Question of the week #43

[treonb]

What happened during season two that surprised you most?  

You can expect spoilers for the entire first two seasons in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I was most surprised by the role play between Elizabeth and Clark and how they handled it afterwards. My first impression was that Clark had raped Elizabeth, although after further consideration, I decided that was an overreaction. She had, after all, insisted that he just ‘be Clark.’ Still, it was so shocking that I had trouble believing that P&E could put it behind them with what appeared to be relative ease. This, especially, because it seemed to truly upset both of them at the time it happened. Maybe this is because they seem to be able to compartmentalize the various parts of their private and professional lives. There was never any further reference by either of them to this incident, even though some other story/plot aspects were carried forward into future episodes.

CA

[sistermagpie]

The writers did a great interview where they were asked about this. Some of it included them giving their personal impressions--for instance, some people questioned whether Clark/Philip was genuinely frustrated with Elizabeth or just doing what she asked (this actually is how Martha likes it so he did that) and they both said that they thought he was just doing it the way Martha liked it, as we've seen.

More importantly, though, they said that the scene was definitely still important and informing a lot of scenes through the season and that it would continue to be important. Basically, they hadn't put it behind them, really, because it got into so many upsetting issues for them.

So whether they reference it verbally again you're right to see it as something they didn't just put behind them, even if they continued to function normally.

[jae]

*nodding* I transcribed the relevant bits of that interview in the comments back here.

-J

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for posting this again. I had read it back then, months ago, but I had forgotten many of the details. And, I do love Andy Greenwald's reviews, interviews and podcasts, not to mention that I love that he is a big fan of The Americans. Also love Joe and Joel. They seem to be the perfect creative team.

CA

[lovingboth]

That the show more than maintained the quality of S1.

That all of the major characters at the start of the series made it alive to the end.

[jae]

I certainly found the events of the Behind the Red Door roleplay more shocking than anything else that happened in season two, but I don't know, the word 'surprising' sounds to me like a case where you expected something different to happen than what did, and that's not really the same thing. So I guess I have to say that I was most surprised by the moment where Elizabeth stood by while Larrick killed Lucia.

I suspect that most people outside of this group would have been most surprised by the Jared revelation at the end, but because we discussed a somewhat similar possibility about a week prior, I was only surprised by the details of that, not the overall twist.

-J

[lovingboth]

I wasn't at all surprised by Elizabeth letting Larrick kill Lucia. As soon as they started talking, I knew it was going to happen - Elizabeth knows what her priorities are and Lucia was a sacrifice she was willing to make!

Lucia knew what she was getting into and is better dead than talking about what she knew.

[treonb]

I think what most surprised me was Philip going into Pastor Tim's church, apparently to kill him.

OOC, even though I try to avoid spoilers, I somehow got the impression there was supposed to be an episode all in Russian. I was waiting for it up to the moment the season finale started.

[lovingboth]

I was more surprised - although it was definitely in character, given what had happened - that he didn't kill him.

[sistermagpie]

This is hard to answer--because on the one hand almost everything was surprising in that I was never that sure where it was going to go, but when it happened it always made sense so it wasn't, like, surprising in the sense that it seemed like a big twist--even with Jared.

But I guess the biggest surprise for me since it really went against my expectations was the whole separation of Stan and the Jennings, with the search for the Illegals just not being a factor. I like the choice, but I think it was surprising that they were confident enough to not feel like they had to treat that as a hanging thread and could just concentrate on the set up for Nina working on Stan.

Also I was pretty surprised at how well-integrated Oleg was. That whole trio at the Rezidentura was so wonderful it's funny to think that one of them was more supporting last year and one didn't even exist. I love what they did with the three of them.

[cadma]

I was surprised by the Jared thing and I hated that development because the show built up sympathy for him in what it made us think was his situation and then all the emotional investment turned out to be wasted on something that wasn't there. So I was disappointed not to like the s2 finale when the s1 one was so great.
On a more positive note though I was really surprised when Oleg and Nina got together, not that they did but that I liked it. I found Oleg really annoying in the early episodes when he kept bugging her while she clearly didn't want him there, but he seemed a lot more respectful once they were working together and it was nice to see Nina having fun.

[quantumreality]

A few things.

1. Larrick killing Lucia. The absolute worst part of it was watching the betrayal dawn on Lucia as Elizabeth let him kill her.

2. The intensity of the "roleplay" between "Clark" and Elizabeth, and afterwards Philip looking like he wanted to throw up while Elizabeth's curled up on the bed trying to deal with the flashbacks she almost certainly experienced.

3. Jared! I just couldn't believe the All-American kid turned out to be so blinded by his notion that he was part of some grand plan, egged on by his affair with Kate, that he killed his parents and sister without any apparent sign of remorse over the fact.