life out of tune: moments from the americans, season 3, episode 9

out of tune

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In an episode of The Americans I posted about last year, FBI agent Stan Beeman asks his wife Sandra if the man she was leaving him for is “a good guy.” As I said then, 

She replies that he’s “able to be in the flow of things.”
What makes heartbreak on The Americans more heartbreaking is the way that its characters can almost never be “in the flow of things.” Held back by the rules and expectations of the systems in which they operate, they can’t fully inhabit the moments in their own lives.

Being in the flow of things, being in tune, is precisely what the major characters on The Americans, who must devote so much energy to compartmentalizing the hell out of their lives, deceiving themselves and others, can almost never do. Here in the latest episode, we see that Elizabeth seems confused by the very idea of feeling whole, in the moment, in tune.

Sometimes being in tune with ourselves means being in tune with others.

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But how can we be in tune with others if we can’t even be whole, unified, and honest within ourselves? 

but one heart

“There is work and there is love, yet we have but one heart.”

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no way to die, no way to live

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presence

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In the sixth episode of this season, Paige told her skeptical mother Elizabeth that, when praying, she feels a presence. In episode nine, as Elizabeth is slowly killing a woman who talked about feeling the presence of her deceased husband, we see Paige at home, reading the Bible, feeling a presence Elizabeth can’t understand.

a partner, a friend

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Once again, partners. Someone who can really see you.

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the lies we tell ourselves

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words leave a trail

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the riddle of love, ourselves, each other

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The way Elizabeth sees Philip and thinks about him and feels about him has changed over the course of the show. Love at first sight doesn’t necessarily happen the first time we see a person.