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| (FX) |
The
final 10 minutes of “Born Again,” the sixth (and most recent) episode of the tremendous
third season of The Americans, play agonizingly
tense. The deliberate pacing and slow-build of the show’s major arcs appear to
be headed for a horrifying, long-anticipated culmination – until, mercifully
and somewhat surprisingly, the show once again backs itself out of a corner. The
reset button is hit, and we’re still left biting our nails, waiting for the
inevitable.
Narratively
– or at least, linearly – The Americans
has not gotten very far this season. Through six hours, it seems that executive
producers Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields have slashed the amount of car chases in
half and, in general, tightened their focus. This does not mean to say that
what came before this third round of episodes needed to be improved upon – far
from it – but the methods have been adjusted to meet this season’s needs.
No longer are Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) in quietly-acknowledged,
ongoing danger. The season did open with its closest call yet, and an
unbearably lengthy car chase two installments later found Elizabeth preserving
her cover just barely; but otherwise, every ounce of drama has been
mined out of the emotional and mental wounds being inflicted upon our characters.
The demonstration then is this: things got really, really close to blowing up, but
in the aftermath, all that can be done is to reflect and react.
An
astonishing portion of this season is just conversation, most of it elaborate
fakery – as in, Elizabeth or Philip in character, working on a target – but all
of it engrossing. Weisberg and Fields have, season by season, blurred the line
between artifice and truth, from the Jennings’ marriage to the role of their
identities to the function of their family, and that conceit has come to
overwhelmingly define this third season. In one of last season’s most memorable
(and wrenching) scenes, Elizabeth asks Philip to take on the role of Clark, his
identity in marriage to government employee Martha (the wonderful Alison
Wright). Clark, sexually, is animalistic, angry and passionate – not quite
Elizabeth’s Philip, in other words. It was an initial acknowledgment from both
characters that they put some of themselves in their other identities, that
they’re never truly “themselves” in any skin. This season, every conversation
bears that painful sex scene clearly in mind. Every conversation Philip has
with Kim, the 15 year-old daughter of a CIA agent he’s been tasked to seduce, is
brutally textured by his distanced relationship with his own daughter.
Elizabeth’s ongoing “friendship” with a divorced Northup employee has given her
a legitimate confidante, to talk about her marriage, the differing values and
burgeoning uncertainties between her and Philip. They have, through this
development, emerged as the most complex, fleshed-out, human and relatable
characters on television. This happens through their elaborate occupations, the
forced nature of taking on identity after identity, persona after persona –
they reveal a little something new each time, and the show, as a result,
attains a stunning depth of truth.
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| /Indiewire |
There’s
nothing to criticize about The Americans,
really, and though the plotting has been more sporadic and secondary, never has
the show felt fuller or more compelling. It’s subtly improved in
less-than-essential areas – the camerawork, it struck me a few weeks ago, has evolved
from a cost-efficient, quick-cut style into a rich series of evocative tableaux
– but has maintained the distinct and forceful path laid out for its characters
and grander narrative. It took 25 episodes for the revelation of Philip’s estranged
adult son to come into the show more directly, but it wasn’t sudden; every
layer peeled, and every detail uncovered, contributes to where The Americans goes minute-by-minute.
There’s no fat here, no mistake generously-forgotten, no experimental aspect
that was-kind-of-cool-but-didn’t-really-happen – on and on, this is a show that
unfolds with novelistic richness and emotional profundity.
As
the season has come into focus, we’re dealing with two principal, ongoing
storylines. As teased during last season’s conclusion, Elizabeth and Philip
have been asked by their bosses to begin converting daughter Paige (Holly
Taylor) as one of their own. Elizabeth believes it essential to instill in
their daughter the values and causes she and Philip have fought for through decades;
Philip believes the damage that could be done irrevocable, and that they have
raised their daughter to make independent choices. On the one hand, it’s a
fascinating, basic conversation piece about how to raise children, how to teach
values, how close to the vest they must remain. But in the universe of The Americans, these domestic arguments
take on a nationalistic grain, as the roles of parent and patriot (or
defector?) are paralleled and intersected. Philip, a family man who has taken to
the Western way of life, is at a complete loss, literally asking “What the hell
am I supposed to do?” It’s both easier and harder for Elizabeth, who sees much
of herself in her daughter – who has, through her church, become an ardent
anti-war and anti-poverty activist in her own right – but also knows what she
wants for her. Within this grand, ongoing conflict, Philip and Elizabeth argue
– about happiness, cultural upbringing, belief systems, the nature of the work,
the past, love, God; you name it. It’s never airless, though. By juxtaposing
the familiar role of parenthood and the unfamiliar one of espionage, the show
manages to expose an enormous load of truths about identity and personhood.
As
Elizabeth veers closer to telling her daughter, Philip grows closer to Kim. This
damaged, brittle girl’s yearning for a man of Philip’s age and mystique
absolutely raises a Paige-related red flag. But the show has also narrowed its
focus on the sexual nature of the job: on Philip sleeping with Martha, and
Annelise (Gillian Alexy), and Kim, and so many others. Staunch, unwavering
Elizabeth doesn’t like it – she’s married, damn it, and she loves her husband,
no matter how unconventionally that manifested. In a stunning episode-ending
sequence from “Salang Pass,” Philip confesses to her that, sometimes, he has to
“make it real,” even though she’s his wife. It’s devastating, as painful and
series-defining as the death of a major character on The Wire would be. The Jennings’ marriage is the enduring core to The Americans, and by exploring their respective
relationships to everything under the sun, our emotional investment is
paramount. The emotional whopper of “Born Again” comes when Philip gets out of having
sex with Kim, admitting he’s been going to church and is trying to reinvent at
least a part of himself. Again, Philip is in character, and the principal goal
here is to get out of sleeping with a 15 year-old – a 15 year-old, new handler
Gabriel (a terrific Frank Langella) reminds, he will have to sleep with
eventually – but Philip has been going to church, and he is in a state
of massive inquiry and subtle rehabilitation. As The Americans does so brilliantly, the line between truth and
artifice is practically lifted; this is Elizabeth’s Philip, and this is Kim’s
Philip – ultimately, this is a man reconciling his relationship to his wife,
his daughter and his country all at once.
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| /IMDb |
So
no, Philip didn’t seduce Kim just yet, and Elizabeth remains reluctant to
telling her daughter the truth. But the rug isn’t being pulled out from under
us. The agony that comes with the length of time necessary to make these
decisions renders these two people and their predicaments more pronounced. They
are struggling. They are fighting something within themselves, or maybe within
one part of themselves. This idea extends to characters beyond Elizabeth and
Philip. Nina (Annet Mahendru) gladly wolfed down a meal in solitary confinement
after ratting out the only woman who would listen to her: after quite literally
dancing between two nations and the authorities in each, she’s held all sense
of loyalty for herself. The man who put her in there, Stan Beeman (Noah
Emmerich), is fighting a more basic battle, even as he’s the FBI agent living
across the street from two Soviet spies: he’s getting over his ex-wife,
transitioning from old to new, reckoning for some pretty horrific sins. Each of
these characters has existed in a realm in which reality wasn’t really a
plausible idea. Stan worked thousands of days undercover with a white
supremacist group; Nina lost all semblance of what it means to be loving and
affectionate as she double-crossed an American agent and a Soviet ambassador to
keep out of trouble; and Philip and Elizabeth are now fighting a simple battle
at home, one clouded by the perverse, cloudy, morally-impossible nature of
their work. In season three, The Americans
finds them all in a state of reflection – they are out to reclaim themselves, what
they believe in and who they love.
So
much of this show’s power comes from the performances. Rhys remains utterly revelatory;
the way he takes Philip in and out of his alternate identities so gracefully
and delicately is monumentally effective, while his barely-detectable albeit
building discomfort with Elizabeth – yes, the woman he loves – is tragically
executed. And Russell, who often gets the short shrift when talking about these
two extraordinary actors, continues to cut through Elizabeth’s hard exterior
with a wafting sadness, one that seeps to the surface every moment she’s tasked
with looking into her daughter’s eyes. The pursuit of happiness is a tricky
gambit here – Elizabeth doesn’t really believe in it. But exactly what is
being pursued? Despite their enormous, spectacular commitments, we’re seeing
Philip and Elizabeth try and make a family work. That is, after all, the goal –
isn’t the family intrinsic to nationalism? Aren’t marriage and Americanism mutualistic?
But try as they might to make sense of it all and forge ahead as one, it is in
the act of imitation where you run into cold, hard truth. And as this patient
season of television has illuminated with aching clarity, the truth hurts.
Grade: A