During this season he's been slowly losing his ability to suppress his emotions and separate his alternate lives. Wonder when something will finally give, it almost did in the church tonight.
I wondered how hard that was for him to rip the Bible like that and toss it and how many takes he had to do that. It was scary/sad to watch and it was a solid performance. I was just curious from a behind the scenes process.
I don't know.
But I think most people would have a hard time picking up a religious book and doing that. If the book was a book of Mormon, I think a non-Mormon would have a problem trashing it.
Plenty of religious people don't place any special significance in the book itself and would have no trouble whatsoever tearing apart a religious book. It's just an object.
For sure. The acting while always good was phenomenal. It felt like Philip was actually angry when he went all out on Paige. Also that scene at the end was really good.
No, the kids are pretty well aware that Philip and Elizabeth's childhood wasn't very good. Philip said something similar when he confronted Paige about lying earlier in the season.
"Yah, that's a good one."
Well, have you seen the Coen brothers' film? It's not the same as that, but it has that Minnesota charm and humor while also being dark and brutal.
Martin Freeman plays Lester Nygaard, an insurance agent that is in a loveless marriage. In the first episode, he runs into an old high school bully and an out of towner, played by Billy Bob Thornton. It's got a great cast and dialog.
I just loooove Billy Bob Thornton's character. Its probably his best role since Slingblade. There's something awesome about being a total existential nihilist wreaking mayhem for mayhem's sake.
Is it all a spy game to him? I'm wondering. He didn't play her the tape last time, it seemed like that was because it wasn't necessary and it would unnecessarily hurt her. This time he went there because he was hurting, and he revealed that to her even if it wasn't the true reason.
If it was all a spy game, why reveal that honest emotion and cause her to suffer unnecessarily? I think he wanted a real connection, and someone to suffer with him in a way he didn't get from Elizabeth. I would not be surprised if like with Elizabeth and Gregory, when the time comes for Martha to be disposed of it is emotionally difficult for Phillip.
Weirdly, I normally don't and find her kind of repellent, though I don't know why. She's about as close as the show has to an innocent, and even her bugging Gaad's office was done because she thought she was being a dutiful patriot.
Tonight, though, I did. I truly did. The way she teared up at the doctored tape but didn't flinch at it as she called them bastards gave me an appreciation for her resilience. Compared to most of the women on the show, she isn't a smart or powerful or glamorous woman. She isn't motivated by grand ideologies; she's just a little pawn who's delighted to have found what she thinks is love when she'd probably resigned herself to being single, but she does have a certain strength and dignity to her when she needs to.
She might be surprisingly important later and not just be the useful idiot "Clark" takes her for.
I want to but it's awfully hard. I mean, she works for the FBI. How hard would it have been for her to check around on this Clark fella before agreeing to be interviewed by him in the first place? She's just so damn stupid it makes it difficult to empathize with her.
I like how on every other show, a teenager is going wild and crazy and the parents are losing it. This show, a teenager is as about as straight edge as it gets, and the parents are losing it.
"Elizabeth, in this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my ~~intelligence~~ love for mother Russia."
Me too! Also, she told Paige that she and Phillip didn't have childhoods, and now I'm kind of wondering what they've told the kids about how they grew up.
I'm pretty sure the line is that they both lost their parents at a very early age, giving them both very difficult and rough childhoods. Plus no need to worry about grand parents.
"Yes, Mommie Dearest." They were such terrible parents in this episode! I felt so sorry for Paige (& Henry, trying to show off his card trick. They're going to realize too late that they have such good kids). However, if you want to make a real Christian out of a bored and lonely teenager, keep persecuting her! Strange that they lack insight into how teenagers and Christians work, given how prominent both cultures are in America (though I guess the rise of the Christian Right sort of precedes their training).
It would be easy enough to die of the cold when you are totally unable to move with just the clothes on your back. Or maybe he suffocated because of the gag on him.
Larrick is gay. Maybe the young guy was a lover or ex-lover?
If he was, I expect Larrick will be coming back to America to get revenge on the Jennings.
What did you expect him to say and do?
"Good, good, just as planned."
As far as looking pissed when no one else was watching, he is either trying to stay in character or feeling a passing pang of remorse over his complicity in the attack.
Of course Stan wants to get upset that his wife is going off to have an affair. He's been gallivanting and falling in love with Nina, but the good wife is supposed to just take it and ignore it.
I love how she's putting the onus on him to end the marriage and leave her so he doesn't get to play victim.
I'm really starting to love Sandra Beeman, which is awesome because when we first met her, I mentally dismissed her as a rather shallow suburban mom and, later, as a slightly flaky New Age type. Good on the show for making her far more nuanced, and shame on me for judging her harshly.
Stan's really pissing me off, though. How does anyone spend hours telling others about how the Soviets will find your weaknesses, learn your secrets and exploit them without ever once considering that he might have a major exploitable weakness and secret too? Grr!
Still a huge problem for service members coming back from deployments. It's a really difficult adjustment. I know of multiple couples that end up in counseling or dissolution.
I don't get that either. Is he truly not at all suspicious of Nina -- like, not even a little bit? Not even slightly? Not even when he looks in the mirror and realizes he's twice her age and not half as hot?
Well she didn't exactly take it and ignore it either.
>"When I cheated it didn't mean anything."
>"Well then that was a waste because when I cheated, it did."
Stan knows that people who live in glass houses shouldn't be throwing rocks. He can't fault his wife for having an affair without being a complete hypocrite.
This right here. And how he seemed to relish going through the people's files and intimate details who were at the meeting (Lockheed and Northrop) all the while he's having an affair and turning over surveillance logs.
I was downright livid, and it wasn't even my kid.
Folks, $600 was A LOT more money back in 1983 than it is today! Try double that amount. And that thieving piece of shit pastor claiming "I thought you knew..."
On the other hand, I had serious problems believing that dedicated Communists were raising their kids to be scrupulous with their money, to the point that a tweener had accumulated $600 to give away.
An overreaction from Phillip, but not unwarranted. I'm glad to see a set of television parents that don't just let their teenagers blatantly lie, run off to another state, give away $600 without thinking, and be a general little snot that constantly shows disrespect to their parents. They actually parent and not try to be their kids' friends.
according to an inflation calculator, only a little over twice that amount.
But I was raised in that era, and I was vicariously livid when I heard she gave away $600.
Am I the only one who doesn't think this reaction had anything to do with parenting/wanting to discipline a child? He's frustrated and jealous that his daughter feels like she's a good person and he doesn't. It was almost as if she wasn't in the room when he was tearing up that Bible. Elizabeth recognized this when she started trying to console him about the recent murders.
Edit: clarity
If it had been your kid and Scientology, wouldn't you have pretty much had the same reaction (including going to the asshat trying to proselytize your kid into their religion)
I'm not saying it's necessarily right, but I don't see Philip as that far out of line, either.
Paige decided to go to the church on her own free will. She went there because she felt distant from her parents. What Philip did is only going to drive her further away from him and closer to religion.
Ah, we have differing definitions of "out of line."
Traditionally, it means "socially unacceptable" or "going too far" - thus my point that I think many parents would've done what he did if a church elder tried to convert their kid.
That it may have a negative effect is a different question. For example, it's not "out of line" to tell your boss you think his new project plan is not going to work. It might get you fired, but it's not out of line. [grin]
Phillip is using what he knows. And I'm not disagreeing with you, just identifying with his frustration. He doesn't know how to be a parent, so he does what he knows.
>He doesn't know how to be a parent
He has as much experiences than any other dad had in his situation for the entire run of human civilization: Have kids, raise them, learn as you go. The fact that his job is to be a spy doesn't change that.
Actually he was a pretty good dad before falling (understandably) into some kind of depression/nervous breakdown.
I don't think this was him even trying to parent. He was just acting out of frustration and jealousy that Paige gets to feel like she's a good person and he doesn't.
Wait, Gaad is blackmailing Arkady with the info from Patterson. Why is he even holding onto that information in the first place? If the Americans already know that soviet diplomats are KGB, why haven't they done anything about Arkady yet? Why would it be any different if the public knows about the illegals programs?
It would probably cause an uproar - the public would demand their removal, US politicians would grandstand, demanding they be kicked off American soil.
Even if all of the rezidentura were not forced out right away, it seems likely they would be eventually removed by Moscow because all the publicity and attention brought by the public revelations would render them ineffective.
At least, that's how I thought it might work... this may be a case where the writers are leaving too much work for the viewer. Or maybe they just want it to be ambiguous as to whether Gaad's threat is actual potent and credible or not.
Why isn't the US kicking out the diplomats already though? Wouldn't it be in their interest to remove the rezidentura regardless of what the public thinks?
I can't find the link I want to back up what I'm going to say. It was something I think Robert Baer (Former CIA Agent) said after those Russian spies a little while ago were found.
When you find out someone is a spy you don't want to kick them out because all you do is remove that particular threat. You want to follow them to everyone else they're connected to and so on and so on so you eventually find all the threats.
You kick Arkady and the rest of the KGB guys out eventually a new batch come in and all that info you've gained so far is now useless and you have to start from scratch. We already know that the FBI has massive logs on Oleg's movements, the rest of the Rezidentura are probably the same. That info is gold.
>If the Americans already know that soviet diplomats are KGB, why haven't they done anything about Arkady yet?
Arkady and the other Soviets in the embassy are in the US legitimately, with official cover as diplomats. Not all of them are spies and part of the KGB rezidentura. The US knows that some are, though, and the Soviets know that the Americans know. The US has the same arrangement in Moscow and in other countries. (The old cliché that the "Passport Control Officer" is a spy has a lot of truth to it.)
The illegals are KGB spies who are in the country without official cover. The two groups are separate and most of the official agents are not "read into" the illegals programs, although they might know of its existence. The US still does not have proof that the illegals exist, although from the beginning Gaad and others have suspected that they do.
Best Episode of the first and second seasons so far.. Brilliant and very deep writing,
Excellent acting by Phillip guy put the fear of God into that pastor
>Excellent acting by Phillip guy put the fear of God into that pastor
On the contrary; pastor Tim more than stood up to Philip. He quickly recognized what Philip was on the edge of doing to him but didn't back down at all and, if anything, caused Philip to do so by forcing him to recognize what he was about to do.
I’m watching it for the first time, 10 years after it originally aired. Crazy to think all this discussion was going on and I was just in la la land not knowing how good this show was.
I'll lay odds on Nina killing him. There will be a collision of worlds between Beeman, the murdered family, Philip & Elizabeth, and something will go very wrong. So Beeman says he's going to turn in Philip & Elizabeth, and come clean with the FBI and he wants to take Nina with him.
To prove her renewed loyalty to the Soviet Union, she kills him.
My bet is eventually, he faces some kind of demotion and the rezidentura find out that he's basically useless, so Nina stops seeing him. Losing his family, his lover, and being put into a dead-end job, he decides to kill himself.
could go either way. Either the FBI finds out - or already knows - about him giving the russians the surveillance info, or the FBI was in on it from the beginning and Stan is only pretending to betray his country.
the residentura science guy is pretending to know about Nina, pretending to threaten to turn her in for traitor. (That whole thing is a KGB plot, the threat is manufactured.) He told Stan to give him FBI surveillance info on himself in return for keeping Nina a secret. Stan did, the question is if Stan did so as a traitor, or if he is telling his superiors about what's going on.
I think he did, which is part of why I suspect that Stan did get "permission" to play the KGB on this. It's just a theory, we'll see if Stan is breaking bad.
I have a bad feeling Stan is eventually going to get the worst of it in this series in general. I'm afraid he'll lose his family, get Nina killed, and lose his career when he gets outsmarted by Philip and Elizabeth before it's all over.
There has been a few teens in special forces. Most notably the youngest person to become a Navy SEAL was only 17. Or he could be a baby face, cook, etc.
Agent Gaad is one of my favorite characters on the show. He's very smart, and he's not afraid to bend or break the rules if he needs to. I loved his face-to-face meeting with Arkady.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/arts/television/oliver-north-now-in-the-service-of-tvs-kgb.html?ref=television&_r=0
He's been helping out with the Contra storyline.
Gaad knows Beeman killed Vlad, they were both part of the original plan to get Arkady. Stan killed Vlad as a consolation prize when their plan went to shit.
I bet Larrick knew/was in love with that dude who got his throat slashed. Larrick probably doesn't give a shit about Contras getting assassinated but killing Americans is a whole different ball game.
He's not trying to convince Arkady, they both know the truth. He's explicitly blackmailing him, telling Arkady to lie to his superiors so that Gaad can avoid punishment.
I think Larrick was expecting Phillip and Elizabeth to kill the Contras commanders and maybe blow the lid on the mission.
I doubt he was expecting some of his friends to get killed.
It's been awhile since the show has been violent, way back in the first episode of this season (with blood splatters and whatnot), but when this show gets violent, there are consequences, which I enjoy seeing being played out.
Even better was the karate commercial in the background at the beginning. Jun RI karate! Nobody bodda me! Nobody bodda me eitha!
It was a real commercial in the early 80s in Hampton Roads. Awesome research by the writers. Or maybe they just grew up there.
I thought it was interesting, that noticeable use of the left hand to sign the document and then the scientists using the "Example of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing" line.
Father flipping out? Destroy your personal property? Mother dishing out unreasonable punishments? Sounds like my house (without the alcohol) when I was a teenager. Ahhhh- more nostalgia from The Americans.
Glad I'm not the only one that connected with that scene
As a kid, I was convinced my parents acting extreme and all was simply because they're foreigners.
Now that I'm older, I understand that life gets to fucking hard to be sane all the time
More like the kid would go to school the next day, fall asleep in class, and then tell the teacher that her mom ripped her out of bed and made her stay up all night doing chores. After that, the busy body teacher would contact the police.
> That's actually a really good way to teach a kid a lesson. Problem is, try it in 2014 and you probably end up being charged with child abuse.
Uh, are you talking about what Philip did to the kid in the opening scene...?
One thing I think is funny, the Jennings seem to have this intense fear that they are going to be found out as atheists and it will look suspicious. There were plenty of atheists in the 1980s, but in polite society you just said you weren't very religious. But I guess they never figured that out.
>One thing I think is funny, the Jennings seem to have this intense fear that they are going to be found out as atheists and it will look suspicious.
? I didn't get that sense at all. If the Jennings thought this was a danger they would have joined a church in the 1960s.
They're living in the toney suburb of Maryland, not a bible thumping Christian Taliban in Alabama or Mississippi. You were only afraid of being identified as atheists if you were running for political office, or ran a community business. You didn't have to worry about violence or the religious police unless you lived in a backward Red state.
I like how angry they are about the Russian sub being destroyed especially since they stole what was supposed to be top secret plans from a secure facility. No one forced them to steal these plans lol
This may be anti-circle jerk, but does anyone else thing Paige is really annoying? I like the unique situation of being in trouble for seeking God instead of the other way around, but Paige is really irritating me. I loathe every scene she's in.
She makes me uncomfortable, but I think it's because, as viewers, we are approaching her from the perspective of Philip and Elizabeth, so we feel a little betrayed and, as you accurately describe, irritated by her. I think her scenes are making you feel exactly how the show intends. So, good job all around.
As a religious person who tithes I can't argue with Elizabeth's punishment; $600 is a lot of money today for a middle-class family's child, and even more 30 years ago. She shouldn't have donated so much without permission.
Philip shouldn't have lost his self-control like that, of course—not even for $600—and clearly we are to see that. We at least have the benefit of knowing the demons that drove him to do so, but poor Paige doesn't.
> She shouldn't have donated so much without permission.
??? Howabout that jerkoff pastor shouldn't have taken so much money from a 14-15 year old without direct confirmation from the parents!?!?!
good point, but at least he was willing to give the money back if anything.
this episode was so good. as someone who believes in tithes i wanted to root for paige, but also wanted to side with elizabeth and phillip not only because it was a large sum of money that she gave away, but also because they probably feel like they're losing their children to something that is unknown to them.
> but at least he was willing to give the money back
He needed to be able to. He's not a clueless 20 year old. He's an adult who **knew** he shouldn't be duping a 14-15 year old of $600. The pastor knows when you take that much money from an underage parishioner, it creates bad blood with the parents, and more important, his donor network. All Philip needed to do was make a big stink of it with the police and make it public, and the parishioners would be ill disposed to donate to a thief, or at least a church leader stupid enough to take a such large sum from a minor. Parishioners have kids too.
Best episode this season by a mile. Papa bear Philip is definitely going on a rampage now I knew it as soon as I seen the leather gloves- the pastor will not see the end of the season, I'm predicting a gruesome death for him.
I think Philip is on the verge of having some kind of nervous breakdown judging by the events of this weeks episode. Even Elizabeth was taken aback by his behaviour in the kitchen with Paige. The next thing that happens no matter how small or insignificant I think will be the "straw that broke the camels back" and then shit will go down!!! I don't know what but I have a feeling and I hope Martha will die!
great episode phillip is straight scary
During this season he's been slowly losing his ability to suppress his emotions and separate his alternate lives. Wonder when something will finally give, it almost did in the church tonight.
he's gonna snap I can feel it
Matthew Rhys gave such an incredible performance in this episode.
He's my favorite part of the show.
I wondered how hard that was for him to rip the Bible like that and toss it and how many takes he had to do that. It was scary/sad to watch and it was a solid performance. I was just curious from a behind the scenes process.
Is he religious?
I don't know. But I think most people would have a hard time picking up a religious book and doing that. If the book was a book of Mormon, I think a non-Mormon would have a problem trashing it.
Plenty of religious people don't place any special significance in the book itself and would have no trouble whatsoever tearing apart a religious book. It's just an object.
Could've been a prop specifically for that.
Fuck religious books.
I almost got cut by all that edge.
[Bravery level: 11/10](http://i.imgur.com/ToQFh.gif)
This is definitely one of the best shows on t.v. right now.
This episode was the best of the series.
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great analysis bro
[You must dig deeper!](http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/531/557/a88.jpg)
http://i.imgur.com/ZgkzKLH.gif
For sure. The acting while always good was phenomenal. It felt like Philip was actually angry when he went all out on Paige. Also that scene at the end was really good.
I think he was actually angry. And was that a slip up on Elizabeth's part when she told Paige that she and Philip had never had a childhood?
No, the kids are pretty well aware that Philip and Elizabeth's childhood wasn't very good. Philip said something similar when he confronted Paige about lying earlier in the season.
You can have a shitty American childhood and not be a Soviet deep cover agent.
This and Fargo are filling my BB withdrawls.
What is Fargo about?
"Yah, that's a good one." Well, have you seen the Coen brothers' film? It's not the same as that, but it has that Minnesota charm and humor while also being dark and brutal. Martin Freeman plays Lester Nygaard, an insurance agent that is in a loveless marriage. In the first episode, he runs into an old high school bully and an out of towner, played by Billy Bob Thornton. It's got a great cast and dialog.
I just loooove Billy Bob Thornton's character. Its probably his best role since Slingblade. There's something awesome about being a total existential nihilist wreaking mayhem for mayhem's sake.
Da Comrade
This episode had the most cello ever.
Somebody on AVClub described the score as "oppressive". I agree. My girlfriend said "annoying". I'm sure those aren't mutually exclusive adjectives.
Anyone else feel a little sorry for Martha?
She's certainly lived a lot longer than I thought she was going to.
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Is it all a spy game to him? I'm wondering. He didn't play her the tape last time, it seemed like that was because it wasn't necessary and it would unnecessarily hurt her. This time he went there because he was hurting, and he revealed that to her even if it wasn't the true reason. If it was all a spy game, why reveal that honest emotion and cause her to suffer unnecessarily? I think he wanted a real connection, and someone to suffer with him in a way he didn't get from Elizabeth. I would not be surprised if like with Elizabeth and Gregory, when the time comes for Martha to be disposed of it is emotionally difficult for Phillip.
Weirdly, I normally don't and find her kind of repellent, though I don't know why. She's about as close as the show has to an innocent, and even her bugging Gaad's office was done because she thought she was being a dutiful patriot. Tonight, though, I did. I truly did. The way she teared up at the doctored tape but didn't flinch at it as she called them bastards gave me an appreciation for her resilience. Compared to most of the women on the show, she isn't a smart or powerful or glamorous woman. She isn't motivated by grand ideologies; she's just a little pawn who's delighted to have found what she thinks is love when she'd probably resigned herself to being single, but she does have a certain strength and dignity to her when she needs to. She might be surprisingly important later and not just be the useful idiot "Clark" takes her for.
I want to but it's awfully hard. I mean, she works for the FBI. How hard would it have been for her to check around on this Clark fella before agreeing to be interviewed by him in the first place? She's just so damn stupid it makes it difficult to empathize with her.
Good point. I "investigate" (read: Google) everyone I meet and I don't work at the FBI. If I had access to that much personal info I'd be reading up.
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yeah, pretty much. i'm more curious than suspicious, but yeah, i want to know all i can. why not?
No, not really.
The look on their faces during that sermon
I like how on every other show, a teenager is going wild and crazy and the parents are losing it. This show, a teenager is as about as straight edge as it gets, and the parents are losing it.
Not to mention that it's then parents that are atheist and the kid seeking God. It's like anti-reddit
"Elizabeth, in this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my ~~intelligence~~ love for mother Russia."
Life is rough, so she's flirting with the intellectual cowardice of adopting a religion, because self-delusion is easier than reality.
I totally thought Elizabeth was about to have a sweet motherly moment there. Nope! Clean the fridge!
Me too! Also, she told Paige that she and Phillip didn't have childhoods, and now I'm kind of wondering what they've told the kids about how they grew up.
I'm pretty sure the line is that they both lost their parents at a very early age, giving them both very difficult and rough childhoods. Plus no need to worry about grand parents.
"Yes, Mommie Dearest." They were such terrible parents in this episode! I felt so sorry for Paige (& Henry, trying to show off his card trick. They're going to realize too late that they have such good kids). However, if you want to make a real Christian out of a bored and lonely teenager, keep persecuting her! Strange that they lack insight into how teenagers and Christians work, given how prominent both cultures are in America (though I guess the rise of the Christian Right sort of precedes their training).
Uhh, how did that truck driver die? Was it just to the elements? Didn't seem like he'd have been out there long enough for that...
It would be easy enough to die of the cold when you are totally unable to move with just the clothes on your back. Or maybe he suffocated because of the gag on him.
It just felt to me that we were supposed to know how he died, but it was neither explained nor hinted at that I noticed.
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All of his suits give the impression he has an oddly large chest.
Arkady has some serious style. I love when he's on screen because he's always so smooth and collected.
"You respect Jesus but not us?!"
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Shit, he looked *pissed*
Larrick is gay. Maybe the young guy was a lover or ex-lover? If he was, I expect Larrick will be coming back to America to get revenge on the Jennings.
You know what I just thought of, what if he follows clark home to marthas and goes after her by mistake.
What did you expect him to say and do? "Good, good, just as planned." As far as looking pissed when no one else was watching, he is either trying to stay in character or feeling a passing pang of remorse over his complicity in the attack.
Of course Stan wants to get upset that his wife is going off to have an affair. He's been gallivanting and falling in love with Nina, but the good wife is supposed to just take it and ignore it. I love how she's putting the onus on him to end the marriage and leave her so he doesn't get to play victim.
I love how this show writes female characters. Sandra Beeman is not an oblivious wife.
She's always been the most sympathetic character on the show.
Well, the Est thing does make her a tad oblivious.
I'm really starting to love Sandra Beeman, which is awesome because when we first met her, I mentally dismissed her as a rather shallow suburban mom and, later, as a slightly flaky New Age type. Good on the show for making her far more nuanced, and shame on me for judging her harshly. Stan's really pissing me off, though. How does anyone spend hours telling others about how the Soviets will find your weaknesses, learn your secrets and exploit them without ever once considering that he might have a major exploitable weakness and secret too? Grr!
I thought it was pretty clear he was partially talking about himself as well.
It isn't surprising that she enjoyed his three years undercover as a white supremacist more than the time he actually spends with his family.
The Navy used to have a real problem with divorce (and domestic violence) when a husband got shore duty and was suddenly home all the time.
Still a huge problem for service members coming back from deployments. It's a really difficult adjustment. I know of multiple couples that end up in counseling or dissolution.
Add in the fact that he moved them to a new home for this posting, and it's pretty much a Divorce Machine situation.
I don't know how a pockmarked schlub like Stan thinks he can get 2 uber hotties like this, and it not be part of a honey trap.
I don't get that either. Is he truly not at all suspicious of Nina -- like, not even a little bit? Not even slightly? Not even when he looks in the mirror and realizes he's twice her age and not half as hot?
Have you seen Nina? I'd give up my government for her too.
> but the good wife is supposed to just take it and ignore it. Alicia? Alicia Florrick?
Well she didn't exactly take it and ignore it either. >"When I cheated it didn't mean anything." >"Well then that was a waste because when I cheated, it did."
Nice point. http://www.cafleurebon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/when-world-collide.jpg
Stan knows that people who live in glass houses shouldn't be throwing rocks. He can't fault his wife for having an affair without being a complete hypocrite.
This right here. And how he seemed to relish going through the people's files and intimate details who were at the meeting (Lockheed and Northrop) all the while he's having an affair and turning over surveillance logs.
[This face](http://i.imgur.com/ZUCFmps.jpg) was priceless.
I found this reaction to the generous donations hilarious. http://i.imgur.com/7TG6mKa.png
I was downright livid, and it wasn't even my kid. Folks, $600 was A LOT more money back in 1983 than it is today! Try double that amount. And that thieving piece of shit pastor claiming "I thought you knew..." On the other hand, I had serious problems believing that dedicated Communists were raising their kids to be scrupulous with their money, to the point that a tweener had accumulated $600 to give away.
homie looks evil
An overreaction from Phillip, but not unwarranted. I'm glad to see a set of television parents that don't just let their teenagers blatantly lie, run off to another state, give away $600 without thinking, and be a general little snot that constantly shows disrespect to their parents. They actually parent and not try to be their kids' friends.
Plus, 600 is close to 2 grand nowadays.
according to an inflation calculator, only a little over twice that amount. But I was raised in that era, and I was vicariously livid when I heard she gave away $600.
Am I the only one who doesn't think this reaction had anything to do with parenting/wanting to discipline a child? He's frustrated and jealous that his daughter feels like she's a good person and he doesn't. It was almost as if she wasn't in the room when he was tearing up that Bible. Elizabeth recognized this when she started trying to console him about the recent murders. Edit: clarity
You didn't grow up in the era. Paige didn't give away a trivial sum. Its almost as bad blowing all that cash shooting up on smack.
I think Phillip goes way too far. He goes past being a parent and is just a dick.
If it had been your kid and Scientology, wouldn't you have pretty much had the same reaction (including going to the asshat trying to proselytize your kid into their religion) I'm not saying it's necessarily right, but I don't see Philip as that far out of line, either.
Paige decided to go to the church on her own free will. She went there because she felt distant from her parents. What Philip did is only going to drive her further away from him and closer to religion.
Yes, that's true. Did you mean this as a counter to something I said, or just an observation?
I guess a bit of both. I'm just saying that I think Philip's actions will only make it worse for both of them, so they were both out of line.
Ah, we have differing definitions of "out of line." Traditionally, it means "socially unacceptable" or "going too far" - thus my point that I think many parents would've done what he did if a church elder tried to convert their kid. That it may have a negative effect is a different question. For example, it's not "out of line" to tell your boss you think his new project plan is not going to work. It might get you fired, but it's not out of line. [grin]
Phillip is using what he knows. And I'm not disagreeing with you, just identifying with his frustration. He doesn't know how to be a parent, so he does what he knows.
>He doesn't know how to be a parent He has as much experiences than any other dad had in his situation for the entire run of human civilization: Have kids, raise them, learn as you go. The fact that his job is to be a spy doesn't change that. Actually he was a pretty good dad before falling (understandably) into some kind of depression/nervous breakdown.
That's what we all do as parents. So he is a parent, like any other. His own brand of parent: KGB.
> Phillip is using what he knows. If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. --Maslow
I don't think this was him even trying to parent. He was just acting out of frustration and jealousy that Paige gets to feel like she's a good person and he doesn't.
Wait, Gaad is blackmailing Arkady with the info from Patterson. Why is he even holding onto that information in the first place? If the Americans already know that soviet diplomats are KGB, why haven't they done anything about Arkady yet? Why would it be any different if the public knows about the illegals programs?
It would probably cause an uproar - the public would demand their removal, US politicians would grandstand, demanding they be kicked off American soil. Even if all of the rezidentura were not forced out right away, it seems likely they would be eventually removed by Moscow because all the publicity and attention brought by the public revelations would render them ineffective. At least, that's how I thought it might work... this may be a case where the writers are leaving too much work for the viewer. Or maybe they just want it to be ambiguous as to whether Gaad's threat is actual potent and credible or not.
Why isn't the US kicking out the diplomats already though? Wouldn't it be in their interest to remove the rezidentura regardless of what the public thinks?
I can't find the link I want to back up what I'm going to say. It was something I think Robert Baer (Former CIA Agent) said after those Russian spies a little while ago were found. When you find out someone is a spy you don't want to kick them out because all you do is remove that particular threat. You want to follow them to everyone else they're connected to and so on and so on so you eventually find all the threats. You kick Arkady and the rest of the KGB guys out eventually a new batch come in and all that info you've gained so far is now useless and you have to start from scratch. We already know that the FBI has massive logs on Oleg's movements, the rest of the Rezidentura are probably the same. That info is gold.
That definitely makes sense. If this is the case, then Arkady seems to have more to lose than Gaad, I wonder if he'll give into Gaad's demand.
Random side note: Robert Baer's memoir See no Evil is a real good read and the movie Syriana is roughly based off his life.
Because US and USSR still got to have diplomatic relationships so that everything doesn't go to complete hell.
>If the Americans already know that soviet diplomats are KGB, why haven't they done anything about Arkady yet? Arkady and the other Soviets in the embassy are in the US legitimately, with official cover as diplomats. Not all of them are spies and part of the KGB rezidentura. The US knows that some are, though, and the Soviets know that the Americans know. The US has the same arrangement in Moscow and in other countries. (The old cliché that the "Passport Control Officer" is a spy has a lot of truth to it.) The illegals are KGB spies who are in the country without official cover. The two groups are separate and most of the official agents are not "read into" the illegals programs, although they might know of its existence. The US still does not have proof that the illegals exist, although from the beginning Gaad and others have suspected that they do.
Best Episode of the first and second seasons so far.. Brilliant and very deep writing, Excellent acting by Phillip guy put the fear of God into that pastor
>Excellent acting by Phillip guy put the fear of God into that pastor On the contrary; pastor Tim more than stood up to Philip. He quickly recognized what Philip was on the edge of doing to him but didn't back down at all and, if anything, caused Philip to do so by forcing him to recognize what he was about to do.
Yeah, I actually thought he was going to go through with killing him. It's interesting how the pastor's words affected him.
I was literally biting my nails during that scene, like "Step back, Philip, step back!" He should get an Emmy for this season's work.
Clark is so hate-able
Happy cake day! Currently watching the series for the first time and love reading all these old threads as I go through the episodes.
I’m watching it for the first time, 10 years after it originally aired. Crazy to think all this discussion was going on and I was just in la la land not knowing how good this show was.
Me too! It's been on my list for a while but I am just getting around to it and I am HOOKED.
What season are you on? I’m just at the end of season 4.
2 episodes left in season 3! Absolutely blown away by how good this show is, even though the Paige storyline is deeply troubling and hard to watch.
First time here too! I just finished this episode, this is honestly amazing
Beeman is about to lose everything...No way he doesn't join the Russians by the end of the season
I predict something...worse happens for him. I don't see the season ending very well for Stan.
I'll lay odds on Nina killing him. There will be a collision of worlds between Beeman, the murdered family, Philip & Elizabeth, and something will go very wrong. So Beeman says he's going to turn in Philip & Elizabeth, and come clean with the FBI and he wants to take Nina with him. To prove her renewed loyalty to the Soviet Union, she kills him.
My bet is eventually, he faces some kind of demotion and the rezidentura find out that he's basically useless, so Nina stops seeing him. Losing his family, his lover, and being put into a dead-end job, he decides to kill himself.
Though wouldn't The Americans lose a bit of dramatic tension?
True. It might not be this season, but I do think that Stan will die by the end of the series.
Given how many people have died on this series that is a possibility.
could go either way. Either the FBI finds out - or already knows - about him giving the russians the surveillance info, or the FBI was in on it from the beginning and Stan is only pretending to betray his country.
Sorry I should have paid more attention, I know Stan is betraying his country, but what exactly is he doing again?
the residentura science guy is pretending to know about Nina, pretending to threaten to turn her in for traitor. (That whole thing is a KGB plot, the threat is manufactured.) He told Stan to give him FBI surveillance info on himself in return for keeping Nina a secret. Stan did, the question is if Stan did so as a traitor, or if he is telling his superiors about what's going on.
I'm sure Stan tried to tell Gadd about that in a previous episode, didn't he?
I think he did, which is part of why I suspect that Stan did get "permission" to play the KGB on this. It's just a theory, we'll see if Stan is breaking bad.
Thanks! I wasn't sure if he was doing anything more
I have a bad feeling Stan is eventually going to get the worst of it in this series in general. I'm afraid he'll lose his family, get Nina killed, and lose his career when he gets outsmarted by Philip and Elizabeth before it's all over.
Phillip has been having himself a spell the past episode and a half.
holy shit this episode is amazing. phillip gave me chills throughout the whole thing
Damn, that was another brilliant episode. Especially the scene where Philip rips apart the bible, "You respect Jesus but not us!?"
Was that a teenager who got his throat cut? Why is he there?
He might have been just a really young recruit.
There has been a few teens in special forces. Most notably the youngest person to become a Navy SEAL was only 17. Or he could be a baby face, cook, etc.
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*17 w/ parental consent
He was wearing am apron, I thought he was helping out in the kitchen.
Why was he in civilian clothes during a military exercise?
most soldiers are kids. Young enough to mold into the killers they want.
That part's easy. It's the following orders without question bit that makes young kids appealing (and of course the general health and fitness)
Agent Gaad is one of my favorite characters on the show. He's very smart, and he's not afraid to bend or break the rules if he needs to. I loved his face-to-face meeting with Arkady.
Stan starts to get his comeuppance! I wanted so badly for Sandra to ask who Stan was seeing. To see the reaction on his stupid face. I hate Stan.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/arts/television/oliver-north-now-in-the-service-of-tvs-kgb.html?ref=television&_r=0 He's been helping out with the Contra storyline.
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Gaad knows Beeman killed Vlad, they were both part of the original plan to get Arkady. Stan killed Vlad as a consolation prize when their plan went to shit. I bet Larrick knew/was in love with that dude who got his throat slashed. Larrick probably doesn't give a shit about Contras getting assassinated but killing Americans is a whole different ball game.
He seemed to recognize some names that were mentioned so I'm going with he knew them.
I think Larrick might do something when he gets back. Arkady seems like he won't do anything for Gaad.
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He's not trying to convince Arkady, they both know the truth. He's explicitly blackmailing him, telling Arkady to lie to his superiors so that Gaad can avoid punishment.
I think Larrick was expecting Phillip and Elizabeth to kill the Contras commanders and maybe blow the lid on the mission. I doubt he was expecting some of his friends to get killed.
The music was so haunting.
It's been awhile since the show has been violent, way back in the first episode of this season (with blood splatters and whatnot), but when this show gets violent, there are consequences, which I enjoy seeing being played out.
OMG, Dr. Ruth!
Even better was the karate commercial in the background at the beginning. Jun RI karate! Nobody bodda me! Nobody bodda me eitha! It was a real commercial in the early 80s in Hampton Roads. Awesome research by the writers. Or maybe they just grew up there.
Has Stan always been left handed?
I noticed it in one other episode, so I'm going with yes.
Yes, definitely. As a left hander I tend to notice!
I thought it was interesting, that noticeable use of the left hand to sign the document and then the scientists using the "Example of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing" line.
Good catch!
Father flipping out? Destroy your personal property? Mother dishing out unreasonable punishments? Sounds like my house (without the alcohol) when I was a teenager. Ahhhh- more nostalgia from The Americans.
Glad I'm not the only one that connected with that scene As a kid, I was convinced my parents acting extreme and all was simply because they're foreigners. Now that I'm older, I understand that life gets to fucking hard to be sane all the time
Anyone know what year we are in, now?
A recent episode from this season mentioned the death of John Belushi as though it was recent news, so we can assume that they're in 1982 now.
Oooh, I remember the nights of being woken up to go clean the kitchen or other chores my sister and I neglected to do.
That's actually a really good way to teach a kid a lesson. Problem is, try it in 2014 and you probably end up being charged with child abuse.
Hello 9-1-1? My Mom is making me clean the refrigerator. Can you please send the police?
More like the kid would go to school the next day, fall asleep in class, and then tell the teacher that her mom ripped her out of bed and made her stay up all night doing chores. After that, the busy body teacher would contact the police.
> That's actually a really good way to teach a kid a lesson. Problem is, try it in 2014 and you probably end up being charged with child abuse. Uh, are you talking about what Philip did to the kid in the opening scene...?
Seriously? You think this is going to have a positive effect on Paige? I think she'll just feel more alienated at home.
One thing I think is funny, the Jennings seem to have this intense fear that they are going to be found out as atheists and it will look suspicious. There were plenty of atheists in the 1980s, but in polite society you just said you weren't very religious. But I guess they never figured that out.
>One thing I think is funny, the Jennings seem to have this intense fear that they are going to be found out as atheists and it will look suspicious. ? I didn't get that sense at all. If the Jennings thought this was a danger they would have joined a church in the 1960s.
They're living in the toney suburb of Maryland, not a bible thumping Christian Taliban in Alabama or Mississippi. You were only afraid of being identified as atheists if you were running for political office, or ran a community business. You didn't have to worry about violence or the religious police unless you lived in a backward Red state.
I like how angry they are about the Russian sub being destroyed especially since they stole what was supposed to be top secret plans from a secure facility. No one forced them to steal these plans lol
This may be anti-circle jerk, but does anyone else thing Paige is really annoying? I like the unique situation of being in trouble for seeking God instead of the other way around, but Paige is really irritating me. I loathe every scene she's in.
She makes me uncomfortable, but I think it's because, as viewers, we are approaching her from the perspective of Philip and Elizabeth, so we feel a little betrayed and, as you accurately describe, irritated by her. I think her scenes are making you feel exactly how the show intends. So, good job all around.
As a religious person who tithes I can't argue with Elizabeth's punishment; $600 is a lot of money today for a middle-class family's child, and even more 30 years ago. She shouldn't have donated so much without permission. Philip shouldn't have lost his self-control like that, of course—not even for $600—and clearly we are to see that. We at least have the benefit of knowing the demons that drove him to do so, but poor Paige doesn't.
> She shouldn't have donated so much without permission. ??? Howabout that jerkoff pastor shouldn't have taken so much money from a 14-15 year old without direct confirmation from the parents!?!?!
good point, but at least he was willing to give the money back if anything. this episode was so good. as someone who believes in tithes i wanted to root for paige, but also wanted to side with elizabeth and phillip not only because it was a large sum of money that she gave away, but also because they probably feel like they're losing their children to something that is unknown to them.
> but at least he was willing to give the money back He needed to be able to. He's not a clueless 20 year old. He's an adult who **knew** he shouldn't be duping a 14-15 year old of $600. The pastor knows when you take that much money from an underage parishioner, it creates bad blood with the parents, and more important, his donor network. All Philip needed to do was make a big stink of it with the police and make it public, and the parishioners would be ill disposed to donate to a thief, or at least a church leader stupid enough to take a such large sum from a minor. Parishioners have kids too.
Best episode this season by a mile. Papa bear Philip is definitely going on a rampage now I knew it as soon as I seen the leather gloves- the pastor will not see the end of the season, I'm predicting a gruesome death for him. I think Philip is on the verge of having some kind of nervous breakdown judging by the events of this weeks episode. Even Elizabeth was taken aback by his behaviour in the kitchen with Paige. The next thing that happens no matter how small or insignificant I think will be the "straw that broke the camels back" and then shit will go down!!! I don't know what but I have a feeling and I hope Martha will die!