"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Thursday, May 12, 2016

The Day After The Americans 4.9

A good, even gripping episode of The Americans 4.9 on FX last night, which featured all of our major characters, including the Soviets in Washington, DC, watching The Day After, the movie on ABC which attracted more than 100 millions viewers when it was first broadcast in 1983, still a record for a TV-movie viewing audience.

It was one of the more brilliant strokes in the deft mix of real then-current events, usually via news reports, into The Americans narrative.   It allowed Elizabeth to tell Paige that stopping a nuclear war was what Elizabeth and Philip have been trying to accomplish with their work, and that the only atom bombs thus far used in a war were the ones dropped by the Americans at the end of World War II against Japan.   It's a sobering and important point - and it's good to know that here in 2016 we have managed to not yet do that again.   Another reason to vote for Hillary not Trump in our Presidential election, but I digress.

The other good part of this episode was Elizabeth faking sleeping with the husband of her Korean mark Hee.   She drugs him, comes on to him a little before he passes out, then undresses him, and sees to every detail to make him think he slept with her when he awakes, including putting a little cream on his ... when he's out cold.   You've got to, ah, hand it to Elizabeth, she's a master of making her deceptions real.

And speaking of deceptions, the disguises for Elizabeth and Philip were superb in the episode, so good in fact that William compliments Philip on his, saying it's his best one yet.   William is right. Indeed, this is easily the best disguise Philip has had on all season, and one of the best of the series.

The Pastor story is still simmering, and it will be fun to see what happens with this next week.




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