Philip's response to what Paige did and to the church was unnecessary, he totally overreacted to that situation. This was a very powerful episode though. Philip needs to get his emotions in check.
Man, that was a strong episode. This season is on a row!
Frank Underwood. Don Draper. Philip Jennings. Is there any male character in a prestige drama that doesn't have a problem with religion?
Oliver North gets a story credit? Yeah, I'm out.
Probably the best possible way to introduce Pastor Tim, such a contrast to the wreck that is Philip emotionally. He keeps questioning what is the point and pushes through even if he keeps losing parts of his soul. On the sideline the focus and cost of the mission, any commitment is complemented even more: Stan is so thorough he happens to stumble upon connection between the conference and the dead family, but loses Sandra as if she is his blindspot, Larrick gave Elizabeth and Philip intel on the base, he knew they will go there, but is still surprsingly hurt when people die, Fred recognizes now many people died because be tried to help, Elizabeth befriends an addict starting what probably will be a story ending in as much heartbreak as disgust and self loathing, the same way Martha goes into work on a weekend because Gaad asked her to, only to be "betrayed" by him, which leads us back to Philip wanting to give his children what they never had only to be repelled by the guidance Paige seeks because she felt she can't confide in her parents anymore. Pastor Tim represent the value of his religion and his faith to both Paige and Philip offering aim and free salvation, and Philip is conversing with him at the end as if, again, just like many times before, he would only need to reach out and be free. But everyone who works this job know better than to let it go, even if it costs them everything.
I certainly remember countless of other episodes weighing the cost of the mission upon ones self, so imagine when I say this remorse here is just the tip of the iceberg.
my favourite episode of the season so far. really liked how both elizabeth and phillip are using their personas to deal with things in their own life. the scene with martha was particularly compelling, especially because there's just always a sense of danger, of what if he reveals too much, or says the wrong thing. i worry that playing that tape could backfire. but i also just find the psychological motivation of why he played it for her after all, is so interesting
for a moment i honestly thought that elizabeth going to the support group wasn't related to the mission, and was entirely just for herself. until the woman mentioned she works for the government.
always nice to see stan's wife standing up for herself, felt she's been very sidelined this season.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2018-07-21T20:28:15Z
[8.2/10] So first things first, it’s a little incredible to be watching a season of television centered on the contras in Nicaragua and see none other than Oliver North get a “story by” credit in the opening. The Americans has been quite adept so far at mixing fact and fiction, but it’s a little odd, to say the least, to see someone who was involved with the fact helping with the fiction.
Still, what’s truly odd is that this episode isn’t really about the goings on with the contras. The opening scene, with Philip and Elizabeth infiltrating the contra training facility to take photos of the covert sessions is as significant an operation as the show has done thus far, but it’s over in the first ten minutes of the episode.
Yes, the Jennings get the photos they need (which is a little remarkable since even I had trouble seeing what was going on given how dark it was there). Yes, there’s some of the show’s trademark tense moments as the security guard inspects Philip’s septic truck. Yes, things get messy in the way that spy missions almost inevitably do on television to keep the audience on their toes.
But what matters about it isn’t really the success or failure of the mission. What matters is when Philip has to slit the throat of a young soldier who discovers him tooling around at the facility and tries to call for help. What matters is when he has to shoot two more who discover him with the young man’s lifeless body. What matters is when he and Elizabeth go to free the truck driver whose vehicle they stole, the one that Philip refused to kill in the last episode, only to find him dead of exposure.
Because this is an episode about pain and guilt, about powerless to change either of those things, and about the ways the resulting anger and frustration is taken out on the wrong people because it can’t be taken out on the right ones.
“Martial Eagle” is an emotionally powerful episode of the show, one far more focused on how this war is affecting Philip, Elizabeth, and even Stan inside as it is about any grand plot machinations.
Not that the episode is free of those plot machinations. Stan is working with the Department of Defense to figure out who might be compromised from the stealth fighter development program. That means that Fred (Emmett’s former asset who’s been inherited by Philip) is going to get pulled in to interviews Stan is conducting with everyone involved, even contractors like Lockheed and Northrup. Agent Gaad is trying to strongarm Arkady into getting him off the hook for Vlad’s murder, to no avail. And Stan is even putting the pieces together vis-a-vis the connection between all this espionage around the stealth fighter/sub program and the murder of Emmett and Liane and their daughter in Alexandria.
But that’s not what “Martial Eagle” spends the most time with. Instead, we see Philip’s difficulties with the innocent lives he’s had to take catching up with him and coming out in unfortunate ways. This isn’t the first time he’s shown this sort of sensitivity or discomfort, as this season in particular, he’s had to take out a lot of people whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it’s clearly starting to wear on him. That’s unfortunate for Paige, Elizabeth, Martha, and even the pastor at the church Paige has been attending, because it means that Philip is troubled and they end up bearing the brunt of it.
It’s especially intense with Paige who, it turns out, gave $600 she’d been saving for a trip to Europe to the church, without telling her parents about it. (Elizabeth’s “Oh we’ll definitely talk about that” response to the pastor is a nice moment of levity in an otherwise pretty heavy episode.) The Jennings are appalled at this unusual form of rebellion, with Elizabeth’s old concerns about brainwashing and manipulation coming to the fore, but Philip getting angrier than we’ve ever seen him.
There is something intentionally transgressive about the scene where he rips pages out of the bible and throws it against the wall. But there’s something downright frightening about the intensity with which he says, “you respect Jesus but you don’t respect us?” to his daughter. It’s a particular sore spot for him, because Paige doesn't know what he and Elizabeth have to endure in their job, what they have to stomach to protect their kids and, in their eyes at least, make a better world for Paige. Philip can’t take his frustration out on the centre; he can’t leave this job or get away from those sorts of grim responsibilities, so he takes them out on his daughter, where even Elizabeth quietly tries to calm him.
But “Martial Eagle” is also about Elizabeth’s frustration and difficulty with all of this. The moment where she wakes Paige up late at night and demands she clean the refrigerator and mop the floors to know what it’s like to have to be an adult is just as telling. It’s a rite of passage in some ways, for kids to (hopefully) understand the sacrifices that their parents make for them. And yet it also gives you Elizabeth’s perspective, about how hard it is to be exhausted but have to soldier on, to constantly have to put other people’s needs, whether it’s your kids’ or the Centre’s, above her own. The Jennings’ life is not an easy one, and both of their frustrations rear their ugly heads when their daughter seems to take their sacrifices, and how fortunate she is, for granted.
It also comes out between the two of them. When Elizabeth tries to comfort Philip, he brushes her off, insultingly telling her that killing isn’t as easy for him as it is for her, and walking away. Later, when Elizabeth is having lunch with a woman from an AA meeting, who turns out to be a potential asset at Northrup, she does something else we’ve seen from her in this season -- mixing truth into her lies. She talks about how great Philip was to her when she was “sick”, and wanting to somehow return that favor, to show that she could take care of him the way that he took care of her. Now, he’s in pain and lashing out, and she is both hurt it and upset at how she can’t seem to help him.
Theirs’ is not the only marriage experiencing difficulties at the moment. Sandra comes clean to Stan, telling him that she’s going to have an affair, that she essentially knows that he’s having an affair, but that she’s not going to leave him because then he gets to be the good guy. It’s another laudable, forceful choice from poor Sandra, who seems like one of the few people in this show (short of Martha) dealing with these impossibly difficult situations in consistently productive and adult ways. What’s surprising about the scene is that the revelation seems to genuinely hurt Stan, that the accumulated distance between him and his wife is actually resulting in a dissolution of things. It’s natural that Sandra would feel some pain at this, but it’s kind of unexpected how it seems that Stan is too.
But the balance of the episode is focused on Philip, whose 10,000 yard stare the boardwalk is enough to prompt a stranger to ask him if he’s okay. His hauntedness is enough for him to play the doctored tape he put together to Martha, to show her how much ugliness there is in the world, to vent in ways he can’t necessarily at home and share his misery.
(And once again, poor Martha. She is so, so good to Clark, and it’s increasingly painful to see her treated like this.)
The last object of Philip’s scorn is Pastor Tim, whom Philip approaches with black gloves and intimidating bent. He tells the pastor to stay away from his daughter, threatening him, and making you unsure how far this will go. There is a sense of foreboding in the air as he advances on the man of the cloth.
There’s a lot of other tools in the toolbox being used by The Americans here -- repeated symmetrical motifs of a portrait of Jesus between the pews, of Martha sitting alone on her bed, of Elizabeth looking back at a bible on the table. There is omnipresent mournful violins, adding to the lugubrious tone of the episode.
And at the center of it all is a man who seems desperate for forgiveness, desperate for some semblance of peace and an outlet for his anger, but who has none, and so turns it on anyone with the misfortune to be in his orbit when he’s going through one of his “moods” as Martha puts it. That includes the man who would promise Philip, and his daughter for that matter, that there is grace and forgiveness in the offing if he’s willing to reach for it.
Philip has seen too much, done too much, to believe that. All he knows right now is anger and violence, and there’s no comfort for him in it, only more pain, more guilt, and more lives hurt, as the costs of this war start to become measured in terms beyond body counts and stolen secrets.