Indeed. He just… gazed.
The biggest plot hole in this otherwise excellent episode, imho, was that when the mole in the Soviet Embassy (Nina?) overheard the comment about where the meet was, and the encryption, the comment also included the actual name of the person being contacted, which she didn’t bother passing along to the FBI.
My one real complaint about the show, overall, is that it seems like every last piece of espionage that the Soviets need done in the entire DC area always falls to precisely these two agents only, who fortunately always have all the skills needed to do them. It’s a pretty common TV trope, obviously, but for a show that otherwise seems to strive for a feel of authenticity, it’s a bit of a bother.
An excellent suggestion by someone over on the Onion AV Club: We need Stan and Phil to go out line dancing together. 
Spoiler for 2/27 episode
I know it is 20/20 hindsight but it seemed a little sad that scientist had to die when the system he died for was never going to work anyway. Even if he was a traitor, it seemed a waste.
Actually, I think that the fact that we know that the Americans will win and the Soviets will lose in the long term is fairly interesting… it makes it a lot easier for me (a generally patriotic American) to at least somewhat cheer for and sympathize with the Soviet characters, knowing that even if they win in the small scale, they’re not actually going to bring down our government, etc.
He gazed sadly and thoughtfully.
I assumed it was because he knew that his contact of many years had to be killed, but I’m hoping, to follow up my earlier comment, it’s also because he knows that his hot secretary also has to be killed.
You know, I figured that too. But now that I’m thinking about it, if that’s how to read it, I don’t really understand his reaction when he got back to the embassy…
While they’re the protagonists, the show doesn’t really portray them as heroes so much, and the husband is most easy to empathize with when he’s considering turning himself in to the FBI, and also how he’s clearly tired of stuff him and the wife have to do, etc. He’s still doing it, but you can see somewhere down the road he really might have a heroic moment and flip sides for the sake of his family. At least that’s partly how I can “buy into” things.
They did a catch up marathon Friday night, so I saw the episode I missed, ep 2. Now I got the catching of Nina and the plot with the black maid. Whee.
I think it’s a case of him reminding her of something she knew but was avoiding, and he put it in her face.
Also agreed. Waiting for the other shoe on that one to fall. We have to see her again.
No, she activated a standing plan in the case of a coup, to cause disruption and try to keep destabilizing the government. She was in contact with Moscow, because they were given instructions to get more information. The assumption of the coup may have been her jumping the gun a bit, but all the Soviets seemed jumpy. Look what was going on in the Resident’s office.
I think you’re reading too much into it. Clearly they’re setting up the Montagues and Capulets between the two teenagers. The daughter growing up stuff is just examining the stress of family on the web of lies. Mom wants to have a close bond with her daughter, and is struggling with the cultural differences and what her children are being taught about Russia. Dad is thrown by his maturing daughter and the sudden attention she gathers, appropriate and not so appropriate.
Yes.
I agree.
No, I don’t think the Americans knew that guy was the leak. They were suspicious there was a leak, but they didn’t know the identity. Elizabeth’s part at the beginning was pretending to be US security checking up on him, but she said he’s ready to crack, and if they get to him they’ll have everything. So the Americans can’t know he’s the leak yet.
The meet was set in a secluded location, in Washington DC. The murder capital of the US. Um, yeah, broad daylight isn’t particularly an obstacle. So they find this guy dead with the documents, and realize he’s the leak they are seeking. That actually helps, because maybe they don’t realize the leak is much greater than that, the network of half a dozen people.
I like that too. How exactly does Elizabeth plan on raising her children to be socialists without breaking her cover? :dubious: Also anybody else wonder if the Jennings bother voting as part of their cover? I understand why they wouldn’t want to pubically get involved in domestic politics, but I keep imaginine Elizabeth writing in Gus Hall’s name. The FBI only had Dorwin’s KGB code name, not his real name. And why did she just walk away from the mole without taking his suitcase that was presumably full of documents for the Soviets? :smack: It seems like a waste.
I don’t think they realize that Nina is a mole yet. I liked he really seemed to regret what he had to do. Ditto for Claudia and what happened with the West German.
Though it would be interesting if they clearly diverged from real life history ala Inglourious Basterds. Just imagine the reaction if last episode even with a news bulletin revealing Reagan didn’t make it out of surgery alive.
I will repeat myself. I really hope that Philip turns out to be Armenian, Tajik or some other nationality that had big reasons to dislike the Sovs in this timeframe.
Well it wasn’t much of a surprise that the whole thing was a setup to test the Jennings’s loyalty. Does the KGB Rezident actually live in the Soviet Embassy? :dubious: It seemed like his bedroom was practically attached to his office. For that matter where does Nina live? Did the Soviets have a dormitory on their compound, or would she just live in a regular apartment in DC?
The KGB has the worst man management on earth. That is one good way to destroy trust.
I presume the KGB resident is going to suffer a sudden mayocardial infaction…
caused by a 7.62 x 39 to the chest
I was thinking,
“They can’t really be in US custody yet, because the US will never release them and the KGB will surely write them off, and then where’s the show?” Even if Nina was captured and they were “exchanged” for her, it’s not like they could resume their activities. I was anxious while watching…partly for the characters, and partly out of concern the show’s writers were about to do something stupid.
I think their real-life reputation isn’t much better.
I’m viewing the show through the lens of my own interpretations, and I am interested in superorganism theory. I started out sympathetic to Phillip and Elizabeth, two individuals trapped in the conflict between gigantic superorganisms (US and USSR) as utterly indifferent to their fate as a human is to the fate of individual red blood cells leaking from a papercut. I am starting to see the FBI agent, his wife, and Nina in the same terms. The lives and happiness of individual humans are supremely vulnerable, expendable commodities in the clash of superorganisms.
I loved the Granny beatdown. “Show him your FACE! Tell him that’s my message to him!”
So good.
I’ll be damned, I didn’t realize that about the actress.
I remember thinking when I saw her she didn’t look remotely Russian.
Then again, after being told Abed from Community was Palestinian and Sayeed from Lost and the torturer from Three Kings were Iraqis, not to mention the whole cast of Death and the Maiden and The House of Spirits, I’ve learned to accept casting like that.
I had two thoughts. The first was your interpretation, while the second was him to act that way on the assumption that he was being followed to draw them away from where the asset was to be killed by Elizabeth.
Well, it was fun to watch (whenever something like this happens on TV, I always hear, “She’s my mother! She’s my sister!” in my head), but it was a supremely stupid thing for her to do.
She basically told her bosses to go fuck themselves. She was already under suspicion, and now she’s just confirmed that she is a loose cannon. Even if Granny is a forgiving soul, somebody in the KGB chain of command is bound to be less so.
Well she is not supposed to be Russian. She is supposed to be Soviet.
I agree about the others though. Especially Naveed Andrews, who though a great actor has a look that screams Tamil.
I wish to hell I hadn’t seen the little summary blurb on my TiVo before watching this–it said something about the mole hunt undermining the trust in the Jennings’s marriage, which meant that I doubted the entire interrogation scenario from the first scene. I was also trying to rationalize it, knowing that it obviously wasn’t the FBI–but then, we’ve also got the CIA, and turf wars, and… but it basically sucked the drama right out of that entire sequence.
That said, my reaction in the middle of this episode was, “This show just keeps getting better.” Which it does. I also liked seeing a little bit of character development with the kids, and fair play to the boy for bashing Mr. Creeper on the head with a beer bottle.