The Americans Season 3 Finale: Turning a Paige

Well, The Americans topped off its season three finale with a move that pitches the series in the most dangerous direction it's been so far. The trip to the Soviet Union had the reverse effect of what Elizabeth and Philip had wanted.  Paige is even more disconcerted by who her parents are. And, in a stunning last scene, she confides in that pain-in-the-a pastor.

This will leave Elizabeth and Philip with some wrenchingly painful options next season.  Obviously, they're not going to kill Paige, and would kill anyone who might try.  Certainly Philip feels this way, but I think Elizabeth does, too.   But certainly neither feels that way about the pastor, with whom they've already crosses swords, and have no love for at all.

But what would killing him do?   Paige would go ballistic if that happened.   Possibly the pastor will think that Paige is the one who's crazy and needs help - but how long will that last?  And, as always, Paige and everything she may do at home is just a stone's throw from Stan, whom she of course knows is FBI.   This a fine, insanely complicated kettle fish the narrative has landed itself and us in.

And, speaking of Stan, we still have no resolution at all about Martha.  Philip is showing qualms about killing innocent people.   But, as I've been saying ever since the bug in the pen was discovered, how can he let her live?   This situation, also of course connected to Stan, is so wrought with peril for Philip and Elizabeth, that Elizabeth may well do something about it - kill Martha - if Philip does not. But if Elizabeth does this, how will Philip react?  For that matter, how will Paige, if she catches any wind of it at home?

The Americans, always on the searing cutting edge of danger and death, always on the verge of its center of Elizabeth and Philip no longer being able to hold, has never been closer to mere anarchy loosed upon their world.  I'm very much looking forward to The Second Coming - or, in this case, the 4th season of this remarkable series.

See also The Americans 3.1: Caring for People We Shouldn't ... The Americans 3.3: End Justified the Means ...  The Americans 3.4: Baptism vs. Communism ... The Americans 3.6: "Jesus Came Through for Me Tonight" ...The Americans 3.7: Martha. My Dear ... The Americans 3.8: Martha, Part 2 ... The Americans 3.10: The Truth ... The Americans 3.12: The Unwigging

And see also The Americans 2.1-2: The Paradox of the Spy's Children ... The Americans 2.3: Family vs. Mission ... The Americans 2.7: Embryonic Internet and Lie Detection ... The Americans 2.9: Gimme that Old Time Religion ...The American 2.12: Espionage in Motion ... The Americans Season 2 Finale: Second Generation

And see also The Americans: True and Deep ... The Americans 1.4: Preventing World War III ... The Americans 1.11:  Elizabeth's Evolution ... The Americans Season 1 Finale: Excellent with One Exception

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The Sopranos: Seventh of Nine: What Rough Beasts

AJ reads from W. B. Yeats' "The Second Coming" ...

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ...
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

This poem pushes AJ to almost committing suicide, and Tony saves him. The poem of course perfectly captures just what is happening to Tony and his family and business as we reach the end of their story in this series.

But the thread of tonight’s episode that struck me as an even clearer picture of Tony’s situation concerned Meadow.

With tension dangerously increasingly between Tony and Phil, one of Phil’s guys comes over to Meadow’s table at a restaurant in Little Italy. He makes sexually harassing remarks to her. Meadow tells Tony.

Tony comes close to killing the guy – he admits later that he “lost it,” over his daughter, but managed to exercise some restrain by not killing this guy.

But this means little to Phil, who ups the insults another big ante…

What else could Tony have done? It would have been understandable as a father had Tony put Phil’s goon completely out his misery – Tony did show remarkable control. But yet he’s paying the price for it, anyway. He did the right thing – the best he could have done under the circumstances – and he is still being drawn, ever deeper, into a pit with no escape.

This has been Tony’s story, and the story of The Sopranos, all along. On the one hand, upper-middle class, even rich, suburban parents, who love their children and want what’s best for them. On the other hand, in a business which, however hard Tony and others may try, inevitably bleeds into their personal lives, as Tony aptly put it in his conversation tonight with Phil.

There’s no getting beyond or away from or out of this. The only question now will be whether Tony and his family can survive. . . .

Useful links:

Naked Bodies, Three Showings a Week, No Commercials:
The Sopranos as a Nuts-and-Bolts Triumph of Non-Network TV my 2002 article, published in David Lavery's This Thing of Ours: Investigating The Sopranos

reviews of other episodes this final season: The Sopranos: First of Nine, Second of Nine, Third of Nine, Fourth of Nine, Fifth of Nine, Sixth of Nine, Eighth of Nine, Ninth of Nine

listen to free podcast of this review, and reviews of all the other final nine episodes