[8.1/10] I don’t think I give Frank Langella enough credit on this show. When he first arrived, I didn’t mind him, but I wasn’t necessarily a fan. Claudia had a really interesting relationship with the Jennings, and trading that for the more familiar, scrabble-playing rapport of Gabriel took a while for me to warm to. Playing him as the seemingly-avuncular, but also possibly manipulative handler just felt too stock for a performer of Langella’s talents.
But over the last couple of seasons, The Americans has added more layers to the character. He’s talked about feeling alone. He’s confessed doubts in the Centre and in the mission to Claudia. He’s let Philip and Elizabeth take a break to recover. We’ve seen him as a human being, one who’s feeling his age and slowing down and worried about what will happen to his children.
That seems to be the upshot of “Crossbreed”, to the extent an episode in a season that’s been so wide-ranging and deliberately paced can be said to have a singular point. In the same way that Philip and Elizabeth worry about Paige and Henry, Gabriel and Claudia worry about them. The episode has Philip struggling with his memories of his dad, with the trouble of reconciling who his father might have been. But there’s a sort of tacit acceptance that Gabriel is, at least in a way, that paternal figure in his life, and wrestling with that brings out the best in Langella.
It brings out the best in Matthew Rhys too. Few actors are so good at playing someone who is clearly hurting but still soldiering on the way that Rhys can. We saw in the last episode the way he fretted that he might have passed down his self-loathing, his sense of being screwed up, down to Paige. Now he’s worried that his father might have done the same to him, brought him into this life that he hates, and it’s causing him a great deal of stress.
That is, as Claudia and Gabriel note, pretty standard, if intensifying behavior for Philip. What’s interesting is that it’s starting to become more normal for Elizabeth too. She rolls her eyes at the psychiatrist who says the important thing is to deal with trauma, and that just moving on from it isn’t healthy. But at the same time, she finds herself looking at Young Hee’s home from a distance. She has a sharp reaction to the Mary Kay saleswoman who shows at her door. She’s suffered something too, and whether she wants it to or not, it’s surfacing.
She’s also letting more of the complexity of what she does and what she fights for surface as well. Her fake boyfriend in Topeka is pretty insufferable (I think he’s Iron Fist’s cousin), but he convinces her to do Tai Chi and tries to convince her to relax, another new concept for her. She talks to Paige about Marx, about the socialist workers utopia and everyone being in it together that she imagines, but offers a long pause when her daughter asks if everyone’s equal in the U.S.S.R.
Hell, there’s even a subtle look of understanding when Elizabeth gently prods her daughter about what she thinks of Marx’s views on religion, and Paige says she’s not sure, but she knows she’s never felt as good as the day she was baptised. Elizabeth is someone who’s rejected complexity, who’s rejected release, as things that are too soften, too American. But now she is generally struggling in a way that, maybe, she hasn’t since the kids were born, and whether she’s willing to admit or not, she needs some kind of comfort. She is starting to feel normal, starting to feel the strain, and as she tells Gabriel, it makes her wonder if something’s wrong with her.
Sadly, it can’t all be good Jennings developments, as we spend more time with Oleg on his little quest. I continue to harbor the theory that Oleg will find out that his father is enmeshed in whatever the food corruption is, but until then, this business with his investigation feels like the Mischa story -- something that’s being pushed along very gradually, to where we can only hope that it amounts to a greater whole. He also burns the CIA map and tape with a ridiculous soundtrack behind him, in a scene that is supposed to come off much more moving and momentous than it does.
But it’s a time of change for everyone, especially Gabriel. The biggest development in the episode is his announcement to the Jennings that he’s leaving to go back home. It’s a sentimental moment, at least on his terms, as he tells Philip that he’s worried for him, and that he’ll miss them both dearly, even if the only thing he’ll say about his departure is that “it’s time.” We know the truth though, that it’s worn on him to have to see them like this, that he doesn't want to have to lie to them, and Mischa’s arrival is the straw that breaks his back, the last weight that he can no longer carry.
That means it’s Philip’s last chance to ask about his father, to ask about the life he barely remembers. Gabriel reassures Philip that he wasn’t thrown into this by a careless or brutal father. He was picked because of his talent. He’s reassured that his problems are not inborn, and thus not immutable. It is a fatherly moment between the two of them, where it feels like the last conversation with a parent, like the one Elizabeth had with her mother.
That only makes the end of the episode that much more heartening. Whatever problems Philip and Elizabeth have had with the Centre, with Gabriel as the avatar for it, they are shaken by him leaving. He has become family. They honor that by bringing Paige to meet him before she might never have another chance to do it, again, just as they did with Elizabeth’s mom.
And Langella just knocks it out of the part. The look in his eyes, of gratitude, of sadness, of warmth, of how touched he is to have this moment, is utterly astounding. In just those five seconds, he delivers the conflicted feelings that have built up since we first met this character, his affections for the Jennings that he can only go so far in showing, and the place in their hearts he hopes he’ll still have when he’s gone. Gabriel started out as a flat archetype, and slowly but surely became a character with emotions as deep and layered as the agents he oversaw. His absence will be felt, by the Jennings, and the audience.
Creators love putting on a Peter Gabriel song when characters burn a piece of paper in the middle of the night. Not much, but it's weird that it happened twice now.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-07-26T02:37:09Z
[8.1/10] I don’t think I give Frank Langella enough credit on this show. When he first arrived, I didn’t mind him, but I wasn’t necessarily a fan. Claudia had a really interesting relationship with the Jennings, and trading that for the more familiar, scrabble-playing rapport of Gabriel took a while for me to warm to. Playing him as the seemingly-avuncular, but also possibly manipulative handler just felt too stock for a performer of Langella’s talents.
But over the last couple of seasons, The Americans has added more layers to the character. He’s talked about feeling alone. He’s confessed doubts in the Centre and in the mission to Claudia. He’s let Philip and Elizabeth take a break to recover. We’ve seen him as a human being, one who’s feeling his age and slowing down and worried about what will happen to his children.
That seems to be the upshot of “Crossbreed”, to the extent an episode in a season that’s been so wide-ranging and deliberately paced can be said to have a singular point. In the same way that Philip and Elizabeth worry about Paige and Henry, Gabriel and Claudia worry about them. The episode has Philip struggling with his memories of his dad, with the trouble of reconciling who his father might have been. But there’s a sort of tacit acceptance that Gabriel is, at least in a way, that paternal figure in his life, and wrestling with that brings out the best in Langella.
It brings out the best in Matthew Rhys too. Few actors are so good at playing someone who is clearly hurting but still soldiering on the way that Rhys can. We saw in the last episode the way he fretted that he might have passed down his self-loathing, his sense of being screwed up, down to Paige. Now he’s worried that his father might have done the same to him, brought him into this life that he hates, and it’s causing him a great deal of stress.
That is, as Claudia and Gabriel note, pretty standard, if intensifying behavior for Philip. What’s interesting is that it’s starting to become more normal for Elizabeth too. She rolls her eyes at the psychiatrist who says the important thing is to deal with trauma, and that just moving on from it isn’t healthy. But at the same time, she finds herself looking at Young Hee’s home from a distance. She has a sharp reaction to the Mary Kay saleswoman who shows at her door. She’s suffered something too, and whether she wants it to or not, it’s surfacing.
She’s also letting more of the complexity of what she does and what she fights for surface as well. Her fake boyfriend in Topeka is pretty insufferable (I think he’s Iron Fist’s cousin), but he convinces her to do Tai Chi and tries to convince her to relax, another new concept for her. She talks to Paige about Marx, about the socialist workers utopia and everyone being in it together that she imagines, but offers a long pause when her daughter asks if everyone’s equal in the U.S.S.R.
Hell, there’s even a subtle look of understanding when Elizabeth gently prods her daughter about what she thinks of Marx’s views on religion, and Paige says she’s not sure, but she knows she’s never felt as good as the day she was baptised. Elizabeth is someone who’s rejected complexity, who’s rejected release, as things that are too soften, too American. But now she is generally struggling in a way that, maybe, she hasn’t since the kids were born, and whether she’s willing to admit or not, she needs some kind of comfort. She is starting to feel normal, starting to feel the strain, and as she tells Gabriel, it makes her wonder if something’s wrong with her.
Sadly, it can’t all be good Jennings developments, as we spend more time with Oleg on his little quest. I continue to harbor the theory that Oleg will find out that his father is enmeshed in whatever the food corruption is, but until then, this business with his investigation feels like the Mischa story -- something that’s being pushed along very gradually, to where we can only hope that it amounts to a greater whole. He also burns the CIA map and tape with a ridiculous soundtrack behind him, in a scene that is supposed to come off much more moving and momentous than it does.
But it’s a time of change for everyone, especially Gabriel. The biggest development in the episode is his announcement to the Jennings that he’s leaving to go back home. It’s a sentimental moment, at least on his terms, as he tells Philip that he’s worried for him, and that he’ll miss them both dearly, even if the only thing he’ll say about his departure is that “it’s time.” We know the truth though, that it’s worn on him to have to see them like this, that he doesn't want to have to lie to them, and Mischa’s arrival is the straw that breaks his back, the last weight that he can no longer carry.
That means it’s Philip’s last chance to ask about his father, to ask about the life he barely remembers. Gabriel reassures Philip that he wasn’t thrown into this by a careless or brutal father. He was picked because of his talent. He’s reassured that his problems are not inborn, and thus not immutable. It is a fatherly moment between the two of them, where it feels like the last conversation with a parent, like the one Elizabeth had with her mother.
That only makes the end of the episode that much more heartening. Whatever problems Philip and Elizabeth have had with the Centre, with Gabriel as the avatar for it, they are shaken by him leaving. He has become family. They honor that by bringing Paige to meet him before she might never have another chance to do it, again, just as they did with Elizabeth’s mom.
And Langella just knocks it out of the part. The look in his eyes, of gratitude, of sadness, of warmth, of how touched he is to have this moment, is utterly astounding. In just those five seconds, he delivers the conflicted feelings that have built up since we first met this character, his affections for the Jennings that he can only go so far in showing, and the place in their hearts he hopes he’ll still have when he’s gone. Gabriel started out as a flat archetype, and slowly but surely became a character with emotions as deep and layered as the agents he oversaw. His absence will be felt, by the Jennings, and the audience.