START

Wow.

I’ve been thinking about the finale since last night. I wasn’t sure about it because it wasn’t what I expected. That’s pretty brilliant. It was much quieter and subtle than I ever imagined. With how things have come together, and being the end of a spy series, I think the natural (and cliched) route to take for the writers would be tons of action and carnage.

What happened was the most important threads coming to a close in a dramatic and suspenseful way. A body count wasn’t necessary to get the point across. In fact, with so much death this season, the finale being made like this makes it much stronger.

I’ve been debating on how much spoiler talk to write here and I’m just going to the basic reveals because it’s impossible not to. This has to be watched to be fully appreciated so please do before reading any further.

The entire episode is the escape. Philip and Elizabeth are basically caught, their entire network exposed. So the tough choices come first: the kids.

I knew Henry was going to be left behind. There is no way they could have escaped with him and he’d be devastated on finding out why they were headed for Canada. Plus, they’d never get there in time. The kid is still being abandoned so it’s not like either choice made for a better outcome.

They go pick up Paige and that talk pretty much happened the way I thought it would.

There are a few showstopper scenes and those need to be discussed for all their brilliance. I can’t do these scenes justice in words so again, they must be watched to get all the context, substance, and sublime acting.

Stan follows his hunches and we finally get the confrontation scene. Alone in that parking garage, a lot goes down. I had no idea how this scene was going to end until it went to commercial. So brilliant. The Jennings trying to lie their way out of it and Stan’s sheer anger at all of it. He pulls a gun on Philip and the way he calls him a “fucking piece of shit” was riveting. Every single beat of this conversation was meticulous and brilliant. Philip imploring that despite everything, they were real friends. Paige doing her best to protect her family (she was quick to defend Henry, that he did, in fact, know nothing). Through the honest answers that had to come out, they still lied to try and push the scales in their favor. Any mention of murder (Sofia and Gennadi in particular) denied in shock. Philip did a hell of a lot to rationalize what he did (I thought what I was doing was right and when it all turned on me I stopped…and I went on to ruin my business).

There have been a lot of brutal scenes in The Americans, most of them violent. In this episode, devoid of any violence, the last phone call with Henry will sit with fans forever. That was one of the worst things to watch. Elizabeth and Philip trying to get their love across to him in the most restrained and careful way. Paige getting so upset that she couldn’t do it. The whole time, Henry not knowing this is the last time he will talk to them and simply wanting to get back to his friends playing ping pong. Ping pong! All of this going down and his greatest concern is ping pong!

The Jennings’ final meal in the United States: McDonald’s. Perfect. The shot with Philip leaving with the food and he sees the family of 4 eating together at a table. Perfect.

The riviting train sequence to get to Canada. They are all sitting seperately on the train and with each check of the fake passport the stomach clenches. The train starts to move, they’ve made it…and then they see Paige. She’s on the platform and the only thing they can do is watch their daughter glide by them. In the end, Paige choses to leave her parents. So shocked, Philip breaks protocol to sit with Elizabeth.

The very end. Arkady is there to pick them up. What life they have now is uncertain, but they make it back home. The stirring last words. Philip: It feels strange to be here. Elizabeth (in Russian): We’ll get used to it. All they have is each other now. Their bond is what kept them both alive and got them home, but I question if their marriage can survive this.

So much comes together in this finale it’s hard to articulate it all. Stan and the Jennings on opposite sides, there because of nationalism (patriotism is probably the better word) that closely match.  When it comes down it it, it’s Philip and Elizabeth’s love that gets them caught. Father Andrei was the only one to see them without disguises when he marries them which is how they get IDed.

Stan’s whole ordeal is fascinating. The betrayal he feels is so strong you can practically taste it. Philip and Paige’s pleas to take care of Henry and he ends up doing it. On the way out of the parking garage, Elizabeth doesn’t try to make a break for it. She could have totally run him over but she stops to let him choose let them go. Again, he puts his personal relationships above his professional duties. And he gets left with one more monster: Philip tells him that Renee might be like them, but he doesn’t know for sure. So is his wife an enemy? What does he do with that information? Philip can’t tell so how can he? That last shot of Renee is, you guessed it, perfect. For years we’ve been wondering about Renee and the show leaves us with the characters themselves wondering the same thing. She seemed to come in at a very convenient time, so suspicious that Philip picked up on it. But he never got any information that proved anything. He had to tell Stan to leave all his cards on the table, give Stan a chance not to be blindsided again.

The biggest success of The Americans is how they made anti-heroes. Philip and Elizabeth did horrible things. They are without a doubt criminals and deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison. And through it all, I became completely attached to these characters. I knew they shouldn’t get away with it but I wanted them to! Yes, they get out of the US alive but it cost them everything. The had to abandon one of their children. The other abandoned them. They lost their family and are back in a place they haven’t been to in decades. A place they really don’t know anymore. All the work they did, the pain they caused and went through, was for nothing. Elizabeth’s entire self worth was turned against her. She ended up not working for her country, but for a small rebel sect that perverted her work to get what they wanted. The shock that hit her and Philip when Stan told them Oleg’s message home didn’t go through. Any sense of purpose and redemption was relying on the message that Gorbachev was being set up. That could truly be the end of their home and any chance of peace.  The only success for rhe Jennings is getting to the Soviet Union to stop the Gorbachev plot.

I think The Americans will be remembered as one of the best TV shows. Strong from start to finish. Their story is over but they live on. Odds are they never see their kids again. I’m not sure what Paige is going to do. She’s definitely going to be questioned by the FBI but I don’t think she ended up doing enough to be implicated in anything. I imagine she’ll turn her back on everything Elizabeth taught her. Henry will be more or less adopted by Stan and I think he’d end up legally changing to Stan’s last name out of anger and relief from the tainted Jennings name.

I think Dennis will stick to his word and nothing major will happen to Father Andrei. Oleg is screwed. You can add his life to the pile of destruction. He stood up for his country and does not get rewarded for it in any way.

It’s been a hell of a ride and I’m happy it came to a close on top.  It’ll be great to revisit this show and experience it all again. If anyone asks me for a show to watch, The Americans will be the first one I recommend.

Jennings, Elizabeth

The walls are closing in.

I’d imagine that for a real spy, this episode was a living nightmare to watch. We’ve reached the point where the only choice for Elizabeth and Philip is to run. Without the kids.

Let’s condense this down to the nitty-gritty. The FBI is following all the right leads and Stan can’t let go of his Jennings hunch. Looking into the church brought Father Viktor in for questioning and he was quick to name drop Father Andrei so they go look for him…at the same time he requested to meet with Elizabeth but Philip went instead because Elizabeth had to go keep an eye on Nesterenko.

Stan brings his Jennings suspicions to Dennis who doesn’t believe him. While he thinks Stan has the wrong idea he doesn’t do anything to convince Stan otherwise. With the dirt they’ve been getting lately, I think Dennis is simply happy with all the progress they have been making so he sees no real reason to fall down the rabbit hole with Stan. Stan talks to the only possible rabbit he could know: Pastor Tim! In a rather cryptic conversation, Tim keeps his vow of confidence and gives Stan no information to follow up on.

Elizabeth’s hunch that Nesterenko is a marked target turns out to be right. She intercepts an assassination attempt (Tatiana!?) in public, in broad daylight. She power walks her way out of there but she’s clearly rattled and goes to Claudia to tell her. If stopping that murder wasn’t enough of a clue, Elizabeth comes right out and says it to Claudia: I’ve chosen my side and it isn’t yours anymore. Claudia manages not to outwardly freak out, it’s more of an inside, boiling kind of rage. I got the clear impression that she’s more disappointed in Elizabeth than anything else. She turns to shame Elizabeth pretty quickly: all of your work his has been for nothing and you’ve ruined it all and I thought I knew you after all of these years. Even when our relationship was at it’s worse, I knew I could depend on you to get the mission done. Elizabeth has a quick answer: If you knew me, you’d know never to lie to me. Claudia has no alternative but to run so this might be the last time we see her.

Speaking of lies, not long after getting chewed out by Claudia, Elizabeth gets round two from Paige. She’s been seeing the college kid she likes and Jackson showed up at a party. He’s all screwed up and the story Paige gets second-hand fits the honeypot scenario she read in one of the books earlier the season. You know, the one where Elizabeth lied to her about that stuff being made up to sell books. So the lies come flying back into her face, in her own kitchen no less. Paige straight up confronts her about her being the woman who seduced Jackson and Elizabeth does a really poor job of lying to Paige. I guess she’s so exhausted that her defenses are barely functioning now. So Paige doesn’t believe her and completely flips out. In the middle of the brutal dressing down, Elizabeth gets fed up and just gets steamrolled as she tries to defend her work. “I should have done what Harry did and gotten as far away as possible from here.” The battle between Elizabeth and Claudia is heavily mirrored here, but with Elizabeth switching roles. The Jennings household is in shambles. And it gets worse.

Oleg gets caught red-handed with a dead drop and then–

Philip meets with Father Andrei in a park and it goes okay until the reason why Andrei wanted to meet. He got word that Father Viktor is meeting with the FBI. Is that a problem? Philip gets really worried and starts glancing around for tails. So when is this guy meeting with the FBI? Now. Philip goes on code red alert! “I’ve been really careful.” Not careful enough dude! Philip hurridly tells him he’s got to book a flight out of the USA immediately and takes off. On his way out of the park, Philip notices he has multiple tails and he has to run for his life. He manages to lose them and he calls home to deliver a coded message to Elizabeth: Our cover is blown. She grabs the bug out bag with clothes, weapons, passports, and money.

We are down to the wire and I am dreading the end. There is no way for Elizabeth and Philip to stay in the US. I don’t know if either of them will get out alive and I have my doubts who could make it alone at this point. Henry is at school, they can’t get to him and what would they tell him? They could get to Paige or at least get word to her but I have no idea what she could or would do. If Renee is a sleeper I can see the end like this: she does nothing. She lets things happen and the final moments of the show we see her get in contact with her handlers. Their big illegal network might have just collapsed, but Renee could be the genesis of the next cell. After all, she does have her FBI interview coming up. She’s an older version of what Elizabeth wanted Paige to become.

Burned by her loyalty to her homeland, I don’t think Elizabeth is going to make it. If the scenario presents herself, she will sacrifice herself for her only other love: her husband.

The Summit

Elizabeth takes center stage in one of the most riveting episodes and we get a huge character pivot.

Right away, we get down to business. Philip admits to Elizabeth that he’s been informing on her (he doesn’t reveal that it’s Oleg). It goes about as well as you think it would. Elizabeth is furious that Philip has been lying to her. It was at this moment I realized the full scope of the emotional shift that happened when Philip left the spy game.

More than losing a co-worker (so to speak), they each lost someone they could talk to. A big theme of the show has been how brutal espionage is. It’s utterly lonely in that you can’t really trust anyone, you lie to everyone, and you have to sacrifice anything resembling a normal life. Your life, whether that be death or no freedom because you will never be let out of prison, is constantly at risk. Elizabeth and Philip always had each other since they’ve been in the US. More than just a husband and wife role, they literally could talk to each other about anything because they were a working team. The only other people they could talk to (and never be completely open to like they could be with each other) was their handlers and the occasional fellow operative on a mission. Without that link, there is no one they can be honest with. This change meant they were either withholding information from each other or outright lying. That’s poison.

And it got worse when Philip tried explaining himself. “I want you to think…like a human being.” “I’m not a human being?!” A brutal insult Philip didn’t intend but came out like a razor blade. Their facial reactions to each other tell it all. It’s one of the most brilliant acting scenes between these two and the way it’s shot, you barely see them on screen at the same time. It’s a harsh reminder of their ideological, emotional, and physical separation.

Moving on, Elizabeth goes to the Haskard’s for her phony nurse duty. She’s still desperate to get information on what’s being said at the summit (which is now happening) so her main goal is to get a bug in Glenn’s briefcase. But as all things have gone for Elizabeth this season, disaster strikes. Glenn tried to let his ailing wife go, giving her a super dose of morphine he’s been saving for awhile. It doesn’t work and she’s suffering even more. Elizabeth’s body count is so high already, we’ve seen her do crazy stuff recently and her killing Erica is one of the most brain searingly intense scenes in the series. Glenn is done with work, there’s no point in bugging his briefcase. Elizabeth settles for taking pictures of some documents she has and Glenn tells her to take one of Erica’s paintings. She takes one of the larger canvases.

In the first major Elizabeth character battle, she debates what to do with the painting. She’s been totally dismissive of art (as talked about in the first few episodes of this season) and Erica did manage to open Elizabeth’s mind up. She takes the canvas off the frame and prepares to burn it. It’s evidence of where she’s been. She wrestles with herself (I can’t accurately describe how good of an actor Keri Russell is, so I won’t even try. You have to witness it) and decides to stash it away. As she walks away her soldier mind clicks back into place and takes over. She pulls the canvas back out lays it out and lights it up without a second thought. With that avenue of intel shut, she has to move on so she sets her sights on using intern Jackson.

In another reoccurring theme this season, Elizabeth remains reckless because she’s under the gun time-wise. (Sidenote: Philip is taking risks too. He rents a Russian movie and watches it in the living room. Considering the scene a while back with Elizabeth bringing him some food from the homeland, this is shocking.) She has to get a recorder into the room at the State Department where her mark, Nesterenko (the Soviet negotiator her people think may be a traitor) will be having a meeting. Elizabeth honeypots this kid into doing what she wants, putting a recorder into the meeting room using an okay excuse (my client needs this box of paperwork and I can’t get it there because all this stuff happened, would you do me a favor?) that’s really not a good plan. It’s risky. She has to roll the dice. Jackson does it and later on, when he comes back out with the box, he looks like he’s seen a ghost. He found the recording device hidden in the box because things didn’t line up with what she said. Elizabeth is caught off guard but recovers pretty fast, telling him this is how business is done in Washington. He doesn’t buy it. This throws us into character battle #2. Again to all of Keri Russell’s credit, we watch Elizabeth internally debate on how she’s going to kill this kid. It’s another event that has spiraled out her control and she has to do something. She lets him go. I thought for sure he was dead. I’m sure he thought he was dead when she grabbed his arm to keep him from getting out of the car. He’s petrified and she rolls the dice that he won’t tell anyone out of fear that he’ll get into serious trouble for doing so super shady stuff in the State Department for someone who he now knows isn’t legit. If she didn’t have to kill Erica, I wonder if he would have let him go. The weight keeps getting heavier on Elizabeth’s shoulders and it’s eating her alive.

Meanwhile, Philip is a walking bummer. He’s frowning so much now it looks like his face is melting. He tries to talk to Henry at school and he isn’t around to take his call. He goes to buy a new suit and he looks miserable. He can’t enjoy buying stuff anymore (especially since he has no money). On a pity parade he goes to Stavo’s apartment to apologize to him for firing him because the business is tanking. Stavo’s isn’t moved by what Philip says and instead lets Philip know he’s an even bigger failure than he ever thought. Stavo’s has worked for Philip for years and noticed all the shady secrecy he and Elizabeth have done in their office all that time. He’s loyal though and never told (never even considered it!) anyone. Philip is a fantastic spy but it turns out he’s been sloppy the whole time. His secret really isn’t that secret. That’s a rude awakening. As a side note, in the “previously on” section at the start of the episode, they showed Philip in the van with Harvest when he dies and Philip is looking at the cyanide neckless around Harvest’s neck. I think Philip took it. So now he and Elizabeth have one. Philip is really worried about what’s coming.

And the Jennings’ are still in the dark about another thing they should be worried about: Stan. He’s still suspicious and doing his groundwork to see what he can dig up. He goes to meet an old contact, and I didn’t recognize him so I had to look him up (Curtis, I think. From a few years ago). This guy met Elizabeth when she was working over another guy. There was fall out and Stan kept Curtis out of serious trouble. Stan shows him a picture of Elizabeth to see if he recognizes her and while he doesn’t confirm anything he says some things take keeps Stan from letting it go. While Renee gets a job interview at the FBI (thanks Dennis! And is she a Soviet operative? I honestly have no idea. They keep her so murky there’s no definitive answer aside from saying “yes” because why else does she keep popping up?) Stan is obsessed with the Jennings. Getting ready for bed, he’s staring out his window trying to catch a glimpse of anything (Elizabeth is coming home late again, hmmm.)

Back to the Plot A of the show, while Jackson turned out to be a short-lived asset, she did get a recording out it. She hears Nesterenko discussing what the Soviet Union (Gorbachev) wants and it’s clear he isn’t a traitor. When Elizabeth hands off the tape to Claudia, she’s told to “take care of” Nesterenko. This strikes Elizabeth as strange (me too) as Claudia, and no one they work with have heard the recorded discussion. Elizabeth bails on the assassination attempt (holy animal, was that dangerous) she goes to confront Claudia about things not adding up.

And here comes the pivot! Elizabeth hasn’t been working for the state in some time. Claudia has co-opted Elizabeth to basically work on behalf of a small, rouge sect back home. No matter what Elizabeth found out, they were going to burn Nesterenko, ruin Gorbachev, and alter Elizabeth’s reports if need be to make the rationale to get away with a coup d’etat. Elizabeth hates lies and this is like the ultimate. Perverting her work and beliefs! Being used like this makes her furious. She’s done horrible things since meeting that military guy in Mexico and it was all pointless.

Elizabeth goes home and tells Philip she wants to talk to the contact he’s been passing her info to. He’s shocked and she tells him about Claudia’s deceit. While this may put Elizabeth and Philip on the same side, I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive him for being a snitch. Meeting Oleg will be difficult, he’ll be able to get the info into his hands by the early morning. While Elizabeth deals with this, she tells him he should handle the communication from Father Andrei (he’s the one that married them. He has the most info on them outside of probably Claudia). That seems like an easy meet up but they don’t know that the FBI has been sniffing around Russian Orthodox priests for a few weeks.

The Jennings’ are dangerously close to being caught. Only 2 episodes remaining.

Harvest

ESPIONAGE!

I love the sneaky stuff on this show and this week we got to see the “Harvest” extraction mission go down. Philip has to bail on Henry to go help Elizabeth, so Stan gets guardianship. Philip taking off so soon (it’s like the day after Thanksgiving) makes Stan worry and with how Philip looks, he knows something is up. Philip tells the half-truth that he’s been so out of it lately is because the business is falling apart. Philip leaves and Stan ends up talking to Henry, fishing for info. He knows the vacation agency is in bad shape and then he goes into the past a little bit. Lamenting about how his mom has never been around, their parents put the business first to provide for the family. He’s never really stayed with family when they were younger and their parents took off…except for that one time when his mother’s relative got sick and Paige went with her. For all of these years, Stan has thought the hours his neighbors worked were odd for a vacation agency.

Off in Chicago, Elizabeth and Philip go for broke to get Harvest out. Distractions! Multiple vehicle changes! Everything goes to plan until the feds discover the switcheroo and they’re able to pull their surveillance net in tight, catching the escape van. Two federal agents, the getaway van driver, and Harvest are killed. Another disastrous mission. Harvest is able to deliver three messages for Philip, one for each of his parents (some of my favorite writing of the episode), and one about the mission he’s on (Elizabeth is also working on that mission).

The horror show doesn’t end with two fellow Soviets dying in front of them. In the final switch-off point in a parking garage to ditch the van, Elizabeth and Philip dismember the woman driver so she can’t be identified.

Stan is at work when Dennis tells him about the move on Harvest. It’s a devastating loss. The basic description of the perps who were seen by the patsies (the Jennings hired some day workers to block the road and such) and Stan can’t shake the coincidence of Philip and Elizabeth taking off in the middle of the night and a white man and woman causing this havoc. The scene I’ve been waiting for finally happens: Stan searches his neighbor’s house. He doesn’t find anything, which was a bit of luck as he got really close in the garage.

Philip is distraught. Not only pulled into the world he hates but the whole thing turned into a horrific ordeal. The night before, when Philip arrived at Elizabeth’s hotel room, she’s surprised he actually came. They catch up a bit and when they go to bed, it’s Elizabeth who reaches out. She places her hand on his. It’s the first physical contact they’ve had in awhile. I don’t see how Philip does anything after this except spiral farther down the void he’s been looking down.

Back home, Elizabeth goes to see Paige. On a walk, Elizabeth tells Paige about the failed mission and Paige is surprised. “You said these things usually work.” They do, but the can and do go wrong. During this discussion was the first time I think I’ve seen Elizabeth take the kid gloves off with Paige and see where she stands with the mission. She stresses the importance and the danger of the world Paige is in. You are either in or out, there is no middle ground. The big statement: if you are in, you are in for life. There is no quitting. As much of a swipe it is against Philip, it’s the truth.

Paige says she’s in and Elizabeth is happy to hear it. It’s also quite revealing with what Paige says when her mother says you have to be prepared to sacrificing everything. Relationships, both romantic and friendship. Give everything you have to he cause and that can mean your life. Paige says she has no real friends and the students she is around don’t know what the world is like despite talking like they do. Paige knows how the government has the system rigged to keep them down and in their place. Elizabeth’s teachings have worked. With that commitment, Elizabeth thinks it’s time to escalate Paige’s illegal career: it’s time to apply for an internship at the State Department.

The summit is a week away.

Rififi

Too many mistakes have been made.

The huge moment of the episode: the feds are hot on the trail of the illegals. Years of being a step behind of the Soviets, major breakthroughs have been made. Dennis brings in Stan to show off what threads they’ve been pulling on and that their detective work is paying off. Gennadi’s last x-ray drop contained the chipset for the radiation detector. That put them on the trail of what it does and where it’s made which pulled their focus to Elizabeth’s recent mistakes. The deaths were already suspicious, but this breakthrough makes them start connecting the dots between them. This leads them to find a big illegal in Chicago, “Harvest.” They’ve been following this guy for awhile and according to Dennis, they’ve been getting huge clues from him. It could very well be the start of them unearthing everything about the Soviet’s illegal program. When Stan sees this progress coupled with the anger he feels over Gennadi and Sofia’s murder, Stan rejoins the team.

Philip doesn’t bother to hide his anger to Elizabeth. Killing the couple crossed a line and he lets her know. Elizabeth doesn’t apologize, saying she’s doing what must be done and blows his concerns off. So he tells her the Kimmy mission is off the table and she gets mad. She lays into him saying she knew he wasn’t going to go through with it, he just wanted to sleep with Kimmy (which isn’t true). The Jennings home is not a happy place and that continues when Henry comes home for Thanksgiving.

Henry is desperate to stay at his private school so he did some work to ease the burden ($9k in 1987! For high school!) on his dad. Some possible scholarships and a potential business deal with the father of a wealthy friend. Philip isn’t happy about Henry talking to others about his business problems but in the end, he agrees (sort of) to talk to the father. At home, it’s clear everyone is fractured. His mom is out back smoking cigarettes and Philip and Paige are doing their own thing separately inside. No one talks, let along makes eye contact. He sees it most in his dad when Philip freaks out when he crashes his slot car. It’s enough for Henry to not ignore that something is wrong and he asks his dad who waves his concern away….your mother and I are not getting along at the moment. I think Henry gets the most screentime in this episode than in the rest of the entire series combined.

Elizabeth is still working on getting an in on the summit talks and she makes a little bit of progress with a kid named Jordan who’s an intern with the Senator she needs to get next to. And then she gets an urgent phone call on Thanksgiving day…

She runs out to meet with Claudia and she rather nonchalantly tells her that Philip has bailed on the Kimmy mission. Claudia doesn’t flinch at the news most likely because there is an immediate crisis: Harvest knows he’s being watched now and sent an emergency signal for extraction. Elizabeth needs to go to Chicago.

So she misses Thanksgiving dinner and also Stan’s impassioned speech about America fighting back against anyone coming after their freedom. A good portion of the table (Renee?) is a Soviet spy so that was a trip to watch.

The mission to get Harvest is not ideal. The woman working with Elizabeth is so worried as they make a plan that she asks her what their odds of success are. “Not very good.” Elizabeth is worried and when she finds herself alone, she does something very interesting. She starts drawing the TV.

While Elizabeth is gone, Philip snoops around her secret stashes for info to pass along to Oleg, which he does. And then Elizabeth does something else very interesting. She calls Henry. She asks about how he’s doing because they didn’t really talk since he’s been home. Historically we’ve rarely seen her talk to Henry and that been blatantly obvious this season since Elizabeth and Philip have pretty much split their parenting duties to one child each. And the conversation is crazy awkward. Elizabeth barely knows what to say to him and Henry has very basic answers to her questions. It’s obvious they’re very distant and Elizabeth is reaching out to Henry almost as her “last call.” She’s really worried about her mission.

When Henry tells his dad about the phone call, it raises all the red flags to Philip. He knows that wasn’t just a “mom checking in” call. He calls her the moment he gets the chance to. Speaking in code, Elizabeth admits she’s worried and she needs more help to have a chance of this mission not turning into another disaster. He tells her to come home and she flatly says no. She never directly asks Philip for his help and even says “I’m not asking you to come here” when he specifically asks her. The strain between them is as obvious as the implied request for him to come out of retirement. As she was packing to leave, Philip asked her not to go and she let him have it, which was basically a dressing down to her former trusted partner “He’s (Harvest) one of us and he needs help. He’s been doing his job and I’m not going to abandon him.”

His wife and partner of more than twenty years needs his help. It goes beyond help. This is about survival. When they fought about Kimmy at the start of the episode, Philip answers her Kimmy/manhood insult with “I was going to do it! Somehow you get into me like you always do, and I was going to do it!” That was an event born of manipulation. This is a cry for help, not a favor, born out of love and respect. Sure Elizabeth is desperate, but no matter what he can’t deny his love for her. He can’t stand around with her back up against a wall.

Phillip commits to going to Chicago.

We’re in the back half of the final season and it’s starting to heat up! A lot of threads are coming together and I’m on the edge of my seat to see what happens next.