The Americans on FX

When Tatiana was discussing transporting the package to Moscow with extreme caution, I thought she was talking about Martha (instead of the infected rat). Still not sure she wasn't.

 

Didn't we see Martha on the plane in the teaser for next week's episode? So Phillip won't be the one to kill her. If she gets offed, it will likely be in that plane or when they land.

 

Looked like it was taxiing, but I'm not sure. Lots of things could happen.

And I don't trust the teasers for anything other than willful deception after last week (Martha saying "this has to end" right before the camera cuts to the FBI listening ---- but the FBI only heard her talking to her parents, not saying "this has to end" to Phillip).

 

I will agree there was a bit of a bait and switch with the phone from last week. I think next week—short of the plane being a dream sequence or a body double to throw off the FBI—we will see Martha in the plane and something will happen to her in that plane, likely. The other possibility is that the FBI catches up to them on the runway, but I think she's going to get offed rather than getting saved.

 

Tatiana was working on both objectives. She and Oleg were coordinating the arrangements for Martha's exfiltration at the behest of Arkady.
Tatiana is also working on the bio weapon theft, about which Oleg and Arkady know nothing.
I was assuming that is why she took on the task of setting up a back-up pilot. She has a higher priority package that must be on that plane, so she was taking no chances that Oleg would get it done.

 

I don't buy that the whole Soviet machine would get behind sheltering Martha. She's useless to them. Is Philip that important that they'd go to all that trouble of keeping her, without him there, possibly for decades?

 

She has intimate knowledge of FBI procedures and they loved propaganda wins like that.

 

She would be a propaganda tool for a while. And after a certain point, she would be more or less on her own. She might be given certain things at the beginning (job, place to live), but at some point she'd be expected to learn the language and get along on her own. Soviets would not be baby-sitting her for the rest of her life. Just helping her get resettled.

Bernon Mitchell and William Martin were exfiltrated to the Soviet Union in 1960, despite the KGB's plea for them to keep doing what they were doing at the NSA. Once in the USSR, the KGB discovered they had little value beyond what they already had provided, so they used them as propaganda tools pretty much from that point forward.

American Spies

 

Hmmm ... OK. So it would make sense then.

This show definitely plays mind games with the best of them. There's about four ways they can go with Martha and none seems more likely than the other.

 

Was anyone else kind of put off by this most recent episode? (Sorry, just watched it last night.)

The previous episode felt like a build up to what would ultimately be Martha's fate. I thought for sure we would either see Martha die or fly off to Russia in the most recent episode. Then, it was just more build up. I have Cold War blue balls. Someone needs to die soon. I don't care who it is.

 

Body count incredibly low this season. Innocent airline employee on the airport shuttle, and Nina. I think Elizabeth's hands are clean in Season 4.

 

I agree that it was silly that the Martha arc didn't end last week.