The Americans on FX

I just love that all the violence in the show is/was unnecessary if they were not so terrified of each other.

 

I wonder who was/is more generally freaked out. Kids of the Cold War freaked out about getting nuked, or kids today freaked out about terrorism.

 

Well, wasn't that something.

Not to be a spoiler but Community-style WarGames parody I did not see coming

But when Phillip asked Granny if she'd like to play was spectacular.

 

*sigh* I knew the plot-junky in me would be disappointed. I almost always am. I never care for the "let's take you on an emotional ride but reset with pretty much all the main characters intact and in their original places" M.O. that represents almost every TV drama ever. The way the killed Amador made me think maybe, just maybe, they'd be different.

OK, with that out of the way, that was one hell of an emotional ride.

 

That was great, the best episode of the show yet without a doubt. One of the tricky tasks for season finales is to avoid predictability while building on what the season has set up. Moreover, while doing that dance, a season finale must build for the ensuing season. Every story line in this episode was framed by that mentality.

I couldn't ask for more. They made Peter Gabriel awesome.

And to end it with Paige was a ballsy choice.

 

Yeah. It was absolutely the best episode of the show to date. Just pitch perfect from start to finish for what they were trying to accomplish.

 

This show's modus operandi of always being on the cusp of some big break fits perfectly with its Cold War setting.

 

One thing this show is so amazing at is giving us themes that tie an episode together in unexpected ways.

In this episode, things were *exactly* how they appeared. And yet so much of what happens in their world is driven by the fact that the people who need to believe that can't really trust those appearances.

Philip and Elizabeth, the married couple, really do love each other even though we know they both have had extreme doubts.

The Colonel's information is completely true, but there's not a chance in hell the Soviet higher-ups believe him or will believe they can afford to act on it.

Nina is loyal to Russia, just like she thought she was all along but began to doubt. Sucks for her, though, because despite everyone seeming to be cheering at how awesomely spymastery she looks in all this, she's done nothing but delay her death sentence a little longer. Moscow will give her some time to see what they can squeeze out of Beeman, but the moment that's over, she's dead. There's absolutely no way Russia can trust her or let her stay alive.

Claudia is every bit as loyal to Philip and Elizabeth as she said she was all along, and every bit as loyal to Zuchov as she claimed. She may be a spymaster in her own right, and the well may be too poisoned with Elizabeth to make it work, but she's been telling the truth all along.

 

Doesn't mean I have to like it :/.

They killed Amador. They married Clark to Martha. Both within the span of a single episode with almost no obvious lead-up (although some of it looks obvious in retrospect, which makes it doubly good).

I really hoped they'd give us *something* in this episode.

 

It'd be ballsier if there was any chance of Paige actually pulling out the washing machine and looking for the secret compartment. But she won't.

It was hella cool, though. Very symbolic of the season as a whole. Everything Paige doesn't even know she wants to know is unimaginably close physically, but light-years away abstractly.

 

Not from a television perspective. To conclude that awesome montage of betrayal with an innocent girl wondering and wandering but finding nothing, not breaking her innocence, not doing much of anything, was a difficult decision. It affirmed that the critics who suggest not much happened, at least in the sense of moving things forward, may have been right. If she had discovered her parents' secret then and there or even had a realistic chance to, ending it like that would have been a big deal, plot-wise. Instead, it's an atmospheric final image, one that serves the episode and the season perfectly.

Anyway, Alan Sepinwall didn't much care for it because he didn't think the "Come home" line landed, which I disagree entirely with: http://bit.ly/13OeFyX

And The A.V. Club's Todd VanDerWerff and Genevie Koskie took my side, that the episode was emotional and important even without moving too many pieces: http://avc.lu/13OeHa0

 

Speaking of ballsy moves by both the characters and the writers, Nina just tanked her own exfiltration.

It almost got lost in a Philip/Elizabeth-centered episode that was just packed with amazing stuff, but that's a no-doubt A+ moment.