The Americans on FX

Holy shoot that last five minutes escalated quickly.

My favorite episode of the season. We got all the good stuff together: deep character cuts, the FBI putting a major piece together, and Paige seeing her mom's badass side that undermines the story they've been telling her.

 

I had the same question. I'm not sure I would have made the connection to the one Oleg and Tatiana were looking for before you brought it up. I did think the long-ish con of the fake suicide/fake family was a good one. I was wondering how Elizabeth planned to blackmail the guy for the codes without revealing that she was Russian, or at least someone dangerous. I didn't see the full plan coming until they were in the room with the guy.

The dinner scene with Pastor Tim, Alice and Beeman was excellent. I was so uncomfortable it felt like I was sitting at the table with them.

 

Is the major piece the death/911 from the copy repair place? I don't remember that.

 

Yes.

 

I'm wondering what they are actually going to get out of that though. Maybe enough to continue to be suspicious, but it didn't seem like Phillip and Elizabeth left any witnesses or evidence to tie them to the place.

 

They will figure out mail robot is bugged, which gives them whoever is picking up the tapes.

Not necessarily Philip and Elizabeth, but it is a major counterintelligence win.

 

The way they're going about getting William Level 4 access is about as straightforward as getting from Memphis to Nashville by traveling west and circumnavigating the globe.

So far we've had months of grooming your target, a fake affair, fake pregnancy and fake suicide, all in the attempt to get Don out of his office for a few minutes in the hope that the Level 4 codes (in whatever form they are) will be accessible to a computer expert who has no inside knowledge beforehand of the company's security setup.

 

They are gonna say screw it and make William break in. He gets caught, FBI needs the win.

 

Good point. I had kinda forgotten what they were doing with the robot in the first place.

 

I figured it was going to be a simple "blackmail Don" arc. He is, after all, the source of what they need. This seems like a 19-play drive that ends in a Hail Mary pass.

 

The "Next week on The Americans" at the end of the most recent episode showed Elizabeth dressed up as "Patti," even though they've convinced Don that she offed herself. Does she at least reconnect with his wife, her Korean friend, to show a little mercy to that lady? Even if she told Don she had seen "Patti," WTF is he going to say in rebuttal: "You couldn't have because I slept with her, got her pregnant and she killed herself?"

 

Loved how Mail Robot was in the background when Aderholt is telling Stan about the death at the repair place. If you read AV/Club, the reviewers have a thing for Mail Robot.