Its a little surprising then at how unabashedly fan service-y The Midges is.
*They say write what you know and write for yourself.
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Well Im a fan.
And consider me served.
Only this time theyre in disguise as the Eckerts.
Elizabeth still rules at bowling while newbie, and decidedly unwilling American Pasha is terrible at it.
Its here that we learn that Pashas dad Alexei is mostly upset with the U.S.S.R. for killing his father.
But also that whole food thing.
And did we mention that theres bowling???
Paige watches an episode of M.A.S.H.
Philip and Elizabeth go undercover in Oklahoma City and Philip wears a cowboy hat!
Elizabeth puts on that cowboy hat in a seedy Oklahoma motel room!
They sexy dance to country music!
They have sexy cowboy sex!
Philip even has a timely quip!
Should we tell Paige about this?
he says after stuffing the body into a trunk.
Hmmm what else, what else.
Thats….a jam-packed episode ofThe Americans.
Its no secret thatThe Americans is a, lets say, deliberate show.
This often translates to it being a slow starter.
Consider the slow start over.
Lets start at the end.
In our current plugged-in all-the-time culture, its hard to avoid outside context when watching a show.
In the case of The Americansthis presents an interesting perspective.
Having that knowledge colors the scenes in which theyre intimate.
And its not just for prurient reasons.
Rhys and Russell or both breathtakingly attractive obviously but these scenes go way beyond that.
Sex means so many things onThe Americans.
Its also undoubtedly something that turned their fake marriage into a real one.
Here, its a way for Elizabeth to help Philip in a vulnerable moment.
All this land out here, you know what it looks like?
Home, Philip says about Oklahoma.
And then he adds.
Weve got this too.
Why cant we grow enough grain ourselves?
And its beautiful, sensual, fascinating, creepily voyeuristic on our part everything.
Elizabeth puts on his stupid cowboy hat.
You think theyre gonna make me queen of the rodeo this year?
They dance to some country music on the radio.
Then later they get back to work.
Capturing real human emotion on camera is hard.
Capturing all the various intricacies of something as complicated as a marriage is next to impossible.
Whatever the concoction is, it works and it works beautifully.
It is also wonderfully melancholic when considered with what comes next.
Things are going well for Philip and Elizabeths mission at first.
They successfully break into the laboratory in the Oklahoma strip mall.
Then they find the crop-destroying midges theyre looking for.
Then of course, Randy Chilton has to come in for some late night work and ruin everything.
Randy lets Philip and Elizabeth know what he knows about the bugs.
The bugs are wheat-eating pests and he works for a company called AgriCorp.
He even gives them AgriCorps address.
Then Philip breaks his spine, killing him instantly.
I rewatched the pilots remarkable 11-minute Tusk opening scene when researchingthis piece onAmericansand 80s music.
Why does everyone in this business have to be so god damn punctual?
At the time it seemed a little out of place with what the show eventually became.
But I couldnt possibly have appreciated the return of Quippy Philip more this week.
His Should we tell Paige about this too?
Speaking of telling Paige things.
Who does the Russian guy think you are?
A pilot and a stewardess.
Is it hard pretending to be other people?
Sometimes its really hard.
Its moments like that that reveal maybe Paige is in fact cut out for this industry.
She understands the intimate more than the big picture.
She also gets a chance to try out her parents strategy for keeping cool under pressure.
Just a paper on Napoleon she assures him.
She laters tell her mother that it was easy to lie to Matthew and she didnt like it.
Little does she know that no other sentence more succinctly sums up her parents lives.
Lying is easy and we dont like it.
Something that really good shows do is flashbacks without flashbacks.
WhatI mean by that is that good shows give you an estimation of their characters past in other characters.
The best example comes fromThe Wire…as most things do.
The Americanssometimes does flashbacks to Elizabeth and Philips life in Russia.
Theres even a brief one in this episode.
But the real flashbacks come from other characters.
We see what Philips life back in Russia is like through his biological son, Mischa.
In The Midges, Mischa finally makes it out of the country.
Things still dont go smoothly, however, because why would they to these poor cosmically cursed Jennings boys.
And then you have Paige as well.
Then Paige tries to explain away her weird behavior by saying The world is so messy right now.
Theres nothing we can do about it, Matthew responses.
In that moment, however, its entirely possible that Paige realizes she can.
And thats how it begins.
One day you realize that you have the resources and abilities to change the world.
The next day youre shoving poor Randy Chilton into the trunk of a car.
Rating:
4.5 out of 5
