Amber Waves

The wait is finally over, The Americans are back on! Let’s dig into the best show on television.

First, how awesome is that poster above?

The end of last season was intense. The heat was so high on the Russian spies that fleeing the country was a real possibility. We come back in not too long after William’s death. Philip and Elizabeth are on to a brand new mission. They’re posing as a family with an adopted Filipino son who becomes friends with a new Russian student (I think they’re around 16 years old). The kid’s father is none too kind to the motherland and it looks like Phil and Elizabeth are meant to get close to find out if the father is a danger to Russia. The adopted son is a gung-ho recruit. He’s all about the mission and is intense about his immediate dislike for the father.

On the side character front, Oleg’s request to be moved back to Russia has been granted so Stan is out a contact. On the Stan front, nothing seems to be really buzzing at the FBI hive and he’s trying to move on from the divorce. He’s pretty stoked about “meeting” a woman at the gym and he’s happy that his son Matt has Paige in his life.

So the threat of Paige slipping around Matt is very real. Phil and Elizabeth don’t want Paige to date Matt and them telling her so just makes her mad and pushes her towards Matt. It also doesn’t help that since they are away so much on the new mission, Paige and her brother Henry are at Stan’s all the time. But there’s more to them being in love (which Paige quickly downplays to her parents) she’s been greatly affected by being attacked with her mother last year and seeing Elizabeth kill the guy. She worries for her parents all the time, is afraid of being alone and isn’t sleeping. So the immediate concern is her being with Matt but Elizabeth takes the right path. She’ll deal with her daughter’s insecurities and fear first. She teaches Paige basic defense and she learns fast. She’ll work up to dealing with the Matt issue in time.

Finally, Gabriel meets up with them and tells them what happened to William.

“He’s a hero.”

“Maybe he’ll get a stamp.”

There’s another mission involving the location where William was taken. Cut to them sneaking into the facility with a few other spies. They’re digging through the middle of the night looking for something and finally (a good 8-10 feet down) find a heavy duty metal case. They open it up and that’s no case, it’s a coffin. It’s William’s body. Having injected himself with the bioweapon, his body contains the sample that Russia still wants. The cut a piece of his leg out, seal it up in a bag and hand it off to a guy standing next to the hole. The guy falls in and cuts himself on the edge of the coffin and he’s basically splayed out on gaping hole William. They tell him it’s cool and to climb out. He heads up and like the true professional, Elizabeth caps him.

Great comeback to my favorite show. It’s as sharp and interesting as ever. They’re moving Paige’s story in a logical way and this new mission with the father could lead to a lot of things. Stan and the FBI are subdued for now. It’s just a matter of time until that fan gets turned back on. Really like the scene with Stan telling Phil about the woman, added some much-needed levity and normalcy. Now the question is, are they going to get Henry aware of anything this season or keep him shoved to the side? He’s so far out of the loop he might as well be in another state. Thought: with the worry being that Paige will open up to Matt, what if she tips off her brother instead?

XXXIV

An episode of being overwhelmed and packed with action. Right from the start, things look bleak. 12 Spanish ships off the coast, likely with 1,000 men on board. And Rogers lets them in.

A series of stands, scrambles, and retreats, this week was a bad one for the pirates. Any kind of advantage they had is lost.

Bones gets punished at the Underhill estate before Silver finds out that the Spanish are coming and Silver gives his reasons for siding with Flint instead of him. Appropriately, Bones is pissed. Then the leader of the slave rebellion, Julius, meets Flint and they discuss pushing the revolution forward.

The frontal assault on the Nassau harbor pounds the place into splinters and sends any survivors fleeting. As word spreads across the island that the Spanish are invading, plans for survival are hastily put together. The move with the biggest payoff: Max’s partner has the smarts to pack up a ship and GTFO before the Spanish move in. It proves to be a life saver later on.

Max finds Jack and she goes with him onto the boat they took over thanks to Anne. She sees Anne, broken and beaten and while she tries to apologize, Anne wants nothing to do with the traitor (something Jack brought up when the first met).

Now Rogers has come in with the Spanish and he gets a bad feeling that he’s brought way more firepower and rage than he should have. Once on Nassau, he witnesses the mayhem Then, he finds out the Eleanore isn’t with his people, that she left with an escort hours ago (with Flint). He has no idea where she is and he’s brought war to the island. In an effort to keep her safe he talks to the commander about keeping her unharmed when she’s found and he’s told there’s no stopping this. Rogers sold the idea to Spain by telling the Governor to burn everything to the ground. In doing so, he thought Eleanore would be safe with his people and now that she’s not, he has to find before anyone else does.

Flint is with Madi and Eleanore and a few men when they see a Spanish patrol. They flee to the Barlow house, a place that was visited quite a bit in the beginning of the series. This safe place is soon discovered by the Spanish and it’s defended but Flint and a few others go off to chase down a few men to keep reinforcements from coming back. Eleanore refuses to believe that Rogers had anything to do with the Spanish showing up.

Underhill gets attacked in an epic fight scene. The first wave proves to be a distraction from a sneak attack from the rear. Many are lost and the pirates have to retreat into a building and only survive because Julius shows up with reinforcements. But that was just a fraction of the Spanish force.

In the most shocking scene of the episode, one of the original attackers at the Barlow house wasn’t killed and gets into the house. In a brutal fight, the man gravely injures Madi with a blow to the head and Eleanore barely manages to kill the man. She too is gravely injured as the house catches fire.

Flint returns with Eleanore dying outside of the house. She says she tried to get Madi out, but couldn’t. She dies in Flint’s arms, believing that Rogers isn’t with the Spanish. Flint returns to Silver and he’s devastated by Madi’s death. Everyone at Underhill has been rocked and Spanish reinforcements are coming. The pirates have to flee. Flint takes over, he orders everyone to the beach.

Out on the ocean, Jack patiently waits to see if survivors appear, despite the danger of being spotted by the Spanish. In the only good part for Max, her right-hand man thanks her for standing by him. Before this, Max thought she had nothing. With Nassau overrun and Anne beaten, Max is crushed. So much sacrificed for no return. Flint shows up on the beach and Jack picks them up.

Rogers, once hell bent on revenge finds the personal results for his actions. Eleanore dead.

Crushed Max turns her sorrow into rage. With everything gone, everyone hurt or dead, she won’t stand for it. In an epic moment, she confronts Jack about being a meathead in fighting society from the outside in. He calls her a traitor that’s lucky to be alive and she counters with a plan. When Flint goes south to Madi’s home, they will go north to Eleanore’s grandfather. She’s going to make Rogers pay.

When Flint and Silver reach land they find out why the Urca treasure was never sent and that word of Nassau has fallen has reached other colonies, both pirate and slave have shown up in support. The rebellion is not over.

This episode had it all. Great set up, great action, some incredible character moments and the parting gift of knowing that all hope isn’t gone. Eleanore and Madi being killed in this episode as they did came as a major surprise to me. Eleanore and Madi talked a lot with each before their end and it brought both of their lives into a great perspective (Madi especially as she came into the show proper much later). For as easy as it was to wish Eleanore taken out for all she’s done I found it to be bitter sweet. Sacrifice so much for nothing in return.

In the end, I think I came fully around to Taboo. The last two episodes in particular were really good as there was plenty of payoff.

Tom Hardy is the draw to the show and he anchored it down in every scene he’s in,  the dude is intense. One of my favorite scenes is when Chichester goes to Delaney’s house to get information on the slave ship. Delaney is really sporadic, slinking low in his chair and he otherwise looks like a mess. He offers to leave and come back later but Delaney tells him to stay because, as we know having watched him for 7 episodes, that he’s always like this and there will never be a better time for them to talk. Hardy can play a maniac like very few others can. He makes it look believable and manages to keep from going overboard.

The show offers more than just a great main character. Strange makes for a great foil (as Jonathan Price often does) and Atticus had a great look to him. I didn’t like Lorna Bow when she was first introduced but she really grew on me and she has one of the best arcs on the show. Suprisingly, Delaney’s sister Zilpha, didn’t. Her story ends with episodes to go and she floats into the rest like an afterthought. I thought the title of the show mainly referred to her and Delaney but by the end, it didn’t seem like that at all. Oh and on another downside, I have to mention Prince Regent. Not the actor or the character, but the terrible makeup. Every scene he’s in is distracting because he looks so off. A terrible fat suit and prosthetic face makeup that doesn’t look anatomically correct. In the last episode, there is a close up of his face that really puts it over the edge. The makeup is so thick that despite the clean edges around his nose, under his eyes and above his cheekbones, you can clearly see where the prosthetic begins. He talks and his cheeks don’t move at all let alone move like flesh (especially weird looking because it’s supposed to be chubby cheeks). It’s clearly a mound of what I’m pretty sure is foam latex.

So what was the show about? I’m not sure. Clearly Delaney, but that’s awfully simple and I feel like missed something. Saying Delaney is damaged is an understatement so it’s hard to navigate his motivation and traumas (that are often visually represented as hyper-edited dreams/hallucinations. He was underestimated by everyone in every capacity and each step of trying to take him down by Strange and the rest of the East India Company. Through extensive build up (most of the show really) he proves to be incredibly smart, extremely wealthy and can take a beating that would make Superman want to take a day off. There was closure with the major plot points, though. A satisfying battle at the end brought every major player into the road and dealt with. Delaney got most of what he wanted and overall I liked the end.

Now, will there be a second season? The end was written as an opening for more and as a pretty complete conclusion if the show didn’t get picked up for more. I have yet to see anything about a season 2, but I feel invested and interested enough in Delaney to check out more.

Edit 3/10/17: Second season is confirmed.

XXXIII

Looking back to episode 4, it was pretty stupid to think that Eleanore’s plan would work. The whole thing hinged on Rogers doing what she wanted, based on love and we knew from last year that he questioned her loyalty since she had been on Nassau for so long. Maybe if she told him that she was pregnant with his child it might have given his decision more consideration (maybe, he’s pretty cold blooded).

So the plan. Fork over the Urca gold (the central McGuffin for the first half of the series) to get control of Nassau and avoid a nasty battle that could very well be a loss in the end. Eleanore and Flint are all in. Silver is shocked and Madi sides with going for it because Bone’s earlier betrayal threw the slave allegiance into chaos. With her people getting brutalized so much already, she doesn’t think they have enough support to even try to fight. Bones is absolutely against it for a list of very good reasons. That leaves Silver stuck in the middle.

While pondering being trapped in giving his word to so many people, Silver doesn’t know what to do. Hands, his right-hand man and killer extraordinaire wants to hear exactly no belly aching. The only leader he will follow is one who will make a decision and stick with it.

Rogers had every intent of rolling up onto that beach and killing some pirates. Getting the message from Eleanore about her plan makes him change course but in a direction that Eleanore and Flint never thought of.

So Flint wants to pay him off with the Urca treasure? For him to take a hike with Eleanore and float off to wherever. The treasure that they stole from the Spanish. In a rather brilliant move, Rogers leaves Nassau but doesn’t go to the port that Eleanore asked (told, in his interpretation) him to go to. He goes to Cuba and tries to get Spain to help. At first, he’s basically laughed off but when he mentions the Urca gold to the Governor, that gets his attention. Rogers is smart. He knew asking for help wasn’t going to work. So he made it personal for them.

The Urca gold is being brought out of hiding to Nassau per the plan. And it turns out that Silver makes the decision to side with Eleanore and Flint. He throws Bones under the bus in doing so but makes Hands spare his life at the last moment. Bones has been through some brutal stuff in the series and this might be the worst of it. I didn’t like seeing Bones get betrayed (especially when he’s been right more than wrong).

Jack makes it back to Nassau (zero word on Anne) and runs into Flint waiting for the Urca treasure on an isolated beach away from the fort. When Flint fills him in on the plan, Jack fills him in on reality. He has no idea who Rogers is and neither does Eleanore. They’ve completely underestimated him and from what he’s seen Rogers due (RIP Teach) he’s certain that Rogers didn’t go tuck his tail when he left. He’s coming back.

So, stupid Eleanore and Rogers, the two biggest instigators and backstabbers on the show, have probably screwed every single person on Nassau. They have a way bigger problem than Rogers sitting off shore now. He’s got Spain rolling in with him and they are rolling deep. Max is the first to see it with a spyglass in the fort. I hope she drop kicks Eleanore over a barrel.

Action wise this episode was quiet but the set up for the last half of the season has escalated things to unseen levels on Black Flag.