the lucky and the lonely: one last americans season 4 post
Season four of The Americans gets loneliness. It gets the way that loneliness changes us. It gets the way that we may fundamentally not be the same person if we live solitary lives that we would be if we had closeness.
Martha let herself continue to be used by Clark even once she knew that he wasn’t really an FBI internal investigations officer, but something else entirely. And is it any wonder? Certainly not unattractive but also not conventionally beautiful, she had probably spent much of her life feeling invisible to the men she might have desired. Then Clark comes along and makes her feel as if he really sees her and wants her for who she is. And Philip puts enough of himself into Clark that Martha is not wrong to feel some kind of real connection there.
Martha knows loneliness all too well, remarking on the night before she is to leave for the Soviet Union:



And then, just before she boards the plane, knowing that a life lived alone is not much of a life at all and that at least her connection with Clark was something, she says,



But it’s William, another Soviet agent living in deep cover in the US, who provides the season’s deepest and most honest portrait of loneliness. In the season finale, in addition to remarking on his deathbed that “the absence of closeness makes you dry inside,” he also says this:


















It took me a little while to remember that this is the second time this season he’s called Philip lucky because he has Elizabeth to share his life with.







At least Philip knows that he is lucky. And William’s envy is understandable.





Philip is so often pushed to the brink by the demands of his work. It’s his connection with Elizabeth that holds him together. And he doesn’t take that for granted. It continues to be one of the great things about The Americans that while there are sometimes tensions and conflicts between Elizabeth and Philip, their relationship is one primarily founded on trust in each other and the ability to rely on each other. Most shows and films maintain an artificial air of conflict and mystery in their romantic relationships, and portrayals of true, complicated partnerships built on trust are rare, but The Americans gives us one.
(Click the tag below to see all of my posts about The Americans.)
Notes
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