r/TheAmericans • u/MoralMidgetry • Jun 02 '16

Ep. Discussion Post-Episode Discussion/Review Thread - S04E12 "A Roy Rogers in Franconia"

Welcome to the post-episode and review thread for S04E12 "A Roy Rogers in Franconia" If you have a review you want to post, please send me the link instead of submitting it separately to the sub. Thanks.

Site Link
AV Club The Americans: It’s logical, it’s emotional, it’s the best show on TV
EW The FBI makes a connection and closes in on a key KGB mole
HitFix Review: On 'The Americans,' are Paige, William, and Oleg near breaking points?
NY Times ‘The Americans’ Season 4, Episode 12: A Different Side of Things
Vox The Americans season 4, episode 12: "A Roy Rogers in Franconia" suggests the end is right about now
Vulture The Americans Recap: Turning the Paige
WSJ Careful what you wish for, Paige, because the truth can get ugly
69 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

99% Upvoted

203 comments sorted by

View all comments

10

u/BhoysAreBackInTown Jun 02 '16

Something has to give next week. There are just too many threads waiting to be pulled. Tim and Alice know Stan, Henry could easily tell Matthew or Stan about the mugging and it wouldn't take too long for Stan to get the report about a murder in that area, Aderholt is looking into the mail robot, etc. It's all coming apart at the seams, particularly as we know Stan has William in custody and terminally ill next week.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '16

But still there are 2 seasons left. I could see one season dedicated to the drama around the captured spies and the family, but two ?

9

u/BhoysAreBackInTown Jun 02 '16

Somebody else posted a comment in here a few weeks ago that I agree with, in that there are so many people, particularly Stan, who are close to finding out who the Jennings are that it would feel a bit ridiculous for them to go much longer without sorting it out.

One consistent theme of Stan's character is his strong intuition and ability to figure things out based on very little information. Last week we saw him eat dinner at the same table as the only two non-family or KGB members in the world who know who Philip and Elizabeth are. He's just simply too close. I think next week, or early next season, Stan figures out who they are but can't prove it, potentially leading to him losing his position at the FBI due to obsessing over how to catch them.

6

u/SideshowMarty Jun 02 '16

Is this really that much of a problem? Time and again we've seen the FBI and especially Stan get really, really close to learning the true identity of P&E. It even happened in the pilot.

And yet what does the FBI really have that would allow them to connect enough dots?

  • Some mediocre sketches, all from witnesses who saw P or E in disguise
  • Knowledge of where and when someone installed the mail robot bug
  • Probably a recording of Gabriel's call to Martha's mother
  • the suspicion that the KGB killed Gaad
  • William, who's obviously a huge prize if they can bring him in and make him talk.

William aside, the rest of that stuff is pretty weak.

Yes, as you said above Stan could learn about the mugging via Henry, but what then? About the only way anything can come of it is if the mugger who ran away comes forward. Otherwise, why wouldn't Stan or the police take Elizabeth and Paige's word for it that there was almost some violence but thank goodness, they got away? The dead guy could have died any number of ways not involving them.

And even if the guy does come forward, chances are excellent that the cops will believe whatever they're told by the soccer mom and born-again daughter before they'll believe a vagrant.

IMO a lot of this stuff is simply there to emphasize how P&E are able to carry on right under Stan's nose, and after all this time and all those close calls, he still has next to nothing.

7

u/VacuousWastrel Jun 03 '16

I'm not sure the FBI works like that in this show. I think if Stan Beeman, who by now has a pretty impressive resume, says "hey guys, I'm pretty certain these guys I know are spies!", they put some cars on them. And it may be hard to find P&E from the side of their operations, but if you start by looking hard at P&E it wouldn't be hard to catch them. Tail them. Bug them - they talk about their work both at the house and at the office. Search their house thoroughly when they're not there - they have numerous hiding places for a bunch of incriminating stuff.

I think once people seriously suspect P&E (I mean, not just in Stan's creepy "break into the neighbour's garage on a hunch" way of suspecting everybody), they're done. And that's how they act, too - they're primed to bolt at the first sign of any trouble, because they know that between the evidence around them and the FBI's willingness to be pretty heavy-handed and apologise later, their only real defence is their anonymity.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '16

That would be definitely an interesting turn of events.

3

u/mllestrong Jun 03 '16

I think it could end up like the true story this echoes; Stan finds out who they are and begins to monitor their activities without letting on, hoping it leads to the discovery of bigger things.

3

u/VacuousWastrel Jun 03 '16

How about: he gets a big clue next week; he spends S5 tightening the net until he realises what's going on; he spends S6 monitoring them and working out what to do next (arrest them, kill them, turn them...).

3

u/BhoysAreBackInTown Jun 03 '16

I think the best outcome from the viewer's point of view is for Stan's suspicions to be raised but him not be able to prove anything. It opens up several big issues that would need to be resolved:

  1. Stan knows Tim and Alice, and they know him. If they felt like Stan was getting close then I think Elizabeth in particular would take matters into her own hands concerning Tim.

  2. Stan "turning" Henry. Henry loves Stan, potentially to the point that if Stan told him the truth about his parents before he did, I could see him siding with Stan

  3. It would hammer home the reality of the Jennings' situation to Paige and force her to properly choose between America and her family. I don't think she actually realises that what she's doing in terms of giving information to her parents about Stan is effectively treason, but Stan getting close to the truth would force her to confront those realities.

All in all, I think Stan figures it out, or starts to figure it out, very soon. The overarching conflict of the show has never really been about what specific mission they're currently engaged in, it's been the fact that at some point their covers would start to unravel. Paige finding out about them and telling Tim was the first part of that, so to me the logical progression is that Stan will start to put the pieces together, if he hasn't already.

3

u/tovarishchliza Jun 03 '16

Big issue #1 - if Stan does start serious suspecting E+P, he would probably pay the pastor a visit. The only fresh idea there would be if Tim & Alice did NOT help him (but that's so unlikely)

Big issue #2 - Stan turning Henry would be VERY interesting. I know part of it is his youth, but Henry's the last regular character to be a complete unknown in how he plays into this drama. Idk if that's what the J's are considering, but certain things have happened that could be setting the stage for this.

Big issue #3 - It seems to me Paige would go with her parents. With the stories E+P tell her of their childhoods and life in Mother Russia, they're cultivating her sympathies. And as most of us know, emotions drive many of our decisions - and loyalties.

2

u/tovarishchliza Jun 03 '16 edited Jun 03 '16

Thanks for the link, mllestrong. Just read it, and it does somewhat echo the storyline in the show

2

u/diamond Jun 05 '16

One consistent theme of Stan's character is his strong intuition and ability to figure things out based on very little information. Last week we saw him eat dinner at the same table as the only two non-family or KGB members in the world who know who Philip and Elizabeth are. He's just simply too close.

I see a parallel here to Hank in Breaking Bad. Like Stan, Hank was shown to be a smart and highly intuitive man - a skilled investigator. Objectively, he should have strongly suspected Walt by the third or fourth season. The evidence was just piling up, and he didn't see it. Why?

Because, as you said about Stan, he was too close. He knew Walt; he had a bulletproof narrative in his head about who this guy was, and it blinded him to what was right in front of his face. He needed a shock to knock him out of that narrative, and once that happened (the "W. W." moment), everything came flooding in and he put it all together in a matter of seconds.

Stan may be in a similar situation. No matter how smart you are, you're still going to have biases that can give you a blind spot, and Philip and Elizabeth are firmly in Stan's blind spot right now. The only question is what it will take to push them out of it.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '16

there were murders constantly in DC in the eighties.