Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing Black Doves; Dark Matter; Dept. Q; Detective Hole; Dexter: Resurrection; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; Memory of a Killer; MobLand; Outlander; Paradise; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Smoke; Star City; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Tehran;The: Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Night Agent; Your Friends & Neighbors +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Showing posts with label The Americans. Show all posts

Friday, April 3, 2026

For All Mankind 5.2: Actor Reunions

It's great to see Joel Kinnaman as Admiral Baldwin in For All Mankind Season 5 still flying morally high, still shaking things up, defying authority to do the right thing, still causing good trouble (as John Lewis put it so well down here on Earth in our off-screen reality), in his advanced age. Kinnaman is especially impressive in the role, given that he's now also playing a character much closer to his real age in Imperfect Women, which I'll review as soon as its first season is over.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

Baldwin in Season 5 of For All Mankind has stage-three cancer, and is not supposed to fly. All the more the impressive that he risks his life in this condition to save Lee Jung-Gil (played by C. S. Lee -- Vince Masuka from Dexter old and new!). And episode 5.2 concludes with Baldwin's plan to save Lee on the way to working, though as that happens, Mireille Enos's character Celia Boyd -- Enos starred with Joel Kinnaman in The Killing around the same time the original Dexter was concluding -- finds Baldwin unconscious at the controls.

Now if For All Mankind were made by Taylor Sheridan, this might be the end of Baldwin. But given that Ronald D. Moore is its creator, I'd be stunned if Baldwin didn't survive until at least the end of this season. In fact, given that Joel Kinnaman has been reported to return as Baldwin in the final season 6 of the series, and though, again, apropos of Sheridan, this could be in flashbacks, I'm thinking we'll see Baldwin in real current time in the final season. (And while we're at it, in the alternate history spin-off Star City to debut in May, though probably at a younger age.)

Anyway, Celia Boyd is a great new character, so is Leonid played Costa Ronan (from Homeland and The Americans), and all the continuing characters are good to see in this 5th season of For All Mankind. And I'll see you back next week with my review of the next episode.

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Saturday, August 25, 2018

Red Sparrow: Not The Americans

I saw Red Sparrow on the plane out to Pasadena Thursday night, where I spoke about "Mars and Religion" on a panel with James Heiser and Michael Waltemathe at the Mars Society Conference on Friday. Hey, Mars is the Red Planet, right? The movie and the conference were both excellent. But I'd rate the conference a little higher.

In a phrase, Red Sparrow, about a female Russian agent with a license to kill, is no The Americans. Which is not to say Red Sparrow isn't good and worth seeing. It just doesn't break new ground in the genre.

Jennifer Lawrence's Dominika is an appealing, dangerous, deeply conflicted character, and Red Sparrow gets points for having us wonder about her ultimate loyalties until almost the very end, and being at least somewhat surprised if not shocked by the choices she makes. But most of the characters around her are straight out of central casting, meaning we've seen them on screens many times before.

In the end, Red Sparrow almost seem more like a James Bond as woman movie - which there have also been plenty of - than a profound espionage movie like The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. I guess the movie received special attention because Maria Butina has been so much in the news along with the Russians in general in our age of Trump and Russian meddling in our elections. But in all fairness to Buttina, she may be a Russian agent, but we have no reason to think she's the kind who can fight like a karate master and kill on demand.

My recommendation: Red Sparrow is well worth seeing on a plane, or on some cable or streaming service where you don't have to pay for it. In that format, it's an enjoyable 2 hours and 20 mins.

Thursday, May 31, 2018

The Americans Finale: What the Series Was Always About

An exquisite, satisfyingly restrained, even beautiful finale to The Americans tonight - a series which only in this, its sixth and final season, has become, in my view, one of the finest series ever on television. This is because, although the series started as gangbusters in its first year, and although it never lost the astonishing originality of its premise and first season, it meandered, almost got repetitive and stuck in a quagmire in subsequent years, only to reclaim the best that it was was and exceed it in this last season.

And the 90-minute finale was at the apex of this extraordinary season. Rather than analyze it in a linear way, I'd rather just share some thoughts about the highlights of what was just on the screen:

I said to my wife that we'd never leave our son, as Philip convinced Elizabeth to do with their son, Henry. My wife agreed completely - then added, but you and I never killed anyone.
The scene with Stan holding a gun on Philip, Elizabeth, and Paige was brilliant, and only the second best in the episode. (It contained peak performances by Noah Emmerich as Stan and Matthew Rhys as Philip, with Keri Russell as Elizabeth and Holly Taylor as Paige putting in their best incandescent performances in the scene between them last week.) Philip and Elizabeth were always good talkers - as good in talking their way into and out of situations as they were with guns and weapons - and Paige has clearly learned and/or inherited that way with words. Is Stan's letting them all go believable? Tough call, but I think it is. His human connection to Philip and family triumphed over Stan's profession, which was part of what this series was all about. Paige's being there brought out Stan's humanity - he certainly wouldn't have shot her parents right in front of her, except if they were attacking him, which they wisely did not. But Stan's decision was based on a lie - the lie that Philip and Elizabeth never killed anyone - and it's not clear if Stan really believed it. (Actually, why would he? He had been searching for the couple who had killed FBI agents.) Back in headquarters, when his colleagues have identified Philip and Elizabeth, Stan vows to kill them. Was that for his partner's sake, or does a part of him really feel that way, because he now knows for sure that Philip and Elizabeth lied to him one last time about never killing anyone.
Meanwhile, Philip finally had a disguise that was utterly convincing. Not quite Elizabeth. Paige's disguise was better than Elizabeth's. At least the producers made some progress in the disguise department.
We still don't know if Renee is working for the Soviets. Stan doesn't know, either. It's good not to see every loose end tied up.
And the best scene, of course, was the very last scene, with Philip and Elizabeth in Moscow, starting to speak in Russian, ending in English, two souls who had sacrificed their lives for a greater cause, created and raised two children, now having only each other. Say what you will about the evil of their cause, it was still gratifying and right to see them alive like this, at the end.

And maybe that, too, is what this uniquely memorable series was all about.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Penultimate The Americans: Tour de Force Keri Russell

Well, the next-to-last episode of The Americans, just concluded on FX tonight, was really something. Keri Russell has been outstanding throughout the six-season series, but she put on an off-the-chart performance as Elizabeth tonight.

Conversations have always been the centerpiece of this series, but the conversion between Elizabeth and Paige tonight set a new high standard for Elizabeth. She finally admits to what Paige has been in one way or another accusing her of all season and earlier: Yes, she's not only a spy. She's a spy who sleeps with men, because sex in such circumstances means nothing to her, it's just a means to an end, and Philip knows and approves. Those statements and emotions would have been powerful coming from any decent actress, but Keri Russell delivers a searing performance in that two-minute conversation.

A little earlier, it's Margot Martindale as Claudia who delivers the goods - to Elizabeth. Claudia's quiet denunciation of Elizabeth, telling her she's ruined everything in her support of Gorbachev and betrayal of the Centre, was just outstanding.

Meanwhile, Stan's convinced now that his neighbors are the deadly spying couple, and Philip almost gets caught by the FBI when the Russian priest sets him up in a meeting. I can't recall seeing Philip/Matthew Rhys run faster on this show. Ordinarily, I would have said there was little chance of Philip actually getting caught in such circumstances. But the end of the series is nigh, and Philip ran was if he knew that.

The finale of this remarkable series is next week. I'll be here moments after with my review.

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

The Americans 6.8: Lying about the Moon

With only two episodes left to go in The Americans, episode 6.8 tonight mapped out a profound change in Elizabeth. Till now, in this season and earlier, Elizabeth has been nothing but coldly homicidal regarding anyone identified as an enemy by the Centre and ordered by them to be eliminated. Likewise, any innocent person who jeopardized her continuing work for the Centre. But, after a game-changing conversation to start the episode, in which Philip finally tells Elizabeth what he's been tasked by the Soviet government - in contrast to the Centre - to do, Elizabeth finally begins coming into her own, as, well, a human being.

First, she allows Jackson to walk away, after he tells that he knows she's been using him for some unsavory purpose. In every episode up to tonight's, Elizabeth never would have let him get out of the car. And next, she disobeys an order to kill Nesterenko, because she's seen for herself that he's not an enemy of the state.

She's still loyal to The Soviet Union, but that means loyalty to the Communist Party and Gorbachev, not loyalty to the Centre. This puts Elizabeth and Claudia on a collision course, and it's not clear what Claudia will do. But Elizabeth - and Philip - ironically have worse things to worry about. Stan is all but convinced that they are the couple who killed so many of the FBI's assets over the years.

A big question mark still hangs over Renee. The one thing that can stop Stan - easily kill him, if need be - is Renee. Tonight we see her noticing that Stan is looking across the street at the Jennings home. When she asks him what he's looking at, he lies to her and says the moon. She's got to know he's lying. If she's a Russian agent, what will she do about this?

So far, we've seen no evidence that she is indeed working for the Centre. But scenes like tonight's, and Stan lying about the moon, should oblige us to think more about Renee. I wouldn't be at all surprised if part of the stunning ending in two weeks is she kills Stan, before he can bring Philip and Elizabeth down.

On the other hand ... well, I'll be back here next week with my next-to-last review of this extraordinary series.

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

The Americans 6.7: Suspension of Disbelief and the Sketches

Throughout previous seasons of The Americans, I've wondered why Stan, looking at the sketches of Philip and Elizabeth in disguise, didn't recognize them as his next-door neighbors. I mean, the disguises are good, but not that good. The sketches of the Soviet-agent suspects sure looked to me like Philip and Elizabeth, and, if anything, Stan knows them much better than I do. I see them just once a week, for an hour or so, for ten or a few more weeks once a year. Stan sees them all the time.

I always assumed this was just the willing suspension of disbelief - see Coleridge - that I and all viewers of this great series had to make. It was the price we had to pay to enjoy this excellent, and important, series. But in tonight's episode 6.7, that willing suspension of disbelief was really put to the test.

Stan is suspicious of Philip and Elizabeth - suspicious that they're up to something no good, or at very least something they don't want to tell him. Of course, there's no reason to assume that they're Soviet spies. Yet he's moved in this episode to break into and look through their home - while both are in Chicago (Philip told him they'll be in Houston), on a mission that will result in the death of two FBI agents.

He finds nothing. Presumably the sketches of the suspects from Chicago have not yet arrived - that will be left to the next episode, according to the coming attractions. But why isn't Stan looking at the previous sketches right now - he's already been told that a white man and a white woman were in that bus in Chicago. Given that he's already suspicious about his neighbors - if not for being Soviet spies, for something untoward - it's hard to believe that he's not already putting two and two together - his two neighbors are this couple that keep showing up at all of these murderous occasions.

Well, they'll be plenty of time for that next week and in the remaining episodes of this extraordinary series, and I'll be back here with reviews of them all.

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

The Americans 6.6: Rififi

In The Americans 6.6, Jackson - a new mark Elizabeth is working on, as a conduit to Senator Sam Nunn (of earlier Watergate fame, in case the name sounds familiar) - anyway, Jackson says Rififi (a 1955 French movie), where Elizabeth first contrives to meet him, is the best heist movie ever made. I agree! I felt that way when I saw it as a kid in the late 1950s at a beat-up old movie theater (I think the Globe, on Pelham Parkway in the Bronx), and the movie has stayed with me to this day. Jackson was not only correct in the 1980s when he said that to Elizabeth, his appraisal is true today. The very word, "Rififi," said sotto voce in the movie, gets me in the mood for any great foreign heist movie. So far, Jackson's role hasn't materialized in The Americans, but I just wanted to make that point about Rififi.

Now as to the rest of episode: the relationship between Philip and Elizabeth has reached a critically dangerous point. Philip is not only not backing Elizabeth, he's actively working against her ... until, when she doesn't accede to his request to come home instead of going through with her dangerous mission (which I'm pretty sure he made even more dangerous), Philip decides to join her - presumably to help her - in Chicago. I say "presumably" because, though I think he genuinely wants to help her, things have gotten so bad between them that it's not 100% clear what he'll be doing in Chicago.

This episode was also the best we've ever seen of Henry, who has really started to grow up fast. He's very different from his sister - he of course does not know what his parents really do (or did), let alone work for that cause - but he's sharp as a whip in his own way.

And Stan has gone into full-fledged hunt down Soviets in America mode - which, given his relationship with Henry, not to mention Stan, is bound to have some explosive consequences.

Quite a ride still ahead. I'll be back with more next week. Before then, I'm going to see Rififi somewhere, but, don't worry, I won't review it. "Rififi"!

"challenging fun"
- Entertainment Weekly

e-mail received from a reader:
Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchildren. Thanks! Tom

I of course happily replied...

42 reviews of The Plot to Save Socrates!