Today might be the first day in all of this debacle where I can honestly say I probably made it too easy for myself. I rode the stationary bike, but by the time my ride was over, I had plenty of energy. Plenty of "juice," if you will. I probably could have kept going, but I didn't. Not out of mental weakness or laziness. I had to get back to work, but I still felt guilty at the idea of cheating myself out of righteous exhaustion.
I seem to be in a period of constant temptation. Upon pouring my half-gallon of water and small cup of black coffee this morning, I marveled at someone's display of a free Mountain Dew from the vending machine. I assume someone paid for the drink and the machine--which by the way is a complete bastard that has filched me of at least thirty dollars over the course of the last three years--failed to dispense it. Naturally, the next patron left the drink on top of the machine rather than do what I would be naturally inclined to do, which would be to gluttonously stockpile my new spare drink for a later treat. It's the scavenger in me; a free soda pop is a free soda pop, especially when all that extra caffeine and sugar would really brighten me up for an early morning dive into my work.
I left it sitting. And you know what? I laughed about it later. Why? Because that Mountain Dew was gone, baby, gone within a hot minute. Someone snapped it up, just as I would have a month ago. Meanwhile, the designated free-for-all snack credenza in the office has had a bag of little snack mandarins on it for the last three days. A mere dozen little oranges have been sitting, waiting, and getting passed up since Monday morning. I myself have acquitted myself of more than five of the little buggers, and I think I might be the only one. This is America, jack. A free sticky-sweet bottle of neon-green sugar bubbles, gone instantly. Twelve lovely little easy-to-peel mandarins, dead on the vine.
I'm on a high horse with this, I realize. But it's still a pretty grotesque illustration. Fruit and vegetables are just not seen as "special" enough. It's not like a gourmet dinner can revolve around anything but a piece of meat, or a sauce, or even a vegetable dressed up to act as proxy. I love an eggplant parmesan, but let's be honest here...the eggplant is the character actor of that meal, not the headlining star. Why are vegetables treated this way? You know how damn hard it is for those things to form, grow, and ripen? It's a combination of science and art to grow the perfect tomatoes.
Acchhh. Hell with it. Let's get to the part people might actually read.
"The Americans" Season 1, Episode 4 "In Control"
Escalation was the game during the last decade of the Cold War. Nuclear arms production increases on one side, it will then increase on the other side. We develop stealth planes, they develop new radar technology. Reagan's famed ballistic missile shield has already been a big prize for the Directorate S crew on "The Americans." When suddenly all the intelligence and counter-intelligence in the world gets tossed out the window when shots are fired at the Gipper himself, escalation can become a very scary and unpredictable hazard.
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we know that the shooter is merely mentally unstable Jodie Foster fan John Hinckley. But no one on the show has any idea. Even Margot Martindale's cagey handler character, Claudia, is at a loss when asked by Elizabeth, "Was this us?" The FBI office seems almost sure of it, and starts scrambling for any leads, including putting screws to Stan Beeman's new friend in the Russian embassy, Nina. And, of course, regardless of what malevolent forces might be behind this sophisticated plot, the KGB is poised to take advantage in any way possible, if it turns out Reagan's assassination is a successful first step toward a bloody coup.
Stan practically chortles out loud when Nina frets about the US government being forceably taken over while Reagan is in surgery. That's not the way things work here, he's thinking. But Nina is Russian; she's seen what happens when Dear Leader dies. Hell, her entire government was founded on the execution of the Tsar and his family, and over 60 years of infighting and backstabbing has taken place in the USSR since.
Stan's communication with Nina during the crisis almost leads to a huge blunder that would probably get her killed. He is doing it under protest with his boss breathing down his neck about it, but still. It's increasingly sloppy. It echoes his strategy from racquetball: make your enemy move too fast, get tired, make a mistake. Only in this case, the opposing player for Stan who is tripping him up is
Team Jennings, meanwhile, have their own set of escalations tripping them up. For starters, Elizabeth and Philip are having afternoon trysts in fancy hotel rooms, almost like...well, almost like a couple of coworkers having a secret affair. I don't suppose the hotel is just to spice things up, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Jennings household had a few eyes and ears keeping tabs on their domestic life for the Center. It would be cute to see the longtime spy partnership blossoming into real affection, if not for the widening gyre of their respective beliefs regarding America and their ongoing orders.
All of the Russian characters (except Philip) believe this assassination attempt is an excuse for a coup. And when Al Haig, the Secretary of State, makes an ill-worded statement that he "is in control at the White House" this fuels their paranoia. Even Charles, the Commie-turned-government asset who is really working as an informant to the KGB, evokes the assassination of Franz Ferdinand while being interviewed on television. The uncertainty surrounding that assassination helped spark the first world war, and Philip is determined to not be the same spark for part III based on shoddy intel. Much like Stan, Philip knows in his bones that Americans just don't work the same way as the Motherland.
It strikes me that Elizabeth must have been trained differently from Philip. While she has experience recruiting American citizens to their cause and using them as a secret army of assets, she also has a large stockpile of weapons buried in the woods. When Claudia orders her to prepare for "Operation Christopher," an almost laughable plan to enact guerrilla warfare on American soil, like this is effing Red Dawn or something, Elizabeth doesn't even balk at the notion. She digs up an arsenal and starts planning sniper nests outside houses of government officials.
Philip, in contrast, with his extensive disguises and manipulation tactics, seems more suited to passive espionage. He gathers intelligence and reports it. Or doesn't, in this case. Philip has escalated his passive resistance from criticizing orders to dereliction of his duty to inform the Center of Haig's possible possession of nuclear launch codes. It turned out to be the correct course of action to not transmit this info, but that hardly would matter to Claudia and the KGB. Lack of loyalty is measured in just such small droplets.
How does this decision affect the budding realism of the Jennings marriage? Well, for starters, Philip's independent streak is butting up against Elizabeth's absolute loyalty, but also it is forcing the couple to confront the idea of putting each other ahead of their work. If Philip were to outright disobey orders or help the US in any way, would Elizabeth put the Motherland ahead of him? She would probably say yes at this point if asked by Claudia, but she'd be lying at least a little. After all, as Philip is fully aware, if the Center ever finds out that he failed to inform them of the Haig intelligence, the consequences would be immediate and ugly. Their bond is growing.
Random Notes:
-Paige Jennings insists "Poland is part of Russia"...yikes.
-A sophisticated phone hacking operation and a stolen government car, on demand. Boy, that's service.
-Is it supposed to be funny that the FBI immediately assumes that Hinckley is a KGB op? Because their cluelessness and immediate leap to that conclusion struck me as a little funny.
-Elizabeth's zealous commitment to Communism seems to be inherited from her mother, who refused stolen food from the committee offices during the uncertainty of Stalin's death (a clear parallel between the superpowers being drawn).
-The security guard who Elizabeth coldly executes seems like something that will come back to haunt their work, but certainly not their consciences. That's curious, considering how much trouble they typically go through to spare innocents. Maybe drastic times and drastic measures, et cetera.
Rating: A-
I seem to be in a period of constant temptation. Upon pouring my half-gallon of water and small cup of black coffee this morning, I marveled at someone's display of a free Mountain Dew from the vending machine. I assume someone paid for the drink and the machine--which by the way is a complete bastard that has filched me of at least thirty dollars over the course of the last three years--failed to dispense it. Naturally, the next patron left the drink on top of the machine rather than do what I would be naturally inclined to do, which would be to gluttonously stockpile my new spare drink for a later treat. It's the scavenger in me; a free soda pop is a free soda pop, especially when all that extra caffeine and sugar would really brighten me up for an early morning dive into my work.
I left it sitting. And you know what? I laughed about it later. Why? Because that Mountain Dew was gone, baby, gone within a hot minute. Someone snapped it up, just as I would have a month ago. Meanwhile, the designated free-for-all snack credenza in the office has had a bag of little snack mandarins on it for the last three days. A mere dozen little oranges have been sitting, waiting, and getting passed up since Monday morning. I myself have acquitted myself of more than five of the little buggers, and I think I might be the only one. This is America, jack. A free sticky-sweet bottle of neon-green sugar bubbles, gone instantly. Twelve lovely little easy-to-peel mandarins, dead on the vine.
I'm on a high horse with this, I realize. But it's still a pretty grotesque illustration. Fruit and vegetables are just not seen as "special" enough. It's not like a gourmet dinner can revolve around anything but a piece of meat, or a sauce, or even a vegetable dressed up to act as proxy. I love an eggplant parmesan, but let's be honest here...the eggplant is the character actor of that meal, not the headlining star. Why are vegetables treated this way? You know how damn hard it is for those things to form, grow, and ripen? It's a combination of science and art to grow the perfect tomatoes.
Acchhh. Hell with it. Let's get to the part people might actually read.
"The Americans" Season 1, Episode 4 "In Control"
Escalation was the game during the last decade of the Cold War. Nuclear arms production increases on one side, it will then increase on the other side. We develop stealth planes, they develop new radar technology. Reagan's famed ballistic missile shield has already been a big prize for the Directorate S crew on "The Americans." When suddenly all the intelligence and counter-intelligence in the world gets tossed out the window when shots are fired at the Gipper himself, escalation can become a very scary and unpredictable hazard.
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we know that the shooter is merely mentally unstable Jodie Foster fan John Hinckley. But no one on the show has any idea. Even Margot Martindale's cagey handler character, Claudia, is at a loss when asked by Elizabeth, "Was this us?" The FBI office seems almost sure of it, and starts scrambling for any leads, including putting screws to Stan Beeman's new friend in the Russian embassy, Nina. And, of course, regardless of what malevolent forces might be behind this sophisticated plot, the KGB is poised to take advantage in any way possible, if it turns out Reagan's assassination is a successful first step toward a bloody coup.
Stan practically chortles out loud when Nina frets about the US government being forceably taken over while Reagan is in surgery. That's not the way things work here, he's thinking. But Nina is Russian; she's seen what happens when Dear Leader dies. Hell, her entire government was founded on the execution of the Tsar and his family, and over 60 years of infighting and backstabbing has taken place in the USSR since.
Stan's communication with Nina during the crisis almost leads to a huge blunder that would probably get her killed. He is doing it under protest with his boss breathing down his neck about it, but still. It's increasingly sloppy. It echoes his strategy from racquetball: make your enemy move too fast, get tired, make a mistake. Only in this case, the opposing player for Stan who is tripping him up is
Team Jennings, meanwhile, have their own set of escalations tripping them up. For starters, Elizabeth and Philip are having afternoon trysts in fancy hotel rooms, almost like...well, almost like a couple of coworkers having a secret affair. I don't suppose the hotel is just to spice things up, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Jennings household had a few eyes and ears keeping tabs on their domestic life for the Center. It would be cute to see the longtime spy partnership blossoming into real affection, if not for the widening gyre of their respective beliefs regarding America and their ongoing orders.
All of the Russian characters (except Philip) believe this assassination attempt is an excuse for a coup. And when Al Haig, the Secretary of State, makes an ill-worded statement that he "is in control at the White House" this fuels their paranoia. Even Charles, the Commie-turned-government asset who is really working as an informant to the KGB, evokes the assassination of Franz Ferdinand while being interviewed on television. The uncertainty surrounding that assassination helped spark the first world war, and Philip is determined to not be the same spark for part III based on shoddy intel. Much like Stan, Philip knows in his bones that Americans just don't work the same way as the Motherland.
It strikes me that Elizabeth must have been trained differently from Philip. While she has experience recruiting American citizens to their cause and using them as a secret army of assets, she also has a large stockpile of weapons buried in the woods. When Claudia orders her to prepare for "Operation Christopher," an almost laughable plan to enact guerrilla warfare on American soil, like this is effing Red Dawn or something, Elizabeth doesn't even balk at the notion. She digs up an arsenal and starts planning sniper nests outside houses of government officials.
Philip, in contrast, with his extensive disguises and manipulation tactics, seems more suited to passive espionage. He gathers intelligence and reports it. Or doesn't, in this case. Philip has escalated his passive resistance from criticizing orders to dereliction of his duty to inform the Center of Haig's possible possession of nuclear launch codes. It turned out to be the correct course of action to not transmit this info, but that hardly would matter to Claudia and the KGB. Lack of loyalty is measured in just such small droplets.
How does this decision affect the budding realism of the Jennings marriage? Well, for starters, Philip's independent streak is butting up against Elizabeth's absolute loyalty, but also it is forcing the couple to confront the idea of putting each other ahead of their work. If Philip were to outright disobey orders or help the US in any way, would Elizabeth put the Motherland ahead of him? She would probably say yes at this point if asked by Claudia, but she'd be lying at least a little. After all, as Philip is fully aware, if the Center ever finds out that he failed to inform them of the Haig intelligence, the consequences would be immediate and ugly. Their bond is growing.
Random Notes:
-Paige Jennings insists "Poland is part of Russia"...yikes.
-A sophisticated phone hacking operation and a stolen government car, on demand. Boy, that's service.
-Is it supposed to be funny that the FBI immediately assumes that Hinckley is a KGB op? Because their cluelessness and immediate leap to that conclusion struck me as a little funny.
-Elizabeth's zealous commitment to Communism seems to be inherited from her mother, who refused stolen food from the committee offices during the uncertainty of Stalin's death (a clear parallel between the superpowers being drawn).
-The security guard who Elizabeth coldly executes seems like something that will come back to haunt their work, but certainly not their consciences. That's curious, considering how much trouble they typically go through to spare innocents. Maybe drastic times and drastic measures, et cetera.
Rating: A-