Anyone watch the FX series The Americans

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by kwadguy, Jan 31, 2013.

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  1. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

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    Hitler's little troops lived in Germany. I think it would be harder to get a 14 year old kid raised in America in the era of Ronald Reagan to fight for the communists, no matter how much they loved their parents. (Maybe it would be better if they feared their parents.)
     
  2. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    Apparently they were walking around armed, since they were on a spy mission that weekend which could have turned bad at any time and Jared told Liz he got the gun from the 'rents motel room. And he wasn't all that good at shooting Larrick, either, since even with the element of surprise he barely winged him and it took Philip shooting from behind handcuffed in the trunk to dispatch him.
     
  3. shokhead

    shokhead Head shok and you still don't what it is. HA!

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    g
    Not saying it would be easy but it's not impossible to think of it happening. I never thought oh, this is impossible.

    If they don't at least tell their daughter what they are doing then I think the hiding it will get old fast next season as it's already getting old and their daughter is smart.
     
  4. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    I think a key thing to keep in mind here is that Jarred wasn't just a little off the rails. He was HUGELY off the rails. To be able to kill his own parents AND his own sister, and then have the presence of mind to go to the pool, wash off, and return to act out his surprise isn't something anyone without many screws loose could do. Most likely, he was a total psychopath.

    Presumably, he could have calmly waited until his parents weren't carrying their weapons in the hotel room and then taken everyone out. At close range, and without the tremors and nervousness of a normal person, he could have killed both parents before they knew what was happening.
     
  5. I was a little disappointed with the direction they took Larrick, I didn't find it very believable that he would have taken Elizabeth and Philip alive. I guess they wanted that storyline over and done with, it would have been better if he had simply killed off Jared and disappeared.
     
  6. etzeppy

    etzeppy Forum Resident

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    Texas, US
    I thought the whole Larrick sub-plot wrap-up was a little sloppy, but overall, this is really good show.
     
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  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Wow, I thought this was a fantastic wrap-up, and I did not see the surprise coming when it turned out that <certain character> was the one who'd killed the family. Very disturbing, well-acted show. Also glad to see Margo Martindale back in the show, if only temporarily. But sad to see <certain Russian character> departing, which also surprised me. The show is definitely going to go off into unexpected territory now.

    The best thing they did recently was to finally have the clueless secretary/wife blurt out that she knew that her husband (the Russian agent) was wearing a toupee! I laughed for five minutes on that one, because the disguises in the show are so ridiculous half the time.
     
  8. etzeppy

    etzeppy Forum Resident

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    That was good. The idea that he could conceal a wig from his "wife" indefinitely was implausible.
     
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  9. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

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    Yeah, the writers said they actually wrote that in because they were worried the toupee was getting too hard to believe.

    But they did give the scene another purpose -- it shook Philip's confidence to find he wasn't fooling her as completely as he thought.

    I'm hoping she will continue to question him, because I have to say I find the Martha marriage the hardest thing to believe on the show -- I don't really believe she could accept this strange marriage where her husband only shows up once a week and the whole relationship takes place inside of her apartment. I would think as an employee of the FBI she'd learn to be suspicious. Or that Philip could carve out enough time outside of his fake job, his real job, and his family to spend with her. Don't the kids notice he's gone overnight?
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2014
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  10. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Every episode, I'm convinced that this will be the one where Philip finally kill Martha in order to silence her, because she's figured the whole thing out. That day's gonna come.
     
  11. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

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    Martha may be the key to the whole thing unraveling -- Stan's dream indicated he was subconsciously aware that she or someone like her is stealing files. Who's she stealing them for? Her husband? Who's he... and then Philip's in trouble (or Martha's dead).
     
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  12. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    It'll be interesting to see if and how somebody starts connecting the dots and realizing how everything is related: the death of the Russian spy family, the American family, the Russian embassy, the secretary with the bug in the boss' office, and on and on and on. There's a huge plot to unravel. My guess is before that happens, they'll hit 1991 and the USSR will fall apart, so it all kind of becomes moot. On the other hand, that's still about 8-9 years away. I'm assuming the date is around 1982, based on the music being played in the recent episodes.
     
  13. I think Martha is going to get pregnant and complicate things for Philip. He's not as ruthless as Elizabeth, I don't think he'd kill his own child.
     
  14. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    Chekhov didn't give her that gun to stick in the drawer for nothing.
     
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  15. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    totally agree, pinholes in the condom.
     
  16. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Hey! I yelled out the same thing when that shot came up: "Chekhov's gun!" :righton:
     
  17. Geithals

    Geithals Forum Resident

    Location:
    Reykjavik
    The concept for the show was first class, but I suspect the actual life drama of the sleepers was much more interesting than the fiction. Were the parents not deported but the kids were kept in the USA?

    The first series was excellent, the 2nd series had its moments but you get the sense the 2nd series was not part of the original plan and the concept was being milked with some bizarre and unbelievable plot lines, I mean .... Martha? seriously? that bit just got cornier and cornier, to the point where it became a parody of itself.
     
  18. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    I think that whole thing is hilarious, and I'm willing to suspend my disbelief just enough to buy into it.
     
  19. vegafleet

    vegafleet Forum Resident

    The whole last episode of S02 was preposterous and a let down. Not believable. You would think after Breaking Bad showed that the audience appreciates a tight, logic, smart script, but they go here for a quickie denouement.

    And WHO killed the family? I'll admit I never saw that one coming because it was too preposterous.

    How does the traitor marine go from "Oh yeah, that kid was picked up at the station by a woman in a pickup truck" to finding Phillip in town and Elizabeth and the kid at the remote cabin?
     
  20. GlamorProfession

    GlamorProfession Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tejas
    indeed. and the confession from Jared as he bleeds to death was a shark jumper for me.

    i really liked season one but season two has been uneven for me. and i think the biggest reason being the unreasonable body count. just doesn't seem realistic to me that spies would be such killers (not to that degree at least). i guess i've been looking for a reason to bail on this show and the Jared killing his family along with the 2nd generation recruiting plan just cinches it for me.
     
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  21. I would have liked Jared's arc more if they had used a more capable actor in the role. That was a touch arc to handle for a young actor. I didn't mind it when the character was an inconsequential part of the storyline but when he was revealed as a key cog, it retroactively lowered my opinion of the preceding episodes.
     
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Doh, but Elizabeth would. Hell, they'll probably have the daughter do it.

    The kid always seemed to be a little squirrelly to me, so this wasn't that big a stretch for me. I thought it was an effective twist, and they had planned this from the beginning of the season.
     
  23. shokhead

    shokhead Head shok and you still don't what it is. HA!

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    Of course as much as this stuff looks strange, it's taken from events that really happened and still might be in a smaller way.
     
  24. Did anyone catch Keri Russell appearing on The Colbert Report a couple of weeks ago before the finale aired? I caught the repeat and she was acting...very loopy. I've seen her do interviews since she was a teen and never saw anything like this from her before.
     
  25. shokhead

    shokhead Head shok and you still don't what it is. HA!

    Location:
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