The Americans on FX

Although my Google searches of the pathogen don't seem to indicate it's as horrible as William has said.

"Lassa fever occurs commonly in West Africa. It results in 300,000 to 500,000 cases annually and causes about 5,000 deaths each year."

"About 15-20% of hospitalized Lassa fever patients will die from the illness."

Perhaps these not-so-dire numbers are due to the medical advances since January 1984. But I'm seeing nothing about organs liquifying and oozing out one's anus.

 

Ha, I looked up the same thing last night.

 

You know, Stan is lucky he has such a good kid. He leaves him home alone for days at a time and the worst thing Matthew does is drink a couple beers, but never enough to get drunk. Stan comes home and he's making out on the couch and Stan thinks it's hilarious, not "oh shit, I've got two kids playing house here while I haven't been home all week. The neighbor girl is going to get knocked up."

 

I think they are clearing out all the state-side Russians (aside from Gabriel) for a reason. The drama next year is going to be Philip, Elizabeth & family potentially going on the run, although Philip will probably be able to pick up from Stan that William didn't tell them anything.

 

And Pastor Tim outlives them all. I would have lost a lot of money on a prop bet about him surviving the first three episodes, let alone the whole season.

Loved that finale. It continued for me the theme of season 4: The writers have been weaving a much more intricate tale than we realized and it all ties together. The introduction of the previously mentioned adult son of Phillip is huge, and it gives us a big storyline to anticipate for season 5.

The FBI storyline was my favorite of the season, and we got to see them actually catch an illegal. It'd be easy for them to be portrayed as inept since their job is to catch our protaganists and they can't do that until the end at the earliest, but they did a great job of averting that with this season.

Final verdict: They turned Paige. She's in. We saw the same playbook as Martha. There was a point early in the season where Paige had to decide where her loyalty lay and she chose family, and after that it's just a matter of slowly heating up the water. Her sign and "great" in the next-to-last episode summed it up. She knows there's no turning back, and she's stuck with wherever the path takes her.

Which, of course, sets up another round of inter-marriage conflict. This one has been set up for awhile, but they're going to have to bring it to the front again next year. Elizabeth is willing to show Paige a few things, Philip wants her to have nothing to do with it. The closing scene said a lot: His daughter was having sexual contact with someone she'd passed on information from recently. She may not have been intentionally honeypotting, but it wasn't lost on Philip. And compare that contrast between how he wants to protect his daughter, and the son he's never met actually fighting and possibly ruining his life in Afghanistan.

Gabriel knew full well they aren't taking that offer, even if he thinks they should. But it forces them to admit that to themselves, to actually confront the issue. They are no longer just Russians hiding in America. They are partially Americanized and full members of an American family.

I'm more convinced than ever this ends with a defection. They've been circling back to so many things that could have been assumed to be one-off issues (death of Stan's partner, mail robot, Philip's son, etc.). They're eventually going to circle back to the tantalizing unopened door that was first shown back in the first episode: Philip wants out and his next-door neighbor and friend is FBI counterintelligence.

 

So, does Stan know or suspect something? He seemed a bit overjoyed there in that final scene, and surely it's not because he walked in on Paige and Matthew making out.

 

That's exactly why. Stan is a weird dude when he's not being a brilliant detective.

 

I think there are a lot of people who would be overjoyed with the idea of their kid potentially marrying the kid of their best friend. Not to the extent they'd be gleeful at walking in on them, but Stan's seen his family fall apart, so he probably like the idea of his family and Philip's being tied together through their kids..

 

I could see this heading toward Stan feeding himself a bullet. Dude has been down a dark road since before the events of the series even began. The Jennings are becoming his family, which is why he's so excited by the idea of Paige and Matthew really cementing that.

What's he going to do when he finds out who he's been chasing?

 

According to the writers, there was a reason Henry spent so much time at his computer. Early in the season Keidrich Sellati broke his ankle.

Seems a little silly that the Center was against Elizabeth visiting her dying mom, but during a period of enormous peril for the family they're fine and dandy with letting Misha visit America to see his dad. Would love to understand the strings pulled to make this happen (and how a Soviet soldier would ever get a visa). I realize "powerful people" were behind it, but other than being kindhearted, I can see no practical reason why this should be approved.

 

I'm not reading any of these posts.
We have our DVR set to record this show. We've had it set since the show first aired.
This week we couldn't watch Wednesday night. On Thursday night, we hit play on the recorded episode and what we had was 20 minutes of an informercial about tai chi!

 

DirecTV? For some reason the guide had it airing at 6:30 am. We didn't get it either and wound up staying up ridiculously late to watch Wednesday night.