The Americans Recap: The Side by side Generation

The Americans

The Committee on Homo Rights

Season 5 Episode 7

Editor's Rating 4 stars

The Americans

The Committee on Human Rights

Season 5 Episode 7

Editor's Rating 4 stars

Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings. Photo: Eric Liebowitz/FX

There are no good results to Project Paige. Failure brings the threat of Philip and Elizabeth being alienated from their eldest child and very probable exposed to law enforcement, whether Pastor Tim and Alice finally take activeness or she simply walks beyond the street and spills the beans to Stan. It might be the best issue for Paige in the long run, merely the Jennings family would finish to be. There'south always the possibility (or likelihood) that things will fall apart eventually, but the immediate business is that Paige could leave their operation exposed, fifty-fifty inadvertently. She knows enough at present to be dangerous, no thing how much she buys into her parents' recruitment efforts.

Success is arguably worse. Information technology may exist better for Philip and Elizabeth considering it keeps their family together, just they're circumscribed Paige to a life of unhappiness, disillusionment, uncertainty, and violence. The more than headway they make with Paige, the more glimpses they go of the trauma that'south enveloping her conscience: the sight of her curled up like an infant in her bedroom closet; the diminishing of her faith; the souring of her human relationship with Matthew, which would flourish under happier circumstances. In "The Committee on Human Rights," Pastor Tim is pleased to hear Paige talk about how she's learned that life is bigger than herself, only he misreads her. Paige isn't talking about the sorts of charitable sacrifices — or even bones empathy — involved in existence a good denizen and a good Christian, but her sudden awareness of mass-scale, deliberate suffering.

The Americans articulates Philip and Elizabeth's own misery so beautifully that we need to remind ourselves that they're recruiting their girl through insidious lies and half-truths. They oasis't told Paige near the super-wheat pivot — The Super-Wheat Pivot is the name of my upcoming novel, incidentally — so as far as she knows, her parents are the only people who stand between the Soviet people and an American regime intent on starving them for political gain. Project Paige is still too tenuous an operation for her to receive anything like full disclosure. She can't know that the American government didn't take any plans to sic pests on the Soviet wheat harvest. She certainly tin't know that her parents killed an innocent man over bad intel. And boy does she not know that mom and dad are taking separate flights to Topeka to seduce information out of a couple of lone, innocent agribusiness people. Or that they've had a long history of devastating such people for the greater proficient.

Those lessons are coming, but Paige needs to slide further down the slippery gradient before she tin can learn the nighttime art of moral relativism. She'southward nevertheless just a kid who believes in adept and evil. She can't yet operate in the murky infinite in betwixt. Perhaps that's why Marx is highly-seasoned to her right now: She can become drunk on the righteousness of his ideals without having to sober up on their existent-globe application. Philip and Elizabeth know from experience that agents are recruited to defend patriotic ideals and the truthful nature of the work is cached deep in the Terms of Service, waiting for them to discover after they've already signed their lives abroad. Only now they're the highers-up deciding what is and isn't useful for their underling to know, and Paige will surely grow to resent them equally they practise Claudia or the unseen hand of the Heart.

Still, the opening scene of "The Commission on Human Rights" is enormously affecting and sincere. Paige learns that Gabriel has been hearing about her since she was a pocket-size kid, and we can see his pleasance in finally meeting her. When he compliments Philip and Elizabeth, it'south not only a recruitment ploy — information technology'southward real. "Your parents have sacrificed a lot for others," he says. "They've stood for something larger than themselves and that takes backbone." Philip may flinch at the thought, but Gabriel isn't putting on a show for Paige'south benefit; talking to her virtually Philip and Elizabeth offers him the opportunity to give them the affidavit and encouragement they've surely been longing to hear. He's the closest matter either 1 of them has to a begetter, and Paige picks up on the family unit vibe. He's been an unseen but significant presence in her life, too.

And however, what a endmost line! "Y'all were correct about Paige," says Gabriel, on his way out the door. "She should be kept out of all this." What could Gabriel mean here? Did he pick up some information most her temperament during their meeting? Or, more probable, does this relate to his abrupt decision to retire early on? Turning away Philip'southward son was difficult for him to practise; keeping them apart was unfair to the boy and unfair to Philip, to say zippo of having to hide this essential truth to maintain the status quo. It seems doubtful that he thinks Paige is sick-equipped emotionally to handle the work. She'southward a product of her parents, after all, and thus possesses the intelligence, toughness, and discipline required to exist effective in the field. Simply the rightness of the cause itself has come up into question for him as it has for Philip, and condemning another generation to a fight that'southward neither simply nor winnable seems to weigh on him. Gabriel'south retirement either betrays a lack of faith or portends developments that he can't contain. Either way, Project Paige is headed for the rocks.

• When Paige asks Gabriel if he's a spy, Frank Langella's disarming little smile when he says, "Aye" is a small but wonderful piece of acting. He dispels the dark deject hanging over the whole enterprise, at least for a moment.

• Great to see Philip'due south one-size-fits-all seduction technique not working on Deirdre, who's looking for a casual hook-upward, not pining for a Martha-esque commitment. His eagerness is a turnoff and she barely tolerates information technology.

• Fascinating exchange between Philip and Elizabeth afterwards they catch Stobert stepping out with another woman in Memphis. Philip recognizes that she likes him and may be stung by his behavior, but Elizabeth sees the danger in developing genuine feelings for a source, perhaps considering it's brought Philip himself such misery. It volition be interesting to see how Elizabeth relates to Stobert knowing what she knows at present, and whether her personal response starts interfering with her professional responsibility.

• "Is Stan Beeman's girlfriend ane of us?" Gabriel'due south fury in answering that question, mere moments before he walks out the door, serves as a terminal warning to Philip about his tenuous status with the Center. Gabriel denies information technology, just more important, he adds that it's possible he wasn't told considering the Center knew Philip would ask such a question. That feels ominous.

The Americans Recap: The Next Generation