Games Without Frontiers: The Americans Season Finale

The outstanding season finale of The Americans was a microcosm of the season, where misinformation and spy game scenarios rule the day. But always shining through is our heroic KGB couple on concurrent parallel tracks with each selflessly protecting the other.

There are two missions. The riskier one is to meet with the Air Force Colonel about Reagan's missile defense program, fearing that such a high-level source could very well be a setup. The secondary mission is to pick up the tape of the secretly-recorded meeting between Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and James Baker, the White House Chief of Staff. But the Weinberger/Baker meeting is the FBI sting.

"OK so you grab the tape, pick up the kids from school, wait someplace safe while I meet the Colonel."

Phillip and Elizabeth are constantly back-and-forth about who would handle the more dangerous assignment, and who takes the kids to Canada if they're caught. Phillip does the noble thing (he thinks) by assuming the risk without permission, via Dear John note.

Meanwhile, Nina, the KGB-mole-turned-double agent, has been granted a stay from the center in Moscow. Her job now is to turn FBI Agent Beeman the way he turned her, and she's off to a flying start. She gets the information that the setup is on.

The meeting with The Colonel goes down - and the information is that there's no information. The infamous "Star Wars" program is essentially that - a science fiction fantasy, intended to make the Soviets "spend themselves into oblivion, keeping up with the technology that will never pan out."

But their meeting is interrupted by the KGB Granny (fresh from finishing off CIA middle management guy in a personal vendetta), thinking that was the sting - Phillip doesn't buy it and then realizes what the actual sting is. He heroically rescues Elizabeth and wins a massive Chevy Nova car chase with law enforcement, until he realizes she's shot.

He gets her to the safe house, the FBI is foiled, and the last words of the season are from a critically-wounded Elizabeth to her husband and relentless partner, "Come Home" (in Russian).

Then there's the music video montage updating all the players to Peter Gabriel's thumping Games Without Frontiers. While the end-of-season musical assmeblage may be a little cliche in TV series at this point, it's cliche because it works. I can't remember a David Simon season-ender of The Wire or Treme' without one. And The Americans is just about at that level.

David Simon On Real "Time"

In what was a generally unspectacular episode of Real Time With Bill Maher last night, we were treated to a visit from our national conscience, David Simon.

Simon, the creator of Homicide: Life On The Street, The Wire, and Treme, says the only way to judge an administration is over the course of history. The former newspaperman-turned-cultural storyteller thinks that "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" is the most loaded question in American politics and diminishes the election:

The (De)industrialization's been going on for 50 years, the decline of organized labor's been going on for 40 years, globalization: 20-25 years, and you're gonna sit there and argue over this month's employment report? The fact that we can't have an adult electoral process is rooted in this kind of frenzy of who can we blame, and how fast.

Whether it's Bush's mess, or Obama's mess, or even Clinton's (who got the bank deregulation ball rolling) is immaterial to Simon. There is no quick fix. Campaigns need long-term solutions, but they are handcuffed by projections and results in the prism of the 24-hour news cycle. Is it any wonder that they've reverted to lying when they can't conform to the impulsive demands that the media has forced upon the people?

That business of four years being the metric for anything? We have a political culture that everyone plants annuals, they plant pretty flowers that come up the next spring. What we need is a political culture where somebody plants a fuckin' olive tree, which doesn't even give you an olive for seven years. That's how you fix an economy...When that olive tree becomes an orchard.

And in regards to his own personal crusade, the drug war, it is too combustible a topic for any President to tackle in his first term. Half of a president's first term is about trying to fulfill missions from the campaign, while the other half is about getting reelected. Only in the second term can a president take on the nation's overwhelming incarceration rate as it relates to non-violent drug crimes. And even then, he's not certain Obama's the guy to do it:

It was Nixon that went to China, and it will be some reactionary Republican that actually looks at the drug war and says, "You know what? This isn't cost effective."

While we know on which side Simon's politics lie - it's really with an asterisk and a gun to his head. He thinks both sides are corrupt and the system is broken. You saw the evolution in The Wire of Tommy Carcetti the crusading mayoral candidate, and then the selling out of the mayor in office on his way to becoming governor.

Maybe David Simon's next project will be to portray an unconventional president. Judging by the above quotes, the dialogue alone would send Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing into TV oblivion.

What's That About Objects In The Rearview? Never Mind, They're Already Here

It's September 5th. You might have one eye on the political landscape or the start of football season. But the Yankees have had one eye over their shoulder, where the Orioles have moved from 10 games back to a flat-footed tie for first. All while the Yankees do their best September impersonation of the New York Mets.

It's September 5th. And for the last 14 seasons the O's average AL East deficit on this date was 22 games behind.

The only reason to watch the Birds late in the season was to see if they could spoil anyone else's success - which is exactly what they did September 28, 20011 - when they came back with 2 outs in the 9th against Jonathan Papelbon and knocked the Red Sox out of the playoffs. That precipitated the ultimate domino theory with Boston revamping their entire managerial structure, which led to the trading off of their most expensive players a couple of weeks ago.

1997 was the last time the Orioles made the playoffs, losing a classic ALCS to the Indians. And to lend some perspective to how long ago that was, the Indians were in that series because they defeated the Yankees and Mariano Rivera in his first season as the closer.

In 1997, the O's lineup featured a still-steady Cal Ripken, Hall-Of-Famer Roberto Alomar, would-be Hall-Of-Famer Rafael Palmeiro (whoops), and an awesome 1-2 punch at the front of the rotation with Mike Mussina and Scott Erickson.

In 1997, the O's were still the most prominent thing in Baltimore. The Wire was just a spark in David Simon's head while Homicide: Life On The Street was playing out the string. And Ray Lewis had not yet been to 13 Pro Bowl or led the Ravens to a championship.

Now in his 3rd season managing the Orioles, one-time Yankee manager William Nathaniel "Buck" Showalter III, has a team that may be ready to take down the team that had groomed him and later washed their hands of him.

Tomorrow begins a 4-game weekend set at Camden Yards. After that we'll know how real the Orioles are, and if the Yankees can get off the mat.