Mr. and Mrs. Teacup

Another brutal episode for Elizabeth.

The Americans have always been very careful about presentation. How scenes are shot, the careful and calculated way the spies talk. Give just enough information and always listen carefully. I bring this up now because of how stark the portrayal is between Elizabeth and Philip compared to how they used to be shown. They are almost always filmed physically far apart now. In the opening, after Philip comes home after meeting Oleg, Elizabeth comes in from having a cigarette. They have a conversation from opposite sides of the kitchen.

I find this to be the hardest part of the show to watch. We’re constantly shown how far Elizabeth and Philip have grown apart. The work ruined Philip psychologically, leaving the entire burden on Elizabeth. They have different ideas on communism vs capitalism now. They aren’t on the same side any longer and that’s even split their kids down the middle. Elizabeth tends to Paige and Henry is with Philip.

When they are in bed and Elizabeth coldly refers to Henry as Philip’s problem, I never thought I’d hear that. It was one of the bleakest things she’s ever said. There’s a wall between them in that entire scene and Philip tries multiple times to get through (whether that’s done through love of his wife or will of his mission is questionable but I do think it’s out of love) and it was hard to watch. He tries talking to her, touching her, making an effort to turn back the clock to when they operated as one. It leads to another hard line from Elizabeth: “I’m tired all of the time.” That says it all.

With Henry away at school and Paige in the thick of things, that puts Paige front and center of her parents falling apart. They openly fight, it’s so bad they can’t really hide it. With the stress of the spy game not being enough, this poor girl is being turned into knots over her parents feuding over her continued role spying with her mother. When it starts up, Paige immediately wants to leave, to try and stem her parent’s fight but Philip storms out saying it doesn’t matter, there’s no use in them talking about what’s going on so she should stay to talk to her mother. Paige had recently dug up info on someone she thinks could be a source and her mother flags her down from it. She’s not ready to make a source, she hasn’t had the necessary training. If she’s attracted to this guy, then you go for a normal relationship, you can’t have a real relationship be a source. It doesn’t work. So where do we leave Paige? She’s slept with the guy after a dinner party and she’s eyeing his work badge. She’s conflicted about what to do next. I don’t think she knows what to do and I can only hope she doesn’t make a massive mistake.

Henry’s bad news is that he probably won’t be returning to his school for his senior year. In the first episode of this season, I wrote that Philip had made great gains with the travel agency, but it turns out he expanded way too fast. The business didn’t take off and the loan he took out to make it happen is now crushing him. While Philip has the joys of beer, food, and line dancing, he now knows the American past time of debt.

Elizabeth goes on another mission to get the radiation detector using the security info she got from the guy she killed last week. It ends in a complete failure with no detector and three dead. Bad luck? Sloppy, rushed planning again or bad luck? It’s a disaster either way. And as a side note, this might have been the worst shot action scene in the entire series. I could barely see anything it was so dark.

Kimberly comes home from school and meets up with Philip’s “Jim” persona. They catch up a bit, Philip giving her no new information on what “Jim” is up to now and she tells him that she’s going to Greece for Thanksgiving which means the wealth of  information they’ve been getting from the bug on her father is about to be cut off right when Elizabeth needs it. There’s nothing Philip can do about it and Elizabeth gets mad which makes her push the limits…

It’s time for the World Series and the Haskard’s have friends throwing a party. When Elizabeth finds out who is going to be there (the perfect opportunity to catch Glen Haskard and the Soviet she’s been tasked to watch on the summit negotiation team), she pushes them to go. Erica think’s she’s too sick to go (she’s right) but Elizabeth lies through her teeth (I’ve taken much sicker people than you for a night out) to convince them to go. Elizabeth is desperate for a win and she’s now taking crazy risks to get one. She’s rewarded with vomit from Erica (“I shouldn’t be here!”) and another complete failure: the bug she had put on Glenn caught him talking with the Soviet but the conversation was stopped when Erica got sick. Elizabeth is secretly tormenting this family for no reason. Oddly enough the one thing Elizabeth did get from Erica was the message “I wish I spent more time with my husband.”

Also, I’ve been waiting for this for years and it’s now going to happen. The world of the Jennings spy family and their FBI neighbor, Stan, are coming into direct contact. The defection of Sofia and Gennadi has put HQ on high alert. Gennadi has got to go, he’ll be a propaganda nightmare for the Soviet Union. They think they’ve tracked down Stan as one of his handlers so he’s the key to get to Gennadi. Claudia gives Elizabeth the mission to follow Stan to get Gennadi’s location.

The fight between progress and the status quo has made a soup of misery for Elizabeth and Philip. Things are getting worse for the both of them with no relief in sight. How far will Philip go to stop her? How much can Elizabeth use Paige effectively and good lord is Paige going to get herself caught or killed on her own? Will Stan end up being the one to expose the Jennings’ after all this time? With how well Elizabeth’s missions have been going it’s impossible to see her pulling this one off.