Thanks! Good to know. I was thinking of reading the book, but you're not selling me on it. :)

Sirens was the chapter I was blanking on. Had to look it up. :) Getting old!

Agreed. There are some really intellectually rewarding sections of it. My personal favorite were the Wagnerian leitmotifs and the musical fugue in whatever chapter that was that is now escaping me.

We have to be lunatics to even get through Ulysses. I don't think 39 year old me could do what 20 year old me did in undergrad. I haven't read it in ages, and I'm not sure I would want to reread it!

Thanks. That's very useful information.

My god, so many snotty responses. It's just a question. Oftentimes tv/movies veer from the source material, and I was wondering if the book itself went into the question I was posing. Nothing more.

Cool

I'm guessing if you were take an average IQ of those who loved the finale versus the average IQ score of those who agree with you, that we would be several standard deviations apart from each other.

thx!

It's just a question. The show was vague, but that doesn't necessarily mean the book was, thus my question.

Now that it's all over, can someone who has read the book explain why the departure happened and how the people who departed were selected?
Or was that even covered in the book?

Assuming we can trust anything from the finale, then yes, Laurie is still alive. I need to watch it again, but I'm not convinced what we saw can all be taken at face value.
Or maybe I'm overthinking this. I do have a tendency to overthink things.

Right? I'd claim myself a $15 million penthouse in NYC. I can't imagine anyone wanting to stay in Mapleton.

It's called "absurdism." Apparently absurdism isn't your thing. Noted. Many of the greatest works of literature and theater are absurdist in nature. I'm guessing you don't like those either, which is fine.

You're entitled to your opinion, but it does beg the question why you would continue watching a show that bored you to death. I do hate-watch a few shows, but none that I found boring. i can't imagine that that can be fun.

The final installment of the series had a smack of Joyce's Ulysses in it. All I could think of the entire episode was how Nora was Molly Bloom and the coda to the story is all about the female perspective. I need to watch it again. So well done and I will sorely miss this show.

Yes. Those kids turned out ok. But they weren't the only children. There were more.

"I don't think the Jennings will be publicly outed because then the show would have to exist in a historical alternate reality."
Kinda sorta. The Americans was based off of the real life Ghost Story operation that came to a head with the arrest of several GRU cells, including Anna Chatman, less than a decade ago. The…

You should do kids' parties with that schtick.

Wait, Laurie's patient in the cold open is the very first vignette we see when the series opens, right? She's the one with the toddler crying in the car seat if I'm not mistaken.