That would be some lazy ass writing.
Man, I really had trouble watching this ep - mainly because things really seem to be building up to an unhappy end for P/E. I have no qualms about cheering for them and against Stan and the FBI - even tho they are un-American stonecold killers. And they sure are setting up Chicago to be a clusterfuck/bloodbath.
Only thing I’m hoping is, the writers seem so pleased to misdirect, the fact that a clueless watcher like me senses this is probably a good idea that debacle in Chicago is NOT what is going to happen.
Similarly - the preview shows Stan asking P “Are you involved in something?” Dollars to donuts that involves something OTHER than “Are you involved in being a lifelong sleeper agent?” The writers/runners would not be that obvious.
Silly question - when E was smoking out back, it looked like there was a clifflike rockface right behind their back patio. I sensed that I had seen it before. Anyone else see that? I know I’ve had problems with the nature of their duplex/triplex/whatever, but whatever shots there have been of their neighborhood have not given me the impression that there are sheer cliffs and rugged terrain like that.
Also, when they showed the agents looking at the photos of the Chicago sleeper, my wife was wondering if the other people in those shots were P/E. Have we ever seen them interacting with that guy?
I was waiting for SOMEONE to tell Stan to shut up during his harangue of a “toast.” :smack:
Final question (which I’ll look up myself) - how many episodes left? REALLY getting exciting, knowing there is an end in sight.
I wonder what Philip told Oleg in the secret note. I’m sure that he agreed to help.
It may be that the best thing to do in Chicago is to just assassinate the agent.
Stan’s toast was the one off note. I don’t believe it sounded like something he would say. Not in those words anyway.
Hey, can I ask a favor? Could people please spoiler tag discussion of previews?
I thought you had already agreed to help, and in the note he put whatever info he had learned from snooping around in Elizabeth’s stuff and talking to her… ie, it was just a fairly normal status update
Say what you will about the Soviets, but they seem to take very seriously NOT doing things like that. Look how much effort they put into keeping Martha alive, and this illegal in Chicago is actually literally one of them.
I’m thinking there will be a clue in the stack of papers containing the used car sales, or maybe something with a disgruntled former travel agent.
Didn’t Paige say something a couple episodes ago about how a friend’s (or someone’s) brother is an intern for the Senator? I could be remembering that incorrectly, though.
Do you not watch the previews?
I thought soon after they discussed prepaying of garages and cars, they showed P go to the garage they used as a staging area. Made me think that was likely going to be something that was found.
I thought Max was suggesting Oleg would help the Chicago kerfluffle. And my take was that P was pissed when he was searching the garage, and I assumed he was looking for “Mexico-related” dirt to report.
One thing I particularly loved about the stack of papers was the very brief shot we have of Stan, after hearing what Aderholt said about tracking every such car sale in the DC area, just takes one page off the top and starts reading it. It just screams how long and boring this task will be, despite how important we know it’s going to turn out to be, but that Stan is willing to put in the work to do the job. Which is pretty much what their whole job is. Just like with the X-raying of the courier bag. Three years of nothing, then suddenly they get a shot of the circuit board, which is the bit that breaks it all open.
I’ve mentioned before that I think Stavos is an undropped shoe. At the very least, he’s been a witness for years to the fact that Philip (until three years ago) and Elizabeth were absent from their ‘workplace’ an awful lot.
That sounds right to me, too. It would explain how Elizabeth knew to pounce on the guy.
I can see them interviewing a disgruntled Stavos once they figure out what’s going on but what can he really tell them. P and E always lied about where they were going.
I love heist movies. I put Rififi on the top of my Netflix queue and much to my surprise, it was available right away. I would have thought there would be a wait because of the latest episode.
The brother of Paige’s friend is an intern for Charles Bennett who is on the House Armed Services Committee. He’s the one she is sleeping with.
The new cinephile intern (the guy who played The Carver on Silicon Valley) is an intern for Senator Sam Nunn. Elizabeth is going after him because Paige took those photos of the Soviet negotiator Fyodor Nesterenko meeting in a hotel room with David Morrison, a high level staffer in Nunn’s office, and Edward Tabone, an officer in the CIA’s Soviet Division. They think Nesterenko could be the “our guy inside” that Kimmy’s dad mentioned.
We will probably have the same disc! You should put a little mark on the sleeve to say “hi”. 
I avoid them like the plague. Generally, when I’ve raised this on other boards or threads discussing TV shows, somewhere between a fourth and half of people who express an opinion are like me—much to the surprise of the majority who do watch them.
I just did a quick scan of the past few episodes (why, yes, I do have too much free time today) and there is a rock face in their backyard. I’m guessing those rocks were purposefully put there as part of the landscaping to liven up the shallow hill that borders the backyard. So it’s not so much a sheer cliff or rugged terrain as it is a landscaped terrace.
I will
I don’t watch them either as a rule. I am one of the rare people who doesn’t watch them but doesn’t mind if they are discussed without spoiler tags.
Yeah, this one seems like a major miss I don’t understand at all. It doesn’t seem like Stan to just bring that up out of the blue. What meta-narrative sense does it serve? Are the writers trying to remind us that Americans would consider what the illegals do to be bad? Is it a cheap attempt to stroke some tension between Stan and Philip? Why is there this awkward, random sermon about the Soviets being bad in the middle of Thanksgiving? Just seemed so weird and out of place. In a show that’s normally carefully constructed I was thinking “what the fuck is the point of this?” during the scene.
Previews generally aren’t created by anyone involved in the shows. Not the editors or writers or anyone. They’re made by a marketing division or outside marketing company whose only goal is to get you to watch next week, not to maximize your enjoyment of the material. So they often spoil plot points, or they often frame things to be misleading, and either way it’s distracting and reduces the enjoyment of seeing those scenes in context.
Since I know I’m going to be watching next week’s episode, why would I want to see what some marketer thinks will keep me tuned in regardless of how it might affect my enjoyment of the show? I can’t think of a time watching a preview has actually enhanced my enjoyment of the next episode.
So I echo the sentiment - it would be nice if people boxed preview-related discussions so it’s practical avoid them.
Stan’s speech did seem like an off-note but must have had Paige squirming in her seat a little.
It made sense to me. It was the kind of thing where you start talking and then you just don’t stop because there’s this crap running around in your head and the words just keep coming. With everything that he’d gone through - I can understand how that speech happened.
Yeah, this. It was awkward, but it was awkward in a way that made sense. We’ve never really looked much into Stan’s personal beliefs and politics, but consider the timeframe. He’s an FBI agent who likely started working there during the 70s, meaning he was likely much more conservative than the prevailing culture at the time. Now it’s Reagan’s 80s, and he’s been working against the Soviets for many years, seeing exactly how nasty that work can be.
And now, he gets the double-shot of the defectors being murdered and left to be found by their kid, and evidence that makes him think the Soviets are playing them in the arms control talks. He’s ripe for going all in on “Fuck those commie bastards!” particularly on Thanksgiving, which is a particularly American holiday.
Yeah, it made us feel awkward, but it conveys the depth of feeling Stan has about the work he’s doing, and foreshadows how he’s going to react when he finds out his friends are part of it all.
Stan is also just kind of an awkward person. I like the guy, but he is not quick to pick up on how other people are responding to him.
Stranger
My guess is the FBI monitoring the Russian orthodox priest who married them (and who they occasionally visit) will be how they get caught.