Although Elizabeth is the more serious of the two adult Jenningses and therefore usually painted as the cold and ruthless one, she’s also the more honest one. Her emotions, while perhaps not always on the surface exactly, are whatever she says they are; Philip keeps everything hidden under his mild, nice-guy exterior. Both have made their share of emotional decisions, but Elizabeth seems to keep her feelings so bottled up that when they do come to the surface, they boil up with a vengeance.
Those emotions are front and center tonight in an episode where the stakes are higher than ever before; however, the whole thing feels oddly unfocused. The action swings back and forth between Philip and Elizabeth and Stan and his marital problems, and the two storylines don’t connect much. Three high-level KGB agents are targeted at the beginning of the episode, and one of them is Elizabeth’s mentor and father figure General Zhukov. His death is so quick that it barely sinks in before we’re back in America, where Elizabeth and Sandra go out drinking (while Phil and the kids watch a Mutual of Omaha wildlife documentary) and Sandra ends up at home alone while Stan supposedly works late. When he gets home, she has a drunken freakout, screams at him about being a liar, and throws some stuff, which felt a little too soap-opera-like for this show; it wasn’t badly acted, but it felt like well-trodden territory that can’t help but seem pale and predictable in comparison to the Phil and Elizabeth stuff.
First, though, the Nina stuff – I had forgotten that she was promoted, because she was hardly in last week’s episode. Her first new assignment is dealing with the bug planted in the Secretary of Defense’s library, and she actually seems kind of interested and excited at the prospect of this kind of work. Could this perhaps be the beginning of Nina growing to like Russian spy work and drifting further away from Stan? If he keeps lying to her, it’s completely possible. However, for tonight at least, they aren’t drifting apart too quickly. When Stan goes to the safe apartment to try to break off the affair, his resolve lasts as long as it takes for Nina to remove her robe.
There’s no sex for the Jenningses in tonight’s episode – they’re all business. It should come as no surprise that Elizabeth wants to kill whoever murdered Zhukov; what is surprising is how she initially is completely committed to going through with it despite the effect it might have on the Cold War. Claudia says Moscow has decided to end the escalation and that there will be no more killings. When Elizabeth asks whether she agrees with this directive, Claudia replies, “I do not agree or disagree. I follow orders.” She keeps on trying to paint herself as a neutral operative, a good soldier working for the cause, but then she gives Elizabeth the name of the American who ordered the deaths. Since Zhukov meant so much to Elizabeth, she obviously can’t just let this go – regardless of what the Center wants, she is hell-bent on revenge. This seems like a remarkably unintelligent thing to do, and doesn’t quite jibe with the Elizabeth we’ve seen so far; just a few weeks ago she and Phil tracked down an assassin from their own side and killed him so as not to escalate things, yet now she’s fine with possibly igniting a nuclear war just for her personal vengeance? Whereas previously Elizabeth’s feelings influenced her decisions, I don’t think they’ve ever gotten in the way of it so thoroughly as in this episode.
Once again, Phil is left to try to be the voice of reason (which is still a bit of a detriment to both characters), but after he can’t talk Elizabeth out of the assassination, he agrees to help her. They kidnap the guy (Patterson) from a bar and take him to a warehouse, where Elizabeth unleashes her righteous anger on him…until it turns out to be not so righteous. As he points out when she asks him how he feels about murdering innocent people, these people weren’t innocent. They were military generals working for the KGB. Patterson also pulls out the old “I’m just a bureaucrat” excuse – he follows the orders that he’s given, and even if he’s not a saint, he doesn’t actually go out and kill people. Elizabeth, he points out, murders people on a regular basis. He touches a nerve by calling her a killer with no soul and asks her if she cares at all or even loves anyone. This probably wouldn’t have worked on Philip, but to Elizabeth – who’s just lost the man she loved like a father and gets accused by her kids of being horrible to Phil – this accusation is deeply wounding.
Letting Patterson go marks a turning point for the Jenningses in terms of their relationship to Claudia and to Moscow. Patterson has seen Elizabeth’s face, and could probably recognize her even without a wig. Elizabeth realizes that Claudia gave her Patterson’s name expecting her to act on the info – even though she claimed otherwise, she did want him dead, supposedly because she was in love with General Zhukov. Elizabeth isn’t buying this, however; she doesn’t think Claudia (who might very well be the real-life version of what Patterson accused Elizabeth of being) is capable of a relationship, instead deciding that she hates Elizabeth and Philip and must have wanted them to screw everything up. Claudia is ice cold throughout this scene, but it’s pretty clear that something’s up with her – the only question is why? Just pettiness? Or is Moscow looking for a pair of scapegoats?
In the flashback scenes with Elizabeth and Zhukov, he gives her some fatherly advice: take care of something and it will take care of you, then you’ll love each other. For Elizabeth, Zhukov doesn’t appear to have much to do with the actual institution of communism or any of the other ominous you think of when you think of Soviet Russia; he’s just a man who wants her to be happy. It’s heartbreaking when Elizabeth remembers this advice and tries to go make peace with Philip only to have him tell her that he’s not moving back into the house, he’s just leaving the motel for a new apartment. However, I’m holding out hope that now that Elizabeth realizes that Claudia is purposely trying to drive her and Philip apart, maybe there will be less manufactured marriage drama and more honest talking. They’ll need it if they’re going to burn this many bridges.
- Martha springs a surprise dinner with her parents on Phil/Clark. Awkward? Yes, yes it is
- The episode’s fragmented nature was almost a reflection of Elizabeth’s state of mind as she deals with the aftermath of General Zhukov’s death; good in theory, but I’m not sure that was the intention
- Stan’s son goes to a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show; Stan has literally no idea what this is
- The wigs in tonight’s episode…my God, the wigs
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Writer, copy editor, and TV watcher who sadly has no Twitter account. My favorite shows right now are Justified, Breaking Bad, Parks & Rec, the Vampire Diaries, and Archer.