Episode discussion post: "The Deal"
Mar. 26th, 2014 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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theamericansAired:
26 March 2014 in the U.S. and Canada
30 March 2014 in Israel
12 April 2014 in the UK
This is a discussion post for episode 205 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 you should also 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 five.)
Original promo trailers
Episode recaps
From Grantland
From The New York Times
From Time
From Vulture
From The Washington Post
From Rolling Stone
From The AV Club
From Hitfix
From the Huffington Post
From Collider
From Sound on Sight
From IGN
From Television Without Pity
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From Geekbinge
From showratings.tv
From screenrant.com
From GAMbIT Magazine
From Crave Online
From spoilertv.com
From tv.com
From Unreality Primetime
From Newsmanone
26 March 2014 in the U.S. and Canada
30 March 2014 in Israel
12 April 2014 in the UK
This is a discussion post for episode 205 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 you should also 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 five.)
Original promo trailers
Episode recaps
From Grantland
From The New York Times
From Time
From Vulture
From The Washington Post
From Rolling Stone
From The AV Club
From Hitfix
From the Huffington Post
From Collider
From Sound on Sight
From IGN
From Television Without Pity
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From Geekbinge
From showratings.tv
From screenrant.com
From GAMbIT Magazine
From Crave Online
From spoilertv.com
From tv.com
From Unreality Primetime
From Newsmanone
While watching thoughts
Date: 2014-03-27 01:17 pm (UTC).. it's not Columbia House Record Club, that's for sure :) Code phrase?
Ah, Philip reckons it's Israeli agents who they've just had a fight with.. and it is.
Claudia's replacement is not exactly discreet, is she?
What a nice idea to have 'Clark's sister' turn up. Ah, it was a code phrase earlier, wasn't it.
'Family, temple, bathhouse' - snort! Were bathhouses used for anything other than casual sex between men at this point?
Ha, at the sex talk between the two women. That's going to lead to some interesting conversations later. Nice look at the bed from Elizabeth.
Let him shit in his clothes, because obviously this is going to be used as an escape attempt... Yes.
Sweet way of Elizabeth dumping him.
Nina is slowly dumping Oleg into it.
Is Oleg deliberately driving something that's easy to recognise?
Ha, at the betrayal of Anton by Mossad. How can Anton be so stupid as to not realise that part of the reason he is being grabbed is not to make him work for the Soviets, but to stop him working for the Americans?
Everyone is asking about families this episode.
How interesting that Elizabeth doesn't hug Paige.
Port security, what's that then? Ah, yes, he was driving to be spotted.
"Everything can be traded" - the episode in four words.
"Clark has some explaining to do" - to more than one woman...
Nice back to 'normal' life at the end of this episode.
General:
Is it just the download I have, or is this a really dark and washed out episode in terms of colours? Even the blue-ish bits of the sky at the beach are grey-tinted.
(The download also repeats Arkady listening to the radio news - was that either side of an ad break?)
Re: While watching thoughts
Date: 2014-03-27 03:44 pm (UTC)Interesting read! I hadn't thought of it like that, but it makes sense that if Israel is like the "wayward kid", then like wayward kids, they sometimes do something purely to spite the "parent".
Such as capture a bright scientist.
This kind of behavior certainly can't help Soviet ideological premises that Arkady and Philip both seem to believe: that Communism (or as they termed it "socialism") represented an ideal larger than any one person, while religious faith in the form of Judaism could not possibly match that and was a "tribal/national" phenomenon, so read in that light, handing over Baklanov in exchange for the release of Soviet Jews represents expanding the tribe for a net gain of 1499 people.
It seems more likely to me that sheer pragmatism was at work: the Mossad probably has an extraction plan in place for Baklanov down the road, but getting the door cracked open wider for larger Jewish emigration from the USSR was a more immediate concern.
Re: While watching thoughts
Date: 2014-03-27 03:45 pm (UTC)Oh, that was absolutely my read. Mossad didn't want Anton in the hands of the Soviets, but they're not happy with him being entirely in the hands of the U.S., either.
-J
Re: Anton and Mossad
Date: 2014-03-27 04:37 pm (UTC)Re: Anton and Mossad
Date: 2014-03-27 05:12 pm (UTC)That's kind of... sketchy, but I can see why they'd do it.