Do Svidaniya Philip & Elizabeth Jennings: The Wall Comes Down on "The Americans"
“I was hoping to make it home for dinner, but things got very topsy-turvy at the office.” With that terse coded phone alert from Philip to Elizabeth, the spy couple's whole bogus life as a typical suburban American family came to an abrupt end. The dual protagonists/antagonists of the six-season hit tv drama The Americans finally faced the prospect of trading in their home-flush, mall-rich, two-car life in America for a much more austere existence in a failing Soviet Union. Ah, but all good things must come to an end, even a gripping tv series that made us voyeurs into the antics of a family alternately marked by Cool Whip and murder.
But above all, secrets. The magic of The Americans was the duality of banal family life and the razor-edged thrills of espionage. PTA one night. Assassination the next. It was delicious entertainment.
All of the reviews I've read look at The Americans from the perspective of a piece of fiction - good, original fiction at that. Even the title is a clever play on the ruse the Jennings's carried out. As for myself, I had a split perspective. The fiction writer in me went along with the many, often absurd, creative license devices. But the national security professional in me was much more critical. Playing both sides, the show's creator, Joe Weisberg - who served for a brief time as a CIA case officer in a past life - messed with my head as any good spy handler might do. The verisimilitude of the spy game and the meticulously reconstructed '80s sets left me impressed one moment, while the countless hit jobs, kaleidoscope of disguises and covers within covers left me shaking my head with dismissive laughter. Imagine yourself raising a family as Philip while simultaneously being married to another woman to use her to spy on the FBI and, oh yes, while also running a travel agency as part of your cover. Meanwhile, you and the missus step out in the evenings to drop a dime on some weaselly turncoat. And then all those honeypot seduction schemes. Whew! But this is more Bond than LeCarre. You let your mind run with it.
Moscow's espionage agencies are fond of planting deep cover agents in other countries. The window opened on this bizarre Russian spy tactic when the FBI busted ten of Moscow's sleeper agents back in 2010. The Bureau had been monitoring them for over ten years. What I would give to read their classified briefs. Second best, however, are the public court indictments which include enough information to reveal to us the modus operandi of the GRU, KGB - and successor agency, the SVR. Having consumed these court documents along with the press reports, I wrote extensively about the cases, making particular sport of the hapless and cartoonish Anna Chapman - more sitcom character than Mata Hari. As part of their naive and ill-fated "reset" with Russia, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton sent the ten spies back home promptly in return for four Russians who had been imprisoned for spying for the U.S. and U.K. In stark contrast with the murderous Jennings's, the real life sleepers largely led quiet lives, seeking to appear as bland as peanut butter and jelly.
I noted in a recent blog post on the children of the Russian sleeper agents how unconvincing I found the latter posing as native-born and raised Americans or Canadians. Unlike the Jennings's, none could speak flawless and accentless North American English. They had more in common with the Coneheads than with John and Jane Doe. Also, from the public evidence, it appears that they largely failed in their years-long mission to network themselves into influential American power circles. The only circles that Anna Chapman penetrated were trendy Manhattan night clubs. But, as in The Americans, the real life Russians made their children props for their covers. Two teens - the Vavilov brothers - were, and continue to be, devastated by their parents' grand deception, putting them in the position of fighting a protracted legal battle against the Canadian government to regain the citizenship that Ottawa stripped from them.
The show's writers captured this aspect well. The Jennings boy, Henry, is clueless about his parents' true identity. The finale has Philip and Elizabeth having a last phone chat with their son while on the run to Canada (and thence, ultimately, back to Russia). We see the devastation the truth has on him in a short scene when Stan reveals all. They had inducted daughter Paige into the sleeper program, but she abandoned it, and her parents, at the last moment, leaving the viewer to ponder her future as a parentless college dropout living in the shadows, avoiding the FBI. The children - in the show as well as in real life - are the true tragedy of the moronic sleeper agent program.
The centerpiece scene in the show's finale, the confrontation between FBI agent Stan with Philip, Elizabeth and Paige in a parking garage as they were beginning their escape, truly made this dual-hatted viewer schizophrenic. The fiction writer in me said, "Okay. Fine taut drama." But the national security professional in me said, "WTF Stan! Shoot the bastards. At least kneecap them while calling in reinforcements." Instead the writers got all sappy on us, portraying heretofore macho Reagan-adoring agent Stan as all maudlin about losing his "friends" as they spew one blatant lie after another to persuade him to let them give him the slip. Puh-leeze! Of course, Stan has his own compromisable secrets, notably having cheated on his former wife with a young KGB agent and murdering another Russian spy in retaliation for his partner having been killed. But my submission for "Dumbest FBI Special Agent of the 1980s" goes to Stan Beeman. First, for being a clueless neighbor and best pal of the Jennings's for years. Second, for letting them go. And lastly, for having married another probable Russian sleeper agent. Durak!
Philip's and Elizabeth's flawless escape to Russia was particularly poignant and reflective of real life. They are now bereft of their children. Their comfortable life in American suburbia is now memory. Western traitors who defected to the Soviet Union such as Kim Philby, Donald Mclean, Guy Burgess and Edward Lee Howard largely led unhappy, alcohol-addled lives often resulting in early death. While the Jennings's were Russian, they'd not been back home in many years. As they cast their eyes on Moscow at night, they are visibly uneasy. Elizabeth says, "We'll get used to it." But we know they won't.
See also ~
What Happened to the Kids of Russian Sleeper Agents?