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theamericans2014-05-21 05:14 pm
jae) wrote in theamericans2014-05-21 05:14 pm
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Episode discussion post: "Echo"
Aired:
21 May 2014 in the U.S. and Canada
25 May 2014 in Israel
7 June 2014 in the UK
This is a discussion post for episode 213 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 thirteen.)
Original promo trailer
Episode recaps
From Grantland
From Time
From the Washington Post
From Rolling Stone
From the AV Club
From Hitfix
From IGN
From the Huffington Post: Karen Fratti, Maureen Ryan
From Vulture
From Variety
From the Tampa Bay Times
From Sound on Sight
From Collider
From Paste Magazine
From Gawker
From the Cloture Club
From tv.com
From tvrage.com
From Headline Planet
From spoilertv.com (in French)
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From GAMbIT Magazine
From showratings.tv
From Comments Enabled
From Boob Tube Dude
From Unreality Primetime (UK)
21 May 2014 in the U.S. and Canada
25 May 2014 in Israel
7 June 2014 in the UK
This is a discussion post for episode 213 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 thirteen.)
Original promo trailer
Episode recaps
From Grantland
From Time
From the Washington Post
From Rolling Stone
From the AV Club
From Hitfix
From IGN
From the Huffington Post: Karen Fratti, Maureen Ryan
From Vulture
From Variety
From the Tampa Bay Times
From Sound on Sight
From Collider
From Paste Magazine
From Gawker
From the Cloture Club
From tv.com
From tvrage.com
From Headline Planet
From spoilertv.com (in French)
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From GAMbIT Magazine
From showratings.tv
From Comments Enabled
From Boob Tube Dude
From Unreality Primetime (UK)
I finally watched the finale
Last season's finale brought Elizabeth and Philip back together. This season's finale shows us how easily that connection could be severed in the future. We watched as three families are destroyed, two as a direct consequence of official government orders: the scientist's family because he is kidnapped by Philip and Elizabeth on the orders of The Center, Jared's family because he is seduced by Kate into believing that his family is a lie and that his true identity is to be with her and "do great things." Like the scientist, like Robert's wife, like the soldiers at the training camp, like the computer programmer, and the busboy, and Lucia--and Nina, too, Jarod's parents and sister had to be sacrificed for the big lie, "the greater good."
There's an emptiness inside so many of characters on this show, with devastating consequences in their personal and professional lives. Stan Beeman's family fell apart because of the emptiness at his core, which he attempted to salve with an affair with Nina. We don't know yet what is at the root of his pain but sacrificing her in pursuit of his allegiance to the big lie surely has only added to it. His self-loathing is evident--and deserved.
Philip Jennings is at a crossroads. He knows what he is, and has for a long time. Keeping his family--his children--safe and happy has been the thing that kept him going for a long, long time. With the threat to his family now openly exposed as The Center, it is going to be increasingly difficult for him to justify what he does. We shall see.
Elizabeth Jennings believes the lie, and has devoted her life to serving it. Will she sacrifice her daughter at the altar of the greater good, as commanded by The Center? Is she that deluded? Tune in next season. We shall see.
Although I have no problem with Jarod as the murderer in theory, the way it was depicted left a lot to be desired in dramatic terms. The scene in the hotel room at the beginning of the season just didn't match up with the story Jarod told Elizabeth and Philip in the final episode. A dying declaration is admissible as evidence in court because someone who confesses on their deathbed is assumed to have no reason to lie. Unless he did have a reason to lie--to protect Kate perhaps--we are meant to believe him. Elizabeth and Philip do appear to believe him, even though the physical evidence contradicted his story. Is it sloppy story-telling on the part of the writers? Or have we still only been shown a half-truth? The FBI investigation is still ongoing. We shall see.
For The Center to insist on forging blindly ahead with their plan to recruit Paige despite how the Jarod situation blew up is just evidence of how arrogant whoever is currently in charge there really is. In other words, it's totally believable.
Agent Frank Gadd's picture of then-President Ronald Reagan nicely parallels the portrait of Lenin hanging in the Residentura.
I have been a member of several "crunchy granola" churches since the mid-eighties. Whatever the writers (and a few members of this forum) might believe, practicing a "liberal" version of Christianity does not predispose one to or signify a readiness to betray one's country by working for the KGB. It doesn't necessarily even lead to voting the Democratic ticket. I might be insulted if I wasn't laughing so hard.
I hated the song they had playing over the scene switching at the beginning of the episode the first time. It was loud and distracting and just awful-sounding. If there was a way to filter it out on subsequent viewings, I would.
Overall, I was underwhelmed by this season as it progressed. Consequently I'm already feeling somewhat disengaged from these characters and this show, and the third season is a long way off. Will I come back for the third season? Probably, but we shall see.
Re: I finally watched the finale
I don't think the show made any connection between being in a crunchy granola church and being a KGB agent--though I've seen some viewers make that odd connection. I think the show's point is just that Paige as a person is someone who is attracted to sacrificing for causes bigger than herself. The two causes have nothing to do with each other except by accident at points.
Re: I finally watched the finale
That's exactly my point. I would say that Christianity and Communism are both belief systems. They don't have anything in common in their specifics, but I do think the show meant to juxtapose the two, otherwise why did they cut between the scenes of non-violent protest at the military base and the scenes of Philip and Elizabeth speeding away while their sacrificial lamb is bleeding to death in a phone booth.
I don't think that being attracted to one belief system in any way predisposes someone to become attached to another, not when those belief systems are so different. Elizabeth is right--Paige is searching for meaning. Her search for it has led her to a church that advocates for nuclear disarmament because they believe that position represents the one that Christ would take. It's a moral and spiritual position. I don't know how committed Paige is to pacifism at this juncture--she's only fourteen after all. But the divide between the kind of sacrifice she is talking about with her parents and what working for the KGB would mean couldn't be vaster. She says to them, "I don't expect you to understand." I don't expect them to understand either--how could they? I guess what I'm wondering is whether the show runners understand and I think the jury is still out on that.
Re: I finally watched the finale
So I thought they really hammered on the common thread being people wanting to believe in something bigger than they were, something worth sacrificing themselves for that would make the world better. Philip said about Fred in an earlier episode that he would have sacrificed himself for Martians if it gave him the same feeling of moral superiority. That particular description was meant to be specific to Fred, imo, but it was still separating out the desire to be part of an important cause from the cause itself.
I think for some people it can be. That is, they might not be attracted to absolutely any cause, but they can be committed to one thing and then committed to something else loudly opposed to that first thing. If the show's holding out the possibility that Paige could be recruited it's not, imo, because of some connection between her church and Soviet Socialism, it's because she's young and still unformed and searching.
True, but I don't know if we know the details of it yet. I still don't feel like I have much of a clue about Paige's spirituality since the only thing she's said about Jesus is that she admires him sacrificing himself to make the world a better place, which is a human thing to do. She seems to like missionary work because it builds houses and feeds people without saying anything about spreading the gospel. She may have very set negative feelings about Soviet oppression too. I think the show's probably intentionally focused on those things rather than the supernatural aspect to suggest that Paige's concerns are more with the world than with heaven.
So for me it doesn't seem like the showrunners themselves see protesting nuclear arms with a church as a short step to stealing nuclear technology for the Soviets. That's creating more nuclear arms in the world, not less. It's basically working for exactly what Paige was protesting, just substituting the Soviet government for the US one. I think they've intentionally put up tons of barriers between Paige the person and the KGB that they just haven't yet gotten into. They seem to really relish analyzing everyone's personal beliefs and loyalties and how even people ostensibly on the same side will break in different directions on different issues. I think they've intentionally loaded Paige with qualities the KGB might see as exploitable with work if she was a source as well as qualities that would put her beyond their machinations.
Re: I finally watched the finale
As one of the people who has made "that odd connection," let me explain where I was coming from. :) I certainly never meant to suggest that Americans in crunchy granola churches were necessarily more likely than other Americans to become KGB agents, and I definitely agree with you that the show's point is that Paige as a person romanticizes sacrifice for big causes. I do think, though, that if her church had turned out to be full of Randians, say (and there are certainly American churches like that), that would have been an indication that there would be no way the KGB would be successful with her. So I do think the ideology of the church is at least somewhat relevant.
The big problem I see with looking to the church as an indication that the KGB could be successful with Paige is the fact that the church is a point of rebellion for her at the moment, and a way of distinguishing herself from her parents. I'm not saying it would be impossible to use the same sort of "cause bigger than yourself" rhetoric to attract her to the very same cause her parents serve, but they're going to have to do some major psychological backflips with her first.
-J
Re: I finally watched the finale
What I meant was people who honestly seemed to think that protesting nukes=ready to support Soviet attacks on the US, as if the show was saying that Paige was going to a church that was already pushing her in that direction.
What you're saying--and I agree--is that the show simply chose to have her go to a church that was at most connected to at least some political thought to which someone like Elizabeth could relate, and that definitely was not based on the idea that anything not American was suspect and an overt support of Reagan etc. As opposed to her going to a proto-Christian Right church that had a muscular "Proud to be an American" sort of attitude. There's any number of things in that sort of church that would be more anti-Soviet than Pastor Tim's church--but that's because Pastor Tim's church has other concerns, not because Pastor Tim's church is promoting sympathy to the Soviet Cause.
In that sense, as you say, this church makes her relatively more open to the idea of being in the KGB, but not by much. It makes her at best neutral on the subject as of yet (if we're only looking at the influence of her church, which is far from the only influence in her life). I'd suspect Pastor Tim would encourage an International brotherhood of Christians--just as the Socialist movement is meant to be International. But that doesn't mean either side encourages treason to their home countries.
I didn't think the show was at all making the connection that Paige was protesting actions of the US government was in any way the same as Philip and Elizabeth stealing US intel to promote the actions of the Soviet government when the show juxtaposed the two sequences--that's the odd connection I meant and to which I thought wendelah was referring (and hence described as potentially insulting to granola churches). I thought they were connecting the feeling the people in both sequences had of taking action to make a difference in the world and make it better, with Pastor Tim sacrificing himself to arrest and Fred sacrificing himself literally.
It's like with Gregory--I've seen people criticize the show for allegedly pushing the myth that civil rights protesters were pro-Soviet, but Gregory's clearly not supposed to represent the movement in general. He just came into the fold in this particular way, just as Fred came into his own way and Paige could (or not) come into it through her own way.
In a way it's like saying that all of us would be more open to being KGB because we like this show and sympathize with the characters compared to people who refused to watch it or would only root for Stan. Sure we'd seem like better targets for KGB recruitment than that guy, but that wouldn't make us good candidates!