TVLINE | Season 1 was very much about Philip and Elizabeth’s marriage, while Season 2 brought more of their family into focus. What’s the theme for Season 3?
JOE WEISBERG | We ended up there, as you see at the end of Season 2, with a little bit of a growing disagreement about what they’re going do with Paige. So it’s going continue to have a lot of focus on the family and what to do and growing divisions. Their marriage has been going very well, and they’re very much in love. What happens now when you have serious conflict with your partner about what to do and how to deal with raising your children?
TVLINE | Elizabeth and Philip were pretty united this season, compared to last season. But now they’re on opposing sides of this Paige issue.
JOEL FIELDS | That’s right. In the first season, the show was able to explore the question of marriage and what is marriage and is their marriage real after all these years? By the end of that first season, the question was answered with Elizabeth’s, “Come home.” The second season explored the challenges of them as a committed married couple dealing with the implications of their work and their lying on their children, their family life. What’s suggested for the third season that’s interesting to us is: Now what happens to people who are committed to being married who do want to make it work, who do love each other and yet, who find themselves [with] opposing world views about the most important thing in their lives? How do you get over that level of conflict in a marriage?
JOE WEISBERG | We ended up there, as you see at the end of Season 2, with a little bit of a growing disagreement about what they’re going do with Paige. So it’s going continue to have a lot of focus on the family and what to do and growing divisions. Their marriage has been going very well, and they’re very much in love. What happens now when you have serious conflict with your partner about what to do and how to deal with raising your children?
TVLINE | Elizabeth and Philip were pretty united this season, compared to last season. But now they’re on opposing sides of this Paige issue.
JOEL FIELDS | That’s right. In the first season, the show was able to explore the question of marriage and what is marriage and is their marriage real after all these years? By the end of that first season, the question was answered with Elizabeth’s, “Come home.” The second season explored the challenges of them as a committed married couple dealing with the implications of their work and their lying on their children, their family life. What’s suggested for the third season that’s interesting to us is: Now what happens to people who are committed to being married who do want to make it work, who do love each other and yet, who find themselves [with] opposing world views about the most important thing in their lives? How do you get over that level of conflict in a marriage?
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I really don't like that Philip and Elizabeth will be at odds again. And the song from the protest scene in stuck in my head now, but I can't remember what it was. Anyone else know?
ReplyDeleteWell I don't know if I ever really bought that their marriage was going "well", but I definitely felt like they fell onto the same page for a little while. To me this situation was inevitable, because I always felt like Elizabeth got joy and valued all of the wrong things and with Philip being much more compassionate, that there was no way this was going to work out for them unless one of them changed (hopefully Elizabeth). I don't think there would be a marriage if Philip wouldn't always try so so hard. There constantly at odds, but Philip just is more forgiving.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to see what happens to Paige, but I'm also wondering more and more about Martha...If she'll try and get pregnant anyways, or sometimes I wonder if she's a spy for another agency. Anyways hope season 3 isn't a season 1 redux and we get somewhere more interesting...
“Twilight Zone” by Golden Earring according to the reviews I read.
ReplyDeleteSeason 2 was very good in advancing the complexity and ramifications on Philip & Elizabeth for the life they've chosen: spies, liars, killers. There's real questions of morality that have to be dealt with--and I hope the show's writers understand that it runs deeper than a High School Afternoon Drama.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Elizabeth has been created as an unlikable character is really crucial to this moral dilemma: Mother's are routinely viewed as the "moral center" in families. And, the fact that Elizabeth, because of her job as a spy, struggles with finding her core moral values, is destructive to the entire family unit.
Other highlights from S2 that speak to the morality issue(s) are: Nina's back & forth loyalty between Stan & the Soviets, that ultimately led (I think) to her demise back in Moscow; Philip's attempts to avoid Elizabeth having sex with other men--which she did constantly in Season One; Stan as the show's True Villain--using Nina, then letting her go to her probable death; and, last and most dramatically, Jared the young boy who demonstrates that the Soviets' morality includes taking & turning children against their parents--and ordering a child to murder his own biological family.
All of these are moral issues, that seem to be using "The Americans" to explain why the Soviet system was so terrible. That it wasn't just about a different way of distributing wealth, of selecting leaders, of participating in society--but, that the Soviet system was, at it's core, immoral. It will be interesting to see if a 21st Century TV audience, that arguably, has no problem accepting shows & heroes with no moral compass, will be moved by this central theme of "The Americans."
Your last paragraph exactly!
ReplyDeleteBut I don't think the core audience just simply "accepts" everyone as Heroes or doesn't have a problem with immortality, but rather they either do think about it and/or understand that this is still a work of fiction, despite there is a lot of truth behind it....Shows like this are made so we can discuss them.
For me personally Elizabeth is the character that I can not connect with on any level, because her cause is always ahead of everything, which is why I don't buy the "good marriage" argument, as I expressed in my comment above.
Philip and Beesman I see as anti-heroes, because they both have compassion and find their affections for others is what really gets them in a mess. Philip I think realizes more and more how horrifically dangerous and perhaps even wrong things are, but unless he takes the kids and defects, he's stuck.
I think the show does show a corrupt U.S. too, but it's just no where near as deceptive and brainwashing as we see Russia perspective presented, granted we don't see a lot of American spies either, which I think would be an interesting thing. I also think just because we see immoral Russians, doesn't mean they can't turn around and become heroes or that the audience can't understand why people like Nina, Philip, Elizabeth, ect would come to believe in their cause, as this happens to a lot of repressed people. (and potentially maybe why people are kept repressed)
Although I agree it's immoral, I also can see it as just a different set of priorities for which anyone group of people believe they are living for, but I feel like if this show wants to say something about "what's really important", then Elizabeth has got to give somewhere or be cut from her family, because I don't think she puts them first, but her belief that Russian technology advancement is somehow going to help the everyday Russian people (or her family), when in fact all the cold war might have contributed to was an acceleration of a dooms day scenario by a mass wave of paranoia...
I think it's brave of the show runners to go back to the conflict well. But this time the conflict is of a very different nature than say the one in S1. Both love each other and are committed to each other but start to differ on how to move forward with regards to Paige. Could raise the show's emotional beats to an even higher level.
ReplyDeleteWhat if Philip is right about Paige? What if Elizabeth is right about Paige?
If they don't tell her anything and the Centre still comes after Paige (using a third party to lure her into the KGB ideology), what will they do? Better that the news comes from them rather than a third party (see what happened to Jared and his parents)
I know that Philip outright told Arkady that they're done if the Centre approached Paige without their permission but would the KGB simply put on hold its plans to ready a second generation of sleeper agents? I don't think so.
It's interesting because part of me wants them happy and cuddly, but part of me missed the conflict (just a little) of season one because less conflict seemed to equal less focus on the marriage. I like the idea of what they're talking about exploring because it's not an external conflict like an intruder into the marriage (an affair partner, like each of them had in season one), but both of them truly being committed to each other and having to figure out how to navigate internal conflict in differences in world view while loving the other person and wanting to be in a committed marriage with them. To me that's a lot different than the "let's pull the plug the moment things get dicey" immature stuff they pulled in season one, and a lot more interesting to watch. I will completely hate it if they go back to putting the relationship in danger of splitting, but will love it if the relationship is further tested as they have to figure out how to be individuals while also married.
ReplyDeleteI still feel that Stan is the Most Evil Person on the show: his actions throughout the two seasons have been violent, uncaring and immoral--he's Elizabeth's mirror image, but without the conflict that she is currently experiencing. Stan's lost of family (and maybe Nina) leaves him alone, with no life outside of his jihad against all things Soviet. He is a 1980s version of Javert from Les Miserables.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the "journey" that Elizabeth will likely take next season in order to "save" Paige from becoming another Jared, is to come to the realization that People come before Causes. That has always been Elizabeth's problem--but also what makes her an excellent KGB agent.
Beyond this season's finale, I believe that "The Americans" is the multiple year journey of the entire Jennings Family, that will not only lead to them becoming a true family, committed to each other--but also Real (not Fake) Americans.
I disagree. Stan I think is in a fog, because he's constantly confused about his own identity and what he exactly believes, as I think he represents a kind of depression with the idea of seeing the darker side of reality and not ever being able to go back to a the average more 'disney'-like reality that some people get to live in...He's numb and desperate to feel, but I don't find him evil, just flippant or occasionally careless.
ReplyDeleteWith Elizabeth she's just passionately cold and married to Russia, makes her good agent, but a terrible parent and/or friend.
As to your last sentence, I think it remains to be seen if there's a happily ever after here. I kind of think the kids will end up in witness protection and Philip will become a US "government consultant" for the FBI as part of some deal to protect his kids in relation to defecting, unless something gives with Elizabeth finally, but I think we could see them pinned against each other. And as I was saying about Stan, I think there may not be such thing as a "real" American, because reality is always subject to what one knows and/or believes the truth is and/or for what purpose one is living and there are some experiences that one can't always easily shake.