The Americans on FX

I agree. Said friend tries to be a contrarian and thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, when he is usually not.

 

I think the thing I found most interesting about Martha was how she was consistently hit on by Stan's partners.

She's no 6.

 

She was also the most likely person to have planted the pen, just by being closest to Gaad's office and having a reason to go in there regularly as his secretary.

 

Ostensibly single woman in an office full of men. The equivalent of press box hot.

 

Sometimes Stan's character is given magical powers of intuition for the sake of the plot. The garage incident was one, knowing he could "turn" Mina so quickly based on some caviar was another.

 

Magical Stan didn't bother me that much this time. It has in some of those past examples.

But this time, I thought they gave him a good reason to give Martha a second glance (the copy machine incident) and then kept building it up slowly. He didn't just march into Gaad's office and Frankenstein his way through the "Martha bad." line immediately. He gave it a third glance, and things still seemed fishy. So he gave it a fourth glance. Then he pulled at a string here and there, and every step of the way he had a good reason to dig a little deeper.

 

I think Stan's background undercover established pretty well he's skilled at reading people and situations. He knew he could use Nina because she, and maybe her family back home, was fucked if her bosses found out about the caviar and stereos deal.

 

Stan's arch has been an interesting one, and I guess he has always kept a suspicious eye on things when they seem too neat or perfect. Looking back, that could be why he was originally suspicious of Phillip and Elizabeth - attractive family of four that brings pastries to the neighbors. Maybe a little to Leave it to Beaver for him.

And now that he doesn't have a wife or mistress to cloud his mind with all that love mumbo jumbo, he's doing his job better than ever before. I think the only time he was blind to some things was when he was shagging Nina and couldn't see he was the one being worked and not the other way around. I doubt any of the males (or females) could blame him for that.

 

He also brought in the other agent, who agreed with his suspicions.

 

Martha planted a mic in the office and was smuggling out copied files.
She and Phillip correctly caught the vibe that suspicion was high, that killing Eugene had not quieted the situation.
They suspected, correctly, that Martha was on the FBI's radar.
What they did not know is what hard evidence they had or didn't have on Martha.

 

Martha was quite different from the typical traitor in that for much of her activities, she was under the impression that she was working FOR the United States (overseeing the FBI).

With that extremely mitigating circumstance, I wonder how the FBI would have treated her had she run to them the moment she found out Phillip was KGB and threw herself on their mercy. Jail time? Extremely likely. HOWEVER, with the information she could have provided (not limited to location of the safe house, emergency number to contact Phillip, etc.), I wonder if some kind of deal could have been struck that would have allowed her a reasonably normal life in America.

 

I thought the same thing, but that's where the "blinded by love" part comes in. She still hasn't totally caught on to what happened.