I took it to mean that the days of the kids just living in the dark and never questioning anything are over. She didn’t find anything this time, but who knows about the next time? The first hurdle, not completely trusting what mom or dad tell you, has been jumped.
I think it’s also a nod to how good they are a spies that even their little bullshit lies to their kids have a layer protection to them. Kids are curious creatures, though. I’m sure her snooping around will be a point to look out for next season.
I agree about Claudia. In spite of everything she does actually care about her agents. Stan is just too dumb to live, but it’s delightfully ironic that he’s the Jennings’s choice to watch their kids. I wonder if either kid’s going to ask about the great aunt they’ve never heard of. Or do Phillip & Elizabeth tell their kids about fake relatives they never see just in case? :dubious:
Having family back home, who are probably living of generous state pensions, seems like it’d help to ensure agent loyalty. I wonder if the KGB has a back up plan to kidnap the Paige & Henry and ship them to their grandparents if their parents both get caught.
That’s it, Zeldar. You’ve nailed it! I knew there was something just…off about Stan. It’s that I hear Steve Martin, and he has a similar look but not quite right.
…and yes, TonySinclair, he does always seem to be smirking. That kind of adds to the Steve Martin similarity and the uneasy feeling I had about him.
I don’t know, but I hope she sticks around. I like her sexy little beaver teeth.
I think it would be a fascinating storyline if the daughter continues to be too curious. What would happen if she listened in when the parents close the door to their room to talk? Would they get orders to kill the daughter? Would they fear someone else would? Most interesting would be if they decided to recruit her!
I don’t think the KGB on it’s worst day would direct anyone to kill her. They must be alive to the possibility that the kids will find out.
Paige is certainly going to continue to be nosy–she’s aware that something weird is going on, and I doubt she’ll let it drop. I kept waiting for her to notice some scuff marks on the floor from where the washer had been moved, but either she didn’t think to look or there weren’t any.
Good episode, though it felt more like a really solid mid-season episode rather than a finale to me. Loved the Peter Gabriel song.
Watched it last night. Definitely tense to see who was doing what, who would be caught or how they would get away.
Note that the scientist guy is now blown as an asset. Smarmy guy gave him up while they were meeting. He’ll be watched by the FBI if not pulled in. So even though that wasn’t the set up, it’s now a dead lead.
The one thing that was odd to me was when Paige went to Henry to say she had a bad dream, and was going to wake up mom, and Henry said she wasn’t supposed to do that. 
My take away from the final scene is that Paige is suspicious. About what, who knows, she’s just growing up, and maybe it was the relationship stuff with her parents, but she’s scrutinizing them more, and something about Mom being up in the middle of the night doing laundry seeded weird. She probably didn’t have any idea what to look for, and didn’t see anything strange. It just marks that she has a growing suspicion that something is odd. Means they will have to be extra careful from now on.
And I really liked the final song choice and how it matched the jumping around showing all the characters and the games they were playing with each other.
I think the whole point of Nina going back to the house was that they figured she wouldn’t get pulled out, especially if they succeeded in warning the Jennings. If the set up fails, then the FBI still needs Nina as their leak, so she has to be there for Stan.
I’m not sure Nina could have pulled off “No, you can’t pull me out now (even though that’s what I’ve been begging for), I’ve just got the best access for you to get information.” She would either have had to accept and then sneak off at her next opportunity, or get relocated and then eventually get rounded up. I don’t think she would ever make for a good covert plant like the Jennings. The FBI would be keeping tabs on her forever. Basically, if she were pulled out, she would either have to go willingly and be hunted by the KGB, or find a way to slip away and return to the KGB, and then get shipped home to Russia and face punishment. Not good choices for her. Her best option was what happened.
Yes, this was an interesting episode for Claudia. First she goes and executes the CIA guy, telling him about her relationship with the Russian guy. So she really did have a relationship with that guy. Hmmmm. And then she argues with Arkady and defends and protects the Jennings even after they asked for her to be replaced. We see she’s been relaying their concerns and having to defend the Center’s decisions to the Jennings.
Still, her original animosity and tone with them is strange. She seems to feel that they are being coddled. Guess she’s used to the harsh times of Stalingrad.
Nah, they’ll pick up with their return from the visit with the great aunt.
Eh, that’s not that surprising a thing to have some distant relatives the kids have never heard of. I’ve found out as an adult about several relatives I didn’t know about, once there was a reason for them to be brought up.
True, but when you combine that Henry & Paige never having met a single relative of theirs (no grandparents, cousins, etc.) with their parents suddenly disappearing to take care a of relative they never even heard of.
This is a bizarre position to take.
Cassette tapes (and recorders) were ubiquitous in the early 80s. I was a middle-class 11-year-old in 1981, and let me tell you, “hitting the pause button” would have had made perfect sense then (albeit in an awkward, tortured way) just as much as a tivo reference would make sense right now.
Speaking as a kid around the same age as the kids in the show in that year, I would find it strange if those kids weren’t using tape recorders to record their favorite songs off the radio. And you absolutely make liberal use of the pause button when doing that.
Mix tapes were what you made back then. They were so ubiquitous that in a short time they became a cliche in movies. Nobody in the history of cassette tapes ever made a mix tape without liberal use of the pause button.
They’re like 2 years away from the CD player being introduced. Cassette tapes were a mature technology, everyone had them, and everyone was familiar with a pause button. Guys the father’s age would likely be familiar with the concept of the pause button via dictation machines at very least, if not actual cassette tapes themselves. (Of course, dictation machines actually were cassette tapes, just the mini kind.)
I don’t think that was covered in earlier eps. I suppose with all their nocturnal activities, the parents must have convincingly taught the kids that going into their room after hours was verboten.
Didn’t they end it with her still in the room? We could think that she’s just suspicious or that she’s about to really look for something…some might even think that she could conceivably look where the stuff is hidden.
I kind of wish they had made it more likely that she is just very suspicious rather than leave the possibility of a really hoaky result.
I didn’t think it was that ambiguous. They were showing snapshots of people at that time, their interactions and reflecting on the meaning. They showed Martha all googly happy and we’re to reflect on the way she’s being used. Etc. They showed Paige go to her house, deliberately decide to see what her mother could have been up to, go into the laundry room and look around. What does she find? Folded laundry. No signs of anything untoward. She is looking around puzzled, but it’s not like she’s about to start tapping on walls looking for hidden panels. She doesn’t know what to be suspicious for, just felt something was odd with her mother being up doing laundry in the middle of the night. And it fades to black with us reflecting on her beginning suspicion of her parents.
In fact, we saw that grow through the show, with her looks at her parents when they were all sitting on the couch watching TV. There was plenty of foreshadowing that she would go poking around. The point isn’t that she found something yet or was going to find something immediately, just that she’s beginning to grow suspicious that her parents are covering something up, and that will pose a big challenge for the family in the future.
What was odd to me was how many lights were on in the middle of the night without drawing any commentary. Henry apparently had light in his room, light in hallway, lights in Mom’s room, lights in the downstairs area. That didn’t suggest mom was up? All that and Paige was surprised to see her mother coming in from the garage.
SEASON 2
Set your DVRs: the 2014 season of The Americans starts Wednesday February 26.
Just an FYI, another thread was started for this season…
That’s what I get for relying on a stale Google search.
It’s looks like you actually got in first, so you have hat going for you… 
Oh goody. I was wondering if it was coming back.
sorry wrong board