The Romanoffs - "End of the Line" review

The Romanoffs has been quite the diasporic series so far.  Episode settings have ranged from Mexico to Paris to New York and have featured people from all walks of life, a deliberate choice to show just how much the myth and lineage of the Romanov family has spread across the world.  But it also is meant to examine how tenuous that connection is, because there's not much real proof that these people are really Romanovs and even if they are, it's been so long since the family existed as the world at large knew them.  None of the people featured so far have been Russian or have even been to Russia.  Well "End of the Line" marks a first in one of those categories, as we finally take a trip to the Motherland.

Most of the previous installments have received complaints about their expository dialogue, but this is an episode that keeps its cards close to its chest for a very long time.  It opens on Anka (Kathryn Hahn) and Joe (Jay R. Ferguson), an American couple on a flight to Russia.  It's not clear exactly what their purpose is for travelling here, but there's a mixture of excitement and nervousness as they're being processed through customs.  You get a sense of the culture clash that exists, as Anka reminds Joe not to smile when they're getting their passports checked.  Once they're finished, they meet Elena (Annet Mehendru), a chipper Russian woman who serves as their guide.  Lots of strange exchanges occur, from money to children's clothes, and they ask Elena about someone named "Oksana."  It's a terse set of scenes, which only adds to the tense and alienating feeling of the cagey introduction.

Eventually, we're able to parse out enough information to figure out that Anka and Paul are in Russia to bring back a child they're planning to adopt.  Anka is a descendant of the Romanov family, and she tells Elena that she wants to adopt a Russian child as an effort to stay in touch with her heritage.  Though it's not explicitly stated, she sees having a Russian baby as an indirect way of keeping the Romanov line going, a concern that also was the focus of "The Violet Hour."  After a few more exchanges of papers and gifts, they finally meet Oksana at the orphanage.  However, their excitement is tempered with a few strains of concern, as they notice a weird rash on the baby and that she isn't very responsive when they spend some alone time with her.  That feeling of unease continues when they meet some of the other kids at the orphanage, and one of the little girls uses a foreign word regarding the baby that gets her scolded by a nurse.

Back at the hotel while trying to research the nature of Oksana's rash, Anka runs into an American woman (Clea Duvall) she saw earlier who is also there to adopt a child.  She invites Anka and Joe to accompany her and her mother to the flea market, and the nature of the episode begins to curdle a little more on the ride there.  There's a tinge of xenophobia to the conversation in the car when discussing the treatment of children in Russia, as if by adopting these babies, these women are saving them from a country of barbarians.  The following scene leads to the ultimate turning point of the episode, as Anka learns the word she heard in the orphanage earlier means "drinker."  This sets her off into a spiral, completely extrapolating that the baby is suffering from some sort of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome because of this.

The episode uses this moment as a fascinating catalyst, where the uncovering of information about the baby also reveals Anka and Joe's true characters to each other.  They get into an intense fight after Anka insists that she doesn't want the baby now that she knows it will have problems and Joe is appalled by this fact.  Their argument gets at the heart of one of the central issues that The Romanoffs has been circling around this whole time: the nature of charity and how much of our good-heartedness is genuine versus how much is vanity.  Anka says some pretty ugly things about the prospect of having a child that might have developmental issues, views she insists Joe would have too if he wasn't so concerned with proving to others that he's a saint.

It's here where the lack of history and context with these characters bolsters the episode.  At this point we've only spent about 50 minutes with Anka and Joe, and we haven't been given much information about them beyond their present goal, so when they have their fight, it's hard to know how much truth there is to the accusations they lay at each other's feet.  Is Joe really genuine in his desire to do the right thing?  Is Anka simply reacting to the deception that she's just been through and doesn't fully believe all the things she's saying?  From what we're given, Anka certainly doesn't come off looking good, but it's also a bold choice to have a character -- especially a woman -- voice concerns that alot of people would wrestle with if they were placed in the same position.

When the time comes to finally take Oksana home, Anka can't quell her doubts and tells Elena and the director of the orphanage that she doesn't want the baby, accusing them of lying and foul play.  This outrages the director, who leaves the room with Elena to further discuss the matter.  Anka begins to panic that something bad is going to happen to them as a consequence of refusing to take the baby, a feeling brought on by her seeing chairs similar to the ones in the opening credits where the Romanov family was assassinated, coupled with her general anxiety about being in this nation she views with skepticism.  But when Elena and the director come back, they have a new, healthy baby for Anka and Joe take home.  Once it's made official in court (after an impassioned final statement from Joe), they're free to go back to America as the perfect nuclear family they pictured themselves becoming on the plane ride there.  In the final shot, the camera lingers on Joe's face with a conflicted twinge.

Joe is the moral center on which the episode pivots.  He's the one who makes the appeal to humanity when Anka is going on about not wanting to raise a baby like Oksana, and he seems to mean it when it comes to wanting to accept what life has presented them.  Yet for all of his grandstanding, when given the choice between a healthy baby and a non-healthy one, he happily chooses the healthy one.  That realization, that loss of moral footing, that's what haunts him in those final moments.  "End of the Line" feels like the perfect kind of penultimate episode.  Even though this show isn't beholden to the traditional structure of a serialized season, this installment does heigthen the dramatic stakes more than any of its predecessors.  And just as last week's "Panorama" was an inversion of many of the ideas expressed in previous episodes of the season, this week is an amalgamation of the show's biggest themes, one more meditation on goodwill, parentage, and the true selves we hide under the mask of adherence to societal expectations before the finale.

Bonus Points
-This episode was written by Andre and Maria Jacquemetton, and directed by Matthew Weiner.  The Jacquemettons have been Weiner lieutenants since season one of Mad Men, the George Pelecanos to his David Simon.  It's an episode that still feels of a piece with the rest of the series, while having its own coarse flair.

-When the cast for this show was first announced, the person I flipped out about the most aside from Kerry Bishe was Kathryn Hahn.  For a long time she was one of the world's most underrated actors, relegated to bit parts where she stole the show.  But lately she's been getting more leading roles and it's been a real joy to see.  She's the rare kind of actor who excels equally at comedy and drama, both of which she displays here.  I love the moment after she reminds Paul not to smile in customs, only to give a reflexive little smile and then shake her head and catch herself.  Not to mention the hilarious moment in the orphanage when she says "He keeps things running smoothly!" a little too loudly.  Her likability as an actress is part of the reason why the episode can push Anka to such harsh territory.

-Connection to previous episodes: Anka's "cousin whose son suffers from hemophilia" is mentioned, revealing that she's directly related to Victoria from "Panorama."

-Is there any significance to this episode being set in 2008?  Maybe people who know global history better than I do can help me out here.  The only thing I thought of was it being the year Obama was first elected, giving rise to America's current wave of wokeness.

-The concept of sainthood and martyrdom recurs frequently in this episode.  Elena even mentioned that the Romanovs were saints in Russia, serving as nurses and helping out during the first World War.

-This episode is like the opposite of last week's travelogue of Mexico.  The snowy Russian cityscape looked so bleak and imposing.

-This week's movie recommendation is Private Life, another story about a character played by Kathryn Hahn who is trying to have a baby.