[7.8/10] It’s amazing how much better The Americans is when it’s pulling the trigger on its major storylines rather than inching toward them at a snail’s pace. “Operation Chronicle” finally moves forward on scores of things that this season has been saving for a rainy (or in this case snowy) day, and it’s all the better for it.
Chief among those is Elizabeth trying to exfiltrate Jared. Much of the theme of this season has been about Emmett and Liane’s family as a proxy for the Jennings, of Elizabeth in particular fearing for her family’s future after seeing what happened to the closest thing she and Philip had to friends and counterparts. “Operation Chronicle” sees her confronting the personification of that idea face-to-face, as she has to coach Jared through his first taste of the life of someone involved in their business, and the first steps to throwing his old life away.
Elizabeth is as you would expect her to be, gentle but firm and frank. She does her best to ease Jared into this, of tiptoeing around to make sure that someone very new at this understands both who she is, why he should trust her, and the weight of what she’s asking of him. She explains why they clean and change their clothes, the uncertainties that put him at risk, and most importantly, that this is the end of something for him.
(My crazy theory:Jared will nevertheless get killed despite the Jennings efforts, and it will be cause for Philip and Elizabeth to come clean, or at least cleaner, to Paige, to ensure that she doesn't suffer the same fate.)
But she’s troubled by the experience. She puts Jared on a train, by himself, to the same woman who took care of a her after she recovered from last season’s firefight, but she has no idea where they’ll send him, how and if he’ll get by. Philip offers half-hearted reassurances and clearly doesn't want to think about it, but Elizabeth is haunted by the thought of what would happen to Paige and Henry if the same thing were to happen to their family.
Again this season, the Jenningses’ professional lives are intruding on their personal lives in concerning ways, and that’s being driven home for Elizabeth especially.
It doesn't help that Paige is clearly onto them. There’s little indication that she knows her parents are spies, but between her questions about why Elizabeth has to leave for a “work emergency” and her efforts to listen in on their phone conversation, it’s obvious that she not only realizes she’s being lied to, but she’s smart enough to figure out why and how, and has the inclination to follow through.
The conversation she has with Pastor Tim on the bus about this is a little disconcerting -- something in their dynamic seems off -- but it doesn't change the fact that Paige is onto Elizabeth and Philip, and it’s uncertain at best how long they can maintain this charade while she gets more and more wise to the game they’re playing.
Of course, in boring “I’m more of a plot device than a character” news, Larrick continues to try to cause trouble. With Kate dead, Larrick has moved his sights to Jared, bizarrely somehow managing to get a tracker in his backpack. (Maybe Kate had the tracker and he just nabbed it from her?) He continues to con his way down the trail that will inevitably lead to a standoff with the Jennings, and good lord I am exhausted with his approach.
God willing, his part in this story ends in the finale, and the show never assumes that merely having the skills to go toe-to-toe with Philip and Elizabeth is all the sketching a character needs and never offers an antagonist this flat or generic again. But at least, with him advancing on Jared’s location, this whole rigamarole is likely to come to a head.
The same is true for Stan and Nina’s half of the episode. While he continues to pursue the murder of Emmett and Liane for hopes of dredging something up that will bring him closer to uncovering Directorate S, the real fireworks in Agent Beeman’s life are, as always, centered around Nina.
I thought the entire deal with Nina having to recover the Echo computer program or be sent back to Moscow to be executed was a ploy by Arkady -- and I’m not fully convinced it isn’t yet -- but Arkady at least makes a stronger case for that plan. Essentially, while the Centre is pleased with the info that Nina has brought back, they can’t be sure she is neither colluding nor being played by the Americans unless she brings back info big enough that the FBI would never give it up willingly, even to secure an asset.
So when Stan tries to exfiltrate Nina on his own, he returns to their little love nest to find Nina bruised and flanked by two KGB guards, and Arkady telling him straight up that if he doesn't get them Echo, the Russian government will kill her. Kudos to the show and the actress who plays Nina, because I totally bought that this was another power move by Arkady, and that Nina wasn’t in on it.
Instead, she proves later that this was all part of the plan, one that puts both her and Stan in a terrible position. The question at the heart of this storyline is simple but piercing -- does Stan love Nina enough to risk his life and his job and even the safety of the American people to save her.
If he doesn't, if Nina is wrong, then she is as good as dead. Oleg tries to avoid that fate regardless of the outcome, knowing that his superiors are listening, but handing Nina an envelope full of cash and speaking in coded language telling her to get the hell out of there. Again, I’m not convinced that Arkady isn’t still pulling the strings here, but in a storyline focused on who truly loves Nina, it seems like Oleg certainly does, even if trying to run away from the KGB doesn't seem like a recipe for continued breathing.
But if Nina is right and Stan really does love her, enough to commit treason against his own country to save her, then it’s terribly sad because that love is not mutual, and it’s built on a lie, one that’s leaving Stan with nothing in his heart or his home with Sandra moving out and his son barely able to stand the sight of him. It’s a bed that Stan, in large part if not wholly, made for himself, so it’s not as though anyone has clean hands here, but it’s hard not to feel bad or someone doing something at great risk to themselves because they genuinely love someone when you know the reciprocal love is false.
That’s why it’s harder and harder for me to watch the scenes with Martha in this show. In “Operation Chronicle”, Martha turns over file after file of classified information to Clark, chalking it up to exposing the lackadaisical security at the Bureau, something she rationalizes as a service to her country. While it may not put her at great risk (though it still could), she’s not just doing it for the good for the FBI -- she’s doing it because she loves Clark, and because she wants to help him.
That’s why it’s so painful when she asks him about having children, and Philip-as-Clark says it isn’t for him. This is an already difficult life for Martha that she is continually making sacrifices for, and here is another one. Hers is another relationship founded on a situation where one person’s love is genuine and heartfelt and full of acceptance, and the other is founded on utility and manipulation. Philip is only able to carry on this charade because Martha is so good to him, and because, it’s implied, no one has ever treated her as well as Clark has. She wants to add a child to their family, and the falsehoods it’s founded on make that a nigh-impossibility.
Because Philip already has enough trouble balancing his personal and professional lives, and the intersection thereof, as it is. Jared is, in some ways, a test case for the Jennings, something to show them what it’s like when your deep undecover spy parents die, when you have to be told about it by a stranger, when you have to try to get by on your own in a world you know nothing about.
Increasingly, it seems clear that the Jenningses are worried about that, about what it would look like if it happened to them or their kids, and it will be interesting to see what steps they will take, what lengths they will be willing to go to, to save their best friends’ child, and to protect their own.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2018-07-22T21:19:30Z
[7.8/10] It’s amazing how much better The Americans is when it’s pulling the trigger on its major storylines rather than inching toward them at a snail’s pace. “Operation Chronicle” finally moves forward on scores of things that this season has been saving for a rainy (or in this case snowy) day, and it’s all the better for it.
Chief among those is Elizabeth trying to exfiltrate Jared. Much of the theme of this season has been about Emmett and Liane’s family as a proxy for the Jennings, of Elizabeth in particular fearing for her family’s future after seeing what happened to the closest thing she and Philip had to friends and counterparts. “Operation Chronicle” sees her confronting the personification of that idea face-to-face, as she has to coach Jared through his first taste of the life of someone involved in their business, and the first steps to throwing his old life away.
Elizabeth is as you would expect her to be, gentle but firm and frank. She does her best to ease Jared into this, of tiptoeing around to make sure that someone very new at this understands both who she is, why he should trust her, and the weight of what she’s asking of him. She explains why they clean and change their clothes, the uncertainties that put him at risk, and most importantly, that this is the end of something for him.
(My crazy theory:Jared will nevertheless get killed despite the Jennings efforts, and it will be cause for Philip and Elizabeth to come clean, or at least cleaner, to Paige, to ensure that she doesn't suffer the same fate.)
But she’s troubled by the experience. She puts Jared on a train, by himself, to the same woman who took care of a her after she recovered from last season’s firefight, but she has no idea where they’ll send him, how and if he’ll get by. Philip offers half-hearted reassurances and clearly doesn't want to think about it, but Elizabeth is haunted by the thought of what would happen to Paige and Henry if the same thing were to happen to their family.
Again this season, the Jenningses’ professional lives are intruding on their personal lives in concerning ways, and that’s being driven home for Elizabeth especially.
It doesn't help that Paige is clearly onto them. There’s little indication that she knows her parents are spies, but between her questions about why Elizabeth has to leave for a “work emergency” and her efforts to listen in on their phone conversation, it’s obvious that she not only realizes she’s being lied to, but she’s smart enough to figure out why and how, and has the inclination to follow through.
The conversation she has with Pastor Tim on the bus about this is a little disconcerting -- something in their dynamic seems off -- but it doesn't change the fact that Paige is onto Elizabeth and Philip, and it’s uncertain at best how long they can maintain this charade while she gets more and more wise to the game they’re playing.
Of course, in boring “I’m more of a plot device than a character” news, Larrick continues to try to cause trouble. With Kate dead, Larrick has moved his sights to Jared, bizarrely somehow managing to get a tracker in his backpack. (Maybe Kate had the tracker and he just nabbed it from her?) He continues to con his way down the trail that will inevitably lead to a standoff with the Jennings, and good lord I am exhausted with his approach.
God willing, his part in this story ends in the finale, and the show never assumes that merely having the skills to go toe-to-toe with Philip and Elizabeth is all the sketching a character needs and never offers an antagonist this flat or generic again. But at least, with him advancing on Jared’s location, this whole rigamarole is likely to come to a head.
The same is true for Stan and Nina’s half of the episode. While he continues to pursue the murder of Emmett and Liane for hopes of dredging something up that will bring him closer to uncovering Directorate S, the real fireworks in Agent Beeman’s life are, as always, centered around Nina.
I thought the entire deal with Nina having to recover the Echo computer program or be sent back to Moscow to be executed was a ploy by Arkady -- and I’m not fully convinced it isn’t yet -- but Arkady at least makes a stronger case for that plan. Essentially, while the Centre is pleased with the info that Nina has brought back, they can’t be sure she is neither colluding nor being played by the Americans unless she brings back info big enough that the FBI would never give it up willingly, even to secure an asset.
So when Stan tries to exfiltrate Nina on his own, he returns to their little love nest to find Nina bruised and flanked by two KGB guards, and Arkady telling him straight up that if he doesn't get them Echo, the Russian government will kill her. Kudos to the show and the actress who plays Nina, because I totally bought that this was another power move by Arkady, and that Nina wasn’t in on it.
Instead, she proves later that this was all part of the plan, one that puts both her and Stan in a terrible position. The question at the heart of this storyline is simple but piercing -- does Stan love Nina enough to risk his life and his job and even the safety of the American people to save her.
If he doesn't, if Nina is wrong, then she is as good as dead. Oleg tries to avoid that fate regardless of the outcome, knowing that his superiors are listening, but handing Nina an envelope full of cash and speaking in coded language telling her to get the hell out of there. Again, I’m not convinced that Arkady isn’t still pulling the strings here, but in a storyline focused on who truly loves Nina, it seems like Oleg certainly does, even if trying to run away from the KGB doesn't seem like a recipe for continued breathing.
But if Nina is right and Stan really does love her, enough to commit treason against his own country to save her, then it’s terribly sad because that love is not mutual, and it’s built on a lie, one that’s leaving Stan with nothing in his heart or his home with Sandra moving out and his son barely able to stand the sight of him. It’s a bed that Stan, in large part if not wholly, made for himself, so it’s not as though anyone has clean hands here, but it’s hard not to feel bad or someone doing something at great risk to themselves because they genuinely love someone when you know the reciprocal love is false.
That’s why it’s harder and harder for me to watch the scenes with Martha in this show. In “Operation Chronicle”, Martha turns over file after file of classified information to Clark, chalking it up to exposing the lackadaisical security at the Bureau, something she rationalizes as a service to her country. While it may not put her at great risk (though it still could), she’s not just doing it for the good for the FBI -- she’s doing it because she loves Clark, and because she wants to help him.
That’s why it’s so painful when she asks him about having children, and Philip-as-Clark says it isn’t for him. This is an already difficult life for Martha that she is continually making sacrifices for, and here is another one. Hers is another relationship founded on a situation where one person’s love is genuine and heartfelt and full of acceptance, and the other is founded on utility and manipulation. Philip is only able to carry on this charade because Martha is so good to him, and because, it’s implied, no one has ever treated her as well as Clark has. She wants to add a child to their family, and the falsehoods it’s founded on make that a nigh-impossibility.
Because Philip already has enough trouble balancing his personal and professional lives, and the intersection thereof, as it is. Jared is, in some ways, a test case for the Jennings, something to show them what it’s like when your deep undecover spy parents die, when you have to be told about it by a stranger, when you have to try to get by on your own in a world you know nothing about.
Increasingly, it seems clear that the Jenningses are worried about that, about what it would look like if it happened to them or their kids, and it will be interesting to see what steps they will take, what lengths they will be willing to go to, to save their best friends’ child, and to protect their own.