The Americans (Season 5)

[Penfold]

New season begins on 7th March.

I'm excited, I started watching from the beginning during the summer and it's great.

I wonder what they'll get away with now on FX as Atlanta, The OJ Drama Hour, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia are less censored than they previously have been. I googled some things and as they are a cable network they aren't governed by the FCC so they self censor to appease advertisers but if the drama demands it they can do it. Although that's been mostly language related and I don't think the shows needs to change anyway.

There's also this video which I just watched.

The Americans - Sabotage

Obvious spoilers for anyone who hasn't watched.

Three weeks to go, enough time for a rewatch and for me to forget starting this thread.

[Puce Moment]

Love this show, and I do feel it is the right time to end it. The fact that we know it is ending is pretty exciting - it's difficult to know what they will choose to do, and, frankly, anyone could die at any moment.

[Puce Moment]

Just a head's up that this starts back tonight for a run of 13-episodes. I assumed it was the final season, but no, it will return for a closing 10-episode season next year.

Very excited, it hard to imagine that this season will end with CONJECTURE:

Spoiler alert

anything other than their complete exposure as spies to EVERYONE.

[close]

If so, this will be a taut season, although I doubt it will be as brilliant as season 4 which I thought was stunning.

[Penfold]

It returns!

Not sure I'll get used to having to watch weekly but I liked that episode.

A few parts reminded me of computer games. Mostly

Spoiler alert

Papers, Please

[close]

,

Spoiler alert

Spelunky

[close]

and

Spoiler alert

Surgeon Simulator

[close]

. I almost jumped out of my skin during the middle of the

Spoiler alert

hole digging

[close]

as a taxi outside beeped its horn. I might watch it again, if only to see

Spoiler alert

how they found the dig spot so easily.

[close]

[Puce Moment]

Well that was enjoyable. There is now a sense of impending doom over the whole show, even if it is of itself quite snappy and exciting. The dig scene played out quite procedural, like Breaking Bad, and was highly enjoyable. I like how they allowed the scene to build slowly.

Also, I have always liked how this show will suffuse an episode in a particular theme - this week's seemed to be family. If you think about it, the notion of family was in every single scene. Right down to Elizabeth killing their surrogate son.

[hewantstolurkatad]

It's pacing itself out pretty perfectly, this season's kind of weird in that the end destination seems to be pretty much a guarantee that they'll be

Spoiler alert

exposed in some manner that they can't get out of

[close]

so with those restrictions I'm expecting a bit of a comedown from the last two but the final season could be amazing stuff.


Great first episode, love this show's version of the 80s

[Dex Sawash]

Why the fuck did they put them in a 90s Volvo 240? A few of the trucks and busses have been wrong but that's too much [/pedant]

Who is the kid traveling out of Russia? Philip's son?

[Puce Moment]

A more low-key episode this week but full of brilliant plot set-ups. I love the way Philip looked at Stan with such contempt when discussing Paige.

Interesting stuff about the CIA plot to harm Soviet crops. What will come of it?

I really wish they would dump the whole series on Netflix or something - I hate watching this week-by-week.

[mothman]

Hmm. We do like this show. And each season does start off slow and in the middle of whatever new op they're working on, requiring to take time to figure out what is going on. But all the same it goes feel like the fine balance the show requires to allow you to suspend disbelief is teetering a bit.

After all, it's a show about sleeper agents who don't do much sleeping - literally as well as figuratively, they seem to be up all night even when they're not shifting several tons of earth in the middle of nowhere - and then they go to do a full day's work! The sleepers seem to have a whole massive support network independent of the KGB station, though the Rezident (I wonder if he's been replaced?) appears to be in notional overall control I don't think he has much say.

The whole biowar plot line last time seemed odd enough; now they seem to be going down the whole "CIA caused the 80s Russian grain famines" which I don't think anyone outside the tinfoil hat brigade seriously believes. And I can't believe they would just bury William in the middle of an army base rather than just incinerate his body. And how did the KGB know where he was buried? And who is the pissed-off Russian grain expert? A defector? Given how careful they've been in the past I can't believe the Jennings would expose themselves to that surveillance even in disguise.

I'm sure it'll all make sense in the end, it normally does, but it's feeling more unlikely than it usually has.

[Puce Moment]

I have never minded the silliness of the show, or the issue of credibility, but I goess it is a line that they could cross even with me. I have to admit, I find the idea that they would socialise with that Russian guy even though he is being observed to be a tad problematic. They don't know if their photos, even from a distance and blurry, could show up on a cork board in Stan's office.

[mothman]

Also, despite his initial smarminess Oleg turned out to be an OK bloke. He agreed to go back to Moscow for his parents even if his price for doing so still got a bullet in the back of her head. Now I worry that, much as with Nina's, his storyline will meander along irrelevantly to its inevitable, similarly bleak, equally terminal, conclusion. Unless Stan is going to swoop in to save him which would be yet nother line crossed for the show's credibility.

[Puce Moment]

Also, despite his initial smarminess Oleg turned out to be an OK bloke. He agreed to go back to Moscow for his parents even if his price for doing so still got a bullet in the back of her head. Now I worry that, much as with Nina's, his storyline will meander along irrelevantly to its inevitable, similarly bleak, equally terminal, conclusion. Unless Stan is going to swoop in to save him which would be yet nother line crossed for the show's credibility.

I actually think that the Oleg/Stan story could potentially be the stand-out narrative this season. Firstly, the CIA have something on him to enable them to apply pressure, but Stan knows how vulnerable he is if they use that leverage. I suspect that Oleg may turn on Stan.

Also, how soon will we find out whether Andrea from the Walking Dead is KGB and/or sleeper agent?

[Dex Sawash]

Didn't think we would be seeing

Spoiler alert

Martha

[close]

again

[hewantstolurkatad]

Didn't think we would be seeing

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Martha

[close]

again

I not be at all if that's

Spoiler alert

the only time we'll see her, she's full time on another show right now and that could easily just be a nod to some real life coerced informants that they did actually go to the bother of resettling

[close]

[Dex Sawash]

Did they get a new giant Henry? That was jarring, don't recall see him yet this season.

[Puce Moment]

Yeah, he does seem to have gone from being an annoying kid to a fully grown adult in the space of 9-months. It's fucking alarming how lanky the cunt is, but they are still keeping him away from plotlines or sustained dialogue.

[Dex Sawash]

Is the hospital priest an old thread? 

Is the Gideon/Martha thing going anywhere or just closing the story?

[hewantstolurkatad]

Is the hospital priest an old thread? 

Is the Gideon/Martha thing going anywhere or just closing the story?

I was lost with a few things in that episode. Who was the priest? Was the name that was said to Oleg by the fruit guy meant to carry some kind of weight? Things seem to be leading somewhere though


RE: Gideon/Martha, I can't imagine Gideon is done what with the holes they've left involving Phillip's son. That could be a tidy end for martha but leaves the window open to draft her back in if needed too.

[Dex Sawash]

Just recalled there was the central american thing a while back, bet that is where the priest ties in.  The CIA military training center for Cent Am strongmen.


edit- internet says that was a russian orthodox priest not one of your commie sympathizing central american catholic types you had in the 80s.

[Penfold]

I'm still hoping it's leading to a super wheat monster that the gang have to defeat by working together.

Just as you think all hope is lost, on the horizon, it's Gideon piloting a plane, Martha jumps out to cut the wheat monster's head off.

BUT THEN

Nina's hand bursts out of the ground.

SEASON 6!

I still love this show but I like to save up two episodes to watch together, and then have nothing to say about it.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Very much a setup season for whatever's coming up, but it's looking like next week could be a crazy fucking episode.

It's been a really odd season, I liked it a lot but don't have much to say about any of it, very inward looking. The way it's zoned in on how pointless and/or actively harmful their work is has been pretty great and bringing back Margo Martindale helps a lot too.
Phillip seems like he's completely done with it all altogether at this point, Matthew Rhys has been quietly great again.

[hewantstolurkatad]

The transition Paige has had this season has been pretty impressive, she's turning into a mini Elizabeth.

So that was a much smaller and bleaker season finale than I expected, seems like they've a very clear idea of where they're going with season 6 but it definitely isn't going to involve the Jennings in Russia at this stage from what I can see. They've set up a lot of pieces in this season (in particular Stan's woman, that russian dude that's married to the informant and Phillip's son) that will have to be resolved.

Not expecting any kind of time jump between this season and the start of the next, and with Henry firmly past his growth spurt they don't really have to worry about anything in that regard anyway.

[Penfold]

I've been avoiding this thread as I've been watching episodes in groups and saved the last two to watch together.

I really enjoyed this season, I kept waiting for something to keep them there and I was incredibly uneasy during the mid-episode montage with Elton John song. Got slightly teary with Martha in the playground, even though I've only just remembered her name.

Tuan's a shitbag.

[Dex Sawash]

The final ep was disappointing.  Hasn't left me with anxiously awaiting any outcomes.

Is Oleg safe from US pressure now? I kind lost the plot there. I know there is some unspecified danger from The KGB inquiry.

[hewantstolurkatad]

I've been avoiding this thread as I've been watching episodes in groups and saved the last two to watch together.

I really enjoyed this season, I kept waiting for something to keep them there and I was incredibly uneasy during the mid-episode montage with Elton John song. Got slightly teary with Martha in the playground, even though I've only just remembered her name.

Tuan's a shitbag.

I thought that montage fell flat on its arse, using an overly familiar song is a risk that rarely pays out with that kind of thing (see also: this week's Leftovers)

The final ep was disappointing.  Hasn't left me with anxiously awaiting any outcomes.

Is Oleg safe from US pressure now? I kind lost the plot there. I know there is some unspecified danger from The KGB inquiry.

They had literally no incentive to do a season finale style episode, definitely underwhelming but I can imagine it's hard to muster the energy to do one when you've got 90% of your focus on the end of the next season already.

Oleg is presumably at risk from Stan exposing him to that woman? I know they kept it ambiguous but they certainly seemed to be implying she's a spy and if she is, the info derived from Oleg relating to him would presumably be a big factor in why they'd target Stan specifically.