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.