"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, April 12, 2018

The Americans 6.3: Stan and Oleg / Elizabeth's Fate



For some reason, the scene that most is still playing in my head in The Americans 6.3 - a moody episode, which little action until the end - is the one with Stan and Oleg.

Stan repeatedly pleads to Oleg that Stan did his very best to protect Oleg, especially when he got back in the USSR.  Oleg doesn't believe him.  We know that Stan is telling the truth - for the most part - and this makes Stan's last words to Oleg all the more touching.  You don't have diplomatic immunity, Stan reminds him, which means you can be arrested and thrown in jail and worse if you engage in any espionage here.  Stan knows that Oleg isn't telling the truth when he says he's just here for the college course.  Stan therefore knows that Oleg is vulnerable, and Stan really doesn't want to see Oleg arrested and worse.  Yet, we and Stan both know, when Stan asks Oleg what he's doing here, and Oleg lies in his answer and Stan knows he's lying, that Oleg is going to end up not very well in this final season.

Which brings us to that ending.  This is now the third week in a row in as many episodes this season that Elizabeth has killed an American, and I think that's telling us something.  She's a killer.  And what this usually means in a television series is that her own death is justified.

I actually hope I'm wrong about Elizabeth's fate.  She cold and in some strong sense deserves to die.  But I'd rather not see that happen - and I'd rather not see that happen to Philip and Paige.  Yet, of course, the first episode has already set in motion the possibility not just of Elizabeth not surviving, but Philip being the reason, having to kill her to stop her.

I still think that's not likely.  But barring some sudden change, Elizabeth is sealing her fate with every episode.







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