Previously on The Americans: Elizabeth's mother
is dying back in Russia, Philip is attempting to
arrange a trip for Elizabeth to visit her mother
one last time, and Paige knows that her parents
are Russian spies and is having trouble
adjusting.
Now that Paige knows that her parents are spies, a lot of
viewers have to be wondering a number of things.
Will she tell Pastor Tim? Will she tell Henry?
Will she tell Agent Beeman? A lot of the
questions that fans have to be asking themselves
go like this. Those who suspected that Pastor Tim
would be the first person that Paige revealed her
parents' secret to were in for a treat on last
Wednesday's episode as their suspicions were
almost confirmed. I enjoyed this scene because it
was extremely well balanced. Philip and Elizabeth
had their concerns, but they, luckily, didn't
react like they would have if someone like Hans
went rogue the way Paige did. My favorite scene
of the episode, however, was what came directly
afterwards. Philip, Elizabeth, and Paige's discussion
in the garage was very revealing about Paige's
state of mind. She doesn't despise her parents,
but she is having difficulty processing the
information. Paige's main difficulty in all of
this is deciding what about her life is real and
what is a lie. I'm really hoping that Paige gets
to meet her grandmother in the next episode so
that she has a way of seeing that it's not all a
lie!
Paige and Martha are in very different
situations, obviously, but both of them have to
be experiencing parallel feelings of betrayal. It
will be interesting to see how Martha
reacts to the influx of new information on who
Clark really is. Martha certainly
responded with shock upon Philip's reveal that he
had been wearing a wig the entire time. Will you
miss the Clark wig as much as I will? Overall, I've been extremely pleased with the progression of Martha's story this year. Finding the bug was a major game changer and the wig reveal was huge. I'm amazed at how the writers continue to find perfectly plausible ways to include Martha in this show.
Over at the FBI, things are getting pretty tense
with Walter Taffet's investigation seeming to go
nowhere. The only person who has a clue about
anything, Agent Aderholt, suspects Stan could
have placed the bug. It's funny to me that he
suspects Stan as a result of his obvious
infidelity, but is completely blind to Martha's
nervousness and double life. Stan's story has
been all over the place this season. First, he
was struggling with his divorce, then he was
romancing a woman from the EST group, then he was
playing video games with Henry, and now I'm not entirely sure what he is doing. It's like the
writers have no clue what to do with him.
As great as The Americans is, Stan Beeman's story
really needs an upgrade in the season finale.
Philip and Elizabeth's mission this week was
really quite interesting. The Americans is not
the type of show that you can watch while you
read your Twitter newsfeed; it requires close
attention and this story line was no different.
It took me 2 complete viewings to completely
understand what was going on. Their conversation
with Abassin Zadran was fantastically
entertaining. Slowly convincing him that he
needed to kill the rest of his group was an
interesting and entertaining method of getting the job done. This brings to close a season long arc that started with the death of Annelise. While I enjoyed the cloak and dagger aspect of this story, it was particularly difficult to follow this season so I was glad to see it come to an exciting end.
This week also featured the return of one of this
show's best characters, Margo Martindale's
Claudia! While I wasn't extremely thrilled by the
single and uneventful scene that she was in, it was fun to see
her and Gabriel interact without Philip or
Elizabeth present. Deciphering Gabriel's true
intentions has been difficult this season and
while I've always tended to believe that Gabriel
was more dedicated to the Centre than Paige, it
was great to see him stand up for her in this
episode. Gabriel and Claudia are an interesting pair of characters that I hope to see share more scenes next season.
9.4/10 - This was a very good episode. I enjoyed Phillip and Elizabeth's mission and was happy to see that story come to some sort of a conclusion. Gabriel and Claudia's scene involved a lot more setup than actual action, but was enjoyable. RIP Clark wig.
Comrades, the season finale is next!! I can't believe this season has gone by so fast!
