Monthly Archives: June 2016

TV Time: The Americans 4.13

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the americans s4 finale

Source: ign.com

Title: Persona Non Grata

Episode M.V.P.: Everyone
This might seem like a copout, but “Persona Non Grata” was a total team effort. Each actor was given their time to shine, and each performance worked with and added to the others. Masterpieces generally aren’t painted using only one color, and symphonies don’t work with only one instrument. In the same way, this powerful finale was the sum of all of its talented parts.

What impressed me the most about this episode was the way it balanced its stories so well, giving every character we’ve come to care about an important story to tell. This allowed every actor in this brilliant ensemble a chance to do something special, and they ran with it.

Of course, there were the big moments: Dylan Baker’s heartbreaking work as William died a horrible death—made even more horrible by the fact that he was alone; Matthew Rhys’s stunning monologue about feeling sick every day before going to work; Costa Ronin’s poignant farewell scenes; and Holly Taylor’s masterfully ambiguous performance as Paige and Matthew grew closer.

But I also found myself entranced by the smaller beats in this episode, the silent moments that reminded me of the trust this show places in its actors to convey so much without words. I was spellbound watching Noah Emmerich’s face as Stan took in William’s words about loneliness, the sad understanding creeping across his features. I found myself close to tears as Taylor’s face changed from joy to longing to hopeless sorrow as she held Pastor Tim and Alice’s baby and was suddenly confronted with the reality of her own journey from childhood to the awful grownup world she’s found herself in—a world that could jeopardize the future of this little girl. I was devastated by the exhaustion and hopelessness in Lev Gordon’s posture as Arkady processed the fact that he was being sent back to Russia. I even found myself getting emotional over Tatiana, as Vera Cherny sold her sincere sadness over Oleg’s departure in a way I wasn’t expecting.

And that’s not even including the incredibly charged silences between Rhys and Keri Russell throughout the episode. Russell didn’t speak much in “Persona Non Grata,” especially compared to some of the other episodes this season, but she still delivered a knockout performance. The entire sequence of moments between Philip and Elizabeth after Gabriel suggested they return to Russia was a master class in using silence to your advantage as an actor. You could almost see the wheels turning in Elizabeth’s head as she processed what it might mean to return “home” after building a real home in America with her family. The war between officer and mother was raging inside Elizabeth, and the only evidence we saw of it was in Russell’s intense eyes. Watching her and Rhys in those scenes made me feel afraid to blink because I might miss something, and that’s when this show is at its very best.

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TV Time: The Americans 4.12

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the americans 411

Source: spoilertv.com

Title: A Roy Rogers in Franconia

Episode M.V.P.: Keri Russell and Holly Taylor
For those of you who don’t know, in addition to being a writer and editor, I’m also a dance teacher, and this weekend was my students’ big recital (which is one of the main reasons why this post is so late). As such, I’ve been thinking a lot about dance lately. So maybe I just have dance on the brain, but every time I watch Keri Russell and Holly Taylor share a scene together, I think about them not just as the actors they are but as the trained ballet dancers they are as well. Their dance training has not only given them both beautiful posture (which makes them feel related even when they’re just sitting next to each other); it’s also given them a unique ability to naturally convey emotion through their body. And that shared ability to say so much through movement and expression—to make the emotional something physical—was put on prominent display in this episode. The placement of their bodies in a scene—the way they responded to each other’s touch or lack thereof, the angle of their body and head as the other spoke—took what was already stellar writing and made it feel grounded in a very physical reality.

Russell has been on a hot streak the likes of which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen from an actor in a weekly series before. Each week she’s been turning in career performances, and this week was no exception. The most astounding thing about Russell’s work in this episode was the way she followed up Elizabeth’s violent actions at the end of last week’s episode with such soft, sincere uncertainty. That’s Elizabeth in a nutshell; she is supremely confident when it comes to disarming enemies, but she is so unsure of herself when it comes to connecting with the people she loves. And what’s been so beautiful about Russell’s performance is the way she believably lets us see both sides of this complex character. My favorite thing about her work in this episode was the cautious, almost frightened way she carried herself in the early scenes with Paige. You could feel her fear that she’d become a monster in her daughter’s eyes, and it was amazing to see that this was the one thing that could scare the seemingly unshakeable Elizabeth Jennings.

Russell is a master of nuance, and it seems Taylor is taking her apprenticeship under her seriously. Paige feels like a real teenager thrust into a heightened reality, and one of the best things about Taylor’s performance is that she imbues it with a genuine sense of confusion and uncertainty without ever making Paige feel like an idiot. It was a true joy to watch Taylor in this episode because she made Paige’s actions feel just as layered in their intentions as her parents’ actions always feel. She showed us that Paige was both terrified of what she witnessed her mother do and intrigued by what motivated her to learn to do it. She was both sincerely connecting with Matthew and using that connection to help her family. She was both eager for more answers about what her parents really do and immediately regretful that she asked. (Her wonderfully sarcastic “Great…” might have been one of the show’s most perfect conclusions to an episode.) Every time Paige is in the spotlight, Taylor shows that she’s not just a great young actor; she’s a great actor. And this episode was another example of her holding her own alongside the best actors on television.

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