The Americans on FX

Bra. Bloody F'n. Vo.
In the end, loyalty is loyalty. And to end it with Paige finding the laundry folded ... predictable but awesome. The whole "I ordered you eggs florentine" scene, as it played out between Claudia and Elizabeth - (You poisoned my food, I'm not touching it. No I didn't, I'll show you) was completely predictable, but obviously necessary. The steely glare Elizabeth continually gives Claudia, the lack of trust - she sure has trust issues with females.
I'm trying to find extra nuggets in the replay as I type ... I can't wait for season 2.

 

Nina coming out of the shower was an amazing moment for many reasons. Stan is looking around, wondering where she is. Had she not been in that apartment, I do think he could have put the pieces together. But there she was, taking a shower to clean herself of the life she was ready to leave behind.

Also, it was Nina, coming out of the shower, and Nina looks like this:



They set Nina up with the past two episodes as a very dangerous and very real bishop in this chess game, cutting across the board however she sees fit, with people prepared to defend her on both sides. And Annet Mahendru's acting skills are sharp enough to play that femme fatale role well.

The acting in this show is solid across the board, excluding Paige.

 

What do you expect out of her? Just curious.
And did anyone else find it odd that Arkady and whoever he talked to discussing the abort signal on the car both said no one knew what it meant but Claudia knew? Or was it just "spy intuition" that something was up. The scene between Stan and Sandra was good - she's done with him, and no amount of yelling or screaming or arguing is going to fix this. Isn't it - peculiar is the wrong word, but something like that - that the American marriage is dissolved but the Russian "marriage" is back to being a marriage?

 

She seems out of place in every scene, as though she doesn't understand the concept of acting and is wondeirng why she's being asked to read these lines.

There are plenty of very good teen actresses, such as Chloe Moretz and Kiernan Shipka. Holly Taylor is not one of them.

 

@Versatile I haven't seen that, but maybe I'm not as analytical about it.

One more thing: the scene where Elizabeth listens to her mother's tape ... Keri Russell can get emotional by just staring. Reminiscent, kinda, of the scene where they threw her in the closet with all the pictures of the kids. Or the one in the diner from the earlier part of the season finale.

 

And if you Zapruder/DVR the scene, you can see where Elizabeth gets shot. Sure the bullet going through the windshield is at a higher angle where it probably would have hit her in the rib area by her chest, but you can see where she grimaces for a second (nice editing, by the way).

 

I thought about this last night, while I was watching and immediately after. Although the final scene with Paige lacked the explosive reaction/exposition/suspense we're accustomed to, wouldn't have discovering her parents' secret stash have said more about her parents' skills as high-level spies? Which then creates much more doubt in the viewers' minds going forward. In other words, it would've been done just FOR that cheap moment and not for something bigger, because it would've painted the writers into a corner.

You want something out of that final episode? How about several more seasons like this one, including a season 2 in which you're emotionally invested in ever person who appears on screen.

The season finale reminded me of those in The Wire. Too early to make any kind of comparison there, but to me it adds a little hint of realism and suggests that drama can exist in avenues other than death and/or capture.

 

That high-speed chase was very much unlike The Wire. I wish they had come up with a different way to handle it.

 

Yeah, that wasn't the most perfect scene/decision ever.

 

I don't think realism is really one of the strong suits of this show. It very deftly uses excitement and emotion while holding on to suspension of disbelief by the skin of its teeth.

But here's the state of the major players going into the season finale:

Phillip and Elizabeth separated and in alternating "I want to get back together but now you aren't sure" limbo.

Beeman realizing he's looking for a 30s/40s caucasian couple, and meanwhile his marriage is falling apart.

Nina has decided her allegiance is to Russia and she will double-agent.

Martha blissfully unaware, apparently, of what a sham her marriage to Clark is.


Other than those crazy Jennings kids getting on the same page for the first time in a few episodes, everyone's still in that same spot. That's hard to swallow, no matter how well-executed the episode was.

 

Stan now thinks he has to double down in his protection of Nina. That could lead to a tricky situation for her.

 

I don't recall him saying that. I've already deleted my recording, but from what I remember Arkady said that there was no other way to communicate the abort signal, so this would have to be the way. The other guy ("Unnamed Russian") asked what about the FBI/CIA, who are watching them and would obviously see this, and Arkady said he didn't care.