The Americans on FX

Why would US have to send tainted grain to USSR?
If we wanted to starve the Soviets, we could've just continued or re-instituted the grain embargo from the Carter administration.

 

Because we can!

It didn't really work, in that they received grain from other sources (mostly South America).

And, like most things we do when trying to fuck with other nations, it backfired on us. Price of grain dropped, farmers burned their crop to make a profit from their harvest, grain ports across the country went out of business. It played a role in Carter losing to Reagan in the 1980 election, though Reagan was certainly no friend of the farmer.

 

I liked seeing Martha in the grocery store. It was fun, I'll admit.
But it also seemed a little hackey to put her in there.

 

I think so, too. UNLESS there is something else going on down the road, and they just needed to set the stage for it by showing that she's still out there. But right now I'm voting for hackey.

 

I think it's more likely they're setting something up. If this was the final season then maybe it was fan service. But it had to be something they're going to be doing later.

 

I wouldn't rule out that the bug thing is not what it appears ie it's not an evil US gov plot or etc

 

It does seem strange that the producers would go in this direction (unless Putin hacked the script!).

They never would have done it in the first seasons --- simply getting viewers to "root" for the Soviet spies was going to be difficult enough to swallow. By now, however, their audience is their audience, and maybe they feel a little more freedom to push the USA-as-bad-actor plot.

Stan's still a good guy, though. Although I have no idea what he and Aderholt are doing accosting local Russians. One review said they may be looking into who killed Gaad.

 

Weren't they trying to get a foot into the door with the same organization that was behind the wheat-eating bugs? Maybe this is a rogue group trying to start shit and it becomes a race to try to stop the US and USSR getting into it as we finally close out the series.

 

I just don't know. To my knowledge the FBI has no knowledge of the agricultural goings on. But I could be wrong. I'm afraid to blink my eyes when I watch because I may miss some key piece of information.

 

Seems to me a plot like that being fake could be the catalyst that finally drives Phillip and Elizabeth from the rose view of the USSR they hold, Elizabeth way more so than Phillip.

I feel like one of them is going to end up seeing that the defector is "right" about the state of the USSR and it's going to instrumental in kick starting the end game.

 

I think they are screwing with and scaring off CIA sources or investigations on purpose in order to get them to leave Oleg alone.

 

Something just dawned on me.

One comment I read said the U.S. could be working on some pesticides or pest-resistant grains. Something having to do with PROTECTING crops. Then I recalled part of the trailer for Season 5. Phillip says something like, "We got this wrong."

Perhaps this is what they got wrong. It would absolve the U.S. from being a bad actor (this time) and tie in to the typical blunders of the Cold War (thinking the enemy is doing X, when they're really doing Y).