Breaking Backtime Season 1: Pillow Talk

It's the summer television hiatus. The Americans, Game Of Thrones, and Mad Men are done for the season. There is nothing to watch now except for the often frustrating New York Yankees. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Breaking Bad returns in 37 days and AMC is re-running every episode in order.

So it gives die-hard viewers a chance to re-live the situation from the beginning, and watch in amazement as the story and characters develop so drastically.

In the show's fifth-ever episode "Gray Matter," we realize why we love the show so much - it's the writing. There is a scene that is dramatic as (almost) any in the series, where an intervention is staged with five people in the White family living room.

There's no meth, no death, and the roles of Saul, Mike, and Gus haven't been introduced. It's one episode before Tuco and the unveiling of "Heisenberg." Walt even has hair. The scene is 11 minutes of talk only, and it starts with Skyler White clenching "the talking pillow."

The intervention is for Walt to undergo a debilitating and expensive chemotherapy treatment for his terminal lung cancer, which he is trying desperately to evade. Everyone takes their turn with the pillow and the words are raw and real. Skyler is indignant that Walt fight for his life for the sake of his family, and she gets into a shouting match with her sister, who insists that Walter has the right to make his own choice.

Walt sits quietly while those around him bicker, which is a metaphor for the whole process. Until he is forced to seize the pillow and speak for himself.

"These doctors, taking about surviving - one year, two years - like it's the only thing that matters. Well what good is it to just survive if I am too sick to work? To enjoy a meal? To make love? For what time I have left I want to live in my own house. I want to sleep in my own bed. I'm not going to choke down 30, 40 pills and lose my hair and lie around too tired to get up, so nauseated I can't even move my head..."

Walt made his stand and made his choice. I choose not to do it. At this point in Walt's mind he had left the meth business behind, having just pocketed a mere few thousand bucks with only a couple of bodies in his wake.

But the next morning he wakes up, hugs his wife and reconsiders. And if you know anything about Walt's character, even just 5 episodes in, he isn't going to take any handouts. He is going to make sure that he is responsible for his treatment and that his family is taken care of.

In the closing scene he appears back in Jesse Pinkman's driveway, "Wanna cook?" That's the moment that Walter White really breaks bad...for good.

"Gray Matter" originally aired February 24, 2008.

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.

Lamenting The End Of A Season

There is always great trepidation when a routine is interrupted.

At the end of the baseball season, you wake up and think, "Who's pitching today?" The answer is nobody. The season's over. Watch college basketball.

When I was a kid I hated when summer was over because school was on the horizon. Now as a parent it's much the opposite, you dread the end of the school year as you embark on an unstructured, exhausting and HOT Savannah summer.

When a good book ends, you reach to turn to the next page and there isn't one, except for maybe some boring acknowledgments.

Now I don't want the Cold War to end. Maybe it hasn't - Mitt Romney called Russia our "Number one geopolitical foe" just last year. And maybe there are sleeper Directorate S KGB agents still spying on us now while continuing to masquerade as average Americans.

Regardless, the inside world of Cold War espionage portrayed in The Americans is provocative, delicious, and addicting, and it's hard to believe that season one ends tonight. And expect there to be cliffhanger drama that will keep us salivating for next season.

There are the constant cat-and-mouse KGB/FBI games, and the rising tension/awareness in Phillip and Elizabeth's marriage. The penultimate episode "The Oath" took on both storyline runners brilliantly.

Just when the FBI had been alerted to the bug in Caspar Weinberger's study, Phillip was able to pull off a new bug in the FBI counterintelligence office. How? By marrying the director's secretary as his alter-ego Clark Westerfeld.

Elizabeth was dubious about that possibility, "No knock on your charms there Romeo, there's no way she'll go for that." But Phillip was right, he pulled off a secretive wedding with his fellow agents and masters of disguise appearing as his family. The parents of the bride even commented on the "family resemblance."

The wedding scene was especially poignant since Phillip and Elizabeth are having their own marital impasse, even though they were never actually married in the first place.

Meanwhile the FBI's main mole, the brilliant and sexy Nina, has found herself moving up the food chain at the KGB to the point of taking an oath of her own.

She confesses her sins and throws herself at the mercy of the Rezident, claiming she wants to redeem herself in the eyes of Mother Russia. So now we have a real double agent and she will be handling Agent Beeman rather than the other way around.

The storylines are brilliant, emotional, and building. But that will all come to a halt as the season regrettably concludes this evening.

Whoa, Man

"I admire your predictability Elizabeth, it's comforting."

The Americans had been consistently excellent in its first season, but you could see it coming: a little cold water on The Cold War. In the form of the show's lead character, Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings. Her character has become too writer-friendly, too adamant, too one-dimensional.

Now every great show, from The Sopranos to Breaking Bad, isn't immune to some subpar episodes. But when the characters are too predictable, the luster can fade quickly. This isn't a comedy featuring Ralph Cramden or George Jefferson. Staid gets stale in a spy drama.

Elizabeth is definitely averse to the American pursuit of happiness like any good deep-cover KGB agent, but her demand for revenge on some bureaucratic lackey for the assassination of her beloved General Zhukov was just tiresome. And the flashback scenes with Elizabeth and Zhukov were just annoying.

The "covert" plan to target CIA middle-man Richard Patterson was dubious at best. But Elizabeth jumped all over it, somehow compiling a surveillance dossier on him in no time. She put together her best Jane Fonda outfit and librarian specs, and seduced him at the bar with jukebox selections and crossword puzzles.

So just while the first half of the show was frustrating, it led to the seduction/abduction scene in the ladies' room at The Wheel House, which set to Pete Townshend's "Rough Boys" was predictable in its awesomeness. The sequence was every bit as great as the opening chase scene in the pilot to Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk."

Then as Elizabeth puts her life in her husband/partner's hands all the time, she can't bring herself to say the words, "I love you. Come home."

You can't blame the writers for continuing to create tension, but the actor has got to be the one to grab the viewer's attention and empathy for the character. There needs to be investment, even if the character is flawed. Despite the terrible things they do, we love Tony Soprano and Walter White. And we could drop Carrie Mathison (Homeland) in a heartbeat.

With a couple of episodes left in a great opening season, we love the ass-kicking Elizabeth, but we want more from our femme fatale and her writers. Surprise us.

The Tangled Web They Weave When It's Their Job To Deceive

The Americans is gaining more and more momentum as the season rolls on. And it's not anything new to portray US federal agents as adversaries (The Sopranos, Breaking Bad), but the intricate, conscience-shattering role of FBI Agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) is one of the best turns in recent TV history.

Stan's insight and ignorance blend perfectly in the first 15 minutes of episode 10 "Only You," making you want to hug him and choke him at the same time. You can imagine his internal strife, which is the key to a great character and outstanding acting.

Stan, while reeling from the death of his partner, seeks out the solace of his best friend Phillip Jennings, the KGB ace who killed him - which wasn't premeditated. Maybe Stan finds Phillip in these situations because of some 6th sense (like Hank and Walt in Breaking Bad), or maybe he's just got a soft spot and his head up his ass.

When Stan deals with his bosses or works a source, he is as sharp as can be. But he's emotional, tortured, and sometimes drunk, which makes him all too human. Like his handling of his informant, Nina.

He coerced her, slept with her, then lied to her face when she wanted answers about the death of her friend Vlad, the KGB stooge that Stan executed in an eye-for-an-eye, coldest-blooded Cold War moment you can get.

Meanwhile the Jennings family is going through their own family rollercoaster ride. Their marriage was always a cover, now their separation is too. But their partnership is as strong as ever as they deal with the fallout of FBI Agent Chris Amador's death, and the residual effects that could bring two nations to nuclear war - always the underlying theme of the show.

And the cat-and-mouse games continue. Elizabeth Jennings can't smile on her own, a subtle characteristic of a Russian woman playing in the skin of an American. Phillip Jennings continues to be above all the physical and emotional torture to become one of the greatest spies TV has ever seen. And Agent Beeman continues to reel in the little fish while the big one always gets away.

Keeping Up With The Jenningses

When do Cold War spies ever get a day off? When they're not planting recording devices, seducing government middle-men (and women), or assassinating turncoats, they have to be tortured by their own? That's a pretty tough existence for a suburban couple.

That's our week-in, week-out investment in Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings on The Americans. They are so integral in how the Soviet-US relations play out that it wouldn't surprise me if the show ultimately didn't put them at the center of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But that's still 8 years ahead of 1981, when our favorite spies went to great length to lift encryption codes from the trunk of a CIA sedan. When the FBI's counter-intelligence smells a rat, the KGB goes mole-hunting, starting with their most valuable agents who just seem too Americanized.

As viewers we were onto it, because the Jennings' neighbor FBI Agent Beeman was in deep machinations with the real mole. But Phillip Jennings should have been on to it as well when his enhanced interrogation involved repeated phone book slams to the gut and nothing to disfigure his face.

If they messed up his face, there would be too many questions in case they were wrong (which of course they were), and jeopardize his cover.

Now they gave Elizabeth a black eye, but only out of self-preservation. She has proven to be the most kick-ass spy woman on TV since La Femme Nikita or Alias. She got quick and fierce retribution on the point person for their torture, and wanted to send a picture to Moscow as a message.

Meanwhile a residual effect of the Jennings' abduction was the kids being left at the mall. Paige and Henry had to hitchhike and wound up having to fight off a "creep."

The younger Jenningses obviously have no idea what their parents do, but seem to have the family resourcefulness in their DNA. There's also a co-dependency with them, a spirit of partnership, and a constantly shifting role of who's-in-charge, also transferred from their parents.

It's an all-American family dynamic.

The Next Best Show On Television

After being away for a few days I had the option of which to watch first, The Americans or Justified. One show couldn't wait.

The Americans has it all: Cold War spy shit, historical plot points, clever disguises, marital tension, and the real threat of the end of the world.

Episode 4 "In Control" is a memorable one, as both the FBI and KGB operate behind the scenes in the immediate aftermath of the Reagan assassination attempt. When Secretary Of State Alexander Haig goes on camera and assumes temporary control of the US Government (VP George H. Bush was regarded about as highly as Dan Quayle three months into Reagan's term) Phillip and Elizabeth show the complete opposite thought processing.

Elizabeth is the real loyalist. She is the point person on "Operation Christopher," a pre-emptive strike on US government officials. They're forced to kill a security guy while staking out Caspar Weinberger's house.

She thinks like the Russians, that since Haig was once a general and has taken "control" of the government, that this assassination is a coup d'etat. That America is going under martial law and will no doubt blame the KGB, a justification to start World War III and wipe the Soviet Union off the planet.

Phillip is more pragmatic, he's really an American at this point. He knows that life is good and thinks the American people are generally good, "Moscow is overreacting." And he was right.

"All these years walking these streets, living with these people, you still don't really understand this place. Haig could have ten nuclear footballs, this still wouldn't be a coup."

The FBI was of course dispatched to find the Russian angle, and then determined that John Hinckley Jr. was a nut.

So much like the US history with the Soviets, the war was almost all hyperbole. Credit to both sides for not pushing the button.

Spy vs Spy: Cold War Edition

In Mad Magazine, it was the two mortal enemies throwing all their gadgets at each other to create as much destruction as possible. In The Americans, agents fight each other with their wits, trying to stay one move ahead in the Cold War.

***CAUTION - SPOILERS***

The second episode of the new series didn't have as much of the flavor or the music of 1981. "Phillip" and "Elizabeth" are much more in their day-to-day duties as KGB sleepers. They're working more as a team and the tension between them isn't as great as the pilot.

But the tension with their work is very real. Complete with sexual manipulation, cool disguises, and lots of violent acts. They are superspies.

Like poisoning the son of Caspar Weinberger's maid and leveraging the antidote just to get a bug installed in the Secretary of Defense's study.

They both understand their orders, the stakes of this assignment, the innocence of their captives, and that soon their own children could be orphaned if they stray off the tightrope.

Meanwhile, the FBI's tactics aren't that much different in identifying a Russian embassy worker they can turn.

Agent Stan Beeman masterminds this plan, while still exploring his intuition about his neighbors. He even brings some high-end Russian caviar over, seeing if it may expose something in his curious counterpart.

At the end, both opposing sides advanced their agenda. The KGB got surveillance in the Weinberger house, and the FBI got a body inside the Russian embassy. So the spy game's afoot, a much more nuanced battle than the one you'd find in Mad Magazine.

We Like Spies Like Us

The spy game of the 80s is great in retrospect. But in the decade itself, our undercover heros were as cheesy as the music and the fashion. Roger Moore was the worst James Bond, and Crockett & Tubbs were hopelessly slick in Miami Vice.

But when we look back, the infiltrators seem so much cooler. Donnie Brasco is in my all-time Top 5 movies, and the new FX series The Americans kicks the genre's ass - at least after one episode.

***CAUTION-SPOILERS***

So much tension and background information came out right out of the box that I'm hooked. But we'll get into the substance in a second. The style rocked.

The 80s music actually kicked ass, with Quarterflash's Harden My Heart and its distinctive sax riff preceding the first word of dialogue (and first blow-job) in the series. That was followed by an epic pulsating chase scene set set to Fleetwood Mac's Tusk. I still haven't gotten the Tusk beat out of my head. Also great in the shopping mall scene was Juice Newton's Playin' With The Queen Of Hearts.

Keri Russell fills out he mom jeans nicely, and the '77 Olds getaway car reminded me of The French Connection.

So high marks for nailing the audio/visuals of the era. But the story itself is pretty well-conceived.

There's the tension of the family dynamic and the mission. "Phillip" has adapted to the American family lifestyle, and can live it out for the right price. He longs to feel the love of his "wife" who is an agent first and a wife and mom second.

"Elizabeth" is the hard-ass officer, the presumed higher-ranking member of the sleeper team. Her loyalty is to the homeland, Mother Russia, for reasons we haven't yet been exposed to. She should have plenty of reason to hate the KGB, but evidently doesn't.

There's also the series-long cat and mouse game with the FBI guy across the street, which sort of reminds me of the dynamic with Walt and Hank in Breaking Bad. The superspies are one step ahead of the FBI at every turn and we don't know who to root for.

There were a couple of eye-rolls in the 90-minute premiere. There was the melee in the garage with the KGB defector who raped Elizabeth back when she was a cadet, with a ton of noise that didn't wake the kids or the neighbors. And the flashback sequences to Russia and the early days in the states made very little effort to make the characters seem 15-20 years younger.

But the show really moved. There's plenty of intrigue and a lot of sex. But the big hook is that the characters are believable and the husband and wife play non-traditional roles, especially for 1981. And anti-heros are big these days.

If we can embrace Tony Soprano and Walter White, then a couple of "Americans" shouldn't be so hard.