Episode discussion post: "Baggage"

[jae]

Aired:
4 February 2015 in the U.S. and Canada

This is a discussion post for episode 302 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 three, episode two.)

Original promo trailer

"The Americans 3x02 Promo "Baggage" / This Season on The Americans" (Watch on YouTube)

Episode recaps

From Hitfix
From The AV Club
From The Atlantic
From the LA Times
From Slant Magazine
From IGN
From TV.com
From Sound on Sight
From Geeks of Doom
From TVEquals
From examiner.com
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From the International Business Times
From Uproxx
From MovieNewsGuide
From MStarz
From Starpulse
From Romance at Random
From SpoilerTV

Comments

The podcast

[theplatonicnonyeah]

I hope you've all discovered Molly Nussbaum's wonderful podcast, which is released after each episode. She is the script coordinator for the show and on the podcast she talks with people involved in the process of creating our favourite TV pastime. So far she's had Joel Fields, Joe Wesiberg and Dan Sackheim discuss various aspects and details. It is spoilery, but only about the latest episode. And they do shed some interesting light on quite a few of the things that we discuss here also, like the breaking of bones, transporting people in crates and how to recreate a Russian prison. ;-)

Re: Elizabeth and her mother

[saraqael]

I'm sure that Elizabeth loves her mother, too. But. She hasn't seen her mother for years, possibly since she was recruited as a teen. She's had to stay connected to her mother through carefully worded, long distance communiques. Imagine having to distill all of the moments of your life into self-censored letters that are being scrutinized by the KGB. "Dear Mom. I love you. [I haven't seen you for 10 years.] Look, I have a family now. [I needed a couple of kids in order to masquerade as an American housewife. Sometimes I think I might actually love them, but that's not important because I only really love the cause.] I am doing well. [I murdered a few people and I've seduced dozens of men to get them to betray their country, but we won't talk about that.] I am happy. [I am serving my country. My duty is all there is. Except for my fake husband and fake kids who I think I might actually like, if that's okay with you and the Politburo.]"

How much of her true life and feelings could Elizabeth really share with her mother? And how genuine could her mother really be with her in return under these circumstances?

Elizabeth remembers that her mother absolutely, unhesitatingly encouraged her to join the KGB. Elizabeth is so proud of this memory. But it's also a kid's memory. If you think about it, what else could Elizabeth's mother have said to her? 'No, don't join the KGB?' Soviet Russia was a terrible place when Elizabeth was a child. Nobody dared to say no to the government. And the fact that Elizabeth's father was a deserter must have put even more pressure on her mother to want to prove her loyalty.

Re: Some late thoughts on Baggage

[jae]

Whee, this is great stuff, saraqael! You clearly need to do this every week. :)

Apparently they had been planning to explore the precise nature of what happened while Stan was undercover in season 2, but Noah Emmerich asked them not to, not yet. He wants them to do that eventually, but not right up front. So we almost certainly have that story to look forward to at some point.

Your insight about Elizabeth's mother being the only person who still remembers her as her original Russian self and that being a powerful source of some of the pain is dead-on, and really well analysed.

-J

Re: The podcast

[jae]

I linked to it in the last linkspam, actually. It's wonderful! If you wanted to make a separate post about it (maybe with a little description of how people subscribe to such things, for podcast newbies), that would be really great.

-J

Stan's past

[treonb]

He wants them to do that eventually, but not right up front.

That's very brave of him, as he doesn't know whether there will be an eventually.

And I forgot to mention that I love the idea of Stan as a KGB mole. He's obviously not, but it's something I'd love to read in fic.

Re: Identity via roles

[sistermagpie]

God, Stan really is such a mess. I feel like one of the themes with him and Elizabeth and Philip is that these are all people who have tried to give themselves completely up to their roles in order to define themselves with varying success. With Stan he obviously wanted to be FBI guy catching bank robbers, and then undercover, but in having to play the role of a white supremist he did things that conflicted with that simple view of himself as a hero--and what's more it showed him he was potentially many different people. And now he doesn't know who he is and can't really just be himself. Really he is being honest with Sandra when he says he doesn't know why he wants to be with her.

Elizabeth has always very obviously had a conflict between the KGB machine she thinks she should be and the vulnerable person underneath with a surprisingly innocent need for understanding and approval.

In Philip's case the role he seems to desire most is that of family man, but everything else about him conflicts with that. We don't know what makes him tick deep down yet, though. Because we know that family man was not actually the role he signed up for. That was KGB man--and that's still part of who he is too.

So everybody has these conflicts with who they want to be and identify as and who they really are. Elizabeth shutting down Philip's suggestion of going to her mother is really interesting given her mother's "not blinking" when Elizabeth was sent away. On one level Elizabeth is living up to what her mother wanted by being "strong" in the way Elizabeth has always explicitly described strong--unemotional and devoted to her job. Elizabeth's biggest fear is weakness and she associates emotions with weakness. As in S1 she's avoiding them by not facing her mother again. And people like Gregory, Claudia and Gabriel all explicitly tell her this is how she *should* feel.

But Philip's right there in her face offering the alternative of valuing loved ones above everything else--or at least along with everything else (remember Philip in the pilot, when asked if he didn't care about the Motherland, said, "I care about all of it"--and that seems to be true, and part of his problem) and right now she obviously feels like she just has to reject that.

I don't think Elizabeth knows it yet but deep down it must be painful for her to cling to the idea that her mother was heroic by choosing the KGB without question, embodying everything Elizabeth is taught to believe in strength. And then ask Philip the same question about Paige and have him not blink either--only Philip chooses Paige.

It echoes the pilot when he killed Timoshev when he cares about her for something other than how strong she can be and puts her above everything else.

The fact that Philip himself seems to have so little reaction to this question as a son rather than a father really does seem to point to some lack of family, though. We could easily be watching a show where the now grown up girl and boy work through their own issues about their childhoods, but while I think Philip probably does have feelings on the subject, they seem to be locked up.

I actually really wouldn't like a story where Philip defected to save his kids on his own. I hope that since it's such an obvious (non)solution they'll avoid it. I mean, Philip wants to save his kids but in many ways the kids are less at risk here. They're Americans raised by loving parents whose main vulnerability to choosing this path is the choices of their parents before them. The threat to Paige right now, for instance, is Elizabeth's manipulation more than Paige having a predisposition for choosing a life without love.

It's Elizabeth that's usually more positioned as the one in danger of making bad choices in the show, as she's doing now. She's the one poised to sacrifice the people that love her. I don't think this is a question of "saving" the misguided Soviet or anything. It's more about her personal emotional make up. And the fact that we just can't really understand Philip on that level at this point because we don't know his origin story.

Re: The podcast

[theplatonicnonyeah]

Done! And urgh, I pressed ENTER too early and then published the whole thing, so had to go back and edit. Sorry about that. :-p

Re: Stan's past

[saraqael]

I actually wondered if he was a CIA mole who had infiltrated the FBI in order to keep tabs on FBI counter-terrorism activities and knowledge. I'm not sure that those agencies cooperated as well as they should have.

Re: Stan's past

[treonb]

Oh wow, even better! :-D

Re: Identity via roles

[saraqael]

I suspect that you're correct that Stan doesn't know why he wanted to be with Sandra. That's so tragic, though. When he was with Nina, I always questioned if he truly loved her or if he just loved the weird situation she was in (spying on her own team for him).

You're correct about Elizabeth: she wants to be the perfect, unflinching soldier but she also is strangely vulnerable and needs to have her choices validated. I don't think she can comprehend how Philip could chose family over duty. The concept is alien to her. I agree: It's got to be painful for her to cling to the idea that the State trumps all other aspects of her life, including her own emotions and needs. When she talks about her feelings, it is Elizabeth the Spy talking, not simply Elizabeth. Her own emotions and needs frighten her.

Re: Elizabeth's tooth issue

[theplatonicnonyeah]

Well, we most certainly got an answer to this question in the third episode! o_0