The Americans, “I Am”
There comes a moment in adolescence when you realize that the world isn’t always a great place and that your parents aren’t impeccable paragons of goodness or even (usually) complete monsters. They’re human, and the world itself is just as full of contradictions and lies and intricate webs of meaning and truth.
This season has been all about this moment in Paige’s life, and now that she’s opened the Pandora’s box of her parents’ real identities, she’s drowning in all the changes to her life. She might seem irrational to us viewers at times, but keep in mind that the entire anchor of her life has been cast away. Her parents say they’re her real parents and Henry is her real brother, but how can she really know? Everything, down to her parents’ friends and family, has all been constructed by the very nation her entire world is telling her is evil. It’s hard to blame her for wanting a brief escape to her pastor’s house, just to get away from the haze of lies that infects her house.
“I am Abassin Zadran” parallels Paige’s newfound knowledge with Martha’s – yet another woman struggling to understand that her world’s foundation rests on hundreds of lies. She also wants to run away, retreat for a time back to a place where people are who they say they are, where people she thought she loved don’t pull off their wigs like an alien pulling off his face.
Paige and Martha both have to pick up the pieces of their worldviews because of lies that Phillip has told them while also trying to survive the danger that this new knowledge puts them in. Paige doesn’t know it, but she’s being eyed by the Soviets as a potential new recruit. The show’s wisely made it so that we’re still not sure if she would or could, eventually, drift over to the Communist side. She hasn’t even confronted her parents about the beliefs and ideologies of their motherland.
Martha’s in more immediate danger. She can’t go to work every day at the FBI while staring for minutes straight into her coffee cup, afraid that someone (or everyone) knows that she put in the bug, that she was duped by a suave spy into a sham of a marriage, that she betrayed her country under the belief that she was serving her country. Stan even stops by to visit, snooping around for evidence of, even if he doesn’t know it, Phillip’s presence. There’s a moment when Martha calls her parents that practically screams suicide. We know she has a gun, and she breaks down crying throughout the conversation, all while saying she’s definitely fine and just wants to hear their voice. But she’s too strong for that, thankfully.
Sometimes amidst the character dramas and relationships of The Americans, it’s hard to remember that there’s a spy show going on at the same time. The show usually clouds its spy plotlines in mystery, so that we’re not quite sure what’s going on as wig-clad Phillip and Elizabeth trot around with false identities, attaching wires, faking smiles, sneaking into rooms.
Yet they definitely succeed in this episode, causing the titular Abassin Zadran to flip on his fellow Mujahedeen in a decidedly violent fashion on just the whiff of info that they might be preventing him from gaining the Americans weapons. It’s a chilling reminder of the millions of people and cultures that both American and the Soviet Union weaponized and used as tools to fight their proxy war, and all the deep, horrific impacts of their decisions we’re still feeling today.
All the while, Phillip and Elizabeth seem convinced that they can maneuver their way into earning Elizabeth (and Paige!?!) a trip to Russia to see Elizabeth’s dying mother. Yet that seems incredibly difficult to pull off and increasingly unlikely without them making an equally large concession. Either the show is going to head to Russia for the Jenningses plot next season or (more likely) this plan is going to fall through, and the already irritated agents of Directorate S are going to lash out at their handlers.
Speaking of handlers, we see the return of Claudia, this time holding hands with Gabriel in a diner. Are these two the future of Elizabeth and Phillip? They’re definitely one possible future, though one that seems more far-reaching with every episode. Claudia drops the fact that the Soviets almost shut down the entire operation of Directorate S after the events of the last young boy they recruited, but they still want Gabriel to go through with his plans. It’s chilling to think of what “shut down” might have meant. Would they have killed all the Jenningses? Taken them back to Russia?
Throughout this season, Phillip has been feeling the strain of his lies and moral compromises more than anyone else. Elizabeth has been questioning her own unfaltering loyalty, and Paige and Martha’s worlds have been overturned. If Paige doesn’t want to join her parents’ nation, it looks like Phillip and Elizabeth will be at an impasse with Gabriel and a nation that won’t accept a no from Paige. Phillip has already stopped lying to both Paige and Martha, and it doesn’t look like he can handle much more. Phillip is dangerous when calm and collected; it’s terrifying to think of him in complete children-protection mode.
Tidbits
· What do we think of the possibility that the Soviets could turn around and try to recruit Henry? I think it’s a long shot, but that shot of him staring at the TV while his parents rush away was oddly disconcerting.
· For all the time I’ve spent discussing Paige, I don’t think the show is going to come to a conclusion on her plot anytime soon. She may become a bit more like her normal self, but I think her transformation into either a Soviet agent or someone against her parents needs to happen over the course of another season at least. However, I do think Martha’s story will end for better or worse with next week’s finale.
· In other news, Arkady Ivanovich wants to shut down the exploits of the Mail Robot, but Oleg and Tatiana manage to keep it alive. It doesn’t look like it’s getting much, but in the world of narrative television, it’ll only be a matter of time.
· There’s a lot of plot threads still blowing in the wind as of this finale: Paige’s allegiance, Martha’s fate, the Mail Robot, Zinaida’s plans, Nina in Russia, Walter Taffet’s investigation, Kimmy, the War in Afghanistan, Phillip’s other son, the potential trip to Russia, and many others I can’t think of. How are they going to fit so much into one episode?