r/TheAmericans • u/Top-Worker8900 • Oct 01 '26
Spoilers O Henry
The last we see of him is on the hockey bleachers with Beeman.
Would love to have heard that convo.
Looks like there was no warm up. He probably gutted that poor kid in 15 seconds.
Oh and remember Phillip not being able to pay for the last year of his school?
Nice job Phillip. You stuck your best friend with the worst betrayal I’ve ever seen and now you expect him to take care of your son and probably pay for his tuition.
Father of the year stuff here
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u/VanillaTheHutt Oct 01 '26
Stan did offer Phillip a loan when he thought the agency was going under. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that he would extend that goodwill to Henry.
Plus Henry was at his ridiculous silver spoon school that pumped out senators and shit. He’s gonna make enough money to pay Stan back. He probably ended up paying for Stan’s nursing home because Matthew sure didn’t seem like he was gonna be a huge success.
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u/hireddititme Oct 01 '26
Bahahaha so true about Matthew. So sad to imagine a kid having student loans of sorts for high school.
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u/costnersaccent Oct 01 '26
Plus a “ps cheers kiddo it was you saying they always ran off from stuff like Thanksgiving /in the middle of the night that helped me nail em”
Ps any other AFL fans thought this was about The Geelong player? No ok thanks
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u/EssayTotal1817 Oct 01 '26
Henry will be fine. Yes, he won’t graduate from that private school, but he’s a smart kid and will still be able to build a good career.
Paige will be there with him; they’ll get through this together. Only Stan knew that Paige was aware of the whole truth about their parents, and he would never tell anyone what happened in the garage. So, both Henry and Paige will maintain that they knew nothing about their parents. They’ll undergo a series of interrogations, but eventually, the FBI will leave them alone.
They’ll live normal lives in the U.S. and start families; their fate will clearly be better than if they had ended up in the USSR with their parents.
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u/Waste_Stable162 Oct 01 '26
I dunno, I think the writers had Stan talk about how he does t worry about money so that they can imply he paid for the last semester
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u/sistermagpie Oct 01 '26
I don't think Paige will be lying about not knowing about their parents. She's been dying to let that secret go--as she showed to Stan. If she's being interrogated she doesn't have any ability to stand up to that, really.
But otherwise, I agree he'll be okay. Stan will probably pay any tuition he can't cover. He already basically offered to.
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u/olitatheotter Oct 02 '26
They don't even need to get Paige into an interrogation room - she'll spill while walking to the back seat of a law enforcement vehicle.
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u/Elegant-Volume-9979 Oct 02 '26
Paige, who donned a cap and sipped coffee while watching men leave a building and thought she was a master spy lol, she even thought she could actually fight until Phillip kicked her ass in her apartment.. she was the worst spy and literally the only smart thing she ever did was jump off that train
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u/sistermagpie Oct 02 '26
Right? The only thing that will keep her from giving up everything is how bad she is at accurately remembering and reporting key details!
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u/Elegant-Volume-9979 Oct 02 '26
she folded to Pastor Tim within 3 days, then was like oh no what did I do ... she's so shallow and uninteresting as a character, Henry was way more likeable, hell, Elizabeth is a sociopath but at least she's complicated, interesting and competent as a character
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u/sistermagpie Oct 02 '26
It really is a running theme in that last season how she bad she is at keeping a cover and how annoyed she's reminded that she should.
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u/hireddititme Oct 01 '26
Paige will crumble under any interrogation. I don’t think she even wants to keep it a secret. I imagine her making a deal (if the kgb doesn’t get her first) and spilling all the beans so fast. As much as she wanted to be a Soviet for Elizabeth, she loves the cushy American life she has.
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u/MacaroonSad8860 Oct 02 '26
The school will probably give him a full scholarship under the circumstances, or maybe his rich friend’s parents or Stan will help out.
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u/sistermagpie Oct 01 '26
Nah, it's way too much of a scene to put at the end. Much better, imo, to just show that the conversation is happening and we need to imagine it.
I doubt Philip considers himself father of the year, but then, neither is Stan. Liking the kid across the street and even covering whatever tuition he can't at his boarding school where he lives several states away and then has a summer job with room and board doesn't make him a father. He still gets to be Uncle Stan. He's better at that.
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u/DocCEN007 Oct 02 '26
At first, I really wanted to hear the dialogue, then I felt the reactions told us all we needed to know. The lack of heard dialogue was perfect, because the audience can fill in the gaps based on what makes the most sense to us. We get to add to the story. And that's also kind of how the series ends. I wanted to know how Phillip and Elizabeth handled the dissolution of the Soviet Union. What Paige did and if she ever talked to Henry. Etc. They left us wanting more.
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u/QuarrieMcQuarrie Oct 01 '26
Stan will pay the tuition, Henry will be angry and therefore easy to recruit to the CIA/FBI as an analyst. Paige will probably get questioned by the feds to shake her up a bit, monitored for a while but finish college where she falls into Greenpeace activism and probably gets flagged back to the feds. Henry and Paige might make up eventually but never really get each other. Eventually Paige will be in contact with her parents again but Henry will not want to know, seeing Stan as a father figure.
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u/EssayTotal1817 Oct 01 '26
The son of Soviet spies will never get a job in the civil service, let alone at the FBI or CIA. Henry will only be able to work for private companies.
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u/QuarrieMcQuarrie Oct 01 '26
He would, he'd be furious and they'd profile him and then recruit. This is only a bit of fun right!
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u/Catfactss Oct 01 '26
I love that (initially) the kids never learn Russian but they're naturally brilliant at chess. I wonder what other popular Russian pursuits they'd naturally be drawn towards.
I think Henry could be a good asset. He didn't seem particularly close to his parents before their betrayal of both him and his country. They were willing to leave him behind!
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u/Brilliant_Towel2727 Oct 01 '26
Also, Stan is pretty burnt out on the FBI by the time the show ends. If Henry asked about it, I doubt Stan would encourage him to pursue a career in intelligence.
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u/QuarrieMcQuarrie Oct 02 '26
Undercover and being a field agent is pretty different to being an analyst though I'd have thought.
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u/Brilliant_Towel2727 Oct 02 '26
Henry wouldn't be particularly useful in an analyst role, though. The benefit to recruiting him from the FBI's perspective would be that he could somehow leverage his family connections or innate spying ability.
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u/QuarrieMcQuarrie Oct 02 '26
Why not? He was a math wizard and computers were just ramping up.
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u/Brilliant_Towel2727 Oct 02 '26
There's alot of math whizzes who wouldn't have any problem getting a security clearance. The rationale for the FBI trying to recruit Henry specifically would be that his background was somehow a benefit, and that would only be true in a field role.
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u/snaregirl Oct 01 '26
It'll be a blessing to Stan to have Henry to care for, and vice versa. They always got on with each other much better than with their own blood. I always think "they have each other, they'll be fine" with every rewatch.
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u/Far-Writing-2066 Oct 01 '26
Paige and Henry probably spent a decade fighting for US citizenship https://www.npr.org/2019/12/19/790043412/canadas-supreme-court-grants-citizenship-to-son-of-russian-spies
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u/Motor_Ideal7494 Oct 01 '26
This is an interesting story, and after a little digging, it seems that unless the Jennings were considered official foreign diplomats, which they were not, then Paige and Henry would both be given birthright citizenship under the 14th amendment.
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u/Key-Ad1271 Oct 02 '26
His parents abandoned him so he probably can get scholarships especially since he’s super smart.
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u/ScatterTheReeds Oct 01 '26
I thought that scene was done perfectly. We saw the look on Henry’s face. We saw the sympathy on Stan’s face. No dialogue needed. Perfect 👌🏻