The Americans S4 E11: Dinner for Seven

“You can’t choose your neighbors,” Elizabeth tells Tim when the pastor remarks on the serendipity of a KGB family having dinner with an FBI agent. The Jenningses didn’t choose Stan as a neighbor and didn’t even choose to have him over for dinner (thanks, Henry) but everybody got through the dinner, just as the viewers got through a tense but amusing scene, with Philip and Elizabeth yet again becoming agonizingly close to having their cover blown.

It was another scene this season that played like a satire of a sitcom scene. For as grim as season four has been, it’s also showing more of a sense of humor. I liked the joke of Stan referring to the roast in Alice’s oven as she stood next to pregnant Keri Russell, holding a big wooden salad bowl to obscure her stomach.

Elizabeth simultaneously seems to be working Tim and trying to use him as a confidant. She’ll have more opportunity to see him with Paige working at the food pantry. (It looks like she found “more shit to volunteer for at the goddamn church” like her mother and her bulging forehead vein requested.) She is flailing after losing Young-Hee as a friend and desperately needs somebody to talk to.

Elizabeth also didn’t technically choose Young-Hee as an asset but did make the choice to be her friend. Now the loss of that friend is tearing her apart. It’s her time to break down, as Philip did last season. There’s another parallel here, with Alice falsely accusing the Jenningses of kidnapping (which Elizabeth sees as a positive after it resolved peacefully) and Elizabeth falsely accusing Don, which is nothing but negative.

The entire plot of Patty faking a pregnancy and suicide, followed by a disguised Philip and Gabriel demanding funeral money, made my stomach turn. It’s one of the cruelest things they’ve ever done, made worse by the fact that Don seems like a decent guy, who barely batted an eyelash when Philip asked for the money. I mean, Elizabeth once dropped a car on a guy but we didn’t get to know him like we did with the Seongs. Now Young-Hee may never know what happened to her friend (I wonder if he’d tell his wife) and Don has to live with the unbearable false guilt of cheating on his wife and causing the suicide of the mother of his child.

In the end, nobody gets the access codes to level four — just some crap from a 5.25-inch floppy disk, making this an even sicker joke. All for nothing.

Stan is also at one of his lowest points after the death of Gaad. “They’re animals,” he tells Philip about the KGB. “You have no idea. They do things you cannot imagine.” Oh, Philip can imagine both the hurt he causes deliberately and the hurt he causes inadvertently, as he is perhaps indirectly responsible for Gaad’s death by revealing his whereabouts in Thailand.

Gaad’s death is the latest awful thing for Stan, after the death of Amador. He snapped and killed a Soviet after his partner died but this time, Stan doesn’t want Oleg’s death on his conscience and instead of a gunshot, he offers a parting handshake. Still, Stan is getting closer to unraveling several mysteries. The FBI also gets tipped off (with the Mail Robot making a triumphant reappearance in the background — YAAAAY!) to the death of Betty at the machine repair shop. It’s fitting that the death of this woman, coming in one of my all-time favorite scenes in The Americans, may come back to haunt the spies. She seemed so prophetic then.

Paige gets to the real truth at the end of the episode when she witnesses her mother kill a mugger. Sure, it was self-defense, but Elizabeth could have just disarmed the guy. Instead, she reflexively goes Sovietbot and lets him bleed out. There’s no telling how badly Paige will react to the revelation that her mother was lying that she never killed anybody (the efficiency of the death was not the act of someone unpracticed). And of course, the other guy got a good look at them both and got away.

Game of Thrones S6 E5: The Door

Hold the door, Hodor. :(

I’m still calling him Hodor even though we learned his original name was Wylis. Now we learn why he repeats “Hodor” and it’s tragic. Compounding the tragedy is the fact that Bran, in ensuring his own future survival and the survival of his allies, altered the course of Wylis' entire life, restricting his speech to that one word. His whole life was in a sense a prelude to his sacrifice. It’s as tragic a way to go as you could imagine.

At least Hodor went out as a hero, saving the lives of Bran and a bunch of others. The other irony is that Bran screwed it all up and got his friend killed by being impatient and seeking out the visions without the guidance of Max Von Sydow. I thought the scenes in the past, with the White Walkers eyeing Bran in unison, were creepy. I also liked the entire concept of Bran’s actions in the past changing the course of the future, which is a classic comic book idea. I’m guessing this is the beginning of the end for this world as the White Walkers break down barriers.

It was a thrill to see Sansa gain more confidence. It’s richly deserved since she has been through hell the past few seasons but has managed to come through all of it bruised but still standing. She doesn’t need anybody else to protect her and usually that protection has an ulterior motive anyway. I loved watching Sansa read the riot act to Littlefinger. If he knew Ramsay would be so abusive, he’s a horrible person to set Sansa up with him.

The other Stark sister will, I hope, be wondering if she really wants a life of getting beat up by some smug waif or hearing cryptic speeches from Jaquen. That whole play had to be awkward for Arya, especially since she was there in person when the Lannisters beheaded her father. (Even fake Cersei is incestuous, trying to get it on with the actor playing Tyrion.) Watching this play will remind Arya that she is not “a girl”; she is a Stark and she should reclaim her birthright in the North.

Over in Essos, Daenerys finally realizes Jorah truly loves her. The way she sent him off to find a cure for the greyscale was her own way of returning his feelings. The red queen sees a vision in the fire to rival Melisandre’s: Daenerys, not Jon Snow, is the chosen one. Maybe they’re both right.

One thing is probably true: Daenerys will probably not be interested in marrying Euron. The new king of the Iron Islands went through that whole coronation ritual and survived drowning and all he got was that driftwood crown? Those people always look wet and must be miserable so they could have come up with some nicer hardware for their ruler.

It was hilarious to watch Yara and Theon and their loyalists steal all the ships from under Euron’s nose. The murderous new king orders his followers to build 1,000 ships but how long will all that take? Meanwhile, Pyke is in the rearview mirror of the rightful queen.

Anyway, RIP Hodor.  

The Americans S4 E10: Munchkins

“Munchkins” should have been titled “Discomfort” because every story in the episode — Young-Hee’s anguish, Alice’s threat, Gaad’s death, Martha’s dad’s false hope, anything to with Kimmy — made me very uncomfortable. I wanted to put my hands over my face and watch parts of it through my fingers like a horror movie.

The terrible irony of the whole thing with Pastor Tim, of course, is that Philip and Elizabeth actually didn’t want to kill him, opting to keep an eye on him, and now their restraint bites them in the ass. Who knew Alice would be such a threat? It’s the latest foreshadowing of the Jennings family relocating to the USSR, with Elizabeth now the one to want to run. “I thought I could live like this,” she says.

In the end, it’s a false alarm, with Tim running out of gas in a remote area. This played almost like a parody of a sitcom, with the situation being a wacky mix-up and resolved by the end of the episode. This being The Americans, nothing ever ends. I was filled with dread even after Tim was safe. Alice still has that tape ready to go to the government. The situation is still very dire, with Henry’s tennis ball bouncing on the garage door adding a Telltale Heart aggravating tension to the household.

Paige is dealing with things way above her pay grade. She has to live with her parents as spies (who preach trust even while they deny they kill people) and also has to comfort the woman who would turn in her parents. The exchange with Kimmy telling Philip that her dad actually works for the CIA was a neat parallel with Paige telling Tim and Alice who her parents are. In both situations, Philip points out that both teenagers revealed more than they should have. I wonder if Matthew revealed too much about the betrayal in his dad’s office and if that will lead to Paige revealing too much to him and Matthew telling Stan and the whole thing boiling over.

The Jenningses face the constant prospect of having to run. Look what happened when Gaad tried to run: It literally killed him. Watching him bleed out was rough and that useless apology from the Soviet agent was funny and horrific. I was kind of excited when I saw the setup because I thought it would be a new storyline, which is necessary after the show has ended a few stories. But of course, this one isn’t over and I’m sure we’ll hear more of what Arkady had planned for his American counterpart.

Nobody will ever know what happened to Gaad, just like nobody will ever know what happened to Martha. Her father’s hope was discomfiting. He asked Stan and Aderholt to bring her home but he won’t like what the FBI will do when they find her. The show made the right move by exiling Martha rather than killing her because the idea that she’s still out there somewhere is more haunting.

The Americans really sucker-punched its viewers with the Young-Hee story. They found a delightful character and made us spend a lot of time with her and then she’s crying to Patty on the phone and her husband is about to be blackmailed for state secrets. The whole thing is terrible and it’s eating up Elizabeth. She doesn’t want to lose a real friend and that makes her do a rare thing: She gives in to her human vulnerability and gives herself a break for once. I know the plan to find another way into the bioweapons cache won’t work (thanks, next episode previews) but it was important that Elizabeth at least tried to find another way.

Get in Line

With the long lines at the airport, apparently I’m going to have to leave three hours ahead of time for all my flights for business and pleasure. It’s annoying but I’m an early airport person: I’d rather get past the metal detectors and sit for awhile than storm into the airport in a panic.

I agree that the wait is outrageous but I wonder if some people who missed their flights are making it worse for themselves by being unprepared. You know them: They always show up very late for flights, even though they are adults who should know better, then flail around and expect everyone around them to part like the Red Sea and offer them assistance. These are the travelers who are constitutionally incapable of getting their act together. You have to wonder if they’d be cutting close even with shorter lines.

There are a few ways people could make their travels and wait times easier for everyone around them. As a semi-frequent traveler, one of my annoyances on an airplane is people who bring carry-on items that they should check or find some other way to ship. Everyone else is shoving vital items like clothing into overhead bins and someone comes along with a cardboard cylinder that holds a poster for The Big Presentation and this means people behind that person (usually me) have to check necessities at the gate.

Gee, if only there were some way, some service or company, that could, like, ship your cardboard tube ahead of you so it would be waiting at the hotel for you to give The Big Presentation. If someone could come up with such a service, I bet he’d be a millionaire.

I don’t really have a point here but am just yammering on about air travel because I can’t think of anything else to write about. There was an amusing incident a few months ago on one of my flights. A woman and her daughter got into the front row of a Southwest flight and the husband apparently got on later so he couldn’t sit with them and had to sit in the back. Across the aisle, a man and his daughter had to buy a seat for her guitar because it wouldn’t fit overhead. (This is odd but I approve because the guitar would just have taken space away from someone’s necessities. Clothes are necessities; you can check your guitar.)

There was some discussion of why the woman’s husband couldn’t sit across the aisle in place of the guitar. I heard the flight attendant say something about “federal law” and figured that was a pretty good reason. The woman was really annoyed because nobody could explain further why her husband couldn’t sit with her to her satisfaction. She voluntarily got off the plane to talk to the airline. She yelled back at her husband, “Louis, we’re leaving!” Her daughter looked mortified that they would miss their flight. She was kind of nasty to the attendant, asking “How do you sleep at night?” as if not letting the two sit together due to federal law were tantamount to price gouging poor people for baby food.   

It was just odd because it’s not like they kicked the woman off. She got off voluntarily and inconvenienced herself just to prove some sort of point. It was a two hour-flight. Could these people really not have handled being separated?

I just thought it was amusing.

Game of Thrones S6 E4: Book of the Stranger

I don’t know if there was any doubt among viewers that Daenerys would eventually claim the throne of Westeros but it seems a sure thing now. Game of Thrones wouldn’t have set all that up — the dragons, conquering Meereen, setting the Dothraki on fire and walking unburnt through the flames — if she were not the one.

All sorts of plans and schemes were afoot, particularly with the welcome return of Littlefinger, plotting a long game to take back the North and manipulating Lysa Arryn’s creepy son. I like this show the best when it’s all palace intrigue and plotting.

Another particularly welcome development was Sansa meeting up with Jon Snow, rather than the two of them passing like ships in the night. Jon had been with the Night’s Watch for so long that I had forgotten his history at Winterfell. I loved the reunion and Sansa increasingly getting her competence, refusing to flinch at Ramsay’s nasty letter. I can’t blame Jon for not wanting to be with the Night’s Watch anymore since they did murder him and end his vows. What more could he possibly owe them? I also loved Brienne copping well-deserved self-righteousness with Melisandre and Davos over the murder of Renly. Those two are powerful in their own right but I wouldn’t mess with the woman who fought a bear.

Other characters not to mess with include Missandei, who speaks 19 languages, and Grey Worm. Their anger at Tyrion’s plan to free the slaves after seven more years was well-earned. Tyrion may be charismatic and rich but he has been relatively sheltered for most of his life. He suffered under his father and endured the jeers of being a little person but as Missandei rightfully pointed out, he was a slave for about three days. He will never understand Meereen and slavery like two actual former slaves and would do well to listen to them.

For a moment, I thought I’d get a birthday gift with the death of Ramsay Bolton. Alas, Osha’s paring knife was so near and yet so far.

For the love of the sept, set Margaery and Loras free. They’ve suffered enough and their ultimate punishment will outweigh their sins.

I don’t have a lot of analysis today but this was just a good episode.

The Americans S4 E9: The Day After

I didn’t watch The Day After in 1983 but I do remember the discussion about whether parents should let their kids watch and I have a vague memory of adults talking about the movie a few days later at Thanksgiving dinner. My parents made the right move not having us watch it (we were 9 and 6) because I saw the movie a few years ago and it is horrifying, even decades removed from that kind of imminent nuclear threat. Those scenes of the mushroom cloud over the highway and the people reduced to X-rayed skeletons in the blast are rough. These were very real fears in the early ‘80s.

One hundred million people watched, including everybody in the cast of The Americans and it’s no wonder the scenes of nuclear destruction had an effect on all of them. The Day After seems to have changed everybody just a little. After seven months of keeping up the appearance of being a nuclear family, with Philip and Elizabeth rested and healthy, Paige taking driving lessons, and mundane travel agency crises, the movie was a wake-up call.

The world came perilously close to the mutually assured destruction in the movie. After enthusiastic sex, Oleg tells Tatiana some classified information: The Soviets almost dropped the bomb after mistaking the reflection of sunlight on clouds for inbound U.S. missiles. Only a skeptical Russian called off the nuclear bombs. (This really happened, a story that always fascinated me, and that the general public didn’t know for years.) Oleg wonders if he would have had the courage and clear thinking to defy orders and not start World War III.

William finds a bioweapon even worse than glanders: lassa, which liquefies your organs and makes your blood come through your skin. He contemplates not telling Gabriel, one of several instances of characters pondering disobeying authority, perhaps destabilized by the TV movie. Philip tells William he and Elizabeth were on a break. “A break?” William deadpans. “We get breaks?”

For Elizabeth, seeing the TV nuclear winter (nice callout to that with “Winter Kills” by Yaz) wakes her up and she has new urgency to support her country. “These are the people who dropped the atom bomb twice,” she tells Philip. “We can’t sit in our comfortable house and pretend. This is why we’re here.”

Pastor Tim ominously wants to talk to the Jennings family once he’s back recording “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in Ethiopia. This can’t be good. Paige’s driving lesson (nicely scored to “Major Tom (Coming Home)” by Peter Schilling) was funny, with Philip’s reminders for her to blink, and broke the tension of Elizabeth’s seduction of Don.

That whole seduction was sad and hard to watch, despite Patty’s fabulously pink apartment, because we had gotten to know Young-Hee and Don and this will damage their marriage. At first I didn’t understand why drugging Don would gain Elizabeth any information. She was so thorough searching the house so what would she find searching his person. Then I realized: This is a breakup scene. Elizabeth’s not going to get anything from this family so she makes a clean break by faking an affair. It takes a toll on her.

Elizabeth’s “I’m going to miss her” was very sad. She could use a friend like Young-Hee and they understood each other, being outsiders to the American experience. But Patty can’t reveal her real name and it’s implausible for Elizabeth to keep wearing that wig and be a friend without the espionage, so it’s over. Like Philip losing Martha, Elizabeth is losing what precious opportunities for confidantes she has.

Wednesday Night at the DMV

The trip to the DMV to renew my license meant adding more driving time onto my already-horrific hour-long commute home. I grumble as my car drifts through the gridlocked streets of Wilmington at rush hour.

The new license would be my fourth in less than three years. Two years ago, I had to replace it after somebody stole my wallet from Planet Fitness. Last year, I renewed it when we moved. Now I am renewing my license because it’s expiring. They really should restart the clock on license expiration if you renew it in between those periods.

Finally, I park and look for a spot in the drizzle, finding one at the back of the lot. The lot is a madhouse with people darting everywhere to find spots. It makes a weird kind of sense that the worst drivers are always at the DMV.

I walk up to the door and there’s a line to get into the building to take a number to get in line. Good thing I brought a book and was already resigned to losing most of my evening. But the New Castle County DMV only has evening hours on Wednesdays and isn't open on weekends so there was no way around it.

The woman at the desk tells me I can renew at the kiosk and skip the line. I tell her I’ll try but I had problems doing that last year when I got all the way through the process and the kiosk told me it couldn’t complete my renewal for some mysterious reason and I had to stand in line anyway. I’ll try again but I take a number from her anyway so I can get in line now.

They’re calling number 1399. I have number 1448.

At the kiosk, it doesn’t look promising. The woman in front of me is commenting how the people at the front of the line are having trouble just like I did. But I might as well try while they whittle down the numbers.

I get through the process OK initially, confirming my address and what not. The weight on my license is laughably outdated but I think it would be more trouble than it’s worth to add pounds in the interest of accuracy. The machine takes the picture, telling me to maintain a neutral expression (easy for me). It’s not flattering. I look like the type of person I will someday keep my child away from.

I wait for the machine to malfunction because I got this far last year and it didn’t go through. It charges my card and gives me a receipt. I’m sure something will go wrong when I pick up my license.

I follow the footprints on the floor to the window and hand in my paperwork. Thirty seconds later, they call my name and I get my license. I’m in and out in 15 minutes.

It’s a weird feeling, not having anything to complain about after all.