Sam: I almost liked this whole episode. But even with managed expectations this week, I still couldn’t buy it all. Allow me to explain.

On the whole, I thought this episode was perhaps the best one so far. The whole scene with Gregory’s guys moving Joyce, Robert’s wife that no one knew about, off the street was pretty smooth. The story lines, for the most part, weren’t tangential.

But, I still found myself not liking the show any more than I did after episode one. I’m realizing that perhaps my dislike of this series has more to do with my dislike for mushy family-ness than the show itself. I find myself wanting to just skip the scenes between Philip and Elizabeth working out their wacky relationship problems, and perhaps because the non-relationship parts of the show are not on par with that of Homeland‘s, the show seems ehh to me.

But, my own realizations aside, let me now point out the parts I found strange. Did it seem strange to you that Elizabeth had such a deep contact in Philly? The way she explained it she must have met Gregory shortly after she and Philip moved to the US. For such a loyal KGB agent, she seemed unusually chatty about her ties with him when they first met. Sure, she fell for the dude, but wouldn’t she have been even more steely and committed to her cause than she is now? I just found this story line to be a bit of a stretch.

Also, the way Granny was introduced in the restaurant where Philip and his daughter were having breakfast just seemed weird. Who interrupts other people’s conversations from the bar? Maybe no one bothers me from across restaurants I go to, but that seemed strange to me. Finally, Stan must be quick at tying his shoelaces, because he didn’t look like he’d finished tying it when we started running after the dude “in the hood.”

Overall, though, I wasn’t as disappointed as the previous two episodes. Just ambivalent. Your take?

Jay: Oddly, I think I’ve started to come around to this show much more quickly than I’d thought. Sure, a lot of it is simply due to managing my expectations better: after the pilot episode, when all the initial reviews were coming in as overwhelmingly positive, I was thinking it’d be the second coming of Homeland. Now I think I’ve just accepted that it’s a different show.

Weirder still, as much as I normally hate family scenes, I have to admit I actually liked the dynamic in this one. It made some sense on a bizarre level and raised the question of what infidelity actually means in the context of an arranged marriage (“arranged” in the least romantic sense of the word possible, in this case). Obviously, to an extent, Phil couldn’t really blame her. But their conundrum in this episode reminds me again of that moment in Episode 1 or 2 (I’m already forgetting, but I think it may have been Episode 2 because she was worrying about Paige) when Elizabeth tells him that he adjusts better than she does. He adjusted better to the U.S., which is why he was contemplating defection. And he adjusted better to his sham marriage and began to think of it as a real one far sooner than she did too.

Of course, none of this negates all the points you brought up. There are a lot of unlikely plot points, such as Elizabeth being so open with Gregory about Phil’s and her line of work. It makes very little sense and definitely doesn’t seem in line with their characters. Then again, she was very young and in a new country, so maybe she didn’t think it through the way she would now, with an entire family to worry about and so on.

Similarly, I thought the Stan-tying-his-shoes bit was just too neat and contrived. Of course that one guy was hiding behind the truck. (Speaking of that, who was that? Was he on Gregory’s team? I don’t remember seeing him earlier.) And also speaking of Stan, I think I missed whatever happened in his superior’s office with Amador. What was he trying to do in that situation, and was Stan on his side or not? There seems to be a lot of office politics being played at the FBI, but I don’t feel as if I have a firm grasp of what’s going on yet.

For me, this was definitely the strongest episode of the series so far. Here’s hoping it continues on this trend. By the way, what do you think of the whole story angle with Joyce? Did you find it realistic that she was killed at the end? I have to admit, even though it’s a bit grotesque, I think it’s the type of end a character like hers would have to meet eventually. She knew too much and was obviously not particularly invested (or probably skilled enough) to keep it all a secret. The interesting facet for me is that, for whatever reason, I find it harder to reconcile the civilized, normal aspects of the Jennings’ lives with their increasingly high stack of bodies and almost-bodies (such as in Episode 2’s near-death of the student after Elizabeth had poisoned the poor guy). I didn’t have this problem in Homeland, despite the fact that Brody was far more violent. Maybe it’s because he never really seemed to love his family anyway.

Or maybe the problem is I just need to force myself to stop comparing everything to Homeland?

Sam: Your thoughts are spot on about the struggles about what family means for Philip and Elizabeth, and I think it’s an interesting dynamic for the show to explore, especially within the context of their job (which seems to be the goal of this show). I might just find this less interesting, personally, compared to a show like Homeland. But my thoughts say more about me than it does about The Americans, so I should probably try to lay off just talking about the parts that bug me most.

That said, it is rather fun picking apart the holes in the story. I have no idea who that guy Stan and Amador chased was, but I don’t even know if he was actually listening to their conversation. To me, it seemed he had been chilling in the area and seeing two dudes who looked like federal agents spooked him, so he ran.

As for the internal politics of the FBI office, I’m not really sure either. It could very well just be another attempt to show how the usual “good guys” aren’t actually such good people. On another note, do you think Stan is as cold and heartless as I think he is? He seems like he’s just itching for the chance to beat someone up. It’s interesting to juxtapose Philip and Elizabeth’s thought processes/emotions when they do their work, but Stan just seems like a stone cold bully with an FBI badge.

I was not surprised to see that Joyce was killed. I half expected the black van (I mean, really?) to blow up after Granny drove away with Joyce and Oscar. I think the moment she placed the classified ad she was toast. It seems somewhat naive on Robert’s part to think that Philip would take care of her. Or that the higher ups wouldn’t eventually figure stuff out and take Joyce out, even as a precautionary measure.

I will say, though, that I feel a bit differently than you about how the Jennings approach their job and, as you say, their civilized home life. By this, I mean that I don’t find it hard to see how they’re able to do their job and maintain their front with straight faces. I think phenomenal liars are able to separate their different identities. My reasoning: I agree with you that Brody in Homeland seemed like he was always still in war-mode (though I’d say he cared about his kids; caring for Jess, though, less so). He followed Nazir’s instructions (and eventually the CIA’s) like a soldier follows orders. In the same vein, I think that’s how I see Philip and Elizabeth, and I honestly think they see themselves as soldiers fighting the good fight (Elizabeth’s said as much). Therefore, having a family, being married, and maintaining a “normal” family is part of their job.

However, the show’s challenge to me, I think, is how they will develop this blurring of the fine line between work and home life. They’ve (clearly) become more accustomed to life in the US (as evidenced by Philip’s thoughts of defection), and things have become “more dangerous.” On top of that, their kids are growing up quickly. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like you think they should’ve maybe had this reality check much earlier than 15 years into the job. If so, I’m with you on that, but overall, I see them as simply doing their job — though it’s a job that they’re finding increasingly difficult.

I think that’s partly the problem for me. How much can this show drag out that story line? One season? Two? Will they defect or not? If they do, what then? Does the story become the KGB trying to track them down? I don’t know. It’s only been three episodes, but the storytelling seems to be getting a bit better. It’s probably inevitable that two big Homeland fans like us would compare the two shows, but who knows, our feelings might change if the quality of The Americans episodes continues to improve.

Jay: I’d never actually thought about that aspect of the story: that Robert wouldn’t have trusted Phil and Elizabeth to take care of his wife after he’d placed the ad. Almost makes you wonder if he knew that would’ve happened and still told her to place the ad anyway.

Your description of Stan cracked me up: “a stone cold bully with an FBI badge.” That’s pretty much right on point. My main problem with the guy is the way his character is written: it seems far too convenient that he’s always in the right place at the right time — whether that means literally moving across the street from the Jennings, happening to tie his shoes when that guy was hanging out at the truck, etc. Speaking of that last part, I’m pretty sure the guy was listening in, because after Stan and Amador unsuccessfully try to chase him down, Stan says something like, “What would a guy in the ‘hood care about the KGB?” I definitely got the sense the show was setting us up for a future storyline. Or it could all be a red herring.

By the way, you pretty much summed up exactly what I meant about my issue with Phil’s marriage to Elizabeth. As I see it, the show has to start somewhere, and fifteen years into their marriage is fine. However, if the writers are going to do that, there has to be a less clunky way to introduce these marital problems than to make it seem like, for example, Elizabeth is only just now realizing that she actually loves Phil. Granted, the Homeland comparison fails here, because in some ways they had an easier task: they could show everything as if it’s happening for the first time, because it was. Brody had just returned from eight years abroad, and he and Jess literally had to rebuild their relationship from the ground up.

But here in Phil’s and Elizabeth’s case, as far as we know everything’s been more or less the same for fifteen years, but suddenly all of these issues of love and family keep coming up — like Elizabeth seeming to realize for the first time that their kids would be vulnerable if Phil or Elizabeth got caught: shouldn’t they have realized this before getting pregnant?

I think it was Alan Sepinwall who mentioned that one of the difficulties of The Americans is that it’s attached to a real period in American history. So no matter how dramatic the storyline, it still has to fit within the broader narrative in which the Soviet Union begins to decay and the U.S. emerges victorious. Makes me wonder how they’ll navigate that going forward in future seasons.

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