No real idea yet about the desired intel for this season is yet. Season 1, it was SDI. Season 2, Stealth.
Sad to see the girl get killed but it does give Phillip an in of his own with the Pakistani guy.
The show is top notch in terms of the usage of real-life techniques. False-flag recruiting, extortion, appeals to vanity or greed, etc.
The one thing that I’m uneasy about is this: in Season 1 (especially the first few episodes), Phillip and Elizabeth were part of a well-oiled machine, part of a much-larger team. They’d do operations that included numerous others: cover, observation, getaway, etc. For me, it made the show a bit more “fun” (as in, appreciating a well-thought-out, well-executed plan), and certainly seemed more realistic.
That started going away in Season 2, and the Season 3 opener seemed way-off:
She goes to meet a freakin’ CIA agent who has some high-value info, and Elizabeth goes ALONE? No surveillance, no backup, no nothing. And Phillip is at some non-spy-related event with Stan? It really stretches believability - unless they are very subtly remarking on the tightening of Soviet spy expenses, which has never before been mentioned.
I also got a chuckle out of Phillip telling the blond that he “couldn’t keep up with her”, yet he manages with Martha who is a real sex beast.
Martha and Clark managed to top the previous seasons with the fan disservice.
I’m usually an absolute spoiler-nazi, and I agree 100% that there’s no need to spoiler box anything that has already been broadcast at the normal USA hour. If you watch it on DVR the next day, don’t come into the thread between Wednesday and Thursday. (Although I think it’s polite to spoiler box stuff from the “next week on…” segments, given that (a) lots of people don’t watch them, and (b) they’re typically assembled by the network publicity department, not the actual show runners, so I don’t trust them to be wisely selected.)
As to the episode, it was definitely good. One thing that confused me… there’s a shot of Stan coming out of a video store, then there’s a weird cut to someone in a car following someone else in a car. And then we see Elizabeth presumably training someone in surveillance. Was there a connection between those two scenes? And who was she training? That wasn’t the other couple’s son from last season, was it? I thought he died?
It’s so interesting how I never quite know who I’m cheering for during scenes like the FBI fighting Elizabeth.
OK. No more spoilers.
Sahara Tea,
Good for you thinking that Elizabeth’s mother dying would make for an interesting plot line. I wonder if she might go home and bring Nina back with her?
Frank Langella is indeed a good addition. I was just disappointed that he had so few lines and so little camera time. He deserves to have almost as much camera time as the leads. That’s just my opinion and I’m obviously very wrong. The two show runners are kind of expert re the intel community. One or both of them have worked for some American agency in the past.
I wonder if his age will cause the writers to have him get killed this season? He could give his life in the protection of Elizabeth. If he has to die, that would be a real good way for him to go.
I don’t know that we’ve really seen Elizabeth’s true feelings re Paige. I got the feeling that she was just placating the center. But she should have told Phillip that’s what she was doing.
AK84,
I’m sorry to be so dense. But when you said,
“Martha and Clark managed to top the previous seasons with the fan disservice.”
I had no clue what you meant. What kind of fan were you referring to? Could you explain a little, please?
I was thinking that in keeping with the show, ALL posts henceforth be in spoiler boxes. They can be our hilarious wigs.
I agree that little criticisms of the show do not affect my enjoyment at all, in fact, the whole idea of Philip being able to maintain and develop separate lives makes me think that this show might end with Philip having been Roger from American Dad the whole time. 
Likewise!
I agree, in fact, I can see this factoring in later, when Elizabeth’s ‘cold evaluation’ tells her Paige can’t do something but she pushes Paige into the pool anyway, out of her desire to have Paige be with her.
It wasn’t that kid, he died (after a dying speech that went on and on and on), but I didn’t understand this scene really either, can anyone suggest something?
Here’s a question: what would you do were you in Paige’s situation? Here you are, a typical American teenager— she had to have been born in the US, since Phil and Liz didn’t decide to have kids until after their arrival in country–and it’s a definite possibility that you will be asked to turn your back on your native land and become a spy for the enemy.
What do you do? Give up the life you have known and turn? Do you go to the FBI…in which case you’re turning on your family and perhaps consigning yourself to a life in witness protection? You definitely just can’t run away. The KGB will find you.
What would you decide?
If I were Paige - at age 14 - whatever my decision, it would most probably be a knee-jerk emotional response and as such, might well prove to be a terrible lifetime decision.
I would likely be furious with my parents for hiding their secret from me and I would chose to do whatever I thought would hurt them the most. That would likely be something that I would regret most greatly when I became older.
To answer your question, I might call up a newspaper or a news web site and offer them a juicy story. That story might well result in my parents getting jailed or murdered. Perhaps even my whole family would suffer in that way. Perhaps, even more people - like the members of the Residentura or the members of the FBI.
I would guess that is the reason parents rarely feel it is OK to let 14 year olds make those kinds of decisions on their own.
Does that answer seem reasonable to you?
It might be an ongoing factor this season. In story-time, Brezhnev has just died and the next two Presidents are going to be fossil placeholders against more progressive elements, Afghanistan is going to shit, and there’s a mass movement for social change gaining ground in Poland (causing a recent declaration of martial law). KGB must have been under a lot of pressure at this point, and it’s only going to get worse.
The kid is an undercover KGB newbie posing as a Brit. Elizabeth was training him in the art of automobile surveillance. I suspect Elizabeth’s relationship with him will affect her thinking about Paige somehow.
I don’t know what I would do if I was Paige. A 14-year-old is absolutely not equipped to make those kinds of decisions. Even though it’s an awful betrayal, I don’t see her running to the FBI because she would still love her parents. But…it would be very difficult to keep it a secret from her brother, her friends and her pastor.
The flip side of that is if a 14 year-old came to me and said: “My parents are Russian spies”, I’d most likely say, “Yeah, right. And mine are coneheads from the planet Remulak.”
We saw last season that she suspects that something is going on in the garage. She may figure it out before she is told which, of course, means that she would be perfect for the program.
Sorry to disagree, but being smart like that is only one aspect of what is required.
There is a very important physical requirement and mental strength.
Remember in one of the first episodes when Elizabeth is being trained to fight by that creepy man who raped her?
She needed the physical strength to be able to hold her own in a fight and she needed the mental strrength and (Lord knows what other kind of strength it would take to be able to walk away from being raped). I think if someone ever raped me, the first time I got my hands on a weapon, my response would be, “Blam! Blam! Blam!” and damn the consequences. I can’t imagine what it would take to not do that. But whatever it took, Elizabeth had what it took.)
Elizabeth is a true believer. Phillip is just doing a job, and he is damn good at it, same as Elizabeth. Finding out her parents are traitors will destroy Paige. IMDB The Americans (TV Series 2013–2018) - IMDb seems to hint that Nina wasn’t executed, unless it is just flashbacks.
I hope Frank Langella is a regular. Margo Martindale is not listed yet for 2015.
I don’t know what I would have decided but I am sure it would have been immature, dumbassed and impulsive Maybe the KGB is trying the same strategy again and that food preparer church boy is going to recruit her.
I am very curious to see if the story of Samantha Smith (US girl who wrote to Soviet Premier Andropov in 83 asking what the USSR was doing for peace) will be covered.
Ah, thanks. I was wondering why he was talking like that, haha.
That was my thought, too.
Of course that would suggest that the Reverend Mr. Whatever is KGB, too, since he was facilitating their getting together.
But aside from that: that the Center wants a 14-year-old girl as an agent has horrifying implications. She wouldn’t be useful spying on her fellow teens. No, where she’d be useful is as a honey trap for older men.
I hope I’m mistaken about that…but for what other reason would the KGB want her?
He’s got a South African accent. (self) exiled South Afrricans at that time usually came to London as it was the HQ of opposition to the Aparthied regime. He probably went via London but was then recruited.
It wouldn’t be unusual for such an exile to have been symathetic to the USSR.
Important info alert: we are now a little over two years away from Mikhail Gorbachev becoming leader and the start of the end of communism. Paige is going to be a little pissed off as she leaves high school …
Those implications are, indeed, horrifying. But maybe that’s not why they want Paige at 14. Maybe they want to start developing her at 14 so that, by the time she’s 23, she’s already a fully-trained, fully indoctrinated, fully realized agent, capable of independent operation, rather than having to train a 23 year-old from scratch?
Um…that’s like saying that the only reason the US government finances public school is to train women to be prostitutes.
They want her while she’s still young, so that she can be trained for a future position in the service. They’re not asking for her to start working as a professional two weeks from now.