'The Americans' on FX HD - Page 10

I myself, am an old testament swear word user. I have been know to invent some new ones while assembling that pre-made furniture with those little crappy wrenches. This one time the swears I created dialed the last chevron and a portal opened up.

Uh.... we know who the mole is. Also, I don't think she was crying for help so much as being loud and causing a scene so she wouldn't have to kill him.

We used it all the time back in college (Oswego State, GO LAKERS!) during the late 70's.

I'd say they set the bar pretty high with that episode. The first half was full-on intense.

Yeah, I was really into tonight's ep, and the previews look like next week will be pretty intense too.

In that same time period, we tended to use either "freakin'" or "frickin'". By the eighties, the girls would add "totally" to the front of either.

Freakin' was usually reserved for good things, like "that car is freakin' cool". Fricken' was generally for bad stuff, like "my frickin' car wouldn't start". We also slid "friggin'" in there, too.

It ain't over until the fat lady ...

Gets beaten to a bloody pulp!!

Another good episode last night

Keri Russell makes a pretty convincing bad a$$, sweet little Felicity can kick some butt.

"And the plot thickens...."

This show continues to deliver. Quickly moving up the list towards my favorite show.

Unfortunately they made it pretty obvious from the show description in the guide that it was the KGB who were doing the questioning. I thought Philip had it figured out it was the KGB when he saw the gun in the guys pants. Like he knew it was a Russian gun not an American one, but he didn't say that later.

Yeah, mine too, which is saying something, as good as Justified has been this season..At my age I don't get surprised too often watching anything. There's usually at least a hint of whats coming. But seeing KR go all Rambo on her boss floored me-never saw that coming. And the thing is, it was completely in character, and she played it perfectly.I've enjoyed this show from the beginning but last night's episode took it to a new level . A classic...

Still my favorite new show although I thought last night's episode a little lacking. Enjoyed the Resident's framing and our little mole looks sweeter each episode. Wonder who will replace him and how she her role will evolve and who will be the next Rezident?

Its funny how we all see things differently. I thought the only part of the episode that rang false was the frame of the resident. It seemed a little too obvious and you would think someone would question the lameness of hiding the diamonds in the tea...not that it was bad, just not up to the level of the rest of the episode.

Good show is good.

Yeah, that beatdown of her handler was shocking! Keri Russell plays "angry" really well. But she has to know how paranoid the KGB is. Knowing there was a leak, they couldn't have been surprised that everyone who knew about the operation would be suspect. Thought it was a brilliant way to frame Nicoli and take the pressure off Nina. Also pretty cold of Nina - she's a hard case.

The diamonds in the tea made sense because the tea store was referenced by Stan in the phone call taken by the Russian clerk. Nicoli had just gotten back, so it made sense the diamonds would be there - and it was basically the first place they looked.

Once again, I loved The Americans. This week's show was even sadder and more intense that any of the previous episodes, which is saying something. I figured out from the jump that Philip and Elizabeth had been kidnapped and interrogated, via enhanced methods, at the behest of their masters. I loved how Elizabeth beat up Claudia, nearly to death. What happened to Philip and Elizabeth was classic Soviet paranoia and stupidity. What could be more likely to create anger and even revolt that brutalizing loyal people who have done nothing but their jobs to the best of their ability. I hope Philip and Elizabeth can figure this out and start blaming their clumsy masters for what is happening to them, instead of each other.

This week's The Americans was another hour of great television.

Best show on TV right now, IMO.

Ditto!

The last episode was amazing, for reasons already cited in previous posts. If I had one minor nitpick it would be this: Why weren't the kids concerned about their parents not being home when they themselves arrived home quite late after their harrowing experience? I actually hate to bring this up when the rest of the episode excellent, with spot on story-telling and believability.

Exactly what I wondered also.

What a great ep, and a great show. Getting better every week. Agree that it was obvious that the KGB was behind the interrogations but still a neat way to play it out. Also liked the framing of the Rezident and how that played. I'm totally onboard but my wife wonders now what will happen with the kids when they (inevitably) find out what's going on. She's still not happy that Mom is a closet Russian.

I'm sure it was on their minds, but they were home safe and would have had no reason to think anything was terribly amiss with their parents. I suspect they were feeling more relief than anything else. This was, after all, back before the days of cell phones and constant contact with "helicopter parents". Kids were more resourceful back then.

Agree - as a child of the 80's myself... my brother and I were outside, away from the house, playing/riding our bikes around town all day. It was time to come home when the street lights came on.

Kid mentallity:

They tried hitch hiking, which that alone would have gotten them in trouble had the parents found out. The daughter drank beer, too. Then, on top of it all, they found out that it's true: hitch hiking really is dangerous and they nearly paid the price for it. The son had to whack a guy over the head with a beer bottle to get away. If that weren't enough, the poor kid wet his pants in the process and didn't want anyone to find out.

So, Mom and Dad not being home was way, way down on the list far below them finding out about any of the trouble that occurred. When you think you might get punished, you only worry about Mom and Dad not finding out about it, not what's up with Mom and Dad. In fact, them not being home was likely a good thing in their book. They likely figured there would have been a much more indepth 3rd degree before they could get their story straight.

When I was a kid, my parents didn't always tell me where they were going. If they were late, there wasn't always an explanation. Plus, we were allowed to be out and about on our own because no one ever thought about kindnapping...as long as you didn't hitch hike or take candy from a stranger...

I actually had a similar situation happen to me when I was a kid:

While my parents were out and my sister was watching me, I tripped and fell down the basement stairs and went straight through a plate glass door leading out to the back patio. We were so worried about getting into trouble for it we completely igonored how lucky I was to be completely uninjured in the process other than a bruise on my shoulder. We also didn't even realize our parents were two hours late getting home - and didn't care.

Turns out, they hit a deer on the way home and had to walk to a pay phone to call a tow truck. They were fine, but the car needed some major work.
Edited by NetworkTV - 3/8/13 at 6:27am

I agree that Philip and Elizabeth's secret life is a time bomb for their kids. Much of the intensity the show generates is caused by the disquietude that potential time bomb creates for us. Sometimes, The Americans is hard to take, although it nevertheless is very smart and highly entertaining.

I am wondering if Philip and Elizabeth might not finally be on the verge of looking out for themselves and their kids at the expense of their masters. I hope so. After the KGB's ham-handed and foolish kidnapping and torture ploy, I can't imagine Elizabeth ever again is going to have the same starry-eyed devotion to the Rodina and Communism she once had. What makes the whole thing even more unsettling is that Claudia has no doubt reported to Moscow Center that Philip and Elizabeth are "unreliable."

I thought Elizabeth's explosion of anger demonstrated just the opposite -- that she is the epitome of a "true believer". She'll never betray the motherland, even after this. Even Claudia knows that now (boy, does she ever). Nevertheless, they were both shocked beyond belief that they had been suspected after all they've done for their handlers in Moscow.

Philip, on the other hand, is more of a pragmatic professional. He's a great spy and will do whatever it takes and follow the orders that he's given, but his ideological commitment is a level below his wife's. Nevertheless, he truly loves her and would never leave her behind. It's a dynamic layer of tension that's overlaid these two principle characters.

I've got to reluctantly disagree. To me, the attack showed how much Elizabeth's mindset has changed. She is truely in love with Phillip now and that trumps her beliefs and love for her country. She reacted as the mother bear, in a blind rage when her mate is threatened. The irony being that while she is now totally committed to him, he is drawing away from her, thinking she violated his trust.

I agree. When Elizabeth saw the crude water torture being used on Philip and then learned that Claudia and Moscow Center had been behind it, it made her crazy with rage and she went all medieval on Claudia. Then Philip got one of Claudia's thugs' guns and school was out. Claudia was lucky Philip intervened or Elizabeth would have killed Claudia. What Claudia and her thugs did had been sanctioned by their maximum bosses and Elizabeth was not amused. I simply can't see how she could continue to have the same blind acceptance of things the state does that she once had.

I agree with both of you, except in their case they must have had a guilty conscience due to their hitchhiking and drinking beer (as mentioned by NetworkTV) and one would think they would walk into their house with some trepidation (and with a strategy as to what to say when their parents met them and asked how they got home). Upon finding their parents gone, you would think they would have expressed some relief that they didn't have to be confronted by their parents and because now they had time to wash the boy's soiled pants.

Again, I was reluctant to bring this up because I don't want to take away from the exceptional episode this turned out to be. This is easily my favorite show currently, though The Walking Dead is not too far behind.