DreamTheaterForums.org Dream Theater Fan Site
General => Movies and TV => Topic started by: Dr. DTVT on April 05, 2015, 11:12:33 PM
-
I'm rather disappointed there isn't a thread for this. Honestly, a lot of the time I like it more than I liked Breaking Bad, and this season it is bringing it up to the level of season 5 BB in terms of drama and tension. I realize it probably needs to get on Netflix so people can catch up, and jumping in at this point would probably not be the best approach.
Any other fans?
-
I don't hold it in quite as high esteem as you appear to, but this is a really good show and so far it's only continued to get better.
-
I've never even heard of this show.
-
I'm bummed I made the choice not to watch this when it first aired. I was going to pull the trigger but I watch far to many shows....so I didn't. I've heard it's a good series and am sure I'll binge watch it one day.....but until then.....
-
I don't watch much TV, since most of it is crap, but I never miss The Americans. I've watched every episode since it started, some more than once. Then I go online and find discussions (Previously.tv for intellectual discussion, IMDb.com for somewhat less intellectual discussion) so I can learn more about what the hell I just saw. People will bring up lots of things I missed or just hadn't thought about. I end up getting more out of the show.
This last episode was crazy. I did not expect "the Paige reveal" to come so soon. I figured it would be the season cliffhanger. "What's she gonna do?" Now we get to explore it for three episodes.
It's an amazing show. Not a single wasted scene, not a single wasted minute. People who say otherwise just aren't paying attention. There are a million nuances to what's going on, and everything you see matters. It could come back later in the episode, later in the season, or several seasons later. The writing is brilliant.
-
Thank you for saying everything I wanted to say Orbert.
-
You're welcome! It's a great show, and I like talking about it.
My wife and I were watching last week's episode, and our daughter came in to see what we were watching. She's 17, so we figured that even though the show can have some crazy stuff, she was okay. It happened to be a perfect episode for her to catch. She knew the basic premise of the story, having caught an episode back in Season 1 (before deciding that she didn't really like it), and caught the whole thing with Paige pressing them to come clean, and them actually doing it. It occurred to me that Paige and our daughter are about the same age (Paige is 16, but whatever).
We made jokes about it. My wife said "By the way, I'm not a Russian spy, and neither is your father" to which I added "...not that you know of."
When Paige was home from school the next day, Phillip and Elizabeth came home and she's watching TV. My wife immediately recognized the show as "General Hospital". Our daughter said that whenever something's on TV in a movie or another TV show, it's always important somehow. The episode shown was part of a storyline in which Dr. Putnam is eventually revealed to be... a Russian illegal!
-
I wonder if you have to be of a certain age to truly appreciate The Americans? People my age (I'm 36 for reference) are probably the youngest people that can honestly remember The Cold War and fearing that the Soviet Union and the US would eventually go to nuclear war. Maybe someone else can provide another perspective, but I don't think there has been a bigger boogie man since. Not even terrorists after 9/11 scared me the way the USSR did as a kid - and maybe that is because I wasn't a kid when that happened.
Ultimately, I don't think Paige rats out her parents. Just a few episodes ago when talking to her mom (or dad, I don't remember which), Paige said that she liked how they always supported one another, and didn't think they would separate like the Beemans. I also don't see her following in her parents footsteps, which will eventually put Philip and Elizabeth at odds with the center, as well as Philip and Elizabeth.
I'm also interested in seeing how long Philip can string Martha along before she puts the pieces together.
-
Philip has always placed individuals and family ahead of "the cause", while Elizabeth has always been the fanatic, the true believer. It's been an ongoing theme since the first episode. Philip was just about ready to defect, but stayed because of Elizabeth and the kids. Actually, mostly the kids, though he does love Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the one who has slowly changed over the course of the series. At the beginning, her family was just part of their cover, part of the whole "go to America and pretend to be a regular American couple with two kids" thing. The "car scene" in the first episode was Elizabeth finally realizing that Philip loves her and values her above the Mother land, and her rewarding him. I would say that at the beginning of the series, Elizabeth did not actually love Philip, whilst Philip has loved her for a long time.
Anyway, we've recently seen things change even more with Elizabeth. Remember when she attacked Claudia and beat the shit out of her? That wasn't just because she was pissed and insulted that The Centre didn't trust her and Philip; it was because they'd put the kids in danger, left them home alone all day. The kids had to hitchhike home from the mall and got picked up by that creeper (and she didn't even know about that). That was also when we first saw a glimpse of Henry's potential.
While they were, and still are, split over the whole Paige thing, we've seen Elizabeth and Philip come together more and more (heh heh) with putting the family first. When Elizabeth got home from the hotel and sat in the car in the garage for a few minutes, you could practically hear her thinking about what she'd done with Mr. Degree in Hotel Management from MSU, and that she would be choosing that life for Paige. Her mother chose the life for her, but had know idea what she was asking of her. Elizabeth knows exactly what she'd be asking Paige to do, but it's like she'd never actually thought about it until know; she just did it out of blind devotion to the cause, because it's what she did. Her late-night talk with Betty really got to her, made her start questioning what she does more and more, but it's been coming for a while now.
I don't think Martha is long for this world.
-
Waiting for season 3 is going to be painful. Very painful.
I'm going to buy the blu-rays and try to get my mom hooked on the show when I visit in a week.
-
Watched the season finale tonight. It was... weird. I'm not sure what to make of it. No direct follow-up with Martha, we didn't even see her, even though there were scenes in the FBI office. Those scenes centered on Gaad and Stan. Good news for Stan, all things considered. I guess the Director is gonna back him, even to Gaad, which is good, but no deal for Nina.
More weird with Philip going to EST by himself, and running into Sandra. I guess from all of that, the takeaway is that Philip is getting tired of the biz. He outright told Yousef that he feels shitty every day. That's gotta be because of what he does for a living, if you can even call it that. Not so much a "job" as just what he does.
Fuck Gabriel. I hate that guy. Never trusted him, never liked him. He's their handler, so okay, his job is to get them to do what The Centre wants them to do, whatever that takes. But he's a dick.
Very strange trip to West Germany to see Grandma. I realize that the show only gives us parts of scenes, and lets us fill in the details, but this one almost seemed anti-climactic. They travelled all the way over there, and we literally saw a minute of the interaction, then they loaded Grandma back into the car.
Elizabeth remains clueless regarding Paige. She has never understood her, has constantly misjudged her, and wow, it's really come back to bite them. So, what's Pastor Tim gonna do? My initial take is that he simply doesn't believe her. But if he comes around, wonders if maybe it could be true (this was the 80's, after all), then things could get ugly.
-
BUMP!
Anybody been watching the new season. Top notch, last night's episode in particular.
-
I'm a big fan
-
Last night was a strange episode. I liked how it started with all the stuff in motion, directly following up from last week, with no dialogue. Nice directorial choice (by Matthew Rhys, aka Philip, aka "Clark"). Then bye-bye Martha.
I wondered what the deal was with "previously on" showing Lisa (the black woman that "Michelle" was working) then of course we find out why. Also, nice touch showing Philip handing off the latest tape from Kimmy's father, the CIA guy. Stuff to remind us that while we've been focusing on Martha and Paige and trying to figure out what the deal is with Elizabeth's new friend (or mark) Yung-Hi, there's still all these other ongoing operations.
Then shit hits various fans, and Gabriel told them that they were cutting back, not taking on any new operations. After his talk with Claudia, I thought he was gonna come down extra hard or something, but instead he saw that his two best agents were on the verge of totally cracking, and made the call to give them "the closest thing to a vacation they're going to get". So EPCOT is back on the table, yay!
Then "Seven Months Later"... WTF? That was weird. Check in with Gaad, nice. Paige is still "working" Tim and Alice, okay. Weird, but okay. The Jennings all looked happier, but wow, I guess we're skipping ahead a bit. Martha is a distant memory, Nina of course is long gone now, and... I guess we'll find out next week what else is going on.
-
What I thought was interesting was that while Philip and Elizabeth look pretty much as happy as they have been at the end there with the reduced work schedule, but Paige was as miserable as she ever has been while giving her report to her parents. Clearly 7 months working in the family business had weighed on her.
-
That's what she brought upon herself by opening her mouth to Pastor Tim. At first I thought Elizabeth came down on her kinda hard, but then I thought No, this is serious, serious shit, and she wanted to know the truth. She couldn't handle the truth, and it put them all in grave danger.
With Martha gone, I expected them to get back to Pastor Tim, but again, they made the odd decision to just skip ahead a ways. Tim's okay with them being Russian spies? Okay.
Elizabeth doesn't "get" EST.
-
One of the reasons I love the show is that the show almost never takes "the obvious" path. Martha could have been killed in any of the last 10 episodes or so going back to last season, and it could have tied in nicely. Pastor Tim could have been snuffed as well, but now there are a few ways his story could go and it will probably go a different one. The way it ended for Nina so suddenly I didn't see coming.
-
I think if you told any of us back in season 1 that Martha made it this long, we wouldn't have believed you.
-
Originally she was not going to be a major character, but the way her story and her relationship with "Clark" unfolded, and the way they could compare it and contrast it with Philip's relationship with Elizabeth, led to them keeping her around. I think it was brilliant. When things with Elizabeth were shaky, when his "real" life was falling apart, there was Martha and the fake domestic life with her. And he talked to her, told her things he couldn't talk to Elizabeth about.
And then despite all the possible ambiguity (Does he really care about her? Does he love her, in a way?) we find out that No, it was never there. When Elizabeth asked him, if things were different, if there weren't the kids to think about, would he go with Martha to Russia, he was completely confused. "Are you crazy? I love you." Something those two rarely say to each other, even if it shows in all the things they do for each other. He cared about Martha because she's a person and he's destroyed her life as part of doing his job, and he feels horrible about it, but them's the breaks.
Anyway yeah, her character became probably the most important one after Philip and Elizabeth. More than the kids, more than Stan, or anyone else.
-
Anyone still watching? LOVE this show! Been watching since the beginning. We're down to the final season and I can't wait to see how it plays out. Looks like it's setting up for a volatile ending!
-
I'm still in. Like you, I've seen every episode since the beginning.
Intense season premiere. Definitely setting things up for the series finale. I thought the "time jump" was perfect. No only does it help explain why the kids look so much older (when supposedly not much time has passed on the show) but it bring us right up to Reagan, Gorbachev, and the fall of the Soviet Union. Great setting for the final season.
Philip is happy, work is good, life is good.
Elizabeth is sad, work sucks, life sucks.
Paige is an idiot, always has been, but at least she's getting kinda hot.
Henry will hopefully actually play into the story this season.
Stan is possibly the worst FBI agent in history, but I still kinda like him.
-
Yeah, I think the time jump works fine. I think it will really play into the amount of seperation between the guys and gals of the family, how they've philisophically grown apart at the possible resentments.. Don't know if you saw the 3 min season premiere but there was one quick segment that caught my eye... **Spoiler** they showed a clip that looked like Philip and Paige were seriously throwing blows in the house
Yeah, Stan fell into the perfect honeytrap. Funny thing is it fooled his partner too! Oleg is probably one of my favorite charachters. He's so frikken Russian...LOL. Always has a smile for his mom. Elizabeth is hard core. Man, I can see how she will fall into the hardliners camp with no issue whatsoever, and probably despise Gorby. While Philip will probably be the opposite. Like you say, Paige is an idiot. That being said....teenagers that age are quite impressionable. Henry is such a non charachter to me really. Don't see them all of the sudden making him pertinent to the story line. He could have been if they had done the return to USSR scenario.
-
The problem with Henry is that "the center" (or the writers) totally dropped the ball with him. They focused on Paige because she's the oldest, the next logical 2nd Gen Illegal, when Henry has been demonstrating the skills since Day One.
When Paige and Henry went to the mall way back when and had to hitchhike home, and some dirtbag picked them up and took them to a secluded place and tried to get Paige to drink beer, it was Henry that knew something was up and whacked the guy and saved both their asses. It was Henry watching the neighbor's house with the Xbox (or whatever it was) and sneaking over there when they were out so he could play on it. Henry had a covert picture of Mrs. Beeman who he had a crush on. Henry has the mad computer skills. And now he's a math wiz at some fancy private school, rubbing elbows with the sons and daughters of senators and CEOs. He would be the perfect 2nd Gen Illegal. Instead we get mopey, whiny Paige.
That's why I say I hope he actually has relevance this season. They've laid all this groundwork, did they not even realize that?
-
Maybe it's the grand plan? Just has been kinda out of the center of things to me. Hopefully he will get going in the last 9 episodes!
-
Maybe. This series has been very good about misdirection (we saw Martha's gun more than once, but no one ever used it) but also about bringing back characters and plots from previous seasons. Arkady is back, with a relevant storyline. I don't think we saw him at all last season. Oleg is married now, and his wife is one of the contestants from The Dating Game that his dad set up.
I wouldn't be surprised if they finally figure out how bad Paige is at being a spy and move on to Henry. It's getting kinda late now, though, because Henry is out of the house. He's at a boarding school now and presumably will be away somewhere for college after. The influence that his parents can have on him is getting more limited as time goes on.
So basically... I have no idea. ???
-
Kinda slow episode I thought, except for the end...LOL. And once again, Paige shows how clueless she is.
-
I think Elizabeth is losing it. Obviously, as Paige's mother, in some ways she's the best one to teach Paige. She has her trust, and no one knows her better.
But she's not objective about Paige and is totally missing some things. She tells Philip and Claudia that Paige's training is coming along fine, but we've been showed clear examples that that's not the case, and Elizabeth knows it. When sailor security dude took her ID, Elizabeth told Paige that it wasn't a big deal, she did everything right, she kept her cool and kept her cover. Then when found the guy, verified that Paige got his name and at least one aspect of his descriptiong wrong, and stuck a knife in his neck. And never told Paige.
Anyway, I kinda liked them slowing things down a bit this episode. To me, the dialogue and the interpersonal relationships are as important and well-done as the action and plot. Last season, we didn't get a good balance. I'm feeling a better balance overall thus far this season, which is good. I think things are gonna go pretty insane towards the end.
-
I love this show, and have been following it since the very 1st episode. I have a suspicion that Paige is going to get killed during a spy mission and that will be the thing that causes Elizabeth to finally lose it. I'm still wondering if Stan's girlfriend is going to play a significant role in anything or just another character.
-
I think Elizabeth is losing it. Obviously, as Paige's mother, in some ways she's the best one to teach Paige. She has her trust, and no one knows her better.
But she's not objective about Paige and is totally missing some things. She tells Philip and Claudia that Paige's training is coming along fine, but we've been showed clear examples that that's not the case, and Elizabeth knows it. When sailor security dude took her ID, Elizabeth told Paige that it wasn't a big deal, she did everything right, she kept her cool and kept her cover. Then when found the guy, verified that Paige got his name and at least one aspect of his descriptiong wrong, and stuck a knife in his neck. And never told Paige.
Anyway, I kinda liked them slowing things down a bit this episode. To me, the dialogue and the interpersonal relationships are as important and well-done as the action and plot. Last season, we didn't get a good balance. I'm feeling a better balance overall thus far this season, which is good. I think things are gonna go pretty insane towards the end.
I hear ya about being slowed down as a good thing. Guess I'm just expecting it to ramp up with only 8 episodes left!
-
Last season was a slow burn, too slow for some people's tastes. I get that. But they also laid a lot of groundwork for what we knew (at assumed) would be this, the final season. I didn't expect the time jump, which might seem at first to work counter to all the groundwork they'd laid, but as I said earlier, it was a smart thing to do, and they're working with it. I'll bet it's gonna start ramping up soon, and it's gonna hellacious.
-
Just watched episode 5 in season 6 and that was one of the best episodes of the series. Elizabeth just cannot catch a break and Paige is still clueless. Great season so far.
Also, I just realized that the blonde curly haired girl that Phillip is getting information thru is the girl in the first season of The Ozarks.
-
We watched it last night, too. Whoa. Elizabeth keeps racking up the body count. She didn't realize Mrs. Teacup was there when she went to take out Mr. Teacup. Oops. Oh, now she's seen me, so she has to die, too. Shit. What?? The kid is here? At least she got out of there without the kid seeing her. I bet she would've killed the kid, too. No witnesses.
Philip is still the most interesting character to me, and at this point always will be. Let me see if I understand this. Philip wanted out, but they insisted he keep up the contact with Kimmy Breland because of the tapes, the info they can get through her father. She's the same age as his daughter, and he's never, ever made a move on her; in fact, The Center wanted him to, but he "found another way" to continue their relationship. Finally, The Center (or maybe just Elizabeth) insists that he set her up, so that they can get to her dad. Jim just happening to be in Europe at the same time as her trip with her friends didn't quite work. Presumably his plan was to convince her (and maybe her friends, who at that point would be collateral damage) to go on a little side trip to Bulgaria, where she gets arrested for something and Daddy has to come bail her out. Philip doesn't like that at all, but somehow Elizabeth gets him to agree. Except Kimmy doesn't want to meet up with him in Europe. So he ups the stakes by finally moving out of the friend zone and into her. It works. He now has a much better chance of meeting up with her and getting her stuck in a Bulgarian prison.
Which totally sucks, and between that and the guilt he feels for banging her, he decides that The Center can go fuck themselves, "Jim" calls Kimmy and tells her Goodbye. He does not plan to see her again, ever. He has to "move on" (which was something of a theme for the episode). Also, hey, if you're there and someone tries to get you to go to a Communist country with them... don't. Just don't. He actively warns her against what he knows they'll try to do. Philip always manages to get things done, sometimes not quite the way The Center wanted him to, but he got things done. This is the first time I remember him working directly to fuck up their plans. Good for him.
His "lesson" for Paige was amazing. "I remember the feeling" the first time he hit someone, got to use that training and pop a couple of guys. He felt good, felt invincible. He did not want Paige to feel that way, to ever feel good about that. Boom! Okay, I could have made that hurt a lot more. Wham! against the wall. I could have put you through that wall, and you couldn't do a damned thing about it. Grab! Oh look, I could break your back right now, and you can't even move. Wrench! Yeah, that's your arm. It's still attached, but I could've taken it right off. Slam! Do you get it now? You are not invincible. You have a tiny bit of skill, a tiny bit of training from Mom, that's it. Except he never said a word, put his jacket back on, and left. Damn.
-
Holy shit! One episode to go, and Stan the Man is getting really, really close.
Interesting how he's focusing on Elizabeth more. Philip is his friend, his best friend. Elizabeth is also a friend, but mostly is "just" his best friend's wife. But he also knows that if they go down, they go down together. I don't know if things will end well for anybody on this show.
-
The tensions in the second half of last night's episode was crazy. Can't wait to see what the finale brings.
-
The tensions in the second half of last night's episode was crazy. Can't wait to see what the finale brings.
Just got thru watching the next to last episode and you are spot on. Hope the final episode is a great one.
I went back and started watching the series from the beginning.
-
Wow. So okay, they wrapped things up, made some good points, and everyone was true to their characters. There's no question that this is one way that things could have ended, and it all made perfect sense.
That said, I guess I was expecting more fireworks. I, and many others, had assumed that either Philip or Elizabeth, and possibly both, would not make it out alive. Some kind of shootout when they're caught at "the garage", or a chase to the Canadian border via a tip or lucky glance at a surveilance camera, or something. Yeah, there was some tension at the border, on the train, but they got through. Some tension at the Russian border, but again they got through no problem. Highest tension was when Stan caught them in the parking garage by Paige's apartment. He'd figured it out, and as much as he hated being right, he was right, and it was his job to bust them and bring them in. And yet, in the conversation that followed, between Stan and Philip, with a little help from Elizabeth and even Paige, Stan did the right thing, even if it was the wrong thing. I loved that shot of him later, still standing there in the parking garage, blown away, leaning against the wall, wondering what in the fuck he just did.
Biggest "shock" was Paige taking that moment to get off the train, with nothing Philip or Elizabeth could do about it. That too was true to her (naive, short-sighted) character. She didn't want to go to Russia; she wanted to stay here, so she did. I have no idea what will happen to her afterwards, though, and neither does she, so she might as well sit and get hammered on vodka.
Henry gets the news from Stan and, always the smarter of the two kids, figures out the odd phone call the other night, and upon reflection, a few other odd phone calls. But as P & E said, he's smart, he'll survive. They raised him right. He'll hate them, yeah. He'll feel like his entire life thus far has been a lie, but no, it hasn't. Just the part about his parents being regular Americans and not Russian illegals. He's still American, he still lives in the Land of Opportunity, he'll be fine. Probably won't be going back for his senior year at St. Edwards Academy, though, which is a bummer. Unless Stan really steps up.
-
Really enjoyed the series finale. Part of me was expecting more fireworks like you said, but I think the way they went was probably more true to the spirit of a show that was primarily about a marriage and family, using the spy world to escalate the stakes, rather than primarily a spy story. And in a way, Philip and Elizabeth ending up back in Russia without either of their children is a worse punishment than dying or jail. The whole garage scene was simply phenomenal, it was ten minutes that felt more like two. The phone call scene gave me all the feels, and then both music choices towards the end were just about perfect.
-
Philip and Stan's conversation in the parking garage was, in some ways, the culmination of the entire series. It would always come down to Stan figuring it out, or not, and what happens next. Incredible scene. Great writing, and fantastic acting by Matthew Rhys and Noah Emmerich. Best friends, sworn enemies, each trying to do what's best for their country, each just doing their job.
(https://imgur.com/4IsFU1G.jpg)
-
The way the series ended, I could see a made for TV movie.
-
Just got back from vacation and caught up on the final 3 episodes. WOW! That garage seen was EPIC! A fantastic ending to a great TV show. Not shocked one bit at Paige doing what she did. Poor Stan, his life was basically ruined. Not only the revelation about his best friend, but the doubt about his wife...LOL. Great wrap up, but I'm already sad it's over.