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The Americans, Ep. 3.04: “Dimebag” fleshes out new conflicts

The Americans, Ep. 3.04: “Dimebag” fleshes out new conflicts

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The Americans, Season 3, Episode 4: “Dimebag”
Written by Peter Ackerman
Directed by Thomas Schlamme
Airs Wednesdays at 10pm (ET) on FX

Although this week’s episode of The Americans is more of a connector hour than a climactic thrill ride, it provides some fascinating development of plots that had only been implied until now. One of the show’s strongest elements is the way in which it deals with issues prone to sensationalism with an unusual subtlety, and it demonstrates that strength notably this week through its fleshing out of previously under-explored arcs.

Most notable among those is Stan’s expression of his doubt over Zinaida’s loyalties. For the first three episodes, his suspicions had merely been suggested by the camera lingering on his glances towards her, and the viewer’s trust that Joe Weisberg wouldn’t violate Chekhov’s rule so flagrantly. There was nothing explicitly untrustworthy about her, but the show’s general atmosphere of suspicion made us dubious of her motivations.

This week, we get to find out that Stan shares our suspicions, although the way in which the show reveals his skepticism leaves his conclusion far from trustworthy. As he sits at dinner with Zinaida, so wary that even a waitress’ candor about the quality of the burger shocks him, his impatience becomes too much for him to handle and leads to him following her to the bathroom. Although he stops short of going inside while she’s there, he comes back later and combs the facility with the manic futility of Walter White chasing a fly.

While his desperation would seem extreme even without further context, it’s compounded by the parallel unraveling of his personal life. Stan’s life had already unraveled pretty thoroughly by the time he had an affair with a Soviet agent and separated from his wife, but his lashing out at Sandra’s beloved motivational speaker feels especially desperate. Granted, the speaker’s disturbingly suggestive order of him to envision his wife in front of the audience feels demonstrative of why the Soviets hate America as much as they do, but his reaction comes across particularly poorly.

“Dimebag” does a nice job of emphasizing his fragility in the final act, when he shows up desperate outside of Sandra’s house. Apropos of nothing special other than his own insanity, he reveals to her that he had an affair. She seems unsurprised, and certainly not ready to forgive him: the shot of him standing alone on the lawn outside her house is among the loneliest images the series has depicted. (It’s up there with Saul spreading peanut butter on crackers in Homeland.)

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He’s far from the only character whose domestic life is consistently challenged by his work. Elizabeth and Phillip continue their dispute over Paige this week, and Paige complicates the matter through her insistence on bringing her pastor and his wife over for her birthday party. Their debate carries over to the menu for the evening, with Phillip wanting to spoil their daughter with the decadent steak she wants, and Elizabeth giving the more austere suggestion of tacos. Unlike the general trend of their debate, she gives in, and the parents agree to allow her to have her dish and guests of choice.

Their agreement leads to the comic scene of the mismatched group eating dinner together. Paige’s embarrassment over her parents’ interaction with the pastor suggests a bizarro world version of a teenage girl reluctantly bringing a boyfriend home to meet her family. Just as the Jennings are a strange mirror image of a “normal American family,” Paige’s discovery of Christianity comes off as an uncanny rendition of a teenage girl’s pursuit of her own passions. Furthermore, her announcement of her desire to get baptized reveals an allegiance parallel to the one Elizabeth wants for her—she’s become indoctrinated, but not in the way her mother wishes. The medium close-up of Elizabeth with which the scene concludes emphasizes her loneliness and isolation in the situation.

As awkward as their family situation is, it’s not quite as challenging as the bind Phillip finds himself in. In an attempt to get closer to the man he tracked in “Open House,” Phillip poses as a fake ID dealer to win the trust of his target’s underage babysitter. He’s too talented at seduction for his own good, and he attracts her with his apparent worldliness and charm.

The arc is fascinating for showing just how appalling Phillip’s actions have been. As bad as the viewer feels for the hapless Martha, she’s not quite as sympathetic as the defenseless teenager he goes after here. As The Americans shows us over and over again, the Cold War leads to terrible consequence on the largest and smallest of scales, and “Dimebag” makes a relatively puny one feel rather impactful.

[wpchatai]