Episode discussion post: "The Deal"
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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
Philip and his memories
Date: 2014-03-27 04:27 pm (UTC)-J
Re: Philip and his memories
Date: 2014-03-27 04:57 pm (UTC)I think the whole "I hide what I do not who I am" thing coupled with the "youve lost your humanity" car speech as well as the fact that the Mossad agent gets to regularly go back to his homeland, makes Philip sad. During that conversation, I was thinking back to last week's discussion about how the illegals in real life were dragged back for polygraphs but in the show's canon, they'll likely never see it again. The Russia they're fighting for exists only in their memories and their beliefs, and feeling those memories fade must be really sad and helpless and unrooted.
I think this was just my mind leading me off to places but when the Mossad agent said that he wanted to be buried at the Mediterranean but we can't all have what we want and Philip says "Nothing's easy" I just thought how sad it was that if things do go well for them, they'll never see their homeland again, will be buried far away from the place they dedicated their lives to.
I love what you're saying about Elizabeth rooting him, just with her presence, the only other person who truly understands and who is real to him, despite all the unknowns between them.
I like this a lot!
I really liked this bit from Todd's review too
AV Club appreciation
Date: 2014-03-28 02:13 pm (UTC)I liked his remark about the ties to their homeland vs that of their children too and it made me think of Leanne's letter to her son - I wonder if we'll see him again (but not in a I-want-to-know-spoilers kind of way..).
-Emma
Critic appreciation
Date: 2014-03-28 02:44 pm (UTC)-J
Re: Philip and his memories
Date: 2014-03-27 05:08 pm (UTC)But I thought he was also genuinely slipping back on his own as he continued talking to the guy because the conversation was also a trigger to "be himself." Not one as safe as Elizabeth, but one where he felt the need to say "I like the cold" when the guy was talking about his own identity wrt to home. That seemed like a big slip to me, tiny and inconsequential as it was. Surely Philip's chosen method of dealing with that guy would be to give *nothing* away at all, yet he volunteered that personal comment and gave the guy an opening. Maybe the Mossad guy couldn't understand exactly what he meant by "you miss it" or what Philip was missing, but I don't at all think the guy was supposed to be missing the mark when he thought he'd scored a hit there somewhere.
And that was proven later, imo, when Philip came home and specifically brought up that moment-not anything about Anton. There, with Elizabeth, he was able to ground himself and assure himself that there was continuity between the boy he was in Russia and the man he was now, that that hadn't been trained out of him or replaced by the facade of Philip which, although it holds a lot of truth, is also a lie.
But when I read Genevieve's comment it just seemed like she was pushing it down the far less interesting road of Philip just being conflicted about working for a country and a past he no longer remembers and that isn't enough to motivate him, and that seems less painful to me. Especially since Elizabeth's own way of relating to the world and to her country is so different. It seemed like positioning them moving in different directions when it was more two very different ways of processing and dealing with similar things.
Someone above said this was the first Philip ep since Duty and Honor and I actually felt like this was the first Philip ep period and it was all about (I meant ep had this as a theme not that everything with Philip was about it) introducing this different powerful thing--the state of being forever homesick even when you would consider yourself at home and what was needed to feel that way. And questioning not just motivation but identity on its most basic level. I just feel like her reading was more of an exterior problem than an interior one. And a simpler one, since it basically just leads to the same solution Philip's already arrived at so he's just waiting, when I think it's more bringing out the nuances of his position just as Elizabeth's exploring the nuances of her own. The real relationship encompasses everything about their identities--which includes Philip's disillusionment with political ideals, maybe, but also the separation of those ideals from other things.
Re: Philip and his memories
Date: 2014-03-27 11:54 pm (UTC)I think my read is that this episode is about Philip feeling like he's losing his identity, and Elizabeth is his grounding anchor. It must be a real struggle when it becomes hard to reconcile your past self with your present, feeling like your memories of something you love is fading. I think Gen saw this as a continuation of the Pilot-idea that Philip has become so ingrained in America that he's forgotten what he's fighting for and while I think that's kinda true, my take from his actual episode is just that he misses it and wants to remember and wants to hold on to the part of his life that was actually truly real.
I love this episode so much because all the Philip scenes to me were so cohesive in this one escalation of an idea - whether same or different to the one I had.(from 'you miss it' to 'i like the cold' to 'i hide what i do not who i am' to 'are your children your children' to 'they took your humanity you may as well be dead' to 'i remember')
Re: Philip and his memories
Date: 2014-03-28 12:04 am (UTC)And what I love about it is that this isn't where he wants to escape some shameful past but he has to reconcile it. It's more that there are parts of that life and his home that he genuinely loves and loved them. Elizabeth has that living connection with her mother, but we don't know the forms it takes with Philip. But I'm really glad that there's somebody who seems to be representing just love of the place because foreign countries really are different!
Re: Philip and his memories
Date: 2014-03-28 12:54 pm (UTC)This is very much along the lines of my read. I do think it's different from saying that "he's Americanized" because that suggests that there's a core self, Misha, who has taken on American characteristics. I don't think that accurately describes what's happened to Philip at all. I do think that there's a core self in there somewhere and that self is both Soviet and Russian, but because of his chameleon-like nature, it's buried under so many other characters and he doesn't find it at all easy to access.
Elizabeth as his grounding anchor is crucial to this (and I find this simultaneously sweet and sad). There was an interview with Matthew Rhys once where he talked about how when he's with Elizabeth, "that's as close as he ever gets to the actual man." To me, that's what that last scene was about--her pulling him back, not all the way to that core self, but as close to it as he's able to get given circumstances. All of the little Russian things that he brought out in the first season (the vodka, the caviar, etc.) were for her benefit, but he needs that too. Maybe even more than she does.
-J
Re: Philip and his memories
Date: 2014-03-29 07:36 pm (UTC)Which seems like one of the traps of a character like Philip. He so easily slips into whatever pov he's adopting that it seems like it's the real one, or it's easy to understand him through the lens of what you think is most logical. But that's the danger of defining this guy through what he appears to be at any given moment, because he himself actually can have trouble in that area. He will always adapt to the circumstances and internalize them.
Re: Philip and his memories
Date: 2014-03-29 08:19 pm (UTC)-J