next On: The Walk In" (Watch on YouTube)

"The Americans: Exclusive Scene from Episode 3" (Watch on YouTube)

Episode recaps

From the Washington Post
From Vulture
From Hitfix
From the AV Club
From the Huffington Post
From IGN
From Collider
From Television Without Pity
From Sound on Sight
From tv.com
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From the Houston Chronicle
From spoilertv.com
From showratings.tv
From The Cloture Club

More to come once they're available!

Comments

Philip and Elizabeth and the "I'm ready" scene

[jae]

Oh, man, this sounds like you're going back on the amazing interpretation of Philip and Elizabeth's early relationship that you expressed once in my journal and which I was completely bowled over by. Please don't go back on that--it was awesome!

I mean, I have to agree with you that right there, he's not thinking about wanting her to want him right then. He is not turned on by her at that particular moment, and he's really, really not ready to have sex on command just because she's decided it's finally time. But I do think by that point, a couple of years into their working partnership, he really is quite taken with her already. Not as a "love at first sight" thing, but as a natural extension of the symbiosis in their partnership on the one hand, and the way he completely embodies every role he plays on the other. And I have to say, I see the first time they had sex very much as you described it in my journal: sad for both of them because it's a grotesque parody of what they each want. You said it better, so I'll just quote you: "For Elizabeth the parody's of her dreams of working for the motherland (it looks like rape) and for Philip it's a parody of love (it looks like rape)."

So to me, his reluctance in the "I'm ready" scene in "The Walk In" is about seeing clearly how screwed up the whole situation is, and maybe even recognizing that if this happens right now in such a cold, clinical way, it's something they won't ever be able to come back from to have something more like what he'd ideally want. And he's right, at least according to my read: to me it was the coerced sexual relationship inherent in the situation that messed up their interpersonal trust in the early years, and took them fifteen years to come back from.

-J

Re: Philip and Elizabeth and the "I'm ready" scene

[sistermagpie]

Oh no, I'm not going back on it. I almost actually quoted myself in my post above, about this being a sad parody of love.

But to me that's a lot bigger than "This is what I've dreamed of, but not like this" happening in this scene because I feel like whatever dreams of an actual marriage he would want would probably only manifest as a wave of humiliation to go along with the disgust and whatever else. That, to me, is the main emotion that any feelings for her would cause here--humiliation, and maybe even more resentment at the situation seeming more coerced on her than it is on him even though he totally doesn't want to do it.

Is that distinction clear? Like, it's not that he can't already have complicated feelings for her--they've been living together for two years. But people giffed the scene on Tumblr also pointing to being able to see him look at her to communicate wanting her to want him, and all I see is a frown of confusion at what she first says, then eyes widening as he realizes it, and then an immediate eye slide to the side that seems to more say "Oh right. I live in a nightmare. Forgot for a second."

I think he's already worked through any fantasies he might have to the point where he knows just how little he'd want to do this (in large part because of how little she'd want to do this), and her way of delivering the news has already confirmed those worst fears that this is likely going to be yet another thing that pushes them apart rather than together. So I don't see a little part of him that kind of wants it--he really just doesn't.

Which I think is actually a very good thing in the long run, because just as I don't see Philip asking for anything in that scene I don't see her fearing that he's doing that. She's in control to the point where she can even give him some encouragement about being a good father (whether she strictly means it as encouragement or not).

I mean, it's really interesting watching this scene and then thinking of the car scene in the pilot. By then Philip seems to have gotten into a comfortable place where they have sexual contact that he initiates, and yet even when she climbs on top of him it's not like his primary reaction is just joy that she's initiating it for once. His reaction seems a little more wary than that. So I feel like in his own way the coerced relationship has shaped him as much as her, and in ways more complicated than it just being about unrequited love. The scene, to me, is just the opposite of what fanfic does with this sort of thing, where the coerced sex is ultimately supposed to be hot.

Re: Philip and Elizabeth and the "I'm ready" scene/the car scene in the pilot

[jae]

Hmm. I guess my read of that scene is that he's not feeling "This is what I've dreamed of, but not like this" in that moment at all--what he's feeling is, as you say, humilated and resentful. Resentful because she's calling the shots completely and he has no say in what is about to happen, and humiliated because she so clearly doesn't want him at all. (I'll also add 'apprehensive' to your 'humiliated and resentful', because he senses rightly that doing this here, now, like this is going to make a much more complicated mess of things than their relationship already is, which is the very last thing he wants to be a part of.) But to me at least, that doesn't mean that "this is what I've dreamed of, but not like this" isn't true, isn't inherent in the situation--and so I can see why a lot of fans are reacting to it by lifting that part of that situation out. Because if the sex that's about to happen in the "I'm ready" scene weren't entirely coerced and procreative--if it were actually about them and the way they're beginning to like and respect and maybe even enjoy each other through the bond this sort of work creates--he actually would want to have sex with her. He would have wanted to much sooner than this, in fact. And that's one of the layers in why the whole situation is sad for him. He doesn't just generically want the love that this situation is a grotesque parody of, he wants it from her.

We're totally on the same page about the scene in the pilot, though. It's animalistic and reactive, and so I'm sure it's plenty hot for them in the moment, but ultimately I don't see that as a healthy scene at all. Once again Elizabeth is entirely calling the shots, and there's no communication either about what they're about to do or why she suddenly wants to do it. And we're on the same page about where that's rooted, too: in the way their coerced relationship has completely shaped their entire dynamic. I guess, though, that I think there was no way it wasn't going to happen that way, and if the show had portrayed their first mutually chosen sexual encounter as something suddenly soft and romantic and entirely positive (like having them talk to each other about their pasts while wrapped up in each other in a post-coital bliss, or having them go away to a hotel room together at the end of the pilot instead of at the beginning of "In Control"), I wouldn't have believed their relationship nearly as much. Developing toward that sort of healthier way of trusting each other and choosing each other took a whole season. I'm sure in many ways they're still working on it now.

-J

Re: Philip and Elizabeth and the "I'm ready" scene/the car scene in the pilot

[sistermagpie]

So I think we are definitely seeing the exact same thing in the scene--we're just disagreeing on the meaning of Tumblr gifs. ;) To me, these were just almost like when people would reblog that picture of the two of them in the kitchen from the pilot as if this was a romantic scene instead of one that's all about consent issues, but with a different dynamic.

Of course people aren't doing that here in that they're highlighting the consent issues with saying he wants her but wishes she wanted him. But I still feel like it's blatantly shoe-horning in a literal moment of "Oh yay, sex! Oh no, it's just because you want a baby. Sad unrequited love!" And that's like barely touching on it.

Plus maybe it frustrates me because it just makes it all about Elizabeth again. So she's got a lot of complex things going on--her feelings about motherhood, feelings about the USSR, feelings about what she wanted to be, feelings about the world--feelings about Philip are pretty low on the priority list. While for Philip not only are feelings for Elizabeth higher in priority, they're the only thing worth thinking about. It's like you could "yadda yadda" everything else in his life. And I think it's part of a larger common interpretation of Philip in general.

Re: Philip and Elizabeth and the "I'm ready" scene

[jae]

Well, it wasn't your reaction to the tumblr gifs I was responding to here, it was your response to maidenjedi's "He wants her to want him, gosh darn it!" And I do think he does want her to want him, and that is a huge part of their dynamic in this situation. Not in the superficial, in-the-moment sense of "he's horny right now and she's just making a baby," but in the sense of "he wants her to love him or at least care about him, and to just generally want to have sex with him as a part of that caring, and she just doesn't." The fact that she doesn't want him at all is sad--I'm completely with maidenjedi about that--and there doesn't have to have been a moment of "yay sex!" in Philip's eyes that was dashed two seconds later for that sadness to be inherent in the situation.

I actually do agree with you that the messy consent issues that form the foundation of their entire relationship at this stage of the game (as we talked about in my journal, there's dubious consent there for both of them, not just for Elizabeth, because the dubious consent is granted to a third party) are ultimately more complicated (and more compelling) than just "sad unrequited love." But I don't see maidenjedi's observation that Philip wants her to want him as inherently reducing it to that, either. And making that observation is certainly not the same thing as portraying that kitchen-knife-scene as romantic, either. Not at all.

-J

Re: Philip and Elizabeth and the "I'm ready" scene

[sistermagpie]

I may have made it sound like I didn't agree with that at all in my response--but I do agree with it. I think that's part of where the disgust comes from--I think he wants her to care about him absolutely and there's nothing in the way she opens up the subject that even acknowledges that she does, which is part of what makes it just that much more awful. And not even just want him physically but wanting him emotionally etc. It all ties together--which is pretty common for this show, the way that sex can both represent other feelings and be about totally other feelings, because these are people with plenty of experience having sex that others might consider less than consensual.

And making that observation is certainly not the same thing as portraying that kitchen-knife-scene as romantic, either. Not at all.

I didn't mean it had all the problematic issues that did, but it just did seem like it was taking a moment that was very unromantic and attaching it to the nearest romantic part. It just did make me think of it even if I can think of more differences between the two than similarities (most obviously, that kitchen picture is mostly divorced from context while this moment is highlighted only because of the context).

Maybe this is just one of those moments where I really express why I have a negative reaction to something, but it just feels like rubbing salt in the wound somehow.

Re: Philip and Elizabeth and the "I'm ready" scene

[jae]

Yeah, in your first response to maidenjedi, it really did look like you were saying that you didn't see Philip as having any romantic feelings about Elizabeth at all yet at this stage of the game (for what it's worth, it was the "it just seems like the other version adds a romance--albeit unrequited--that I don't really see yet, and it makes Philip seem kind of...not pathetic exactly, but just sort of one-note" comment that made it sound like that to me).

And I mean, I certainly don't require that you or anyone see the show exactly the way I do in every way (the very thought!), but I admit to being relieved that you didn't mean that the way it looked at first, since I thought that your earlier analysis of Philip and Elizabeth's first sexual experience in my journal was just so perfect, and its perfection kind of depended on Philip wishing (at least generally) that she did want him.

I think I do get what you meant by that now, though (and by the comparison to the knife scene, too, by the way). You weren't trying to say that Philip isn't really attracted to her/in love with her yet, just that that attraction and even that love are the very furthest thing from his mind in that moment when she comes to him and tells him clinically that she's ready and starts taking her clothes off. Do I have that right? And that when he says "are you sure," it's not even that he's double-checking to make sure she really is okay, but that he actually wants her to back out.

-J

Re: Philip and Elizabeth and the "I'm ready" scene

[sistermagpie]

Ah, I see what you mean. I mean, it's possible that he's not in love with her yet or how deeply--we don't know. I can't imagine he doesn't have some feelings for her by this point. It doesn't seem like it was something he needed later triggers for. It's like Zhukov said--it's not even so much about her particular traits but the act of being devoted to her, which I think he already is.

I think I do get what you meant by that now, though (and by the comparison to the knife scene, too, by the way). You weren't trying to say that Philip isn't really attracted to her/in love with her yet, just that that attraction and even that love are the very furthest thing from his mind in that moment when she comes to him and tells him clinically that she's ready and starts taking her clothes off. Do I have that right? And that when he says "are you sure," it's not even that he's double-checking to make sure she really is okay, but that he actually wants her to back out.

Yes! You put it across much better than I did-that's exactly what I mean. By the time we get to the pilot Philip's not only feeling the love, he's playing it, but here I don't think he is, at least not in this scene.

So yeah, I think he did want her to back out, which seems like another bit of irony in the scene, because this is about Elizabeth being ready and his state of mind's kind of irrelevant or just assumed.