3/27
i'm thankful that last night we rewatched the episode of the americans where phillip and elizabeth go to oklahoma. i'm thankful for the first scene there, which takes place in a cheap motel room at magic hour, where you see them in their oklahoma costumes, dungarees and tucked in faded flannel plaid and cowboy boots, phillip sitting on the edge of the bed, elizabeth in a long blonde wig looking at herself in the mirror. i'm thankful for the country song playing softly on the radio in the background.
and philip stands up and they embrace and start dancing together, slow, then deeply kissing each other, kissing that doesn't feel like fake movie kissing but is so real that you almost feel a little uncomfortable watching it. i'm thankful that this unlocks the other layer that always charges the americans, which is that matthew rhys and keri russell are really in love with each other in real life, and so not only is this play with the escape of the performance for the characters in the scene, but also for them in real life, that they are constantly living through these complicated made-up relationships with the person who they actually love, something that has to change what their real relationship is like. i'm thankful for the music in the background as they kiss
i'm thankful that there is a moment of tension, where phillip is asking about whether there's something wrong in the soviet union, why they can't grow all the food they need to feed their people, and elizabeth, always the harder line, rather than engaging with the question, snaps back at him that "everybody has problems." i'm thankful for the pained hangdog look he gives her, the most phillip of phillip expressions, and for how that registers with her and she.
i'm thankful that she then picks up a cowboy hat from the dresser and walks over to where phillip is sitting, so she's standing right before him, holding the hat in front of her chest, and smiles and says "you think they'll make me queen of the rodeo this year?" i'm thankful for the way this performance provides an escape hatch from the stress that both of them are feeling. i'm thankful that elsewhere in the episode, someone asks them whether it's hard for them to constantly have to be other people and they say that sometimes it's hard, it's very hard, and yet this is an example of one of the times where it's something else, a way of temporarily becoming a person who doesn't have the literal weight of the world on their shoulders.
and philip stands up and they embrace and start dancing together, slow, then deeply kissing each other, kissing that doesn't feel like fake movie kissing but is so real that you almost feel a little uncomfortable watching it. i'm thankful that this unlocks the other layer that always charges the americans, which is that matthew rhys and keri russell are really in love with each other in real life, and so not only is this play with the escape of the performance for the characters in the scene, but also for them in real life, that they are constantly living through these complicated made-up relationships with the person who they actually love, something that has to change what their real relationship is like. i'm thankful for the music in the background as they kiss
"There's an old flame, burning in your eyes
That tears can't drown, and make-up can't disguise"
i'm thankful to imagine that, just like phillip and elizabeth sometimes find the escape into fake relationships to be a balm, a way to work out things in their own relationship or find something they don't get from it or imagine different ways of being, keri and matthew get the same feeling from standing in their cowboy boots in a faded motel room, dancing together and kissing as the radio sings about old flames. i'm thankful for those russian dolls where you open them and there's another one inside and you open that and there's another one and it just keeps going.
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