The Jennings family could definitely use a vacation after
nearly catching glanders, sending an asset off to the USSR and burning the
candle at several different ends, yet somehow finding time to scream at each
other.
Martha makes it out of the series alive. Alison Wright
played the scene with dignity and subtlety, contemplating a huge American jar
of peanut butter, which she certainly won’t see in Russia. In a twisted version
of Casablanca, she gets on the plane
without her man, telling him “Don’t be alone, Clark,” her version of “We’ll
always have Paris.”
Philip’s eyes brim with tears. There’s nobody to see him so
this is not acting: He really is affected by Martha leaving. And he takes it
out on everyone else in the rest of the episode, sulking around like a teenager
and brushing off Elizabeth’s attempts to talk to him.
“She was a nice woman,” Elizabeth says of Martha. “Straight
ahead, uncomplicated, simple.” Philip angrily notes that she wasn’t simple (which
is absolutely true given the writing and Wright’s performance; who knew “poor
Martha” from season one would turn out to be anything but laughable) and her
departure was anything but clean.
Elizabeth gives EST a shot and seems to be affected, particularly
by the speech that “You love your prison.” In the end, she realizes it’s a
scam, with the organizers asking for more money from the attendees.
This spirals into the Jenningses’ most vicious fight ever.
Philip brushes off Elizabeth’s suggestion that Martha was just an agent and
Elizabeth hints that he got off easy, because at least he didn’t have to watch
his lover walk into the line of police fire like she had to with Gregory.
“Sorry you lost the man you love and you’re stuck with me,” Philip spits, while
Elizabeth counters with her anger at him sleeping with, and fathering a child
with, Irina. It’s a couple bringing long-suppressed tensions to the surface and
it couldn’t have been any uglier.
Philip is lost in sadness and guilt, covertly visiting the
grave of Gene, the IT guy he murdered. Elizabeth is lost in rage, rebelling in
a small way by sneaking into The
Outsiders with Young-hee, the two of them outsiders in American society.
The last straw for Elizabeth is her brutal murder of Northrup Lisa, who has
fallen off the wagon and threatens to go to the police. It's more disturbing that we don't see Elizabeth actually stab her and the bloody neck means Lisa probably fought back. Elizabeth goes to the
safehouse, bloody and dazed, and Gabriel knows everybody needs a break.
There is a theme throughout this episode of children not
doing what their parents tell them to. Gabriel and Claudia commiserate because
the Jenningses are not listening (although Claudia kind of rolls her eyes at
Gabriel because she got the rebellion much worse, with Elizabeth beating the
hell out of her and waterboarding her in season one), bringing their real
marital problems into the spy game and generally acting like jackasses. At
home, Elizabeth gets the surly teen act from Paige and then … buckle your
seatbelts.
Holy God, that rant to Paige was magnificent and terrifying,
with Keri Russell’s eyes practically bulging out of her head in warning Paige
that her working Pastor Tim is all that is keeping their family from being
destroyed. She orders her daughter to keep tabs on the pastor and “find some
other shit to volunteer for at that goddamn church,” a breathtakingly nasty
thing to say to your child.
Can you imagine being this woman’s daughter? As a mom, she’s
a natural authority figure who could stop you in your tracks by yelling your
first and middle names, but add to that the fact that she’s a Soviet spy and it
must be terrifying. I was afraid of
her and I’m just watching a TV show.
In a neat trick, the Jennings parents disappear from the spy
game, like the Statue of Liberty disappearing via the magic of David
Copperfield. That speech on TV was probably rich with meaning but I’d have to
watch it again and parse it. The family spends the spring, summer and early
fall of 1983 going to EPCOT, playing hockey and going to miniature golf with
the pregnant Alice. The time jump seemed really odd, almost like a sitcom happy
ending. There was a little intrigue in a retired Gaad planting a seed about
Oleg with Stan and Tatiana being shady with Oleg (I know there is more to her
than there seems).
It was almost like a happy ending to a different series but
then the other shoe drops: Elizabeth and Philip get a break from espionage but
their daughter doesn’t. She still has to joylessly report back on Pastor Tim
and Alice’s activities. This won’t end well.
The time jump was bravely timed in the middle of the season
and I’m glad it was because I would have hated to wait months for a resolution.
I’m glad I only have to wait a week until the Jennings family fires up some
Jiffy Pop and sits down to watch The Day
After together.
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