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The Americans - Season 5 of the award winning KGB spy drama - Tuesdays on FX

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faridmon

Member
I suppose my feeling about Liz and Phillips don't align with most of the people here. I am more sympathetic to their line of thinking since they are trying their damnest to make it work for their country. The to that ideology.

I would not straight out call them evil, more like Pychopathically naive

If anything, I hate people like Pastor Tim who use their position and relationship to make excuses for themselves to be able to be judgmental about other people whlie straight out hide that fact, in the name of ''good will''. Heck, ultimately, he just want Paige and her parents to convert fully to his religion andmake them sheeps like him
 

RatskyWatsky

Hunky Nostradamus
- Gold Derby: Irina Dubova is outstanding in major acting debut on Tuesday's ‘The Americans'

She's an accountant by trade and apparently just does a bit of acting on the side. This is her English speaking debut. Really impressive. She wasn't submitted, though. :(
Also annoying, Gold Derby posted this article yesterday afternoon, and I wish I hadn't read it before watching the episode.

Oh wow, she's quite the discovery. I even initially thought she was Isabella Rosselini!

Alison Wright wasn't even that good in her episode though :/

I suppose my feeling about Liz and Phillips don't align with most of the people here. I am more sympathetic to their line of thinking since they are trying their damnest to make it work for their country. The to that ideology.

I would not straight out call them evil, more like Pychopathically naive

If anything, I hate people like Pastor Tim who use their position and relationship to make excuses for themselves to be able to be judgmental about other people whlie straight out hide that fact, in the name of ''good will''. Heck, ultimately, he just want Paige and her parents to convert fully to his religion andmake them sheeps like him

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That was a great episode.

But the Oleg stuff is a failure for me. It's just not interesting.
I think most people just aren't getting those scenes. I'm not even blaming the viewer, it's not obvious at all what's going on but the stories are all mirroring each other. Oleg is uncovering a corrupt KGB and Phillip and Elizabeth are losing their faith in it as well, they all seem bound to it in various ways.
 
I guess I fall into the camp that doesn't see Philip and Elizabeth as evil. I think Elizabeth knew that if they didn't complete the mission and it was later discovered by their superiors that it was Anna, the Jennings could be in danger from their own people.

It did feel like a gut punch though and a turning point for their relationship. That's another The Americans scene that is going to stick with me for a long time.

Pastor Tim was right, obviously.
 

Sadsic

Member
I've watched those last two scenes like three times since tuesday

so good... fucks me up in the way i want fiction to do to me
 
Phillip saw himself when Natalie told them her story. I bet he wishes he can salvage what's left of his tumultuous life and just live a normal existence.
 
New episode tonight:
The World Council of Churches

As Philip and Elizabeth grapple with a momentous decision, Tuan takes matters into his own hands in the Morozov operation. Back in Russia, Oleg's investigation collides with the realities of the Soviet system.
This is the penultimate episode from S5, and as of now S6 is slated to have 10 episodes to finish the series.
 

dabig2

Member

Oh man, that twist with the other woman he was lavishing gifts for over his sick wife:
The FBI learned, through surveillance, that Justice’s wife was confined to her home. In an interview with The Times last year, his father, William Justice, said his son’s wife had a variety of health issues, including diabetes and chronic accident-related back pain.

The FBI did not disclose the name of Justice’s employer, but his father said he worked for Boeing Satellite Systems in El Segundo.

Mounting medical bills had put financial pressure on the couple, federal authorities said.
In a recorded phone conversation with his wife, federal authorities said, Gregory Justice told her that he was canceling all of her medical appointments because he couldn’t come up with money to make repairs to their car to take her to them.

But bank records disclosed that Justice was spending his money on another woman and lavishing her with gifts.


From December 2015 to May 2016, Justice sent FedEx packages containing more than $21,000 to a mysterious woman who lived with her son and boyfriend in an apartment in Long Beach, according to court records.
As authorities dug through his computer files, they found photographs of a woman. When investigators conducted a reverse-image search on Google, they discovered something was amiss.

FBI officials said the woman, who was identified as C.M. in the affidavit, had misrepresented herself and had been sending him photographs of a model in Europe.

Investigators uncovered text messages from the unidentified woman. In them, she asked for cash payments.


Justice bought her a Dyson fan; two televisions; a grill; kitchen furniture; an iPhone; a purse and blanket, according to court records. He also paid for 86 purchases through Amazon.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Fuck this dude.
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Whoa there, Tuan. Slow your roll.

I'm not quite sure how to read that last scene with Oleg and his father. Was he actually trying to goad his father into interfering?

Elizabeth and Philip thinking that there's any hope of a nice life for their whole family by going back to Russia... time to snap out of it!

More proof that FX has the best fucking marketing.
 

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Tuan's storyline has always had​ this suicide vibe to me. I actually thought he might've killed himself when he was off the grid a few episodes back. They've drawn attention to his loneliness a couple times. Then the stuff with sending bullies to make Pasha's life hell, it seemed inevitable that it would all fall apart.

Paige has really grown as a character. There were some pretty big drops on that in this episode. Throwing away the cross, admitting she didn't really want to be around Pastor Tim anymore, saying she's sleeping well again, being able to pick up on Elizabeth and Philip lying, and then training by herself. I smell a big moment coming for her. Maybe not this season, but it feels like the water is heating up and the kettle is about to whistle there.
 
- Podcast for this week is up
This week, Thomas talks to co-showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields about proper spy terminology, Philip and Elizabeth’s frank conversation with Pastor Tim, and the ways in which Tuan Eckert is like Frasier’s Niles Crane. Then producing director Chris Long talks about shooting in Moscow for the first time.
 
- TV Fanatic: Costa Ronin and Chris Long Discuss Filming in Russia and Oleg's Journey
One scene felt particularly significant, and that's when Oleg goes on the roof to burn the evidence tying him to Stan and get rid of the evidence. Why did you choose to film it the way you did, outside, on the roof and looking over the landscape?

Chris: From a character standpoint, when Oleg does that, he is burning the past. He is cleansing himself and moving on and making a decision in his head to do that.

It felt right to do that while he was overlooking his city. It felt right to do it where he could stare out at the landscape that he knew since he was a boy and make that decision, which was a huge decision for him. How did you feel, Costa, while doing that?

Costa: It's absolutely that. And seeing the lights of Moscow and seeing the monastery, it's a very spiritual experience. It's, in a sense, a rebuild of the person because he's been trying to break away from everything that happened for so long.

The first time when he came to the United States and the second time when he came back to Russia. He got to have time to process, pour through this, figure out his life and that was very much a grieving experience. In that scene, seeing the sky, seeing the monastery, seeing the crosses of Moscow, everything came back for him.

Chris: And by the way, half of that scene was shot in Brooklyn. So what we did was, the way we shot that scene was we did all the wide shots, Costa getting out onto the roof and all the close ups, and then we did the actual lighting of the tape in Brooklyn against a green screen.

So the moon that he looks upon is actually a Brooklyn moon. Well, that makes no sense. It's the moon. But it's shot from Brooklyn.

Costa: Two continents, two locations!

Chris: There ya go! Because we didn't want to burn the tape on the roof because it was a very tricky roof. There were sheets of ice up there, and it was very dangerous, and we went up there with a very small crew. It was a beautiful view with beautiful lights, but it was dangerous to be up there, so we decided on the day just to shoot the minimum amount of footage we needed to and for me to shoot plates and to shoot green screen when we got home to Brooklyn.
I liked that explanation, and I'm wondering, is Oleg completely at peace with his decision to go back to Russia to start anew? Is he content? Would he rather be in America? Is he good trying to rid the USSR of corruption from where he is now? What's his journey like now as we roll into the last couple of episodes?

Costa: Well, what do you think?

[laughs] As a viewer, I'm torn! I can't tell. Everything is so subtle this season.

Costa: Good! Here's the thing. Oleg isn't different from any of us. Every single step of the way, there's a choice. The second step of the way are the consequences of the choices that we made. So now he's torn, just like you are, because just like you are because he doesn't know what's going to happen next.

First of all, he doesn't really know if Stan really initiated what it's said he initiated. Because you've got to remember that we live in the world of spies, where we live in the world where nothing is as it seems and everything can be a lie, and everything can be a trick.

So everything has to be a guess, he has to make those right, it's like an eternal chess game that never ends. So he's absolutely thrown, he doesn't know what's happening and all he's trying to do is be his best, and when we get to Season 5, we see those plays to be made on the board, and that's how I would describe it.
 
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