The Americans on FX

Between that photo and the constant cigarettes this season, I haven't seen Keri Russell look pretty since 2017.

 

They live in Brooklyn?

 

As bitterly disappointed as I was that Stan let them go, without that we would have not had Paige getting off the train, which was incredible.

 

I thought the KGB would kill them back home.

Paige scene was one for the books. Stan scene, while gripping . . . just wasn't believable. And if things fall apart between Mikhail and Nadezhda, there's always Martha (complete with daughter).

Surely Stan will quash Renee's FBI hopes.

Kudos to them for leaving a nice view of Moscow to end the show instead of the stereotypical drab ones.

 

My dad worked in oil and gas construction for years, a career that took him and us all over the country and the world. From 6th-9th grade (1985-88), I lived in Kuwait.

Summers over there were intolerably hot, so as soon as school let out, my mom and brothers and I would head back to the U.S. We'd go back to Kuwait just before school started back each fall.

And that was the worst part, the drive from the Kuwait airport to our apartment, knowing we'd just been sentenced to spend the next 9 months in that backward-ass hellhole.

In retrospect, living over there was a great experience, getting to see another part of the world and being exposed to different cultures at such a young age. I think it went a long way toward shaping my worldview as an adult.

But you don't think about that when you're 12 years old. And for years afterward, I had a recurring nightmare that we were going back to Kuwait, making that late-August drive from the airport to our apartment.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about during the closing scene when Philip and Elizabeth were driving through Moscow in the back of Arkady's car, and especially when they pulled off to look at the cityscape and ponder just what exactly what they were getting themselves into.

 

He could've mentioned Gaad, Amador, and Martha, not just events that happened in recent weeks.

 

Letting go of the deaths of amador and gaad in particular is unbelievable. He mentioned Amador just a few weeks ago and flashed rage. Maybe the time jump helps scab over those wounds and bury that pain for him but.....I'm not buying that he doesn't lose his shit when he realizes his neighbors helped kill the two co-workers he cared most about.

Maybe on some level Stan ID'd with Phillip because of the undercover work that had him in so much turmoil when we met him in season 1? But that's a stretch, that's me fishing for a reason to make sense of what happened, and if you have to fish it's no good.

 

He could have gone in a few directions in that scene. When they were talking about Philip having retired, Stan should have come back with, "You were in Chicago with your wife --- leaving your son at home --- when two of our agents were killed there."

If Stan didn't want to shoot them --- and I can see why it would have been hard for him to do so, especially in front of Paige --- he should have called it in. Delay the family in the garage long enough for his team to get there, and they'll do the dirty work, if it has to be done.

But Gaad wasn't murdered --- though I don't know whether the FBI ever knew the truth (or cared to).

Paige had several reasons to stay behind (she would have been just as lost in the Soviet Union as Henry), so I didn't really get the "need to take her/need to leave him" approach. Hell, leaving her to explain things to him would have made more sense to me.

Biggest eye roll line of the night: Elizabeth saying, "We don't kill people".

 

Procedural question for those saying Stan should have "called it in" ... are we saying he should have called it in before he walked into the garage?

If not, not sure how it's logistically possible.

This is 1987, so there are no cell phones. I'm not sure there was any type of wireless device in existence at that point that would have reached anyone in law enforcement, other than someone with the other half of his walkie talkie set who happened to be in close proximity.

Because if he walks out of that garage to a pay phone, they bolt. I guess he could have detained just Phillip by gunpoint, but no way he's able to detain him and Elizabeth.

 

He did mention people killed by Soviet agents over the years.

At first, I thought Stan's actions were out of character but then I thought about the several times he flouted regs and orders to do what he thought best

Taking Paige, like calling Henry, was parents being selfish rather than doing what's best for the child. They want their children with them. Henry was a clearer headed decision because he's clean but they still couldn't resist the call. Paige saw clearer than they did that she is not Russian

Overall a little disappointed in the ending.

 

I'm thinking pay phone (or maybe phone in the dorm lobby) BEFORE he encounters the family. Would have cost him a couple of minutes (and maybe allowed them to get away). But you're right, maybe not feasible.

 

I think they felt like they needed to take Paige because she knew about Claudia, and even though what she’d herself done was so miniscule, she’d never be allowed to have a normal life in America after spying at all when her parents did all they did