Resuming the marathon...

I'm sorry to all the devoted readers of the Miniseries Marathon, but some unexpected intrusions from life insisted on my time and attention.

But, I will be back hopefully by the end of this week, my birthday week.  What better time for a relaunch?

All the best!

Bj

SEQUEL ALERT: Heaven and Hell: North and South, Book 3

Oh, I know, the fact that I'm referring to "Heaven and Hell, North and South, Book 3" as a sequel is not going to sit well with everyone.

The "North and South" novels of John Jakes came out in 1982, 1984 and 1987.  Miniseries of Books 1 and 2 had both aired by mid-1986.  Why not Book 3?  There are differing answers on that one (Kristie's character was killed near the end of Book 2 and Patrick was well into movie superstardom to return to TV), but timing and Jakes' writing no doubt were factors.

North and South, Book 1
North and South, Book 2

However, as I see it, Book 3 is a desperate grasp as a miniseries.  By 1994, when it aired, the American network miniseries was moribund.  I've already noted in these pages that I consider "Scarlett," airing in 1995, the true end of the movement, so by 1994, certainly the networks knew they had just a few gasps left.

So, what could they do to go out with a bang?  Well, they could have gone the route of "Scarlett" and used recent novels, as the Krantz and Steel factories churned out books faster than anyone could read them.  They could have gone for a real-life or true crime story (which they did).  They could also keep trying Stephen King books.

Or, they could dredge up past glories for a can't-lose movie, a last attempt to breathe life into a clearly dead genre.  There was a "missing years" "Thorn Birds" miniseries that was dismal, Clavell would have been way too expensive, to say nothing of Wouk.  Ah, but the "North and South" books of John Jakes (who already had a trilogy made into a miniseries in the golden days a decade and a half previously) had a dangling finale that was not filmed.  Both "North and South" miniseries in the 80s were critically hailed and gigantic hits with audiences.  Bingo, let's do it for the money.

Only, doing it for the money is a lousy reason to make a miniseries and it was bound to fail.  One only need to look at "Lace II" for proof.  Book 3 has a stale feel, a sad aroma of decay to it.  A lot of the same actors are back, but you would hardly notice.  Philip Casnoff is given one of the worst parts of his career, Leslie-Anne Down is turned into Scarlett-after-the-war, Terri Garber has very little to do and even the magnificent James Read looks totally bored.  Thus, assuming money-grubbing decisions, I add "Heaven and Hell: North and South, Book 3" to the sequel pile along with "Lace II" and the equally unwatchable "Rage of Angels" sequel.

To be fair, "Heaven and Hell: North and South Book 3" is not a disaster like the two mentioned above. It is harmlessly impotent and dull, that's all.

Uh oh.  The miniseries starts with a bit of narration by John Jakes.  Who does he think he is, Judith Krantz?  It's only a review, but it ends with Jakes telling us that somehow Philip Casnoff is still alive through some "quirk of fate."  Oh, come on!  He could have figured out a way to say that far better, but perhaps he was under torture to speak the line exactly as written.

Philip and his beloved Terri Garber, already overdoing it in her first lines, have come to extort money from the character once played by Patrick Swayze, but in this case an obvious double used in a nighttime scene.  Terri trots off to have it out with Lesley-Anne Down, making a crack about "uppity" former slaves and Lesley-Anne's minuscule black heritage.  Philip, drowning in dry ice haze, follows the man with the cane, stabs him and then relays a bit more plot review.  At exactly the same time, Terri informs Lesley-Anne that she's going to take "everything you have…so enjoy it while you can" and flounces out the door.

When Terri makes her way through the fog and unlit streets exactly to the empty place where Philip has just killed her brother, she's horrified.  She thought Philip was going to extort money.  "What about me?" she asks.  "I don't need you for what I'm going to do," he callously warns her.  Hey, Ter, you lie down with dogs…

Enraged, Terri screams and runs in slow motion, pushing Philip off a bridge and one supposes he drowns, but of course one supposed the last time he was killed he actually was dead, so we'll wait and see if he's that lucky again.

Naturally, James Read is upset at his friend's death.  "He survived it all only to have some coward knife him in the back?" he growls to his patient wife Wendy Kilbourne as he fishes out his half of the $10 bill that he's kept since early in Book 1.  It's Wendy who tells him to go help Lesley-Anne.  Probably not wise advice on any level.

The character of dead Patrick Swayze's brother, now being played by Kyle Chandler, meets Rya Kihlstedt, a penniless but pretty actress who declares he "will hear of" her, despite his knowledge of theater being limited to Edwin Booth (nothing can top the plight of 19th Century actors like "Centennial").  He's also in the military under an assumed name, though a squawking officer thinks he should be fired since he was part of the South.

Rya, as noted, is an actress, and wants to work with a troupe headed by a truly bizarre slumming vet.  Not Liz Taylor from Book 1, not Wayne Newton from Book 2, but one of the least likely slummers in all of show business, Peter O'Toole.  He isn't interested in her acting, he just wants someone to manage his books and "keep him sober," a delicious in-joke.  "Everyone thinks they can act," Peter tells her, not having seen the rest of this movie, and tough Rya holds out for lead parts in exchange for taking care of him.

Another relative swoops down into the story, Robert Wagner, playing the deed owner of the once great family estate.  A rather dour sort, he tells Lesley-Anne that if she fails to make any mortgage payments culled from her little vegetable garden run with the help of paid former slaves, he'll boot her out.  Hearing that Lesley-Anne is educating her former slaves, he is invited to join the KKK, but declines, only to be reminded, "the war may be lost, but the cause ain't."

Mariette Hartley is hired as the plantation's teacher.  She tells Lesley-Anne she was an abolitionist, as if that matters now (or in light of Lesley-Anne's efforts to help runaway slaves).  A desk and windows are promised her as the school is being built, and she takes the job, "with enthusiasm," though it looks more like complete boredom.  However, she shows spark soon after, when Lesley-Anne is turned away from church because of her racial history.  "There is no blessing on this house of abomination," Mariette snaps to all, including Robert, who is uncomfortably in the middle of the ado.  He again refuses to join the clan, but doesn't leave with Lesley-Anne either.

Into all of this, like a gallant knight, comes James, apparently not planning to stay more than a five minutes because he rides to the ruined plantation just on a horse, nothing else.  He inquires about her husband's killer and is told no law and order actually exists in the South now.

Cue Richmond and the insane asylum where a raving lunatic holds court.  Yup, once again, Philip Casnoff has cheated death!  Tied to the bed, he remembers his rank, "the great sovereign state of Georgia" and a whole bunch of other things, but not his name.  The doctor thinks he's perfectly sane and has him released.

Ever the pragmatic entrepreneur, James offers Lesley-Anne a business partnership in order to build a sawmill, which will only help her meager efforts.  She keeps declining until he, of course, brings up that ripped $10 bill.  "I do believe we have ourselves a deal," Lesley-Anne gushes.

Philip, walking no doubt to some magnetic dream of retaliation, stops, pulls out his knife and writes his character's name in the dirt.  Has he remembered something?  No time to dwell, we have new lovers to visit: Rya and Kyle, who has attended her performances and actually stayed awake.  He wants to go out West, and though Rya assumes it's to "fight Indians," his kiss cancels out all worries, but they can't have sex in that little outdoor patch, "not for my first time with you," she notes (thats a rarity--a woman in an historical miniseries who openly admits she's not a virgin), so we take the act inside with glowing candles, sexy bodies and acres of violins and drums.  Considering Kyle Chandler is the most handsome man in all three "North and South" miniseries, it's nice to look at, though stereotypically handled.  After being insulted by a superior officer in a restaurant while with Rya, Kyle decided to pay a visit to his fie-year old son, explaining the story of his birth and his fiancée's death and promising a return to his new love.

Out in Santa Fe of all places, Terri has become perhaps the crankiest hooker in all that dry heat, until a piano salesman comes to spend the night, a shy retiring type who offers to help her get her home back (that pile of charred rubble, as we remember).  She coos that the last man who tried to help her was killed.  This guy doesn't even flinch hearing that.  Said man is riding on the back of a wagon singing and crazy.

Kyle is set upon by his hateful superior and three others, beaten badly before Rip Torn shows up garbed as an Indian to chase them away.  Sillier is Terri's plan to start actually making pianos with her regular john, using the madam's gold, hidden in a hole under the desk.  "I don't have a gun," says Tom Noonan.  "Well get one!" Terri bleats in exasperation.  Silly and pathetic is Philip's plan, under an assumed name, taking a job in a railway station in order to bide time until James returns from his goodwill tour of Lesley-Anne's south.

With Reconstruction not even a possibility for such fluff, the movie lurches from one inane attempt of mid-1860s history to another.  Rip Torn is, as you may have guessed, not an Indian, but rather a fur trapper with a "slightly touched" nephew who needs a partner good with a gun, since the last one was carved up by Indians.  Forgetting his son and Rya, Kyle agrees to go into partnership with Rip and they continue on their westward journey.  "I'm gonna learn you good about the Cheyenne…gonna learn you good so you can keep your head of hair," Rip, pure comic relief tells his new partner.

After a howler scene where Peter O'Toole was clearly not acting drunk as much as living it, Rya makes it her life's work to find Kyle and prove he's no deserted.

The sawmill is built on Lesley-Anne's land lickety split, and it seems Lesley-Anne is falling for her dead husband's best friend, who is feeling the same, but doesn't realize it.  There are few worse acting mistakes than trying to out-ham one of the greatest hams of all, and Terri Garber, laying it on thick through three movies here, seems to think she can get away with the histrionics of Peter O'Toole.  Not in a million years, sweetie.  Even Peter O'Toole has no idea how to do it.  Terri and Tom go to steal the bordello gold, though Tom has a conscience about it.  She even has to kill making an escape.

There is a great deal of tension when Rip and company get to the Cheyenne settlement and warriors show up to do bate.  They run into a "medicine tent," comparing it to a church, a sanctuary in which no blood will be spilled.  The chief frees them, but the Indian who caused the flare-up is definitely not finished.  In one of the other main plots about racism, Robert Wagner is unsure of whether to join the Klan or not.  He doesn't feel he needs a hood, but their propaganda is strong and they give him the honor of lighting a cross.  The Klan comes to Lesley-Anne's and former slave Stan Shaw sees them first, telling his fiancee to fetch the lady of the house.  Lesley-Anne is brave in front of the hooded Klan, telling them to go ahead and burn the school in defiance, recognizing even RJ's voice, and they do torch Mariette's one-room schoolhouse.

The bad guys far outnumber the good ones, so while Wendy is waiting for her husband's train to bring him home, crippled and savagely bent on revenge, sneaks into her house.  He rambles with a knife to her neck until James' horses can be heard and then stabs her.  After finding his wife dead, he sees that Philip has written his name on the mirror in blood.  "You bastard, I'll kill you.  By God, I'll kill you," he avows with thunder crashing to heighten the effect. That's a natural way to end the first part.

"Heaven and Hell" is, so far, not any worse than any other miniseries of its time (admittedly faint praise), but it's not in a league with Books 1 and 2 because they had a centralized tension that was a part of every plot line.  Yes, it was an overly familiar one: separation of family and friends across the divide of the Civil War.  However, it had potency and believability, plus a whole lot of soapy plots as a distraction.  What this one lacks is that centralized tension.  Everybody is the same and feels the same.  There are bad people, but only in a cardboard sense.  When James Read and Patrick Swayze tangled over their opinions, it was painful to both of them because they knew they would be torn apart by them.  Here?  Well, Terri is a hooker stealing gold, Kyle gets mixed up with a shady fur trader, Lesley-Anne is so good to everyone that the Klan has to step in.  So far, it's just a series of vignette plots adding up to…well, not much.

Stan and his cohorts vow to rebuild the school on the same site and defend it as well.  Miniseries rules declare that when everyone smiles and makes promises, deus ex machine, a house falls on their metaphorical heads.  A telegram of Wendy's death sends Lesley-Anne scurrying go meet George, whom she fears will never forgive himself for spending extra time with her and the school, though she does admit that Philip is a wicked man who…pause…pause…killed her husband!  Mariette, the very prototype butch schoolmarm, convinces Lesley-Anne to stay put so the sawmill can be run and James' letter told her to stay away since Philip is on the loose.

We are re-introduced to Jonathan Frakes, James' brother with the shrewish wife, now played by Deborah Rush.  Deborah wants Jonathan to run for the Senate and uses he funeral as a social gathering to push her agenda, even with General Grant.  Deborah even has a scheme to use Jonathan's place at the Freedman's Bureau to go down south and buy cheap land, though he warns her against it.  James says he's in no state of mind to decide anything, leaving decisions in his foreman's hands so Deborah doesn't do anything stupid and then hires a Pinkerton detective to find Philip (who is standing in front of a mirror trying on Wendy's earrings).

Hold in your laughter for the worst political gathering in miniseries history.  The Republicans come to town to whip the former slaves into becoming loyal party members with the slogan "Liberty, Lincoln, Lee"  and then reminding everyone that there are still potential slaves because there are still potential masters.  Shameless huckstering is stopped by Stan, who gives a violin-laden speech about how even if they have not been paid yet, they are doing what they are going "because we want to…we is free now, and free men choose.  What's the point of being free if you can't choose?"  That stumps the politico and silences the room until the politico proposes Stan be the first delegate or the upcoming Charleston convention.

Terri and Tom are now in Chicago making pianos, and the first one is just about ready.  Her plan to put one in every "cathouse" in the country seems to be foolproof.  Except it has enough plot holes and idiocy to it to sink a fleet of ships.  The soon-to-be husband and wife do not get along because he knows she's "vicious and greedy and vain" and the threats fly back and forth.

Covering a wanted sign of his mug, Philip goes to a war office to find out about Kyle, and is given an address of a man who corresponds regularly with him, though not currently since "sixth tree from the fourth hill in Indian territory" is not easily located by the Pony Express.  Speaking of, Indians attack our threesome, killing Rip and the "touched" boy, leaving Kyle to bury them and continue on alone.

While Stan is celebrating his wedding with dancing and song, Lesley-Anne decides to go back to the house to tend to her child.  Two Klan members want to lock the door and burn the revelers alive.  Just as they are about to rape Leslie, a man arrives to chase them off, the geologist RJ hired to find out what is really on the land Lesley-Anne owns.

The snakes are assembling, which means Deborah pays a visit to RJ, flirting her way into finding out what she needs to know about the phosphates found on the land.  Deborah has everything worked out to fine detail.  She will give him the money he needs, he will have to worry about buying out Lesley-Anne and because of the "problem of labor," they will fund a general store where everyone works on credit, thus giving the owners "complete control."  RJ tells Lesley-Anne of his plans, but the land isn't his until she defaults on payments, which is a distinct possibility given that the Klan busted the sawmill

Kyle's homecoming does not go as planned.  Shabby, bearded and dirty, his son is afraid of him and Rya is angry.  But, he cleans up, finds out about Philip and tries to dump Rya.  She halts that by inviting him up to her room to "hold each other."  He has a serious miniseries illness--the one that happens when you leave polite society for a time and have trouble readjusting when you return.  Luckily, Kyle is still sexy to Rya, so some sex seems to be the cure.  Well, to some degree, because he still takes a civilian scouting position, hoping also to hunt down Philip.

"I am regaining what you and others tried to take away from me…pride!" bellows Robert when Lesley-Anne begs him to drop the issue of credit that will lead to a new form of slavery for her friends and coworkers.

At a family dinner, James' sister-in-law Genie Francis returns and she's frightened because James has become so obsessed with Philip.  Cue the Pinkerton, to say there is a woman out west whom Philip raped, but luckily she's alive, "but barely" and can hopefully provide details.  He fears Kyle is Philip's next target.  In an army camp, Kyle meets intelligent trickster Steve Harris and they become fast friends.

The Convention of Colored Men opens with Billy Dee Williams giving a rousing speech, eventually followed by everyone's favorite, Stan.  As expected, his speech is beautiful and full of basic human heart and tears.  Even the inevitable violins don't go too far into overdrive since this is one of those shoot-for-an-Emmy speeches (thought well done and not cynical).  Stan is overwhelmed by the positive  response, but when Billy Dee calls him "Mr.," he's happier than ever.  "It ain't never been done before," he says, crying.

And, my miniseries minions, you don't need even two guesses to figure out what happens next, because we all know that when people are overwhelmingly happy in a miniseries, the worst is about to happen. Indeed, the Klan comes out of hiding to ambush him, sending his horse away (it makes it to the house where the women grab guns and form their own pose).  Stan is lynched.  Lesley-Anne chases them off.

Steve, doing well rising in the ranks, informs Kyle that his men want to see a play, so he goes to the theater in Leavenworth where initially no one will sell tickets to black men, but it's Rya who insists they sell the tickets or the company will not play in that theater.  Their reunion is awkward, but even worse is Rya going all-out doing "King Lear."  It's not the greatest rendition, but the again, Shakespeare wasn't always a guaranteed hit in Kansas.  This time is different, though Peter carps during curtain calls to Rya that she changed lines and his staging.  "I had something to say," she says.  "And you said it," Peter-as-Shylock replies.

The month comes when Lesley-Anne cannot pay the mortgage and Mariette begs Lesley-Anne to go directly to James for help.  She initially refuses, but Mariette spits out a sentence full of alliterative S sounds that convince Lesley-Anne.  James wants to help, but he also wants Lesley-Anne, who feels the same way.  When did these feelings arise?  Certainly not until Book 3, because after all those cape-and-church clandestine meetings in Books 1 and 2, she and Patrick had eyes for no one but each other.

Finally, Kyle comes across the Indian who killed Rip when the Indians attack a wagon train of settlers. The wagons circle and from inside spring soldiers.  The whole thing was a trap, but when Kyle, Steve and Steve's men rushed the area to help, they infuriate a commander who remembers Kyle, calling him a traitor and hoping he'll be hung.  "You can go to hell," Kyle says and rides off.

Philip, in a new guise that has him looking like a Shakespearean Moor, kidnaps Kyle's son and writes his name in flour on the kitchen counter where bread was being made.  As for Kyle, he's gone to the Cheyenne to ask for permission to kill the man who killed Rip and to warn them that soldiers are coming.  No sooner does that sentence escape his mouth than the commander with the attitude starts howling again about how "they breed like rabbits" and "red devils" seem to be his preferred moniker for the gang.  A slow motion montage shows a complete slaughter of the Indians.  Kyle aims for the commander, but decides not to kill him.  At least not yet.  As the commander reaches for his gun, Steve steps him and stops it from happening.  Kyle leaves and only the Indian he has been chasing is still alive to exact revenge in a war that would last far longer than the Civil War.  So ends the second part of the movie.

In the miniseries least interesting plot, Kyle and his Indian nemesis (Gregory Zaragoza) meet alone in a field.  The fight lasts about 8.2 seconds and Kyle doesn't even break a sweat besting Gregory.  However, he doesn't kill him.  He harms him and then tends to his wounds.  Awwww, new friends.

On Capitol Hill, James visits his brother Jonathan Frakes, who, in one scene, attempts to dethrone fellow overactors Terri and Rip Torn, and even makes headway besting Peter O'Toole.  Jonathan pretends to be shocked when James tells him of the scams down south, but says "we have no jurisdiction there."  He has no idea of the fact that his wife Deborah is behind it all while he works at the Freeman's Bureau and forced her to sell her interest in her company to James for $1.  Jonathan throws his wife out of their house, telling her, "I never want to see your face again!"

Also unhappy is Deborah's business partner, Robert Wagner, who agrees to work with them since the other option was to bought out.  But, James is in his element with a new project to keep him busy.  He has a list of demands for the foreman, undoing all of the evil at the plantation and general store.  He also gets closer to Lesley-Anne, who packs him baskets full of food for picnics.  When Philip's name comes up, James says over and over, "I'll get him."  And he probably will, since miniseries heroes always get their man, but most of the time because of an accident so no one has to be hauled into court.

Unable to sleep, James sits outside where Lesley-Anne pop over and finally they can confess their love for each other.  Their sex scene is notably awkward, at times just plain creepy!

Pure happiness in a miniseries is an oxymoron, because James received a telegram saying Philip has kidnapped Kyle's son, so he's dashing to St. Louis to take care of the situation.  Lesley-Anne begs him not to go and he says he's only doing it for the family, promising to return.

Terri and Tom buy the most expensive house in DC and manages to get a list of all the most influential people, throwing a party and doing Scarlett O'Hara again.  Tom is not at all thrilled at her behavior, asking what he can do to make her even happier and she says the only thing is her family plantation.

Detective James visits Rya, promising to bring Kyle back.  He then enlists Kyle's army pal, the magic-loving Steve sends him Abilene, where Kyle has become the town drunk.  He is passed out and Philips finds him in the drunk tank, teasing with the viewer by giving Kyle a shave.  But, he doesn't kill him.  When James and is ever-increasing band of merry men find Kyle, they also find a map on the way that Philip left for them.  There has to be something bad afoot, because that would be too easy an stupid.

As if the kid understands, Philip tells him his entire plan for killing everyone left in the story.  Most baffling is that he decides to go into Indian Territory to create his own kingdom where he can kill whoever he wants.  As the good guys plan to capture Philip and get Kyle's son back, Robert Wagner, who is wearing a false beard so ungainly even his acting style which is to barely twitch a muscle, is in danger of knocking it off, is with his KKK buddies.  He has more important things to do than hunt ex-slaves.  He wants to destroy everything James has.

Slowly, James, Kyle and Steve track Philip across the whole Indian Territory (which seems to be about 10 square feet because they keep passing the same trees over and over again.  What Philip doesn't know is that Kyle's son is dropping rocks like breadcrumbs of children's stories.  A woman whose husband is trafficking buffalo gives Philip and the boy, "not right in the head" as per Philip, feeds them, but doesn't believe Philip's story and pulls a gun on him.  Philip then kills a man for absolutely no reason and has the man's Indian lady friend bury him.

Who brings this news of having seen the boy to our trio of heroes?  Kyle's Indian friend, who says he will help and then that's it as "I won't owe you anything."

Just as RJ is making a deal, Terri comes flouncing in, agenda as obviously as her cleavage.  Terri has the money to buy it, but RJ reminds her that Lesley-Anne is there and making the payments.  Terri has a plan for that too.

Kyle's Indian pal locates the kid and offers to take the guys there.  Both he and Steve, neither of whom have a real stake in finding the boy, want to help.  Steve pretends to be in need of a place to rest, dragging out the story to give Kyle and James an opportunity to get into position, while Philip tells Steve the Indian woman "is for sale too.  $3 a whack."  The kid sees his father, which means everyone has to jump into a kerfuffle, killing the Indian woman, but getting the kid.  James rips his dead wife's earring off Philip's ear and in the middle of Philip's defiant speech, he's lynched.

That leaves just Lesley-Anne's plot to wrap up.  RJ and his cohorts plan to kill her and take what they feel is theirs.  RJ's wife hears the conversation, begging him not to be a part of it, but he roughly makes it clear this is not a woman's business and she best not say anything.  However, the wife slips away and informs Lesley-Anne of the plans.  James and Kyle rush to protect Lesley-Anne and fight the clan.  Rya is upset that Kyle is leaving again and tells him she may not be there when he returns, so he gets about 10 steps and decides to choose his lady friend over helping Lesley-Anne, but wouldn't you know, Rya reminds him that "you always keep your word," so she is confident enough in his word, she tells him to go.

A gloating Terri shows up at her plantation to inform Lesley-Anne that she bought the deed from RJ and wants Lesley-Anne gone.  They two are in the middle of an escalating fight when Tom shows up, telling Terri he never transferred the money from one account to another, so she doesn't own the property.  Terri sees that the only part of her ancestral home is that pile of columns and her version of fiddle-dee-dee is "you know, I didn't want it anyway."

Terri's plot has come to the end, but the Klan is still planning an attack.  Everyone at the plantation works together to erect barricades (which don't look very scary), they test their guns (very old) and anticipate the coming of the Klan, now singing around a burning cross.  Can the train carrying James and Kyle make it in time?

Lesley-Anne gets to comfort everyone: former slaves who have never fought, the overseer, who wants to kill RJ and a hysterical Mariette.  When the Klan approaches, it's the ragtag bunch who fire the first shots.  They have the dynamite, which helps them, but the Klan is losing this one.  "I will never surrender," one howls…and then gets shot to death.  Robert grabs Lesley-Anne and rides off with her though followed closely by James and Kyle.  RJ has the opportunity to kill James and Lesley-Anne, but hesitates and a fellow Klan member kills him only to be shot dead himself by James.

James and Lesley-Anne end up in a clinch among the ruins of the plantation, wondering whether to rebuild or not.

And now, we are officially done with "North and South."  Two out of three ain't bad!

LBJ: The Early Years (1987)

This one is for my father, still in awe of President Johnson, whose inauguration he attended, and can never learn enough about him.  We may not always agree on what makes for the most interesting history, but I learned from him to keep trying because someday, I might just figure it out.

Lyndon Johnson is one of the more peculiar choices for a miniseries, and "LBJ: The Early Years" is a peculiar miniseries, though fascinating.  George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, they make sense as they were larger-than-life legends who lives in extraordinary times (though admittedly, Lincoln's reputation may be a bit more mixed if natural causes killed him).  John Kennedy?  He's miniseries gold and we barely have to touch his politics.

Movie stars, kings and queens, captains of industry, war heroes, this is what we're used to in a miniseries.  Johnson was, beyond doubt, not only a remarkably astute politician, but also served the country when it was once again threatening to come apart at the seams, though this time less literally.  Still, what most people will remember about Johnson is taking the oath of office on an airplane with Jackie Kennedy in her bloody suit and then not being able to stop the war in Vietnam (to be fair, we can also credit Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon and Ford as the other Commanders-in-Chief who had their hands in the Southeast Asia pot, Johnson's was the most stuck inside).

Hell, even John Adams at least rubbed elbows with Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and a host of European bigwigs to earn two miniseries for his efforts.  Lyndon Johnson is certainly no Van Buren or H. Harrison, B. Harrison, Chester Arthur, Tyler, Taylor, Hayes or Coolidge, but then again no president after the invention of the camera, the moving picture, audio recordings or on-demand media consumption could be.  Is Lyndon Johnson deserving of miniseries attention that tends to adore melodrama and spectacle or is this just too damn weird an experiment?

Certainly the Lyndon Johnson we meet in 1934 is not dour, mumbling or angry, as always seemed to be the case while he was president.  No, indeed, as played by Randy Quaid, he's a whirl of excitement, figuring out the halls of power as a Congressional secretary, though he already has a friend in the legendary Sam Rayburn (played to irrepressible perfection by Pat Hingle).  Eager Lyndon tells Sam he's proposed to the daughter of a noted Texas mover and shaker, but he hasn't had an answer yet.  "It's hard putting words into other people's mouths," he gushes.  "Don't be so sure, Lyndon, I've been doing it for years," Rayburn replies.

Of course, we know who the said possible fiancee is, one of the most unequivocally beloved national figures in all of American history, Claudia Taylor.  Oh, wait, we should probably start calling her Lady Bird (especially since Patti LuPone starts chewing the scenery from the onset, and a Southern accent giving her the perfect opportunity to drop all those pesky consonants she's detested throughout her career).  Even soon-to-be-Papa-in-law Boss Taylor finds Lyndon exciting, especially when Lyndon declares that he wants to marry his daughter that day, a Saturday, when it's impossible to get a license, though Lyndon confesses he has a lot of strings to pull.

Still, Lady Bird is the voice of reason, a role she never relinquished.  She isn't exactly thrilled at her beau being interested in politics, saying, "since you do have so much drive and ability, it seems like a waste not to put it to use in a more respectable way."  He's proud of that fact, but when Lady Bird compares the situation of them hastily eloping to "Claudette Colbert as some madcap heiress running off with the chauffeur," Johnson slams on the breaks to complain about her snobbishness, especially when he will have them "in the thick of things...maybe even seeing history being made."  He's a confident daredevil, and the scene of their wedding is a hoot.  In the span of mere minutes, he's reminding a the minister about "special postal rates" he got him and since his friend didn't know Lady Bird's ring size, he brought all available rings from Sears.  Lady Bird tries to protest, Johnson speeds ahead of her, but ultimately, Lady Bird is in firm control.  When the proceedings grind to a halt because the minister is worried Lady Bird isn't exactly ready, she takes her time while everyone stands waiting and with a small smile and a flutter of the eyes, she agrees, the only force that could possibly stop Lyndon's tornado of a personality.

Meeting Lyndon's family is another jolt to proper Lady Bird.  Lyndon's mother warns her that she will have to share him with "many, many people."  Lady Bird remarks that, "Lyndon told me he had not settled on a career," but his steely mother replies, "Lyndon has always known his destiny.  Greatness is stamped on him like a mark from heaven.  I only hope that he has prepared you for your role."  That would give a girl pause, now wouldn't it?

The Johnson's hightail it to Washington, where they hit the Capitol before their home.  Lady Bird delights in watching Lyndon maneuver his Congressman, this office and just about everything else, until the Congressman's wife (Frances Conroy) jumps in to remind him he's "a common secretary."  Raising her pitch, she gets in a lot of digs he hopes his bride doesn't hear, the worst of which is "poor white trash."  Oh, and she has more news--he's being fired.  Other men might go home disgraces, but Lyndon pledges to go "so high, no one can ever look down on me again."

Temporarily defeated, grouchy Lyndon is back in Texas, where Lady Bird is happy with a quiet existence and hopefully a family.  "You can't say we ain't been tryin'" he snaps at his wife.

Three years of boredom and unhappiness come to an end with the best news possible: someone's death!  Well, not just anyone, a Congressman!  Lyndon dashes over Judge Wirtz (Barry Corbin), the area's big player, to announce he wants the seat.  It's not going to be so easy, because the Congressman's widow wants the seat and a lot of other men too.  "But I'm the smartest," Lyndon protests to doubt from Wirtz, "I'm the tallest."  Johnson is convinced that "the farmers in the country, they are my natural constituents," and they will vote for him.  He's quite impassioned about his "people," though Wirtz brings up another problem: Johnson needs $10k to "sit at the table."  "That's an awful lot of money," Lady Bird notes warily.

Okay, we'll pause here for a moment.  As "LBJ: The Early Years" is not a long miniseries, because, let's face it, few of our nation's leaders would be granted that much network time (HBO's "John Adams" benefitted from the luxury of paid subscribers). In roughly 30 minutes, we've seen just two things: Johnson's drive and Johnson's wife (although he treats them both the same).  This is the easy part.  Johnson is still wide-eyed and lacks cynicism.  He might as well be a middling Virginia planter or a country lawyer because miniseries versions of Washington and Lincoln also start off this way, to establish character.  But, Washington and Lincoln only became, at least on public record, even more single-minded in their zeal for fairness, honestly and the good of the country, so their character traits will only deepen.  What's fascinating about Johnson as a historical figure are the less savory aspects of his career.

In other words, can the schmaltz and move it along, because right now, this could be a movie about any politician.

As if this is directed by Preston Sturges, Lyndon and Lady Bird start stumping, beginning with a dusty series of shacks that can't even be called a town, where Lyndon's father lives.  When Lyndon worries that the Congressman's widow will win the seat, his father advises him, "she's an old woman.  If she knows there's gonna be a fight, she won't run.  Announce now before she does, she won't run."  Lyndon hops up onto the bed of a truck, his father summons the extras and Lyndon's candidacy is official.  Lyndon makes up a speech on the spot, pitting these poor people against the wealthy (from the East Coast, naturally).  One grubby man tells Lyndon it's not going to happen.  "That's horse manure," Lyndon retaliates, folksy and energetic, immediately connecting with the crowd.  He adds one detail to the end that would be a constant for the rest of his life, making the Mrs. known to all.  The crowd supplies the final detail, chanting his name with that of the beloved FDR.  Signs reading Roosevelt and Johnson make it seem as though they are running together, certainly not a bad thing during the Depression.

The cash problem is solved by a phone call to Lady Bird's father.

As predicted, since Lyndon got there first, the widow declines to run and we get a montage of speeches and newspaper headlines as Lyndon literally barnstorms (lots of poor towns) and Lady Bird realizes shaking hands wearing white gloves is not a good idea.  Lyndon pushes so hard he ends up with severe stomach trouble, but he never loses his colorful speech, as he instructs an assistant to hand out so many leaflets the people will be "wiping their asses with a picture of me."

Lyndon is about to make a big speech, but he's doubled over in pain.  He berates Lady Bird for not wearing enough lipstick, for her taste in clothing and for not actually speaking to the people, snarling that, "women vote too, you know."  Chalky white and barely able to stand up, Lyndon passes out before he can even utter a word.  When he wakes up in the hospital, Lady Bird gives him the news that he's now a Congressman.  "They did it, Bird, they came down from the hills for me," he gushes, referring to all those dirt farmers who were the backbone of his campaign.

Back to Washington, back to Sam Rayburn and back to wheeling and dealing, despite being a freshman Congressman with no actual power.  Judge Wirtz advises him to meet with a group of men with deep pockets, as "an effective politician has to be flexible."  Johnson works himself to the nub, expecting the same of his staff, stopping his frantic pace only when his father dies.  It turns out that Papa owed thousands of dollars, but his widow protests that it was only because he refused no one a financial favor.

It's here we get another big clue that Lyndon is changing.  After an argument with Lady Bird about getting out of politics, he's reminded by Judge Wirtz that he doesn't have to pay his father's bills.  In one sentence, Lyndon says he can't not repay the good people AND it would look bad politically for him to do so.  He can either use his money to pay off his father's debts or for a reelection campaign.  Judge Wirtz reminds him of the fat cats who still have the money he needs, and he gives in.

The Johnsons attend a Virginia party for swells where Lyndon, again castigating his wife for her lack of lipstick, demands that she mingle herself and do some charming.  Lyndon is introduced to Alice Glass (Morgan Brittany), a DC hostess who is as glamorous as Lady Bird is frumpy, or "looking like a hound dog caught in the briars," as her husband puts it.  Lyndon and Alice flirt over a game of pool.  It gets so obvious that even Lady Bird is afraid of it.  It takes Sam Rayburn to calm her down, assuring her that Lyndon loves her, though admitting it won't always be an easy life.

Flush with cash, Lyndon is able to live up to a campaign promise and provide electricity to his constituents, even if bringing Alice and Lady Bird to the celebration of it is probably not the best idea, especially since Lady Bird is pregnant (though her mother-in-law is put out by not knowing--"you must never hide anything from me," she admonishes).

There is a knock-down-drag-out battle between husband and wife because Lyndon wants to refine and redo her, which she refuses.  He says she's "gypped" him out of the perfect political wife by being dowdy and shy.  She only wants a stable home, so Johnson is being made over himself by Alice.  Naturally, and this is where we are reminded this is a miniseries, when one is happiest or most nonchalant, tragedy intervenes.  Lady Bird miscarries, and as Lyndon arrives at the hospital, a particularly angry Sam Rayburn bluntly tells him, "you let that woman go and you're a bigger fool than I thought you were."

By 1948, things have certainly changed!  At their big mansion, a campaign fundraiser for Lyndon's Senate run is in full swing.  Lady Bird is now wearing bright chic colors and effortlessly gliding through the guests in a charm assault.  It's here she conquers her last hurdle, public speaking, because Lyndon has not arrived yet and people are asking about him.  Very nervous when she walks up to the microphone, she's an instant hit when someone in the crowd asks where Lyndon is.  "That's what I'd like to know every night at dinner," she quips.  Getting into it, she's upstaged by an arriving helicopter which bears Lyndon and a megaphone.  The crowd loves it.  "Don't that just sound like the voice of God," a particularly dazzled woman wonders aloud.

There's an even bigger surprise when the Johnsons are asked for a family picture.  Both daughters are brought and Lyndon insists that the African American nanny be in the photo as well, as he considers her a member of the family.  Judge Wirtz is horrified, but the press sticks to politics.  The election is so close that it's thrown to the state legislature, apparently a gaggle of stereotypical yahoos who don't even remove their hats or chewing tobacco to be there.  Johnson is accused of "voting irregularities." During a break, Johnson and his opponent actually get into fisticuffs.

The vote is going to be close and each side need every delegate, including drunks that are found and forced to attend.  It's 28 to 28 and one abstention.  The abstainer is asked to vote and she says, "to hell with both of 'em," leaving it up to a drunk Johnson's people are trying desperately to get inside the hall. He votes for Lyndon, now Senator Lyndon Johnson from Texas.

Ever the hothead, when a Senate parking attendant tells him he can't park where he wants because those spots are for Senators with seniority, Lyndon brashly tells him to watch the car "while I go inside and get me some."

By 1955, he is in the same parking spot, and it has his name on it as he's the Majority Leader.  He's not shy about hitting on his secretary, but he also secretly pays an aide's mother's hospital bill.  As far as politics, he insists on censure of Joe McCarthy, though the White House refuses to take a stance.  This is where JFK makes his first appearance (Charles Frank).  Lyndon is crude, smokes as he eats and all but pimps out his secretary to Kennedy.  The two deal the old-fashioned way, trading a committee position for a vote on a bill, "an exercise in raw power," Kennedy says, before Johnson warns, "you better suck up and suck up good."  This is a man who owns the Senate and everyone in it.  He's a workaholic who manages a phone and listens to aides reading information, not to mention dealing with Lady Bird and the kids.

Ranting on the phone, Johnson has a heart attack.  He makes for a grouchy patient, except to his mother, who literally feeds him pudding with a spoon, much to his wife's annoyance.  "All of the Johnson men die young," he reminds Lady Bird on a walk about the property, announcing that he's resigning his seat and retiring.  He is full of "morbid talk and self-pity," as per his wife, finally breaking down, not just for herself, but for the citizens of the country.  She fumes so much that he retorts, "I'm gonna take you down a peg or two, woman."  "I can hardly wait," is her caustic but firm response.

It works and he heads back to the Senate, where the entire gang crowds to watch him re-emerge.  Will he be easier on them?  "What the hell are you all looking at? Did somebody die around here?  Stop standing around like some cows and let's pass some legislation," he bellows, to cheers and bravos from his 99 fellow Senators.  Nobody is more thrilled than Lady Bird.

Enter the Kennedys, en masse.  We've met JFK, but now Bobby (James F. Kelly) and Joe Sr. (Kevin McCarthy) show up.  Bobby refers to Johnson as a "cynical power-hungry hypocrite" and a "moral eunuch" as he's expressing his hatred.  John feels better about him, but the three can't figure out if he will run in 1960 or not.  Should he run as an opponent to John, Joe Sr. clucks, "then we'll show those cowboys what the Kennedys are made of."

Talk about your bizarre scenes, the one between Bobby Kennedy and a longtime Johnson housekeeper is a corker, though something of a misstep since the miniseries has never played it coy, but is brash, like its central character.  It's this scene where the creators want us to remember Johnson had a terrific record on Civil Rights.  Not only is she treated like a member of the family, she's consulted on politics and seems to know how the government runs better than Bobby, who snidely asks if Lyndon's Civil Rights stance is simply because he wants to be President.  "It's Congress that make the laws, the President just recommends them," she says matter-of-factly, cutting off Bobby at the knees.  When Lyndon enters, he hammers it in further.  "Rich men have servants, I have employees," he growls.  Okay, point taken, Johnson's position on Civil Rights is assured, at least according to this tale.

Continuing the miniseries' gleeful assault on the Kennedys, Bobby is then taken hunting by Lyndon and his cronies.  Bobby misses a deer on purpose, but knocks himself in the head with the gun's kickback.  Point taken.

Lyndon aims to ram the Civil Rights bill through Congress, no matter what.  Begging and pleading don't sway Lyndon, but one Senator asks, "since when did Texas start leading the nation in rights for Nigras?" Uh oh.  Lyndon slowly marches up to the man, grabs him by the lapels and relates a story with increasing anger and passion.  Once again, it's Sam Rayburn to the rescue, telling Lyndon to drop Civil Rights and work on his campaign for President, but Lyndon doesn't feel Kennedy is at all a threat, at least not until it's too late.  As the convention anoints JFK with the nomination, Lyndon is sanguine in front of everyone, but alone with Lady Bird, he reveals the truth, blaming himself for not following his father's advice of "seize the moment."  "Those damn Kennedys," he scowls to end the scene.

Lyndon has premonition that he will be offered the Vice Presidential on the ticket.  The Kennedy people can't believe they have done it and the Johnson people are aghast.  Everyone is convinced that Sam Rayburn will make sure Lyndon doesn't accept, and he does...until he's asked what will happen if Nixon becomes President, which changes his tune and he supports the idea.  Just then, Bobby shows up, forced to talk while Lyndon pees.  He's there to ask Lyndon to refuse the Veep slot that was offered to him, but now Lyndon is committed and refuses to step aside.

JFK and Lyndon should be playing nice in public, but Bobby decides to upstage Lyndon immediately. As the crowd chants, Bobby grabs his brother's hand and treats the moment like his own triumph, with Lyndon looking uncomfortable, but unable to do anything about it.

Once they win, Lyndon is completely marginalized (forced to wait in the outer office for John until Bobby comes out, ignores seeing him and tells his secretary to cancel the Vice President's meeting) or given the crap assignments John doesn't want, like greeting a delegation from Asia and looking utterly ridiculous.  In fact, Lady Bird has more to do with a beautification program that would become her hallmark.  He pours out his frustration to her, with such gems as "just 'cause I got an elephant hide, don't mean I can't feel pygmy darts."  Lady Bird urges Lyndon to try harder with Bobby, throwing a party where the two of them can be together while Lady Bird entertains the guests.

It was a lovely thought, but it doesn't work.  Lyndon launches into a tirade about what John should be doing, all of it good sense, but Bobby is unmoved, thinking Lyndon is just out for more power.  Lyndon denies it, saying he just wants to help and "you have nothing to fear from me," assuring Bobby he doesn't want to be President.  The end result is the two are further apart than ever.

Initially, Lyndon refuses to go to Texas with JFK, but realizes he's needed and agrees to go.  He declares himself "fed up" by how he's being treated by the administration.  He intends to tell JFK he will not run with him again in 1964.  He's self-pitying, so leave it to Lady Bird to remind her husband of all the amazing work he's done over 25 in public service.  And for a bit of goo, Lady Bird tells him how much he's done for her.  Nobody wants to see even pretend Lyndon and pretend Lady Bird making out on the bed.  By the end of the scene, Lyndon is actually content to get out of politics and his desire to "get to the top."  "The only thing I'll have left is you," he coos to his wife.  He confesses how much he needs her.

Even if history didn't tell us what was about to happen next, the rules of the miniseries would.  No one stays content and peaceful for long, especially after a lengthy speed that revels in such feelings.

We are spared a reenactment of the assassination, going right to the madness at the hospital.  Everyone waits, but when an aide comes in and refers to Lyndon as Mr. President, it's all clear.  Lyndon makes level-headed decisions, refusing to let the press be told until he's on Air Force One using its better communications systems, since half the cabinet is out of the country and decisions must be made.  Lyndon also insists on taking the oath of office before leaving Dallas because he does not want any of the decisions made to be in question.  He then insists the body and widow of his predecessor be on the plane.

When Lady Bird offers to help Jackie change her clothes, Jackie utters her most famous line, "I want the world to see what they've done."

As Lyndon is about to take the oath of office, Jackie comes in to stand next to him in one of the most famous moments in Presidential history as he becomes the 36th President of the United States.

"LBJ: The Early Years" is certainly brave, although considering we go all the way to 1963, just a decade before his death, I would say it's "LBJ: The Early and Middle Years."  That's brave about it is that the creators found enough story to stack up against such giants as Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt or Kennedy.  It actually downplays his astounding Congressional record and focuses more on the man, and even stranger choice.

However, it all pays off, mainly because of the acting.  Randy Quaid is absolutely committed to his performance, his best by far.  He doesn't do a Johnson imitation, and he's not even made up to look like Johnson until the end, but he conveys Johnson's wild and erratic nature.  Patti LuPone, the very definition of bombast, takes it down many notches and is wonderful as Lady Bird.

History is always a basis for entertainment as long as it's done well.  This is done well.  Very well.

Amerika (1987)--Marathon Entry #100

One hundred miniseries have been jotted down here for everyone's amusement or education (or notes for my proposed book).  I can't believe it.  And there are sooooooo many more to do.  I will keep at it.  I rather idiotically said I would give myself a year for this.

It will be two years in December.

In celebration of this big event, I thought I would do a big event miniseries (or maxiseries as some called them).  "Amerika," from 1987, takes Cold War paranoia to utterly insane heights, though not without many predictable lows.  What would become of the United States if the Soviet Union took over?

The short answer?  It would be really boring.  It seems that gloomy drear that hovered over Eastern Europe and parts of Asia (and the odd place elsewhere) for the better part of the 20th Century really was colorless and lifeless like capitalist propaganda taught.  Either the makers of "Amerika" got really lucky or used the best in lighting techniques because there is not a ray of sun to be found in its 12 hours, literally.  I'm color blind, so Nolan Miller never made much sense to me, but even I got bored of grey after not too long here.

You have two options during the 12 hours of "Amerika," either try desperately to name every Soviet leader between Lenin and Gorbachev (good luck with the early 80s) or try and find at least a few redeeming and interesting items in "Amerika" because they do actually exist.  

What I will say is that many of our beloved miniseries rules are ignored by "Amerika."  There is no actual love plot.  There is no slumming vet (slummer almost-weres by the busload).  There is no cuteness, there is nothing exotic and there is no glamour.  What it does have is, for its time, a very quizzical set of theories and two outstanding performances by the two actors you know from the credits will be spectacular: Christine Lahti as a confused and bitter woman who is not cowed like those around her, but also not doing anything about it, obviously no more or less fulfilled by Communism than she was by the opposite, and the much-loved and much-missed Robert Urich, whose very presence is automatically comforting and watchable, very important given the character he's playing.

Obviously, "Amerika" is very much of its time (and we've seen a few of those so far).  It can't hide behind the Civil War or World War II as a way to tell us that no matter what, the American spirit always prevails, though at times it does draw parallels that are shamelessly overt.  Though the Cold War would end  two years after "Amerika," making it immediately obsolete (probably why it's not on DVD), it is an interesting look at the fears and motivations of the period.  I remember it very clearly and the "what if" situation was one constantly mentioned and debated, though I don't know that by the mid-80s anyone actually believed it was still possible.  Well, except for the Reagan Administration.

I joke with my former Iron Curtain friends that we were told everyone behind it ate rock soup because there was no food and that everyone looked so grouchy because toilet paper was a luxury most never received.  That's how deep worries over Communism were in the West (despite the fact that Gorbachev had been in power since the middle the decade), and it's pretty shallow.  No one really talked about the politics of it or how bastardized it was by Soviet leadership, an admittedly stuffy and pompous bunch with extremely expensive tastes.  This movie shows an extreme version of the fears, but even in 1987, it's hard to imagine anyone truly worried that Soviet (or Chinese) Communism had any chance of expansion, and frankly, it doesn't even seem that frightening (until a rather shocking scene near the end).

Not that "Amerika" hastened the end of Communism.  Hastened the end of the Great American Miniseries?  You be the judge.

1997.

A group of thugs jump out of a car with the intention of destroying a production of "The Fantasticks" set in a church, but they stop when important-looking Sam Neil shows up.  The objections are not clear immediately.  Is it musical theater the Communists hate?  Churches?  Mariel Hemingway's singing?

Sam attacks Mariel as she enters her home, pinning her against the way and in his fury, kisses her.  "You did this to defy me!"  "Yes," she answers, taking a breath during the make-out session.  All she wants to know is if it made him cry, but he sticks to the image that he is not allowed to have been moved by it.

The above happened in Chicago, one of the districts in the Soviet-carved US.  In another, which contains Nebraska, Christine Lahti has a teenage son, husband Richard Bradford and a grumpy father who won't even speak to her.  They were once wealthy farmers, but now have very little left.

Robert Urich's teenage daughter, Lara Flynn Boyle, is studying Western Civilization.  "Ours or theirs?" Robert asks disdainfully.  "I don't understand how you can be the County Administrator and still be so boring," she wonders.  Lara is in a dance program and invites her father to watch the audition, but he won't because he doesn't want it to look like favoritism.  Robert's town is a dilapidated farm haven that has gone to ruin.  A cold snap has killed their spring crops, so the farmers gather to play cards.  "You can't blame the Russians for everything," Robert tells them.  "Why not?" he asks as he walks away.

Richard works for Robert, giving him reports of all evening escapades, though Robert doesn't necessarily agree with the rules, like not letting a drunk in the ER for stomach pumping.  At the same time, Robert's wife, Cindy Pickett, notices a destitute family on her lawn.  They have obviously been without food for a while and when Cindy offers, they run away.  Robert dashes off to what seems to be a school/hospital, and we see the worst of the worst.  The extras are done up to look like a Westerner's version of the rank and file.  Dr. Ivan Dixon is castigated by Robert for listening to the new rule and letting the man die the night before, but Ivan reminds him that he has spies on his staff and he has to listen to what the leaders want.  "I gave up a nice practice in Philadelphia and my home in Vail," he reminds Robert and because he once defied a law, he was shipped out to this literally godforsaken place.

On his way to Nebraska, Sam is briefed in the car about some potential candidates for an impressive job.  He thinks Robert would be ideal, but he's been dropped from the list because despite the fact that his sector is "the most trouble-free," he's not a member of the party and he once refused to go along with a new school curriculum, despite being in charge of the schools at that time.  "You really don't understand what we're doing here," Sam says snidely to his aide.

Being paroled from prison is Kris Kristofferson, Richard's brother and Robert's friend that he had "almost forgotten about."  Prison takes away a person's name in favor of a number, we get to see the new flag and hear the new Pledge of Allegiance, which is an even worst mouthful than the one actually in use.  When Robert tells Richard Kris is coming back, neither is happy, since he's a troublemaker.  "We'll get used to him being not gone, just like we did God," Robert says, partially happy, partially worried.

Most people are very unhappy with Kris being released, but the world into which he's going isn't so great either.  The gulag outdoor area is a mass of tired and broken people, while others wait outside the gates clutching pictures of disappeared loved ones.  Wendy Hughes is furious about Kris' freedom, being his ex-wife, mother of her children and thorn in her side because she's a "big shot"with the government, as her older son calls her.  Extra security measures are being given to them, but worst about the scene is the dissemination of information.  We learn about America's history from a whole new vantage point and actually, not even Wendy knows what state Kris may be in.

During the equivalent of a town council meeting, all of them men hate the government.  Most have been dropped in town with no choice, they can't farm the land, they are hungry, and yet Robert tells them to do what they are supposed to do.  They all groan at the thought of another parade, as there is never a crowd.  No one supports any of the tough measures forced on them.  Worst of all, there seem to be no phones.  The only way to contact someone is a red phone to some sort of headquarters, and Robert hates using it, has only done so twice in his tenure and both because of "outsiders."  He rattles off a very patriotic speech, though it's more about spewing the party line.  In fact, Robert kind of admits the only reason he does it is "because it's a better alternative than throwing your head against a stone wall."  "I guess I suffer a condition that comes from having lived so close to the Liberty Bell," Ivan cracks.  "Well, I guess you wouldn't be here if it weren't for your wit," Robert snaps back.

The heads of all divisions are summoned to meet with General Armin Mueller-Stahl, where he fills us in on why the Soviets are so unhappy.  Essentially, in the 10 years since they took over, nothing has changed for the better...and they STILL have not been able to conquer Alaska (I can't imagine anyone wants it THAT badly).  "The Central Committee is demanding that America be neutralized," he informs the gang.  Sam argues that without an army and without communication between the zones, there is no way an uprising can happen.  "There are still ghosts," Armin warns, citing the main fear from back home.  So, the answer is to split up the US, into his current seven portions and make each one a separate country, the "North American Community."  "How?" Sam asks.  "That's what you're here for," Armin says crisply.

An hour in, "Amerika" dishes out hilarity for the first time.  I dare you not to laugh as you watch Lara "audition" to very bland rock sounds.  The dancing is howlingy bad.  Whoever her dance double was is equally atrocious.  Plus, anyone who has ever seen a Russian dancer would know the standards are hight, but wait!  One of the women in charge praises Lara for her return to "a traditional" type of dance.  Did she not just watch?  Blaring music, gyrating body, an attempt at sexiness.  There is nothing "traditional" about what she just showed us.  But, Lara doesn't get picked.  Cindy throws a fit, but is reminded, "sometimes cooperation is more important than talent."

The hokum parade continues when Robert gets home, to find Lara leaving with a guy he doesn't like and Cindy doing the angriest bit of sewing this side French Revolution knitting needles.  "I believe in her...I believe in you" Cindy tells Robert, after giving us yet another speech about individuality versus conformity.  Robert has heard it all before and since he's a nice guy, we know eventually he will turn on his superiors, but I'm guessing we are hours away from that.  "Maybe I even believe in myself sometimes," Cindy then adds.  Of course.

I suppose even in a story as cold and forbidding as this one, we have to have a bit of sex.  Granted, the only sex plot seems to involve Sam Neill and Mariel Hemingway.  Mariel gets superb treatment anywhere she goes because she's Sam's girlfriend.  When her acting company is shut down, they sneer at her, saying she can get anything she wants.  So, she hops on over to Sam's office to use some of that influence, only to find out that Sam ordered the playwright arrested.  She intends to do the play, though she is warned, "you do this, you do it at your own risk."  Sam gives her the "it's not my fault, I have superiors" speech that followers since the dawn of time have tried as justification for their actions.  Mariel storms out of the office.

Then again, the story finds time for some additional bad acting, like when Lara and her boyfriend, Don Reilly are hauled into a committee at school after being found making out.  Christine Lahti, Don's aunt and a teacher, says they should "take them outside at recess and shoot them," a comic nugget that she pulls off because her opponents are such buffoons.  We learn once again that old time rich families like hers have no sway, only the families of those in power.  When Christine and Lara go to Robert, Christine tries to reason with him, and even says that Don reminds her of Kris, Robert's old best friend. He then tells Lara she doesn't know the whole story and brings in the actual French Revolution as an example of when all one had to do was accuse someone of doing something wrong to get someone arrested or killed.  The teacher at odds with Christine and Lara is just that type of man.

There is cheerful news at Kris' paroling.  He is being sent to the town where all of our characters live (you thought he was going somewhere else?) and if he leaves the 25-mile radius into which he's being dropped, he may be "shot on sight."

Write this down: "Survival is power without dogma."

That one is said by Sam to Wendy on a plane where the argument is about rich versus poor and how some of the rich in America had always wanted to help the poor.  In the Soviet Union, such things are never discussed.

"Survival is power without dogma."

You mean dogma such as a line like that?

We can keep counting on Mariel to keep it at least unintentionally funny, like when she sings "Younger than Springtime" at a party for the swells.  Hey, she's moved from Schmidt and Jones to Rodgers and Hammerstein, that's something.  Unfortunately, her voice (or the person actually singing) is no more adept with the masters than they were with the also-rans.  As Mariel continues to assault the ears (the R&H medley goes on a long time, she was about to hit "Me and Juliet"), Cindy and Robert have one of those "remember how it was" conversations that is a bit peculiar, but perhaps could prove useful later: Robert used to hold his breath for 90 seconds when they kissed because he was so nervous.

A mini riot occurs at a punk club where Lara and Don are (badly) dancing, because the dumb kids are sparked into action.  They burn a car, destroy property and more before the police send them scampering away.  The sounds of police cars can be heard in the dark room where Sam is interrogating Robert as a candidate for the big position.  "Our agents stir them up," Sam tells him, so they can keep tabs on them, arrest some when the need arises, expertly controlling mayhem.  "There's got to be a better way," Robert says.  Robert wants a chance to get rid of "the occupation and let us prove we are not a threat."  He still believes in America, though through the filter of 10 years of occupation.

Um, the next scene is, well, perplexing.  On their way home, Don apologizes for bringing Lara into this riot situation, but instead of being angry, Lara jumps on him and demands sex.  "Maybe if we don't do it tonight, we never will," she says like a caged animal in heat. Don actually turns her down (yeah, a teenage boy would do that?) and then Lara gets a crying speech that is simply an amalgamation of words, adding up to nothing special.

Robert is assured the fancy promotion and Kris finally sees Richard in an empty train station where Richard is overcome with emotion, crying and hugging while Kris remains silent.  Meanwhile, Christine has a rather sadistic assignation with a hunky-but-evil Russian soldier, though who is the top isn't very clear.  In a pretty gazebo, Cindy admits to Robert, "I'm afraid...I've never been afraid like this before" after recounting the story of the urchin child who bolted from their lawn.

After watching the ripples in a stream, Kris returns home.  Christine is thrilled to see her brother, blabs nervously, allowing Kris only one word now and then, though he's not really able to speak or articulate what he thinks.

Cindy goes a-slummin' to the camp of the exiles, where she is recognized by a surly nurse.  Cindy says she wants to help and the nurse does believe her after a few jagged bon mots.  "Welcome to America's Russian-inspired real life animal park," growls the surly nurse.  Even more uncomfortable is dinner with Richard, Christine and crew.  Politics are bantered about, with Kris saying nothing, so mom brings out a cake, but the inability of dad to understand what's happening around him has him bolting from his seat, his face pinched as tight as a man in a argument with a vacuum cleaner.  According to Richard, the loss of the farm is his father's problem, but Christine wants to fight the system and forget about the last 50 acres of their land, a tiny amount of land from what used to be a farm so huge, the town was named for the family.  "I guess we're all just trying to get by the best way we can," says Christine, with a bit of bitterness and a bit of sadness.  Kris has his first moments of real dialogue when he tries to talk to his father in the barn.  There's a generational gap (when we mention Vietnam, which American TV worked overtime to redeem in the 80s, as did politicians), but the father blames Kris' antics and politics for the family's loss of the land.

Well, Kris Kristofferson, to my knowledge, has never done a movie without a horse (no "Star is Born" jokes, please), so the next morning, he hitches up the horse and goes walking.  His older son is caught by Mother Wendy looking at pictures and newspaper articles about him.  She refuses to let him go to Kris, so he retaliates by yelling that she got her position by "screwing some general," so she slaps him.

When things are getting too serious, as least we have Mariel to up the stupid quotient.  I understand the point of her character, a person just going along, not giving any thought to politics, not engaged enough to take sides, but since Muriel is not one of our, well, finer actresses, the lines she delivers come across as funny rather than wan.  She is transfixed, holding a glass of champagne, watching an old speech of Kris' in Sam's office.  She's moved by the speech (okay, one eyebrow is moved by the speech).  "Never thought of myself as an American, you know, patriotic or anything," she says when Sam asks her why she's so touched, "I always just thought of me.  I mean, America was where I lived.  I mean, of course, I was an American, but it was just there, nothing I had to think about."  This is actually one of the most important declarations of the movie because it's what most people on both sides of the Iron Curtain thought.  People went about their normal lives, adapting when they had to, but no matter who was in charge, life went on.  "Would you follow him?" Sam asks her.  "I'm not sure, he makes me feel different, kind of like you," she replies.  Wait, are we still talking about politics?  However, we get to do a little hairsplitting.  Sam wants to know what she thinks about Robert.  He makes Mariel "feel safe," like a father figure, but she doesn't feel safe with Kris, just patriotic.  "I don't want to play this game anymore," she says when her brain is too taxed.  "If I could understand this man [Kris], I could understand America," Sam says.  What a perfect way to end a scene in the Reagan years.  Peggy Noonan wishes she wrote that line about either of her bosses (Reagan mostly, but Bush a little).

If you don't understand the wacky oversimplification of Cold War politics as understood by a dolt like Mariel, "Amerika" makes it even simpler through Lara.  Now that her father is a high-and-mighty guy, she is given a spot on in the dance corps.  Don tries to she her that it's pure politics, but she swears it's talent (we saw her audition, it isn't) and screeches at him that, "if you don't understand that, you don't understand me at all, and you don't."  Wait, what's to understand?  She's an obnoxious teenager.  Other than that, she hasn't done a whole lot.  She confesses her love to Don, but he has the rebel alliance to show him right and wrong.

Now that Mariel has had a sudden dose of brainpower, she asks Sam why he loves her, claiming that he "just wants to love an American," and when he flips the question to her, she giggles and calls him arrogant, then lists possible reasons why she might: his power, his influence over her career, perhaps she's spying on him, a mole sent to kill him.  Yeah, if she could tell a fork from a spoon, some of those might be possible.  The worst part is that Sam continues the inane conversation with one of those ridiculous lines, "sometimes I think you don't really know someone."  He needs to talk to Cindy, wasn't she the expert on really knowing someone a few hours ago?

Kris goes ambling through the shantytown, seeing the depressing sights, until called into the hut of a former East German musician who tries to get Kris to see some new reality, but Kris isn't ready.  "You expected something else?" his wife asks, upset that no one has touched the plate of cookies she laid out.    When he goes back to exploring, he finds Cindy, his best friend's wife, though it seems they have more of a bond than having known each other for a long time.  Cindy thinks he should visit his kids, so of course he tells her (from the miniseries handbook) he can't because, "I don't know who I am anymore."

Having Kris back is bad for Robert.  Cindy is sad for Kris, but Robert doesn't have time to deal with it because he has to explain a Continental Congress  too Lara, who has never heard of it and doesn't care. But, to grab the attention of the patriotic, the Soviets are proposing a "Third Continental Congress" to make it seem like the Americans have a choice.  After visiting the President in the Oval Office, Armin tells Sam, "that man is the last President of the United States."

At a ramshackle concert of classic music conducted by Dr. Ivan, Ivan stirs up the secret patriotic crowd by introducing Kris, to the chants of his name by a grateful small bunch of American patriots.  Kris tells them he can no longer be any sort of leader to those desperate for one and leaves them.  He had run for President back in 1988, but he's no longer that person.

Don and his cohorts ambush a food truck, but Don refuses to take the food, telling his friends to burn it because it's a show of power, not about securing food.  The truck driver says he's not a "collaborationist," he's just doing is job and he's as afraid as they are of the systems.

Those in charge think that Kris was responsible for the vandalism and even Robert finds this heavy-handed, growling that the Soviets now have someone to blame no matter what happens.  As for Kris, between Christine and Cindy discussing it with him, he wants to see his family, not knowing his ex-wife is a hugely powerful woman in the new regime.  Robert reminds him that the conditions of his parole prohibit him from seeing his family, telling him, "as far as you're concerned, they might as well be dead.  After that, soldiers, including Christine's sex buddy arrest him in connection with the assault the previous evening.

"They use sports as a pacifier," Cindy says to the rest of the family, hitting very well a Communist dictate of the period, that the athletes had to be the best in the world, so good that everyone rallies behind them.

When in doubt politically, throw a parade for Lincoln Day.  In this case, the flags bear the visages for not only Lincoln, but also Lenin.  It's clever propaganda, along with dozens of banners that espouse Communist doctrine, local sports teams and even Lara and her fellow bad dancers.  After Soviet tanks and helicopters arrive to put the scare back into the people, true US veterans, holding the flag upside down, to huge cheers from the assembled.  When asked by a Russian soldier what it is, Robert replies, "sentiment" with more than a little bile.  Robert stops their arrest by asking if it's really necessary to detain a "bunch of old men," and he and Cindy are cautiously enjoying this spectacle.  After this comes the woebegone shantytown residents with their handmade signs.  Robert makes a speech that sounds like any politician, and he chooses his works carefully, basically telling people to be patriotic and just deal with what is new.  In other ways, collaborate.

The next speechmaker is Christine's lover, Reiner Schone, playing a heavy no one likes, but he has a surprise for the crowd and invites Kris to speak (surrounded by armed guards).  There is complete silence when he gets to the podium, maybe a little excitement and maybe a little fear.  He says nothing, but the crowd breaks out into The Star Spangled Banner, including all of the main characters (even Christine's chronically angry father).  It's tough not to be touched by this massive show of defiant patriotism.  If you chucked Mariel and Lara, we could have much more of these great moments.  Though Robert publicly sided with Kris, when they are in private, it's not so rosy.  "I would like for us to stay friends," Robert says, but it has a whiff of fatalism to it.

Reiner publicly shames Christine by taking her into is in front of the entire town.  Only Don, her nephew,  resists on her behalf.  This does have an effect on patriarch Ford Rainey, who is sitting in the dark when Kris gets home, telling him of some horror stories that happened while he was gone, and then extending a peace offering by his approval and a handshake.  As for Christine, she's at her breaking point and aims a gun at Reiner.  "Have you ever killed a man, thought about killing a man, especially a naked man?" Reiner asks, assuming she will never be able to go through with it, then explaining why killing a naked man is so much worst than killing a clothed man.  Eh?  "You hate me, but you need me," he sadistically reminds her, then calling her pathetic.  When she returns, Kris is waiting up for her and she's angry, even tries to run away, but Kris grabs her and she falls apart in his arms.  This leads to Christine finally telling all of her horrors, which explain her shattered psychology.  The two of them get not one, but two scenes, in a row, no less, where they pour out their hearts to each other, explaining their behaviors and frustrations.

"You can't just do nothing...it's not in your blood, not in your character," Christine begs Kris, hoping he will return to the voice of justice once again.  So, he puts his few belongings together and hops onto a freight train.

Robert is whisked off to a waiting jet and Wendy, but he's suspicious and cannot understand why just a nominee "for a job that doesn't exist yet" is being treated so well.  As for Kris, he is outrunning soldiers with terrible aim and ends up hiding out with some anti-government types.  That's quite different from the stunning dinner served by Armin for Robert, which looks like a royal dinner.  He tells everyone that the intention is for the Soviets to return home, leaving the United States, or whatever it's called now, to be run by hand-picked sure things...like Robert.  Everyone toasts to him and he had no idea he won.  "What happened to the election, the other candidates?" Robert asks Sam.  I think that should be pretty obvious.

Sam gets nostalgic and tells Robert about his dead grandfather with more rather cliche and annoying dogma.  "Never completely trust a man who will not get drunk with you," would be one of those groaners.  All of this leads to the climax of Sam's speech, saying that people can't be trusted to govern themselves, so the government has to step in.  It was the Communists who had to stop the rest of the world from bad reactions to the way they ruined their countries.  He talks about finding his soul in America.  Whatever, this scene reads like a political treatise and has the dramatic oomph of a feather pillow.  Way too much social conjecture for a gigantic miniseries that could use pruning anyway.

With the rag tag rebels, Kris and company go to a wild and wonderful church exploding in the delights of their music.  On the way to meet the other rebels, Don is blown up by a land mine, though he lives.  Kris is taken to the Underground Railroad, resurrected now for different reasons.  The Reverend and his wife want to help, but he won't acknowledge who he is until he's told they can help him find his children.  Reiner has decided to make "reprisals" against the shantytown poor for their behavior during the parade.  Robert is whisked to Washington, where he meets the President for yet more propaganda and yes, survival, a word way overused here.  The President says he has no power, only the ability to create a smoke screen to delay the Communists.

Don wakes up in the hospital with the scariest bunch of Stepford Doctors who promise to take away all the thoughts and "anti-social" behavior that caused his accident.  In fact, one doctor says Don is not under restraints.  "We have one rule here--if you want walk out, you are free to go," he says, though of course we know there is something far more sinister than that going on.

Robert delivers a monologue at the Lincoln Memorial about the loss of America, and then it pretty much happens, at least in a microcosm.  An order was given to destroy the shantytown, so in come the helicopters and tanks.  Reiner is the one to make it all happen, remembering what he found disrespectful at the parade and with the shot of his flair gun, the helicopters swoop over to frighten everyone and the tanks roll toward the area.  Another flare and the tanks tear right through the buildings.  The physical destruction is overwhelming and completely catastrophic before Reiner shoots the flair gun to stop the assault.

With all of Congress in attendance, Robert is brought in to give a speech accepting his position as Governor General.  It looks just like a State of the Union address and it can't be a coincidence that this is staged to like the ultimate political moment.  He starts off a bit tentatively, new to speaking like this, but by the end, he's the very poster child for what the regime wants, a malleable leader who is so appropriately American, no one can doubt him or deny him.  However, he is unable to call his family as he's told "the lines are down, it's a very common problem."  For the first time, he senses something is not right.  It only took hours and hours and literally, an Act of Congress.

The exiles have the grim task of going through their camp's rubble, finding dead bodies everywhere.  Yes, the montage is supposed to look like the famous wounded scene in "Gone With the Wind."  Again, there is nothing subtle about "Amerika," as it toys with both our fears and tears.  It should come as no surprise that when Cindy is picking through the debris, she finds that little girl who has been haunting her since the beginning...alive!  Dr. Ivan is too overwhelmed, so Cindy decides to take the girl into town and Christine makes everyone join that trip.  It was because of their last trip to town that Reiner unleashed this ferocity on them, but now two of the area's most influential families are heading the pack.  With a massive orchestra underscoring, some of the townspeople actually leave their homes to bring the wounded inside.  Could be some changes a-comin'.

Unfortunately, the little girl Cindy picked up dies along the way.

Reprisals are swift.  The local diner where so many of the characters hang out and joke with the rotund sassy owner are all rounded up and the sign for the diner, which had been on for 30 years, goes dark.  When Richard shows up at the request of Reiner, he finds that the weasels on the town council have convinced the troops to give the town a "full curfew" because the townspeople helped the exiles.  "You can stand up to this Nazi," Richard growls, referring to Reiner. Right there is the key to unlocking "Amerika."  It's only about The Cold War in theory, but in actuality, it's yet another replay of World War II, with a bit of Vietnam thrown in.  That grounds it to a level where people actually have opinions can better understand.  Making this character German and not Russian could not have been an accident.

Richard, nominally in charge with Robert gone, has to make a deal with Reiner to have the troops removed and let the city return to some normality, whatever that means.  To hammer in the point, the exiles are rounded up and put on buses headed for...well, we're not quite sure.  Kris is among them.  Families are split up and a very happy man keeps making perky announcements as everyone is put in lines to board trains.  They are all referred to as "Volunteers," to make it seem as though they have a choice.  One of the overly chipper women guiding people is suddenly shot and killed.  A gun battle ensues, though Kris takes some sort of control and manages to get on a moving train (that's the second time).

Just because "Amerika" has started to mature doesn't mean it's fully there yet.  Not when Mariel, as "Miss New America," sings a bonnet and parasol number in a nightclub.  How very 1907 of her!  I'm not sure what the hell the song is about, but when it turns into a striptease, hold on tight.  Actually, the song contains references to her relationship with the Communists, but as she shirks the clothes and adds  more make-up, the song goes completely tuneless, not that it ever stood much of a chance of that with Mariel's singing double being so atrocious.  Something like this would have been fun in Fosse's "Cabaret," but its completely idiotic here.  At the end, the police rush in and demand everyone quietly head outside of them.  The number was bad, but worth arresting someone over?  Mariel is spared arrest by her boyfriend's aide.  It's hard for Mariel to even attempt acting under the circumstances, but she's particularly dire at the end of the scene.  Seeing herself in the mirror, Mariel is horrified.  It only took a few minutes longer to complain about it than anyone watching.

Kris and pal Graham Beckel makes it by train to Chicago where he sees kids putting up signs.  "That's my wife" and former best friend, and the kid replies, "he's the Governor General and she's his deputy."

"In our lifetimes, only a very few of us get to mold our own destiny.  Here is your chance," Sam says as a pep talk before walking Robert into a giant banquet room with pictures of him and Wendy just waiting to be put in as brilliant new leaders.

Dr. Ivan does not take kindly to the fact that his exile patients are being kicked out and sent miles away to a place where no one has to see these undesirables.  At the same time, in Chicago, Kris is introduced to another resistance die-hard, Dorian Harewood.  The Chicago gang, we are told, operate in "cells," a word that has more meaning today than in 1987, some on the establishment inside, some out on the streets and they "only come together for special occasions, such as meeting Kris.  There, he is told that "something is happening, perhaps in another country," that is causing a ripple effect.  They think whatever it is will be something huge and they need to stop it.

Cindy is getting more and more fed up.  A super happy woman comes to the house saying she's their new aide, though if they prefer someone else, it's okay, but that Cindy has "a lot of new functions" as the wife of the Governor General.  Cindy brings up the violence, far more important, but is merely told, "it was unfortunate....that means you didn't see your husband on TV last night!"  Even more news: the family is being moved to Omaha.  Cindy won't budge until talking to her husband.

Remember Don at the hospital?  He's easy to forget, but their brainwashing scheme is palpable.  They show dozens of images of atrocities and capitalism while the patients jolting headsets.  It's supposed to indoctrinate them.

The hospital Dr. Ivan is given in a rat's nest, dirty and probably unsafe.  Mariel arrives upset because everyone in the theater company is running scared.  "Did you really think sleeping with the enemy would help us?" one of them asks as she swears Sam can't possibly be behind this.

No dope, when Reiner shows up with a call from Robert, Cindy is hesitant, assuming it's a trick.  He has no idea what has been happening.  Cindy begs him to come home, but he says, "that's impossible" and tells her to go to Omaha.  Sam gets on the line too, ordered by Sam to withdraw his men and leave everyone alone.  This all happened too easily to be as simple as it seems.  Resigned, she tells her husband, "it better not looking like the White House" and he pays her a floppy compliment.  As sad as Cindy and Lara are to leave their house, the townspeople are thrilled that the military is disappearing and attack all the cars, but the windows are tinted.

Sam has some plans that involve secession of Robert's new state and then turns his attention to Mariel, whom he is told has disappeared.  "How is it possible?  She's damn near helpless and yet two of your security men lost her," he angrily tells his aide.  He threatens the aide, responsible for the raid at the club, that if he fails, he will be transferred, "perhaps Equatorial Africa.  I know how much you like Africans," he sneers.  All this and a bit of time for racism too!

Mariel finds her way to Dorian's group, asking to be a member, but Dorian volleys a series of harsh questions at her, concentrating on her relationship with Sam and refuses her until she realizes what the rebellion.  "You better figure out what you want before you change your life little girl," angry Dorian spits.

At the hospital, Dr. Ivan sees the all-but-lobotomized group walking in circles outside at night.  To sneak in and become a staff member.  He tells the woman everything she wants to hear during an interview and has her laughing enough to hopefully forget he's an exile and automatically suspicious.

Plans come to fruition when rebels flood the toilets arrives.  It seems all of the adults are in cahoots, but Kris and pals are posing as plumbers and the kids are fascinated by him.  One of the adults hands Kelly Proctor a piece of paper saying, "he's your father" and insists his son go off with him.  Kelly is thrilled, but they also want to get the other son. He's in the middle of a massive propaganda speech, but he doesn't know any difference as he was to young to know a different system.  The younger son has been brainwashed by his mother, but he warms up to Kris fairly quickly, until deciding to squeal on his father and shouts for help.  "Kill him, kill him, his son says, freaking out.  He has no reason to trust his father.  Kelly runs off to the waiting fan, but Kris ends up staring down the barrel of a gun...held by his youngest son!

Up until now, "Amerika" has taken itself very seriously and has been written with a true spirit.  But, suddenly, once that kid pointed the gun at dad, things start to go haywire, or maybe a better word is "schmaltzy."

As dramatic a cliffhanger as that is, a man staring down his youngest son across a gun, the opening scene of the next chapter is given to Kris' completely unlikable ex-wife, Wendy Hughes, who stares outside frosted glass to a lovely winter scene while lover Armin Mueller-Stahl nibbles at her neck, knowing she's upset.  But, he's clearly mistaken if he thinks he knows why.  Oh, no, Wendy isn't at all worried about her older boy, the one with a capitalist leaning, or her brainwashed younger son itching for human target practice.   "It's me," she claims.  Apparently, she feels Kris is there to destroy her and all of the wonderful things she has done to make Communism so merrily monochromatic in the years he was locked up without any chance of escape and paroled into a 25-mile radius, constantly watched.  Nope, apparently he's spent all of that time and all of his non-existent resources thinking of her, though we have not a shred of evidence he remembers or her name.  "Why am I so afraid?  I know he can't do anything?" she pushes, though Armin, as tan as a Palm Beach millionaire in January, only makes things worse by telling her not to feel guilty.  Oh, now the almost-tears come.  Has he hit a nerve?  Do you care?

While Wendy clutches her diamond-clad throat, there are people with real problems.  The rebels do have Kris' son Kelly, who has one of the more known faces at the moment.  "He's important," the rebels know.

Sorry, people, it was only a two-minute reprieve from Wendy.  Now, not only is she afraid that Kris, safely in prison again, is coming after her, but Armin is hiding something from her, something...personal.  Again, the only way to make this character less likable would be to have her skin kittens alive.  "Be well, my little...my little American.  Who knows?  Maybe someday soon you will be leading your own country," he says, unhelpfully.  "Why is it every time we say goodbye, I feel like I'll never see you again?"  Armin can run the US, but he has no clue about humanity, because his reply is the very comforting, "one time it will be true."  Can it get worse?  Yup.  He admits he loves her with as much enthusiasm as a hard-boiled egg and reminds her that she didn't "betray" her husband for him, but "for the cause."  She boards a plane as Armin turns away and goes into his car.

More useful is the conversation going on at one of the rebel alliance strongholds, where Dorian Harewood lays out what he thinks will be the enemy's plan from the "show trial" to the prison torture.  Though they are heroes, their dialogue isn't a whole lot better.  Dorian, admittedly giving it all he's got, speaks in lofty tones to expound that Kris still has a name that matters.  "To whom?" another asks.  "To us...to them...maybe even to him," he says earnestly.

Back in prison, Sam, wasting the entire salary of the incapable dialogue coach hired for "Amerika," interrogates Kris, noting that Kris has "a following."  Further "your presence here seems to be disruptive," he says with bizarre understatement and then, not waiting for Kris to reply, works through all the possibilities from executing him to nominating him as Santa at the town Christmas pageant (okay, I made up that last part).  The point is, there is nothing they can do to Kris, dead or alive, to stop the momentum of the rebels and possibly his kids, aka "the revolution against their mother."  Sam tries to kick him when he's down by playing videotapes of his unsuccessful presidential bid.  One is a fairly effective tape (though insanely bogus and long) that shows Kris and Wendy entering the debating hall, stopped by the media for questions, only to be upstaged first by the Republican candidate who claims the country is perfect and then a mystery man who rambles on about what a fraud Kris is while the crowd laps up every word in dead silence...you know, like always happens with a media crush on TV. The only time it seems real is when it stretches into Jerry Lewis Telethon length, finally given some noise and heft when the mystery man accuses Kris of having turned secretly Commie in Vietnam and pimping out his wife to the Soviet leadership.  How deus ex machina of "Amerika" with so much time to go.

Sam is desperately trying to force a reaction out of Kris, baiting him with such zingers are "were all your guts ripped out of you in that camp or did you ever really have any?" and of course the ultimate male ego deflator, impotence at all levels against a scheming wife.  But, it's some harangue about how devoted Sam's grandfather was to his cause that finally gets Kris out of the chair.  "Damn you!  Damn you!  Damn you for forcing your way into my life!" Kris bleats, the most dialogue he's had in the past seven or so hours.  But what it means, I'm not sure.  Did Sam win the game?  More to the point, what the hell is the game?

So the Robert Urichs are moved into an enormous house with servants.  Cindy and the kids are deeply suspicious, but apparently only Robert has never read a novel, the point of which is always, "if it seems to be good to be true, it is."  Lara notes that she doesn't feel like she's living her life anymore, which is awfully bright of her, since she's not.  The brother has no friends, but Cindy is the most prickly at all.  Not only do they not have enough furniture "to fill three rooms in this place," but when she jokes about Robert taking over the world and he kind of agrees, she gives him a look of "no sex tonight!"  All joking aside, Cindy does have reason to be upset.  She reminds Robert of what she saw in the shantytown, "like pictures of old Nazi Concentration Camps."  However, "in the midst of all that horror, I felt something in myself.  We all did, the town," and reminds Robert how she and the town "found courage" to buck the system.  There's no turning back from that, but it's going to make Robert's position mighty uncomfortable.

Maybe Robert isn't quite as party-faithful as expected, because when it seems he's about to give Cindy a lecture about "how much I need you in Washington," it actually turns into him saying that maybe he's the one to change things.  He's afraid of the paranoia too, but he is on the inside, where possibly he can be more effective.  During an Emmy-baiting speech that as increasing violin music under it, Robert says he aims to be true to Abraham Lincoln, but in order to do that, "I have to make choices, compromises." Cindy softens, but not completely, because of what she's seen.  "Do you still want to be my wife?" Robert asks.  "I think so," Cindy replies.  Maybe there will be sex tonight after all.

Ford is still changing, but he goes to the shantytown and does it by pouring out his soul to our Germany friend Marcel Hillaire, who lost his wife in the shantytown battle and they bond.  Somehow.  Another rush to the Emmy podium.

When Kris is transported from prison to court under armored security, crowds, including Dorian and Mariel, line the streets and clap in unison.  Are things turning?  We'll have to wait to find out because Wendy has yet another (in ten minutes) breakdown that Kris is truly after her only, getting into another quarrel with Sam that is going to lead to someone's downfall.  Even in the Soviet gulag, I don't think the defendant's ex-wife would be the presiding judge, but Wendy is, despite shaking so much she can't apply a fourth coat of lipstick.

Wendy avoids looking at Kris until she absolutely has to, but she's losing control and he's as calm as ever.  The brays that the court holds the power here.  "Over what?  Life or death?  I think a simple divorce would have been sufficient," he mumbles.  Even the prosecutors giggle at that one. The dialogue positive crackles with inanities:

"You're in contempt of this court."
"I'm in contempt of everything you've done."

As a jittery Wendy tries to maintain control, Kris announces he doesn't hate her, he just hates what she's done to their sons.  "And for that, I'll fight ya," he says calmly as Sam, in the back knows for sure Wendy is losing it.  She commits him to a mental institution and says he's nuts, on the record, but as she bolts from court, Kris asks a fair question: "If you have the power, why are you so afraid?"  She doesn't answer, rushing out as quickly as possible.  It's a good thing Kris Kristofferson never had any ability to bring passion to his wooden acting style (he could have been Charlton Heston if he tried a bit harder), because he makes the character such a calm zombie, Wendy seems even more unhinged.  Just as Wendy had suspected, Sam is enamored with Kris, his tactics and his beliefs.  "He is not afraid," he says to his aide, in swooning admiration.

The next hurdle is to figure out who has jurisdiction over Kris.  Technically, Wendy does because she's the Veep of the area (no one has asked Robert to voice an opinion, but he also hasn't been sworn in yet), though Sam actually has him.  One of Wendy's goons suggests they torture him, but she goes to the window and dramatically breathes, "I don't want him altered," as the audience thinks she's finally seen the light, but then adds, "I want him killed."

But just then, Sam comes in for a showdown.  I won't bore you, as I was, with their back and forth claptrap, which basically comes down to Sam playing both sides, giving Kris the chance to make a speech that they won't allow the media to cover and then turn him over to Robert (finally, someone remembered him).  Wendy's goon has already gotten the order to off the ex, but she wants Sam to send in the major troops to find her son.

A climax is on the way as the square in front of the court is cleared, a microphone and speakers are set up and all media, including Dorian, are told there is to be no coverage.  There are a mass of grumbling extra, I think they can spread the word, no?  Dorian isn't stupid, he tells the cameraman to keep it going, just without anyone knowing.  Inside the court, Sam speaks to Kris, as they both know that standing in the middle of an open plaza is an invitation for a hit.  Sam insists that Kris can be a powerful symbol if he just follows Sam's plan.  Sam is actually clever, because he asks Kris to go out there and praise his old friend Robert, "something you genuinely believe about the man," and of course Kris does think he's a good guy, "particularly in contrast to your wife," adds Sam.

With everyone waiting (Dorian and the hidden camera, Mariel, Sam and his pals, an assassin and heaps of extras), Kris steps to the microphone and delivers...The Pledge of Allegiance, the original, not the revised Commie one.  As he says it over and over, the crowd joins in.  The music swells and we drown in tears before Kris throws his fist in the air and chants, "America, America, America" over and over and gets the crowd whipped into a frenzy of pumped fists.  Sam looks defeated as Kris is loaded back into his armored van, the crowd booming.

A frenzied Wendy calls Armin but is not allowed through, due to a "communication freeze."  Actually, Armin is hauled before a video conference with three colorless Soviets (who look like an Italian mobster, a genial Brit and a strong silent type) who feel that the whole American experiment is being badly handled, too lenient.  After all, this whole Central Area Midwest state is set to be an independent country if they can get control over things.  Armin and Sam then have another video conference situation where both seem to be dancing around the fact that they know things are falling apart and the only direct order from Armin is to make sure that Wendy's son be found, for her benefit.

Yet another "secure phone" is used (this one is actually red), wakes Robert up because Sam needs to speak to him.  Robert can tell that Sam is uneasy, you know, "like a damn burst and flooded all of your new crop."  Um, yeah, that's exactly what it feels like when the central command of the Soviet Union makes demands.

As Ford and Marcel are playing comic relief over stubborn horses, Kelly is delivered to Ford, "through the Underground Railroad."  Ford is over the moon to see the boy he hasn't laid eyes on since he was a tyke.  So, he takes his new BFF Marcel up to the house with Kelly and Graham.  Isn't that one of the first places the authorities would look?  I guess not, since a convention hall is being prepped for Robert's swearing in, full of marching bands and happy people, though none of the bunting is red, white and blue.  Sam's limo drives right into the hall, where he apologizes to Cindy for the shantytown trouble and she actually thanks him for his response, though following it up by asking him why he didn't stop it in the first place, to which he answers that "events were already in place."  "So, power, when it's responsible for creating the circumstances, for evil is no one's fault, while power, exercised against that same evil is to someone's credit," she wonders to Sam as Robert looks on helplessly.  The ensuring lines use the word "power" more than an electric company as the two match wits without actually saying specifically what they mean.  They finish with a grudging respect for each other, which is part of the miniseries increasing concern with making Sam blameless, merely a player in all of these games, not the leader.

Sam isn't done speaking like a Soviet swami.  He pulls Robert aside to tell him Kris will now be under his jurisdiction and for him to help his friend in direct opposition to Wendy is not a good idea.  "You have to become a better chess player," Sam notes, "and to become a better chess player, you have to sacrifice some of the pieces."  My, my, don't we love our metaphors!  Sam's parting words to Robert are "you may have to secede sooner than you think."

Cindy refuses to simply ignore Kris' imprisonment, and she asks Robert for his "permission."  He tells her to go to their friend, but that he cannot authorize it officially because it may have ramifications in the future.  So, Cindy's Norma Rae routine has to be pulled from mothballs.  However, Robert warns her it won't be simple.  In fact, in order to save Kris, he feels Kelly will have to be returned to his mother or else all is lost to Wendy's control.  "If [Wendy] wants him dead, there's nothing I can do to help him," he says to Cindy Rae's horror.

Uh oh, Mariel is back.  Granted, she's been dragged from the rebel alliance back to Sam's apartment, where he tries to blow her off, but she's in a mood and that means she tries to act.  It doesn't work, so fine actor though Sam is, he can't save the scene from her caterwauling.  Steel yourself for the moment Mariel realizes she has to bring it down.  Fake tears not flowing, hair a mess, trembling, she tells Sam the big secret he hasn't known since she disappeared with the rebel alliance.  "I realized I'm an American."  Oh, good for you, sweetie, but no one said you weren't.  The Soviet Union has only taken over the running of the country, they haven't upended citizenship.  And Sam's reaction is perfect.  "Yes?" he says, throwing his arm in the air.  There's more to the speech, but you would be better off attention an elementary school Thanksgiving pageant where the kids all talk about what it means to be an American.  Sam has to top that by confessing his love for her, equally ridiculous, but then it's time to part.  "Goodbye, my little actress," he says, with no sense of irony about her character's inability to act, not to mention Mariel's.  He walks out, so does she get to keep the swank apartment?

In a puffy coat that matches exactly the color of the walls, Cindy is taken to see Kris.  At the same moment, Robert and Wendy are discussing this visit.  Wendy is on the attack and nothing Robert says really assures her.  These two are not destined to get along.  But, politics is about compromise and they agree that if Wendy gets her son back, Robert will concede to a lifetime prison sentence for Kris.  As if the cell is not bugged, Kris and Cindy plot.  Well, maybe that's the wrong word, because Kris can only handle his beloved cliches, like "we've got to be for something, not just against the Russians."  Care to elaborate?  Indeed, he does, but it's nothing unexpected.  He confesses to "having lost the faith in the human spirit," and it's the rest of the country that has always had it, not him.  "I'm not what matters," he says and Cindy suddenly confesses a lifelong love for him, a plot twist we definitely didn't need.

It's going to be a big day, the convention.  Robert is so nervous, he cuts himself shaving, Wendy doesn't appreciate her beautiful peignoir, instead muttering, "stupid, stupid, stupid" presumably about the dialogue and assassins are perched all over the city to take out Kris, invited by Armin to breakfast.  The assassins kill every soldier in the convoy and then blast Kris' transport truck to smithereens, bringing us to the end of another episode.

The convention hall is bursting with excited delegates (as if they have any purpose).  Wendy is told of the attack on the convoy and that "there are no survivors."  Left alone, she actually seems to regret her decision, but Robert comes to fetch her, ever gallant as she takes his arm to keep her steady as they enter the hall.

Raise your hand if you thought Kris was actually killed in the ambush.  No one?  You sure?  Of course you are, you know your miniseries as well as I do--no lead is getting bumped off with so much time to go.  Instead, we see Sam's aide putting him on a private jet to...beats me, probably that little Nebraska town again.

Robert is sworn in as Governor General, looking divinely presidential as Kris' jet takes off.  I have a question--why is Robert searing on a Bible?  Isn't religious a bugaboo of Communism?  And Cindy isn't even holding the book (maybe it's Das Kapital, to be fair, we don't see the book).  Then it's Wendy's turn, swearing in as Reiner and his men storm the Nebraska town where they intend to find Kelly.  Kelly volunteers to give himself up so no one gets hurt, but the family, with Ford totally on their side now, is not giving him up without the biggest fight they can muster.  Back at the convention hall, everyone is singing the gloomy martial national anthem, naturally with a chorus of children to lead it (Cindy abstains from singing, but Lara emotes proudly, as if she's expecting a dance break).

Christine hides Kelly in some convenient hole in the woods that kept her great-grandparents safe 130 years ago as Reiner and his helicopter stop Richard and the sheriff, only to find Kelly not with there.  Wendy's younger son gives a rousing speech to the room, with Wendy mouthing it behind him.  Robert has the next speech, better at it than either of the numbskulls would be run for the Presidency of the US in 1988 an no one seems at al surprised when he even glosses over the idea of secession, the line "no longer as Americans, but as Heartlanders" sending the crowd into spasms of excitement.  Everyone but Cindy, for some reason thinking a beret was the best headgear for such an occasion.

Reiner and his men arrive at the Nebraska home, but Reiner hides behind Richard so Christine won't fire the double-barrelled shotgun she totes so well.  Richard encourages her to do it.  It would be great payback for all of those sadism sex sessions with Reiner, but she declines.  No one will tell Reiner where Kelly is, so he orders their house burned.  The last reminder of a once-great family is reduced to ashes in front of them.

In the middle of the night, Wendy's flunky calls her with the news that supposedly-dead Kris just turned up at the hospital.  She insists he be killed, but the doctors have refused.  "They say they are researchers, not killers," the flunky relays and then volunteers to go and do the job himself.  It would be pretty easy since Kris is under sedation as the first part of the process of wiping clean his body or mind or whatever the hell they do.

At a meeting of state government types within the Heartland apparatus, Robert makes a speech assuring them they will keep their power and that after a plebiscite, they will be free of Soviet influence.  A brave woman stands up to ask if that means secession, which it does, though Robert refrains from completely admitting it.  He informs her, and everyone else that "there comes a time when we have to give up some of our unrealistic hopes."  Dorian and his cameraman are happy to be catching this exchange.  "There is no America," Robert says firmly, "there hasn't been for some time.  That is the fact."  The crowd is half dumbfounded, half full of jolly approval, with the jolly approval forcing the others to realize they are about to be outnumbered.  The local military is convinced to back Robert.

Sam, promoted to the rank of general, and Armin meet to discuss worries from the Kremlin.  There have been worldwide "disturbances" and the old men in power are nervous.  "They...we...are not very good at running the world," Armin somewhat sadly notes.  There are more directives, but Armin doesn't exactly say what they are, but Sam is given the authority to make sure all the other parts of former America secede as well.  Both seem to know that Armin's caginess means he's basically a goner, but in case the rest of us aren't convinced, Armin puts his hands gently on Sam's face and says, "you are a son to me."  "And you are a father," Sam replies.  That's classic miniseries-speak for "say goodbye to this character."  Sam finds a secret videotape when Armin goes to a "highly unusual" session of Congress.  Assassins mob the Capitol and "the Vice President would like to speak."  Which is the unusual part, the second?

Apparently, the President is ill (or perhaps got a better job), so Armin is asked to speak to this emergency session of Congress.  A speech in front of Congress is yet more Emmy-baiting, but I can't imagine anyone was still watching by this point.  His speech starts idealistically, but that soon gives way to threats.  "This body no longer services those ideas, there is no point," he tells Congress about their place in the Soviet plan.  Armin demands the government "relinquish its power," while the whole room heckles him.  Armin demands a vote, which is when the assassins swarm the chamber.  "You're too late," he says and departs.  Aware of what has just occurred, Armin looks deathly as he goes into a private room and the gunshots start to quiet the dissenting.

I have to say, as hellish and gruesome a plot point this is, it's exactly what "Amerika" has been missing, some actual reason to fear the Soviets other than some "Manchurian Candidate"-like paranoia.  So far, lives have been uprooted, especially for the exiles, but overall, things have still functioned.  The Soviets have allowed America, or at least it's various parts, to at least think they still have some control.  But, a slaughter of the national government of the United States (except the President, who was luckily ill), that's the kind of frightening moment a piece like this needs.  The miniseries, now over a decade old, has given us some truly horrific sights.  Think of "Holocaust."  By waiting until the last section of the miniseries, the emotional wallop to the viewers is blunted by all of the sleepiness in front of it.  Essentially, the piece is saying, "Soviet domination might not be so bad until their backs are so far up against the wall that there is no choice."  That's hardly a tagline to stir viewer devotion for 12 hours.

The assassins then torch the venerable building, leaving no evidence, not that anyone is denying having committed this atrocity.  To mitigate his role in the whole shebang, since we've come to kind of like his character, Armin wanders through the halls of the building (apparently, the fire is very slow moving), goes into the Congressional Chamber, sees the dead bodies (many of which are extras without proper training playing corpses since you can see them breathing) and shoots himself.

When Sam arrives, the fire is already out.  He's first astounded by the fire damage, but then he goes into  the chamber and sees the carnage, completely breaking down into hysterical sobs at the thought of what has occurred.  He spots Armin's body and cradles it.  This is bound to be a PR nightmare, wouldn't you say?  Outside, Sam takes control and some American generals claim that the only people who could have done this are men with paramilitary training, but are convinced that no American could have done such a thing.  "But the Russians could?" Sam asks.  "It makes sense," the general snaps.  "How can this make sense?" Sam screams.

The justifications that come out of Robert are getting more dimwitted every scene.  Arguing with Cindy before a function (he tells her the necklace she is wearing, one he gave her, doesn't go with the dress--oh, so now we're an elected official and the red carpet police?), he says he did not know of the plan to split up America, but he has to go along with it.  He claims that "people from South Carolina or California will still the Americans, just the way the French and Germans will always be Europeans."  Skipping right over the obvious retort that Europe was never one country, Cindy snivels, "there just won't be any country."  Yes, I suppose that's true, though I still wonder about this whole United State of Europe thing.  Robert is just getting started.  After reminding his wife that she never before expressed any devotion to being an American, he asserts that "the last time anyone cared about being an American was World War II.  I'm sick of this 'I'm an American' bull!" he rails.  As he continues, he comes closer and closer to the truth, not that too many Americans in the mid-80s would have gotten it.  He yowls about no one wanting to be in the military, no one rushing out for public service, a general malaise (my word, not his, since by the mid-70s, this was already true).  To her credit, Cindy agrees and says she'll go with him, mainly because she believes he actually still cares about "making a difference," even though the definition of that is not the same as it used to be.  Consider Robert's character forgiven for any possible sins.

In the middle of the gala, when Robert is having a "pity dance" with Lara, as she calls it, he is summoned to the phone to talk to Sam.  Sam won't tell about the murder of the Congress, but he will tell him that Wendy was behind the attempted murder of Kris and that Kris should be freed.  Sam asks to talk to Cindy, telling her to "find a way to influence" her husband about Kris.  Consider Sam absolved of his sins as well.  When Cindy gets off the phone, Robert somehow realizes Cindy loves Kris, but she explains that she loves them both in something akin to separate love channels.  "What do you say we leave this shindig and go back to Omaha?" he finally says, after a lengthy speech that doesn't really make clear what he believes, but we supposed it's all good.

During this crisis, Sam calls Mariel and tells her, "I need your love."  In fact, he loves the fact that she's a ditz who knows nothing about the world (or was).  She informs him she's leaving Chicago, but won't tell him where and reminds him he promised he wouldn't chase her.  Hold on again, because Sam asks Mariel to sing him some of "Try to Remember," which she does, with no music helping her, so she's not only off key, but an affront to its writers, whom I hope got some money from it.  He hangs up while she's singing, but she finishes the song even after.

Because she has a special passport, Mariel is the perfect person to carry Dorian's prized videotape to the rest of the world.  Kris has been in a coma at the brainwashing hospital, but the doctor in charge feels guilty and tells the staff to call Dr. Ivan to help.  Naturally, Ivan will come to Kris' rescue.

At the same time, Robert devises a plan to have Cindy visit a hospital on camera and discover "a brainwashing experiment," but he doesn't want it to be Kris, who still sticks in his craw.  "A year from now, nobody will remember his name," Robert clucks.

Mariel, her pals and the tape of Kris doing the Pledge of Allegiance, are taken to a comic little man with a transmitter in his van and they drive around broadcasting it, Mariel explaining that he's still alive.  This summons untold numbers of people to descend on the hospital and demand Kris be freed.  Inside the hospital, Dr. Ivan gets all the zombie patients to help him, which causes them to spring back to life, injuries and all.  "Is this an escape?" a dippy nurse asks.  She wants no part of it.  No one asked her to be anyway.  The crowd doesn't realize that an ambulance leaving the hospital is carrying their hero and he's gone by the time Cindy, her posse and even Dorian show up at the hospital.  The man in charge of the hospital, a total worm, hightails it out of the hospital because he smells the frame-up.  The female doctor in charge of Kris, assigned by Wendy, wants Cindy stonewalled and not allowed in the unit, but Ivan gives her a "the tide is turning" grinning warning.

Dr. Ivan gleefully tells Cindy that Kris is gone and she's ready to leave, but Ivan says there is more to see.  He takes her to see a character we have long forgotten about, her daughter's boyfriend Don.  He's a complete zombie, worse than the others.  When Lara sees Don, she screeches her way into overacting glory, her last chance to grab a moment.  "He needs your love...something, to bring him back," Cindy tells her daughter, urging her to help a kid she once despised, but then again, she's not really talking about Lara and Don, is she?  She's talking about how she did nothing when Kris was in trouble.

Thankfully NOT quoting Lenin's theory of "productive chaos," Sam orders his minions to follow only his instructions, even if they seem counterintuitive to the way things have been handled in the past.  Reiner is ordered to stay in the barracks, to call off the search for Kelly.  Sam then takes care of Armin's legacy by getting Moscow to agree to bury his body in the Kremlin and then telling them not to be afraid if they hear of any public uprisings to their plans.  Sam has outwitted Moscow, who buy every word he says, apparently not noticing he's swearing more than Richard Nixon ever could have imagined.

The news finally gets out about the massacre in the Capitol, though in a sanitized version that blames it on "suicide bombers" who are conveniently all dead.  Outraged that Robert knew of the atrocity and didn't say anything (on behalf of her children, whom she claims "don't understand," though her son says he does, he just doesn't see why Congress mattered--it's a little late in the game for generational antics), she tells him she's leaving.  "I can be your wife, but I don't think I can be your First Lady," she says.  Can you imagine Nancy Reagan's reaction to that line when she and Ronnie watched "Amerika?"  Well, he was no doubt asleep, but I'm sure she watched.  Only Lara follows her mother; she doesn't mind missing her dancing.  Frankly, the on-again-off-again-hot-and-cold-water-tap routine of Robert and Cindy is soapy and boring compared to the politics, which are left so deliberately murky, so as not to offend anyone.

The rebel alliance is in tatters, but Dorian, Mariel and the creepy old man with the speaker on his van decide to go back to tiny Milford.  I guess we're headed for a denouement and, if we're lucky, a reunion with Christine Lahti and her family, who haven't had nary a line in hours.

Why exactly we return to the church in Nebraska to characters we forgot segments and segments ago, I'm not sure, but it gives everyone a chance to sing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."  Something tells me we'll never quite get to the national anthem, mainly because it's never made a whole lot of sense to Americans, who can't sing the wacky song anyway.

Kris, up and mobile, with no after-effects from the hospital except some wobbly feet, is brought back home, to even the love of his father.  When Kris sees the land where the house used to be, Christine quips, "now is as good a time as any to tell you your old room isn't quite ready."  Cindy, Lara and Dr. Ivan return to the town to care for Don, as if they are qualified for such a task.  Ford takes Kris to fetch Kelly, and Graham asks, "is it over?"  "It's just beginning," Kris replies.  Oh, mercy, no!  Let's wrap this mother up already!  The only villains left are Wendy and Reiner, and the latter should be very easily dispatched.

Speaking of Wendy, she's desperate, so she calls Washington, not knowing that Armin is dead, and Sam takes his time telling her.  Gone is her protector, so now she's can't be easily picked off too, unless of course she has a last-minute change of heart.  Sam warns her that her only chance is to cozy up to Robert.  "You cannot win, you can only bring chaos," he says frankly.

I cannot tell you where there is a really long section of the main family's reconciliation, all silent footage so justify the orchestra's salary.  Wasted time is the last thing we need at this point.  It ends with some pat dialogue between Cindy that Kris that leads to a passionate kiss (the first time in this whole miniseries we've seen a hint of romance--we can't count Lara and Don or Mariel and Sam, those are just immature).

At a meeting of the rebel alliances, it sounds like a prize fight of howling and arguing.  It all quiets down so Kris can deliver a big speech reviewing his life and how he feels.  "I was afraid they would take away what I held in my heart," he tells the rapt audience.  He then thanks everyone who has faith in him because "I lost my fear" due to it.  There isn't miniseries cliche he doesn't use, whether it's about his renewed energy, the teachings of his his sister, reuniting with his son, but it keeps coming back to how he no longer has fear.  He even brings up the Founding Fathers.  "We're the result.  The dream didn't die with them.  It lives in us.  I can't...I won't...abandon that legacy.  America's not a flag or a piece of territory, it's each one of us, in here, around the country, that's what America is.  How can we give it up?" he rambles to the crowd, and that's only a snippet of a monologue that must have involved dozens of cue cards.

Now the music booms as the exiles follow Kris into town.  They should not be in any danger, because Sam's orders were not to engage in battles unless attacked.  However, Kris waves a white flag, everyone puts their hands on their heads and they "surrender." They all hide out, ready for a battle the next days with reinforcements due to arrive the next day.  For some reason, that night, they all sit in a field and Mariel leads them in a songfest of "Blue Skies."  If they were going for Irving Berlin, why not "God Bless America?"  It's also sweet that every since person knows the lyrics.

A bunch of the team blows up the barracks and vehicles.  Snipers from buildings around the rebels do a lot of damage, but the soldiers in tanks are also able to inflict much damage as well.  Now it's all-out war.  The Soviets have might on their side.  Sam is worried Kris is a "loose cannon," so his soldiers need to be careful.  Trying figure out which forces are good and which are bad is almost impossible to follow, but we're clear that the exiles and pals are still staging guerrilla sorties and blowing up all they can.

Christine is helpful because she's been inside the barracks.  As she attempts to open his safe, Reiner shows up. He kills her cohort and is about to do the same thing to her, but she reaches for a gun and shoots him in the throat.

Just as Kris is about to broadcast their successes to others around the country, Robert comes storming in telling him not to do it.  They argue a bit and then we hear a gunshot.  From the look on Robert's face, it's clear he gave someone the order to kill Kris.  That makes him even worse than Wendy, so a character we thought was noble ended up being a collaborationist.  Nearly every character, including Sam from a little distance away, is there are Kris' family with American flag draped on it.  Kelly does a eulogy about how much his father affected him, though Kelly didn't really know him longer than a few days.

The main reason that "Amerika" sags as much as it does is an overabundance of characters with nothing to do (the easiest acting gigs most of these folks ever had).  Even the leads disappear for huge amounts of time.  No one really has a plot.  The Soviets we meet aren't all that bad (except when killing Congress) and frankly, it's hard to describe the whiny Nebraska gang as heroic.  Of course, in a piece like this, we need to have oodles of characters because we're talking about more than just a small town's reaction to a world-altering event.  But, with characters this wishy-washy or underused, "Amerika" hardly seems like a place anyone would want to control.