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

[maidenjedi]

Honestly, I didn't see it as love on his part or anything - simply a need to be wanted, at all, a grasping for something real in his fabricated world. To me that is the fundamental thing separating Philip and Elizabeth. She has tamped down those feelings or ignored them in light of her ideological zeal, and Philip has not. He isn't less zealous than she is, but he doesn't have her history to complicate matters for him. And I believe their upbringing was different, and that plays into it as well. Love came later for them both, I don't disagree there at all.

Also, reading this thread and your discussion with Jae - I actually agree quite a bit with you re: their relationship and the inherent consent issue, etc. I was just blown away (weeks later, still am) by Matthew Rhys in that scene. It told me the writers and actors are fully cognizant of what we the viewers are picking up on, and it is not an elaborate ploy for viewer affection but a true striving to portray these characters as they would be.

[sistermagpie]

Yeah, I think you're right. and what makes it even worse is even beyond not getting anything from her, he's got to feel like he's doing something unpleasant to her because she doesn't want it. I think there's got to be a lot of times when Philip just wonders why she has to make the personal relationship so hard and painful when at the least they could take some comfort there.

I was recently watching the end of "Gregory" for a whole thing I was thinking about and the moment in that scene when Philip actually turns and looks at her sharply like she's hurt him is when she explains her situation as living in a strange country, in a strange house with a strange man. Like the fact that she's confirming that he's always just one more thing that doesn't belong in her life that she has to deal with and feels no connection to--as Clark said to Martha, it's like he's an intruder.

Philip's loneliness

[katiac]

I think there's got to be a lot of times when Philip just wonders why she has to make the personal relationship so hard and painful when at the least they could take some comfort there.

Yeah, I agree. For him it seems very much a longing for companionship and family and "we're in this together so let's make the best of it" closeness. And then that love grew out of that over time as he and Elizabeth began to know each other better. For a bloom where you're planted sort, that just fits. And from the looks of it, it happened that way for Emmett and Leanne. They didn't seem a lot older than P/E so I wouldn't assume they'd been in the US more than maybe 5 years at the outside before P/E got there, and yet Leanne spoke of him fairly fondly even in 1966, and there clearly wasn't animosity, and in 1982, there was clearly a high degree of fondness and affection.

when she explains her situation as living in a strange country, in a strange house with a strange man. Like the fact that she's confirming that he's always just one more thing that doesn't belong in her life that she has to deal with and feels no connection to--as Clark said to Martha, it's like he's an intruder.

Yes. And that he's being forced into that role when he could've very well viewed her in the same way and didn't. He was just as alone and feeling the strangeness (or at least, had every right to) and that she so sharply rejected him and cut off what would be really his only source of feeling closeness from someone who knew what he was all about had to be isolating on a level it's hard to imagine, particularly to go home every day and have to feel like that all the time.

And now I desperately want some of the things said by Clark to start coming up in more honest conversation with Elizabeth instead :)

Re: Philip's loneliness

[sistermagpie]

Yes. And that he's being forced into that role when he could've very well viewed her in the same way and didn't. He was just as alone and feeling the strangeness (or at least, had every right to) and that she so sharply rejected him and cut off what would be really his only source of feeling closeness from someone who knew what he was all about had to be isolating on a level it's hard to imagine, particularly to go home every day and have to feel like that all the time.

Yeah, it's funny and painful how it works. Because Elizabeth finds the relationship/situation so painful, and then she in turn makes it just as painful for him when it wouldn't have been. Because for her the worst part is that it's forced on her, where for him the worst part is that it's not. That is, for her she just can't open up to this guy that she's been ordered to be so intimate with. For him the painful part is that she's choosing to reject him personally because he's just unlikable (something he says out loud twice--once when he says she's always wished he was someone else/was disappointed with him and earlier when he says maybe she just doesn't find him attractive). He could make do with the forced cohabitation and she would have made do just as easily if he didn't want her. (In the short run she would have been relieved, probably.) Unfortunately it worked out exactly the opposite way.