The Americans 1.02-03

[icepixie]

Just a few short thoughts.

I'm both impressed and horrified (impressorrified?) at how thoroughly gray they've chosen to make Philip and Elizabeth. On, say, Burn Notice, I remember Michael & co. doing terrible things to people, but those people tended to be bad guys, or at least not complete innocents. Not so much here. Damn.

I guess that midnight ear-piercing escapade doesn't really point to Elizabeth being a spy, but Paige surely thinks her mother is at least a bit odd now.



I wish I could say I was surprised when Joyce turned up dead at the end, but...well, we knew that was coming from the moment they handed her off to the evil old lady, because this show does not pull punches. Frankly, I figured there would be a couple of gunshots in the van and Elizabeth and Philip with stricken looks on their faces. The actress playing Joyce had a perfect I-knew-you-were-lying, resigned-to-her-fate expression on her "dead" face at the end.

Did I miss something in re: Elizabeth's feelings toward Philip? Because I remember him being into her and her rebuffing all of his advances, and now she's suddenly breaking things off with her occasional lover because she's decided she's starting to love her husband? Bwuh? The last scene between them at the kitchen table was very nice, but it felt extremely premature.

ETA: Okay, well, Philip killed Timoshev in the pilot because he'd raped Elizabeth, and they did have that heart-to-heart about their old lives, so I buy a change in their relationship. But this episode still feels like too much too soon, I guess. I would've been more satisfied with something subtler, like her rebuffing Gregory but not being so explicit about why, and that last scene between her and Philip getting...not cut, necessarily, but toned down. [/eta]

I also started getting distracted by logistics here. Last episode, they got a babysitter for the kids when they went on a spy mission. This time they...jetted off to Philadelphia while the kids were sleeping? What was going on here? Also, I assume they've either arranged their travel business so the peons do all the work (because it sure doesn't look like they do anything related to travel agenting!) or get regular cash infusions from the KGB to keep up appearances, but can we get details on how that works? (Kudos to the writers for picking a business that's both the perfect cover for last-minute travel and is now completely outdated, though.)

Comments

[jae]

It's really, really fun for me to watch you going back through this show and making some of the same comments that other people made back when it first aired. :) I hope you don't mind me sticking around to keep reading!

Here are my thoughts on yours (spoiler-free, I promise):

I'm both impressed and horrified (impressorrified?) at how thoroughly gray they've chosen to make Philip and Elizabeth.

I was mostly just delighted. I mean, we've had a lot of anti-heroes in good television drama in recent years--Tony Soprano, the main guy on Breaking Bad, etc.--but you're never supposed to thoroughly love them. This show has chosen to make Philip and Elizabeth thoroughly sympathetic and yet do just as horrible things as the traditional anti-hero. And it worked from day one, at least for me. Fascinating and awesome.

I guess that midnight ear-piercing escapade doesn't really point to Elizabeth being a spy, but Paige surely thinks her mother is at least a bit odd now.

Ah, but surely she thought her mother was a bit odd long before that? I think about that sometimes--how Paige explains away her mother's strangeness in her own head.

But this episode still feels like too much too soon, I guess.

You're not the first one to say that, you should know. I didn't feel that way at all at the time--I read the early episodes as her starting to feel something for Philip and still feeling around in the dark about what exactly that was, and her behaviour is completely consistent with that--but you're definitely not alone.

Last episode, they got a babysitter for the kids when they went on a spy mission. This time they...jetted off to Philadelphia while the kids were sleeping?

I was bothered by this too. There's more of that sort of thing to come, too. It sort of gets addressed later (I'm hoping that's vague enough to not qualify as a spoiler), but not soon enough or directly enough to my satisfaction.

-J

[icepixie]

I hope you don't mind me sticking around to keep reading!

Not at all!

I've never really been into anti-heroes--I like my heroes to have realistic flaws, but ultimately fall further toward the "good" end of the good/bad spectrum than anti-heroes do--so perhaps E&P's actions more disturbing/shocking to me than to other people. On the other hand, I seem to have split them into entirely separate people in my head: bad KGB spies who sometimes do terrible things to good people, and sympathetic protagonists who happen to come from Russia (but the KGB part is glossed over) and whose jobs involve doing horrible things (but the fact that those horrible things sometimes get done to decent people is glossed over). It's kind of weird.

Ah, but surely she thought her mother was a bit odd long before that?

Probably, but the midnight ear-piercing thing strikes me as a whole other level of weird.

You're not the first one to say that, you should know.

I think the pilot set it up (to me, at least) as a more traditional "Person A pines for Person B, who sort of knows but has their own reasons for not succumbing; much of the narrative is the story of Person B falling for Person A to the point where they finally admit their feelings, etc." Which this kind of is, it's just Elizabeth admitted said feelings a lot earlier than the standard timeline, and they're doing their falling-in-love while having a lot more sex than is usual for these kinds of stories. Then again, this is FX, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised...

It sort of gets addressed later (I'm hoping that's vague enough to not qualify as a spoiler), but not soon enough or directly enough to my satisfaction.

Alas. I guess logistics like that are kind of boring and don't necessarily serve to move the story forward, so I can live without them, but certainly a line or two would not have gone amiss. (Also, I am very curious as to when E&P sleep, because it sure seems like a lot goes on every night!)

[jae]

Also, I am very curious as to when E&P sleep, because it sure seems like a lot goes on every night!

I think a lot goes on for a few nights in a row once every couple of weeks? But yeah, they should at least remark on being tired with another sleepless night all of a sudden.

-J