Back on their own this week, Danielle and John descend into the basement to talk about The Americans Season 5 Episode 10, “Darkroom,” and BOY, is THIS an EPISODE!?! Your hosts unpack a series of scenes that center Paige, from her snooping to her interactions with her parents to the final darkroom scene. Don’t worry, it’s not all-Paige-all-the-time - they sprinkle in time to chat about the orthodox marriage ceremony and the Morozovs. From there, Danielle offers some wild tinfoil hat theories in the Dossier, including reflecting on whether or not anyone actually got Pastor Tim a job (!). In Glas, John reflects on some of the smaller choices including the handwriting situation over at EST, and of course some camerawork quips. Your hosts touch on what’s going on with Oleg as well as what Stan and Aderholt are up to with regards to Sofia before lightening the mood by talking about the 80s fits that we get in this episode. And of course, the episode ends with a descent into the Cave for more Marx SZN - this time, featuring Class Struggles in France. It’s a double-descent kind of episode.

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Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

This week, John and Danielle are joined by one of their favorite recurring guests in the NQGB (Zencastr) studio, Lilly Goren! Together, they tackle The Americans 5x9, “IHOP.” They consider the developments in this ep and the season more generally through the idea of ‘the return of the repressed’ - this helps highlight the connections between Henry’s demands, Martha’s encounter with Gabriel, everything with Tuan, and more. Your hosts unpack who is the repressed and what the implications of their return are in each of the different beats of the ep. Of course, Danielle dons her tinfoil hat in the Dossier to chat about Tuan, and Lilly and John indulge her here. In Glas, there’s a lot of spycraft, some set design notes about Martha’s Moskva apartment, and Father Andrei. Lilly gets her first dose of Marx SZN with the Communist Manifesto, and offers some awesome anecdotes to accompany the trip into the Cave. Your hosts end with a robust round of TheoryShips. Enjoy!

(We lost a few minutes of Lilly's audio and brilliant thoughts early in the episode, but only in the very beginning).

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Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Amy Schiller is back with John for a wide-ranging conversation about economies both sacred and profane. Together, they consider the May election of Pope Leo XIV as a pop culture phenomenon (2:36), the amor fati, unresolved moodiness, and audience responses to the third season of The White Lotus (13:34), and in true dialectical fashion strongly disagree about Celine Song's new film Materialists and its engagement with love, money, and height surgery (1:00:55).

Can you have a little materialism as a treat? How *would* you structure a shady AF $5 million cover-up transaction? Is being a Mike White simp a defensible lifestyle? Tune in to find out.

Amy's book The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong and How to Fix It is available at Bookshop.org among other venues, and she writes The Schill newsletter on Substack.

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Music by Lesfm from Pixabay