The Americans S6 E1: Dead Hand

We already know how the Cold War ended. Glasnost and perestroika led to summits between the United States and Soviet Union, which led to an arms reduction. Reagan asked Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall and at the end of the ‘80s, the wall did fall. Numerous satellite countries got their freedom from the USSR and by 1991, the USSR itself ceased to exist.

What we don’t know is how the story of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings will end. We know what they’ve been up to in the last three years since season five ended. In a stunning montage, we see an exhausted Elizabeth playing yet another role as a visiting nurse to an artist and then sleeping with a source. We can see the toll all this is taking right on her face. We see Philip, who for the last few years was the exhausted one, invigorated after quitting the spy game, immersed in actually running the travel business at its new offices.

The fact that this montage was set to one of the most drop-dead gorgeous songs of the ‘80s, “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” a gentle song about letting go, made it especially moving. It’s one of the best music moments The Americans has ever done, with the on-point lyrics “They come to build a wall between us … don’t let them win.” So we’re off to a pretty good start in season six.

Zoom out and see the rest of the family and cast. Henry did get to go to private school, where he’s playing hockey in front of his attentive dad. Paige is totally part of the young illegals mission, spying with her mother and being indoctrinated into Russian culture by way of viewing soap operas with Claudia. Stan has moved on to other interests in the FBI and has married (probable spy) Renee. Aderholt is married with a baby. They all gather at Stan’s for what may be the last peaceful dinner before the end.

Paige is working in the field but has a setback after the military guard holds her college ID for ransom for a date, which is a pretty predatory thing to do. Elizabeth stabs him in the neck. The fact that she took a risk in doing this right on the street suggests this was more personal to Elizabeth than protecting Paige’s cover: She doesn’t want her daughter going down the honeytrap road. Who would?

The conflict between the Jenningses reaches clarity in the fight they have when an exhausted Elizabeth doesn’t want to talk to Philip about her feelings. (She is working so many angles that this episode must have set a record for wigs.) After years of working alone, Elizabeth doesn’t have anyone to confide in about the burdens of her work, or as her husband says, “It is finally getting to you after all these years.” Last season, Elizabeth warned the budding psycho Tuan that he wasn’t going to make it alone and needed a partner, since the work they do is too hard. It’s more like future Elizabeth was going back in time to warn her past self.

Elizabeth is also carrying an impossible burden. In Mexico City, she finds out that a Soviet is trading knowledge of the Dead Hand program for the American Star Wars program. Since she’s in on it now, she can’t be arrested, and will have to wear the millstone of a cyanide pill around her neck. It was fitting that the music swelled over the dialogue, as if Elizabeth didn’t need to hear the rest of the speech. All that matters is that the Center made her fly thousands of miles on short notice to face her certain death, something she really has no choice in.

Philip is comfortable country line-dancing with his coworkers but I assumed the show wouldn’t have him on the sidelines all season. What brings him back? Arkady and a bearded Oleg want him to spy on his wife. There are forces that don’t want the USSR to change, Oleg explains, and Philip must keep tabs on his wife, “and if you have to, stop her.”

This is chilling and tragic, especially after the two really solidified their cover marriage over the last few seasons. If The Americans is going where I think it’s going, this will be a Shakespeare-caliber tragedy.

Some Thoughts on 'Roseanne'

I thought the first two episodes of the Roseanne reboot were pretty good! I loved the original series. So much of it holds up today, from truly hilarious moments—like everyone smoking pot and getting paranoid or Jackie yelling “Dad is dead!” to a hard-of-hearing relative—to the darker stuff like domestic abuse, poverty and mental illness. I give Roseanne Barr a lot of credit because there was nothing like that show on TV when it debuted in 1988 and there really isn’t much like it today, at least on network TV. The other families on ABC sitcoms (with the notable exception of The Middle) have houses that look like they’re the “after” on an HGTV renovation show. The Conners lived like regular people.

Twenty-one years later, they’re still regular people. They still worry about their kids and money and now they worry about their grandkids and affording prescription drugs. They still have that old couch and afghan. Darlene is down on her luck and moved home and Becky is still trying to make ends meet. There is an undercurrent of sadness in the show: Dan and Roseanne almost lost their house and Darlene got out only to go back to Lanford. It was a little weird on the show to see the daughters grown up and with deeper voices but for Roseanne, Dan and Jackie (still amazing), they have the same rhythm, like little time has passed.

There was a lot of attention on the fact that Roseannes Conner and Barr are both Trump fans, and there was some conflict on the show between Roseanne and Jackie over Trump and Clinton. It didn’t bother me too much. (I do hope the Trump references aren't too numerous because it will get old fast.) I can see an argument either way that Roseanne Conner would have voted for Trump or Clinton. It’s realistic to see families divided this way. As for Roseanne Barr, I have strong opinions on the president but it doesn’t bother me too much that someone I’ll never meet voted for Trump. There are bigger things to worry about.

I liked the response of Roseanne and Dan to Mark, their non-gender-conforming grandchild. They initially don’t understand his preference for feminine clothes and worry that he’ll be bullied, but they fiercely protect him because he’s family. That’s true to their characters. Sara Gilbert was devastating in the scene where Mark says nobody played with him, pausing with a look of real pain on her face before encouraging him by saying, “But they will” play with him.

I also liked some of the callbacks to the early days. My eagle-eyed husband noticed the teacher in Mark’s classroom was Darlene’s teacher in the pilot, and that DJ apparently married Gina, the black girl he didn’t want to kiss.

The best thing of all about Roseanne: We get to watch Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman, our American acting treasures.

How to Get to Nashville in 43 Easy Steps

You know what’s even more annoying than when you have to switch your flight to Nashville for a conference because of the nor’easter and the new flight leaves at 5 a.m.? When you get up at an hour so early in the morning that it is still late at night and then find out at 3:30 a.m., while in the parking shuttle on the way to the airport, that your flight is cancelled and the airline wants to book you on a 5 a.m. flight the next day, so you’ll have to do that all over again. Then you stand in line for at least 45 minutes in the terminal trying to get an alternate flight, on hold the entire time with the company’s after-hours travel service. Then, since you don’t want to miss more of the conference, there are plans for you to switch flights with a coworker, or to fly direct to Knoxville and then rent a car and drive three hours through a totally unfamiliar state to Nashville. Then neither of those plans works out and you end up having to fly from Philadelphia to Raleigh-Durham to Charlotte to Nashville. So that’s three flights. And all this planning was over and done with before 6 a.m. And I hadn’t had my coffee yet and I am a total bitch until I get my coffee.

Gimme a Break

Memories of youth get a little spotty as one gets older, due mostly to natural attrition of brain cells and what not. Once in awhile, something surfaces and another casual memory comes to the front of my brain.

Therefore, I would like to share three separate, vague memories I have of the Nell Carter star vehicle Gimme a Break, an early ‘80s sitcom.

First, I remember Nell Carter’s character ran into an old friend from high school or something. He mentioned having a girl and she got the impression he had remarried. She asked him how old the girl was and he said 15. “Fifteen?!” Nell exploded in outrage. It turns out that the man was not married to a 15-year-old at all; the girl was his daughter.

Second, I remember Nell Carter telling a story of how she once attempted suicide. She tearfully said how she opened the oven, stuck her head in and turned on the gas.

Third, I remember Nell Carter going on Wheel of Fortune, where she really wanted to win a new car. The answer to the puzzle was “Give me liberty or give me death.” But Nell got arrogant and presumptuous and said “Give me liberty or give me a car!” Of course, she didn’t win.

I didn’t care that much about Gimme a Break and don’t remember much about it so I don’t know why I remembered any of that. Is this a sign of some mental decline? Do you smell that burnt toast, too? 

Winter's Tablecloth

Among the many signs of spring are the blooming daffodils, the start of baseball, robins singing the melody of “Easter Parade,” standing in line in the snow at Rita’s to get a free thimbleful of water ice, and putting our heads in the oven when it doesn’t automatically become fully spring when the stars say it should. In our house, spring really only begins with a time-honored ritual: The changing of the winter tablecloth on our dining room table.

At the vernal equinox, I ceremonially take down the tablecloth, which is silver and emblazoned with snowflakes. It has stood on our table for three months, as we ate meals that stuck to our ribs while the snows of winter swirled mercilessly outside. There are other signs in our house that spring is about to spring, such as removing the decorative snowflake hand towels from the bathroom, but the tablecloth is by far the most significant—and meaningful.

It’s a beautiful ceremony. I wish you could all see it. I fold the snowflake tablecloth with as much respect and pageantry as when they folded the American flag on the coffin at Reagan’s funeral. Usually I will sing a festive song like “Bringing in the Sheaves” while I do it.

No matter the weather outside, spring is over once I take down that tablecloth and switch back to placemats or a more season-appropriate tablecloth. Then the winter tablecloth will go back in the linen closet to wait patiently through spring’s breezes, summer’s thunderstorms and fall’s burning leaves—until it can live again.

Kale Is Dead

The taste of kale is fine. I’ve just had to eat enough of it lately and so that particular green is dead to me, at least for a time.

Steve and I do Blue Apron sometimes and it just seems like they’re always serving me kale. It’s just too much. It’s in calzones and polenta and all sorts of other stuff. I won’t vomit at the site of kale but I just don’t need a metric ton of it. I can live without it if there’s a bunch of other stuff in a dish. I know they’re adding it as a filler for certain dishes but why does that filler always have to be kale? Why not mushrooms or potatoes? All those ingredients are equally cheap and plentiful.  

Blue Apron also used to use cauliflower very frequently and I don’t care for cauliflower so it got aggravating. Cauliflower in pasta or pizza? Pass.

I’ve seen restaurants serve cauliflower that looks like Buffalo wings, with the sauce and everything. You might think I might eat this, given my love of Buffalo wings but this Potemkin village food is a cruel tease: “You’ll love this food that looks like something you like but is actually something you don’t like!” What’s next?

“It looks like scrambled eggs but it’s actually creamed corn!”

“It looks like a Reese’s peanut butter cup but it’s actually a hot dog stuffed with haggis!”

“It looks like chocolate ice cream but it’s actually broccoli-flavored circus peanuts!”

“It looks like a sirloin steak but it’s actually a live crab smothered in green peppers!”

Is this what we are becoming as a society, one that plays food tricks on people?

Welfare Check

I just wanted to check on you because I’ve been concerned. It’s mid-March and whenever I pass by your house, I notice your Christmas wreath is still on your front door. Is everything OK?

I’m not seeing any mail piled up on your front step, so I know not to suspect the worst and call the police. Still, this is concerning. The Christmas season ended two months ago. You’ve had the opportunity to since then to place two more holiday signifiers on your door but it’s still Christmas over there.

Has there been some sort of drastic life change since December? I can only assume there must have been. After all, you had time and energy shortly after Thanksgiving to put out that festive wreath. Since it takes an equal amount of time to put the wreath away as it did to put the wreath up, I can assume something is drastically different now.

Maybe you found out on New Year’s Day that you’ve been appointed the academic provost of an Ivy League university and no longer have time for petty things like keeping one’s holiday décor current. Or you drank a particularly bad batch of eggnog and the doctors have advised you it’s still too risky to engage in anything as strenuous as walking all the way to the front door, lifting up that 2-pound circle of fake evergreens and pine cones, and putting it in a box.

What’s that? You say you just don’t have your act together? Carry on, then.

Fostering With the Lights Out

Two hours after the foster child arrived at our house in the middle of a nor’easter last Friday, the power failed. Unfazed while playing on his tablet, his first question after the lights went out: “What happened to the internet?”

Steve and I were doing respite care for a 9-year-old last weekend for his foster parents. (Foster parents can get respite when they’re going out of town or something. I’m assuming they can’t just leave the kids with anyone so they need people approved by an adoption agency to watch.) So of course, for the first time in our lives, we have a child staying in our home and the whole area is crippled by a storm and the electricity goes out. I mean, when else would a power failure hit? It didn’t come on again until Monday morning.

The kid was a trooper and didn’t complain about the disrupted plans. We did sleep at home Friday because we thought the power might come back soon and didn’t yet see a need to take our show on the road. I checked on him later Friday and he was asleep under a mound of blankets, so I figured we wouldn't disturb him. It was chilly in the house but there was lingering heat so it wasn’t that bad yet.

We had to do something the next day because I believe the bylaws of fostering (and I guess parenting in general) say you must provide light and heat for children. We were going to make dinner and stuff, but that was out. So we went out to breakfast and later checked into a hotel. Our caseworker told us we couldn’t cross state lines with him, so we couldn’t stay with our families.

We had also wanted to do something “homey” with him and a hotel was not ideal. But the minute we said “hotel,” he lit up, especially when he found out there was an indoor pool. We checked in, went to the pool, went out to dinner and watched TV and stuff in the room. The next day, we went to the Delaware Children’s Museum and had fun there.

So it wasn’t the weekend we planned but we managed the crisis, nor’easter and Delmarva Power be damned.

Brian's Oscar Predictions*

Supporting Actor

Will Win/Should Win: Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. In a year with so many tossups, veteran Rockwell is the surest bet.

Supporting Actress

Will Win: Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird. The only thing Oscar loves more than an ingénue is a true veteran who has polished her craft.

Should Win: Allison Janney, I, Tonya. It’s a long way from The West Wing to the skating rinks of Oregon. Longer than you think.

Lead Actor

Will Win: Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour. Will this likable actor finally win Oscar gold? As his character Winston Churchill said, “Never give up. Never never never.” (etc.)

Should Win: Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name. Chalamet gave one of the most emotionally resonant performances of this or any year.

Lead Actress

Will Win: Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird. #MeToo is having a Moment. Look for Ronan to have hers.

Should Win: Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. She’s come a long way from Fargo, but not that far, and should repeat her triumph from 20 years ago.

Director

Will Win: Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird. What a year for women it’s been. What a year indeed.

Should Win: Jordan Peele, Get Out. It’s a horror movie, but it’s also a reflection of our entire society.

Best Picture

Will Win: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Three billboards=third’s time’s the charm for this movie, which has already swept at least two awards ceremonies.

Should Win: Darkest Hour. With strong nominees, this race seems wide open for the first time in years. Is Darkest Hour a dark horse in this category? (No.)

* I did not see any of the nominated movies.