The Americans on FX

The difference between this show and The Walking Dead: In an episode when not much goes on, The Americans still has me riveted at the end where TWD leaves me wishing I had seen more.

I want to see what Paige does next with Pastor Tim. Also are we seeing the heart go out of Philip and Elizabeth to do their missions? Finally I want to see the hell rain down when Philip's son shows up.

 

This episode didn't do much for me. I know there is the whole CIA-Burov thing, but is all this stuff with the food corruption oversight going anywhere, or will it be another Nina dead end?

I'm all the more certain now that no one in America is fucking with the Soviet grain. They simply cannot allow that stain to remain with American viewers (though Stan --- my new hero --- seems willing to expose stains within the FBI/CIA).

 

Philip for sure. With Elizabeth it's more that she despises the person she is having to "work."

 

Chuckled at this comment from one of the review sites:

"Henry. Mischa. Tuan. It's Philip Jennings as you've never seen him before, next week on a very special My Three Sons!"

Of course, for a minute you also had Oleg's dad as Jim Lange hosting The Dating Game.

And is this show a stickler for details, or what? The props guy for Season 5 posts on one of the review sites. Here is what he says was on the Burov dinner table:

Pelmeni (dumplings)
Sour Cream
Pickles
Marinated Tomatoes
Pickled Cabbage
Black Bread
Khodolets (aspic)
Seledka (salted herring)
Sturgeon Lox
Black Caviar
Salad Olivie

And Vodka, of course.

No borsch, however.

Henry, OTOH, is a mathematical genius (who knew?) and also a master of deception (Is study partner Chris a boy or girl?). HE should be the family spy-in-training, not pitiful Paige.

 

"Bachelorette No. 1: I'm a KGB agent. How should I interrogate you to get you to 'talk'?"

"Bachelorette No. 2: If you were a beet and I was a farmer, what would be the best way to pluck you?"

"Bachelorette No. 3: If we were sent to Siberia together, how would you keep me warm?"

 

In Phillip's flashback, what were those cowpie-looking things his mothers was pulling out of the oven/fire?
Was that black bread? Because I've never seen black bread look like that.
I was thinking 'They were so poor they had to eat hot dirt clods? Man, things were tough.'

 

That was a day's ration during the Nazi blockade of Leningrad.

 

So apparently GMOs do kill people ... or at least one dude who was at the wrong place at the wrong time ... who died because he was making GMOs ... which people mistook for plague bringing bugs ... But GMOs kill people!

 

But what was it? A ration of what? What were they eating or about to eat?
I just couldn't tell what it was.

 

Almost sure it was bread.

 

You're probably right.

 

Pretty much everything was improvised. 50-60 percent of the bread was made of sawdust. Soups were made from leather belts. Wallpaper was boiled (because the glue attached to it had bits of organic material).