Friday, May 06, 2016

The Americans Season 4 Episode 7: Есть EST?

This week's show seems to be a kind of housecleaning before the big blowup.  John Boy gets fired for a host of things that Stan the Man did;  Martha goes to Russia, Stan the Man is palling around with Phillip again, Elizabeth and Paige have a couple nasty spats about why it's Paige's responsibility to monitor Pastor Tim and his wife before they turn the whole Jennings family in, and Elizabeth goes to EST!




BTW my Russian grammar sucks, but the title of this post is pronounced "Yesti' EST?" which I want to mean, "This is EST?", whether it does or not.

What does Elizabeth think of EST, that pop psychology forerunner of cults like The Forum?  Well, predictably, she thinks it's American, which it is, and greedy, which it may or may not be.  And neither she nor Dracula think it's a great idea for Phillip to take all his post traumatic KGB stress into a group of strangers and talk about his feelings.  Or even admittiing he has feelings.  None of that is very Soviet, although it may be Russian.  Dostoevsky was into expressing feelings, anyway.

And David Copperfield hides the statue of Liberty and gives a little speech afterward that should REALLY MAKE ELIZABETH THINK HARD THE NEXT TIME SHE CRITICIZES THIS COUNTRY, DAMN IT!

Oh and Elizabeth kills Lisa from the 2nd season, because Lisa wants to get out of the information gathering business.  Elizabeth is ok with that but not OK about Lisa's constant nagging that they have to turn in their contact to the police.  Lisa never knew she was working for the KGB.  Then "Pattie", Elizabeth's Sun Yi friend alter, goes to the movies with Sun Yi.  There is still no rhyme or reason to why she's hanging out with Sun Yi or selling Mary Kay with her.  Yet.  But Elizabeth/Pattie takes on a frightened look when Sun Yi says she sometimes whishes they weren't Mary Kay partners, just friends.  So maybe the tale is in Mary Kay.  Is Mary Kay a communist?  All those pink cars?  What do you think?

Phillip gives something to Gabriel from Kimmy, his contact from I believe the 3rd season whom I've been wondering about.  She's a badly damaged poor little rich kid, and Phillip turned on the old charm to make a fake ID for her and sneak into her father's house to record the tapes he just gave Dracula (I think her dad is a senator),    The cad.

Finally, after Phillip has asked him if they can visit Martha in 3 years, if he can call her parents, if he can borrow the car, if he can build a loft in his room, etc., Dracula decides the only way he's going to get any sleep at night is to cancel summer school and let the kids have the run of the house and get it out of their system.  In other words, his plan is for the Jennings (presumably that includes Paige, too) to take a break from spying and find themselves before going back to school, or actually until Dracula has an aneurism and the entire Washington DC chapter of EST is setting up a special seminar for traumatised KGB agents.

So this show didn't have too much of a theme, but it seems like they're tying loose ends together.  No more Martha, Lisa, John Boy or Nina; new connections with Sun Yi and among the rezidentura staff, and a trip to Epcot for all the Jennings.  

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