Photo courtesy of avclub.com

“What are we going to do about Paige?” 

Yes, Philip, that is the question. Philip and Elizabeth’s marriage has hit another rough patch; this time, over what may the most important decision in their lives apart from their original choice to live in America. Paige has become a smart, independent young teenager, with a growing awareness of the world’s wrongs. Is that enough to get to her join the Soviets against her home country? It’s the central question to this season, and one that the show could potentially take in either direction. There’s a whole host of plotlines to delve into if Paige joins the Soviets, but if she doesn’t, then it’s very likely she’ll at least know about her parents’ life and might work against them.

The main plotline in “Open House” follows the attempts of the Jenningses to find some way into the United States’ Afghanistan program, using one of the people they took pictures of at the bar the episode previous. Gabriel lays out the problems with most of them, leaving only one conceivable option: a recently divorced man named Paaswell. The two pose as a couple looking to buy Paaswell’s house, allowing Philip to slip in and plant bugs on their new target. They discover that 1. he’s depressed – Elizabeth: “If he starts singing he’s done” — and 2. he may be on the precipice of a sexual encounter with his young babysitter. Before the two can fully digest this information, they’re caught in one of the worst traps yet. They’re being tailed by the CIA, only one at a time, but with a whole host of other cars waiting around every corner.

What follows is the tensest, yet slowest car chase of the series, in which every face in the crowd could be and likely is an enemy. They escape — because of course they have to — but only barely, and Elizabeth and Philip’s happy-to-be-alive-and-free kiss is interrupted by Elizabeth’s mouth pain. Wordlessly, the two decide to engage in some impromptu-dentistry in the laundry room. It’s another gruesome scene, maybe not as bad as breaking a corpse’s limbs to stuff her in a suitcase, but definitely close. Yet what’s strongest about the scene is the expressions of the two: Elizabeth’s complete trust, Philip’s grim determination, both viewed in tight close-ups, lingering on their eyes.

In the Soviet embassy corner, Nina is absent, but Oleg’s father has requested he return home to Russia. It’s never blatantly stated that this is his price for saving Nina, but the unspoken bargain hangs over Oleg’s decision. Should he surrender everything he’s worked for and return the harsh cold land he wanted so badly to leave? Arkady — again demonstrating his decency — gives Oleg the choice, and ultimately, he decides to stay. What does this mean for Nina? Does Oleg know that his decision might put her life in more danger?

The complex relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States and the people who live in the opposite country is obviously a profoundly important theme in the entire show. Some, like Elizabeth and Arkady, view America as a corrupt place they just have to live in for the good of their own country. Some, like Oleg and Zinaida, find certain aspects of its extravagance appealing, even if there’s a rotting heart underneath. Yet, as the opening theme suggests, the two nations are more similar than either will admit. They’re both powerful nations indoctrinating their citizens against the other, enslaved to their overarching ideologies, willing to put their people at risk for power grabs, and unafraid of meddling in other nations to forward their own goals. Zinaida proves Stan’s point that “people love being told they’re right” on another talk show. As Stan watches from behind the camera, saddened at what Zinaida’s been forced to become, she says just what America wants to hear: the Soviet Union is an evil force, corrupting the Middle East, where America is swooping in to save. One could imagine an American defector in the Soviet Union giving the same speech to a crowd of Russians. 

They’d both be equally right.

The distinctly American theme of rampant consumerism runs through “Open House” from beginning to end. From commercials endless conflating business pedigree with American-ness, to the overstuffed toy room of Paaswell’s house — “It’s impossible to not buy your kids whatever they want” — the Jenningses are reminded again how alien this world is, how the values of American excess clash with the Soviet ideology. Elizabeth views it as a weak, corrupting influence, fearing what will happen to her children if they give into a world of useless ease and pleasure. Philip, though likely disdaining parts of it as well, wants his kids to have an easy life, even if they’re weaker for it. After all, the strong are putting their lives at risk. The weak are safe.

Maybe that’s why Philip finds it so disconcerting that Paige isn’t upset by her parents “working late” all the time. She’s used to it. She’s fine. She’s not as weak as he thought.

Tidbits:

  • Martha appears briefly here, attempting to convince Clark to become foster parents for children. It’s hard to imagine why she stays in the marriage with Clark’s constant gruffness. It looks like apart from the sex, he’s completely given up trying to sustain Martha’s affections. All the while that gun sits in her dresser, just waiting to be fired…
  • Can I take a moment again to point out how much I like Arkady? He’s like the father figure Oleg wished he had.
  • Henry Watch: Hey, Henry was in the episode, apparently keeping a photo of Sandra Beeman in a bikini in his room. Ah, Henry; he’s growing up.

On last week’s The Americans…

The Americans, “Baggage”

Baggage, as a social term, usually denotes a host of problems from the past, problems that despite our best intentions tend to resurface. Yet in this episode, it seems more of a literal term, in that everyone in the episode is in a bag or box of some kind — many literal, many metaphorical.

A woman comes out of a box, alive. Somewhere not so far away, a woman goes into a box, dead. Two women are trapped in a prison cell, and two Soviet spies are trapped in their own memories and hopes. 

The Soviet plotline begins with the most grotesque scene The Americans has ever created. Calling up Elizabeth to help, the Jenningses proceed to break and dislocate the recently-dead corpse of Anneliese so that her various pieces can fit inside a large suitcase and be safely wheeled away. It’s a horrifying scene, especially coupled with the sounds of bones and joints popping and snapping. Yousef looks on in horror at the whole process, all caused by his own hands. Philip’s face is — as usual — composed, but this was a woman that he loved in some way, and even worse, a woman who would still be alive if not for him.

More than anything else, Anneliese’s death makes Philip even more resolutely against Paige’s recruitment into the Soviet Union. The idea of her putting someone into a suitcase — or worse, being the person put in the suitcase — is antithetical to everything he believes. Yet as Philip’s resolve grows firmer, Elizabeth’s does as well. Her entire life was hard and difficult, full of sacrifices for her country. While Philip’s spy activities seem more of him simply attempting to live the life he’s been dealt, Elizabeth is passionately fighting for her country in the way she was trained. It would be an honor for her if Paige joined them, especially given Paige’s growing awareness of and sensitivity to the many injustices of America.

The American plotline involves Zinaida Preobrazhenskaya (Svetlana Efremova), a Soviet defector with a love of American chocolate, plucked from Russia via box and breathing apparatus. The Americans parade her around, using her as propaganda against the Soviets’ involvement in Afghanistan despite also meddling in the region themselves. She seems almost painfully naïve, hoping to experience the wonders of the American life she’s researched for so long, innocently asking Stan if he really thinks someone will try to kill her.

The episode continues its parallels of women trapped and discarded in two scenes involving two men who both loved a woman who is dead or near death because of both of them. Philip and Yousef meet at an indoor pool and reminisce about Anneliese a conversation made darkly ironic by the fact that Yousef killed her and Philip put her in the position to be killed and helped her murderer. Yousef appears genuinely saddened, but his quick thinking and precarious position make it all the more likely that he’ll be able to escape Philip’s trap at some point.

The next scene features Oleg cornering Stan in an alley, gun in hand. He’s broken, already mourning Nina’s fate, and ready to take it out on the man responsible. He wants Stan to beg and face death in humility. But Stan’s life isn’t going so well anyway. His wife and son have left him, he’s sent the other woman he loved to labor and die in the cold of the Soviet Union, and his work continues to ensnare him. “You’ll have to shoot me in the back,” he tells Oleg, fully believing that he will be shot soon. He turns and walks, believing each step to be his last and waiting for that burst of pain. Yet none comes, and the rushing punch of near-death sends him reeling. Stan goes to meet with Sandra, but despite his words to contrary, he tries to reconnect with her. “You’re the only one I want to tell.”

Noah Emmerich usually portrays Beeman with a quiet resilience, a usually monotone voice and only a reoccurring twitch to show his inner turmoil. Yet he puts on the best performance of his tenure on the show here as a flawed man who has nearly no one else but himself to blame for his problems, who’s nonetheless crushed by everything he’s lost. It’s hard not to feel for him here. 

If there’s a flaw in this episode, it’s in the C-plot of Nina and her new Belgian roommate in the Soviet prison. Certain other shows — namely Homeland — take a nosedive in quality when they tried to keep on characters that had run their course, narratively speaking. It’s too early to tell if Nina’s prison tales will fall into this category, and given The Americans’ track record, we should give the show the benefit of the doubt. Yet if her side-story doesn’t tie up well with the rest of the show it will have been a mistake.

Already this season is juggling more plotlines than the previous two seasons, and as a result the past two episodes have felt significantly fractured. “Baggage” at times seems to just be the 45-minute compilation of the next plot points in the overall story rather than a cohesive episode in itself. Hopefully this is just the growing pains of an evolving show, and not a sign of future episodes taking on more than they can safely carry. 

Tidbits:

  • Elizabeth’s hurt jaw is so definitely going to come into play. Can she drive many hours to another state to get it looked at?
  • Who else thinks Yousef is going to betray them? He did kill Anneliese, but he blames Philip for putting him in the situation.
  • Henry Watch: Hey, Henry was in the episode, proudly declaring his allegiance to Coca-Cola College.