That’s right: two references in one headline. “Safe House” refers to this week’s episode of FX’s The Americans, and the rest of it…well, just have a look at this. As for the recap of Wednesday’s episode, you’ve come to the right place. And away we go.

Jay: I gotta say, when Amador showed up in that parking lot behind Phil after having already run into him at the Beemans’ party, I really thought they’d stolen our April Fool’s Day fake episode narrative and turned it into a real storyline on the show.

But that might not have even been my favorite part. Even better was when the FBI agents began to discuss plans for killing Arkady (a conversation that took place in the kitchen of a dinner party, improbably: welcome back, The Americans) — and I immediately knew it couldn’t possibly happen, because I’d just seen the actor who plays him filming a scene on the Upper West Side last week.

The usual complaints still apply here, although they were slightly mitigated by the uptick in action. Throughout the episode, it seemed as if neither Phil nor Elizabeth had any real idea what they were going to do with Amador. In some ways, this echoed their indecision of the pilot episode, which ultimately also ended in the victim’s untimely demise. (The general rule on The Americans seems to be that, if you’re working for either American or Soviet intelligence and you end up in the Jennings’ custody, you’re probably screwed. If you’re just an innocent bystander — like the son of that poor old lady who got poisoned by Elizabeth — well, you’ll be OK eventually.)

After the show’s brief hiatus (they skipped a week due to delays caused by Hurricane Sandy, which damaged the Brooklyn studio where The Americans is based), I’ve decided to try to give the show a little break and look harder for the positives. So here’s one: I really did enjoy the subtle line in Stan’s flashback, in which Amador tells him, “There’s no pause button.” It nicely complemented Phil’s explanation to his kids in which he likened his separation from their mother to “hitting the pause button.” Amador’s prescient declaration that such a button doesn’t exist, a sentiment amplified by his own death, seems to suggest that whatever road the Jennings’ marriage is currently on is one-way. Like Paige says, “I don’t want to pretend that your life is a do-over, because mine isn’t.” No one gets a do-over here, not even after this episode’s events so clearly demonstrate how well Phil and Elizabeth work together as a team.

There is, nevertheless, something so unavoidably unconvincing about the Jennings’ parenting style, though, that it’s actually distracting to watch. Sometimes it feels as if Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are just going through the motions every time they have a scene with the kids. This was especially the case with Elizabeth and Paige’s scene in the kitchen (the one I just referenced above), but also applies to Phil flatly telling Henry “I love you so much” through a closed bedroom door. None of it even sounds real.

There is also the problem, mentioned above, in which all the FBI agents openly discuss assassinating Arkady while attending a dinner party. And here’s another thing: why tie up loose ends so quickly with Nina? Before the episode was even over, Stan had already convinced himself (via some all-too-convenient Amador flashbacks that just perfectly served their purpose to vouch for his integrity) that Nina’s secret was safe. But wouldn’t that tension of not knowing for sure made for a great storyline? For that matter, if Amador really was so trustworthy, then why would he bother telling Phil and Elizabeth about Arkady? True, he thought Arkady had already been killed, but if Amador were truly willing to die without talking, there wouldn’t be much point to risking the failure of a mission by giving away the target (in other words, he didn’t know for certain that Arkady was dead, and it turned out he wasn’t).

This, and the usual litany of other shortcomings, prevented this episode from being quite good — which it had the potential to be. On the bright side, we now have a lot more action, finally: Stan killed the low-level guy (which raises the question of whether that was FBI-sanctioned or not; one assumes not), and Phil killed Amador, even if unintentionally.

What did you think of this week’s story?

Sam: For a moment, I also thought our April Fool’s post was about to be played out in this episode. But, alas, it was not meant to be. I will say, though, that I also knew right away that Arkady was going to be just fine despite the talk of assassinating him, since you’d shown me that picture of him and Granny filming a scene in a car.

On the whole, though, I actually found this episode to be quite good. Surprising, I know. But I thought this week’s episode fired on all cylinders. We had a feeling Amador was going to be tailing Phil, so that was no surprise. What I was not expecting was the two of them duking it out and ending with Amador being stabbed by Phil. The unfortunate demise of Amador might’ve been The Americans‘ attempt to stand up next to other great shows that aren’t afraid of killing off prominent characters. Amador isn’t hugely central, but it was nice to see the attempt.

The storyline with Stan this week was also pretty interesting, though I will admit that his development from squeaky clean, goody two shoes at the party (i.e. not signing up for the optional hit on Arkady) to nabbing a KGB officer against orders and then killing the guy felt a little too smooth. It didn’t long for him to conclude that Amador had been kidnapped by KGB. In the same situation, it seems like most people would’ve attributed it to Amador having a few too many drinks or something.

Most interesting to me this week, though, was actually the family life (weird, I know). From the get-go, it was clear that something was off in the Jennings’ household, even if Paige and Henry were too busy commenting on how much they like fried chicken to notice. I actually laughed at Phil’s lines, because it was clear this was all Elizabeth’s decision. You’re absolutely right that their parenting style is exceptionally odd. Whenever either of them express their affection for their kids, it sounds incredibly forced (even back when they were out having ice cream in an earlier episode). But, this week’s development took things to a different space (i.e. Phil moving out, seemingly temporarily), which is probably why I found it more palatable than the two of them just whining as usual.

Do I think it’s a sign that the rest of this season is going to be interesting? No, not at all. I know better than that. But I do think this episode was quite good. I still think Agent Gadd is an awful actor, but I didn’t have as many complaints as I normally do.

What do you see happening next? More blood has been shed on both sides, and this time it seems to have struck closer to home (Amador). Where do you think this puts Nina? And where do Phil and Elizabeth go from here?

Jay: I hope I didn’t come off as too negative on this episode. On a net basis, I think it was actually a decent upgrade over what we’ve come to expect from The Americans. As you said, past performance is not a guarantee of future results, so I remain a bit detached for now. Nevertheless, this episode was mostly a good sign.

Excellent point on Stan’s rapid transformation, by the way. Something that struck me only after reading Alan Sepinwall’s review (a typically excellent one, by the way: “Chris has largely existed as Stan’s partner, and there’s an attempt here to use flashbacks to make him seem like more of a character we’ll miss. I don’t know that it entirely works”) was just how perfectly Amador’s death illustrates the relatively un-savvy writing on The Americans, as compared to its more sophisticated counterparts like…wait for it, yup, Homeland. By this I mean that, as Sepinwall noted, The Americans only retroactively established Amador’s character and importance via flashback, as if they realized at the last minute that they needed to kill him off but hadn’t put any prior thought into how to make him seem more empathetic.

Contrast this approach with virtually any death or dramatic moment on Homeland, which rarely required flashbacks of any kind (with the exception of the beginning of Season 1, when flashbacks were used to illustrate Brody’s fragile mental state after being rescued and to explain the type of torture to which he’d been subjected) because each major plot point had already been foreshadowed or set up five or six episodes earlier. Sometimes flashbacks were used, but then only to remind the audience that the moment had been set up much earlier on: in The Americans, they’re used instead to make a quick explanation for something that should have been executed much more subtly, and much earlier.

As for what comes next, I’m most curious about Stan’s relationship to the FBI. What scares me most is that his extrajudicial execution of Vlad will be summarily dispensed with in the next episode’s first two minutes, and all will continue as usual as if it were a simple tantrum that everyone will get over. I hope that doesn’t happen — because if it does, that’s hopelessly unrealistic. Even in the stark hallways of the Cold War-era FBI, I have a hard time believing that assassinating a Soviet diplomat in cold blood at an FBI safe house would not result in some pretty drastic repercussions from superiors, if not prison time. I’d even prefer that the next episode explain Stan’s action as an FBI-sanctioned one: that way, at least it wouldn’t seem so arbitrary. (After all, Vlad was no longer of much use to them, and it was unclear what would happen if they released him.)

I know I shouldn’t read too much into this, and I have no idea how many episodes in advance the scene being shot near Columbia University last week was, but we know this much: Arkady meets with Granny at some point within the next few episodes. This could mean an almost infinite number of things. However, given that we’ve yet to see any official contact between the embassy and Granny or even the embassy and the Jennings (minus Elizabeth’s silent call to Arkady from a phone booth in this week’s episode), this suggests that someone is in trouble. Otherwise, why go to the trouble of meeting in person in a car (in broad daylight, weirdly enough)?

I’m at a loss for who’s going to take the hit. If I had to guess, I’d say Nina. But I’d welcome a surprise victim.

How about you? What do you foresee going down in the last few episodes of the season?

Sam: You’re absolutely right about the use of flashbacks in this episode. I had noticed that we really hadn’t seen flashbacks on The Americans before (except when talking about Phil or Elizabeth’s previous lives in the Soviet Union), so it really had that feel like they were building up Amador’s character postmortem. While I absolutely agree Homeland does a way better job of storytelling with their use of flashbacks, the ones with Amador worked for me overall, only because they did help give more layers to Amador’s character. But, you’re right, it’s more indicative of un-savvy writing than the type of seamless thread of storytelling I have come to expect from good shows (which we have concluded this is not).

I also have to agree that it would be disappointing if Vlad’s killing is hastily swept aside in the first few minutes of the next episode. It was certainly an intriguing look at Stan as a character. Unfortunately, I fear what we do not want to see is exactly what will happen. We’ve seen it happen before (that I can’t remember exactly when speaks to the fact that they did not make what seemed like a huge moment very memorable).

As for what’s next, I’d probably say Nina is toast (but I thought that a while back too, and here she still is), but I’d prefer to see Stan and Phil/Elizabeth come face-to-face in their “real” jobs. That doesn’t seem likely to happen until the very last episode though, if at all this season. It would make for a great story though. Personally, I’d love to see the KGB take a hit out on Agent Gadd in the same way the FBI and CIA tried to take out Arkady, but it’s not happening. That’d be most improbable given the potential fallout of such action.

I do think something more will happen with Phil and Martha, before Phil ultimately returns home though. She desperately wants him to move in and be her guy, and now that Elizabeth’s kicked him out of the house, he’s been given an opening to work this angle. Phil will probably ask Martha to dig up even more info, and in the process, he may accidentally get her killed. If that actually does happen, I’m not sure too many would care too much, given that she’s not exactly a central character on the show.

Another note on Phil and Elizabeth: does it strike you as odd that she’d kick him out because he lied to her about Irina? I say this, because she’s been harping on and on about how this is not a real marriage and that they’re just there to do their jobs, albeit with a family now. If it’s their job, wouldn’t she just suck it up and continue acting as with almost every other aspect of her life? He seems like he’d be okay with that. It’s more her that seems stuck between wanting it to be real and also not wanting it to be real. Either way, it’s downright frustrating to watch and a terrible choice as far as a main theme/story angle of a show goes.

I am just happy that Granny only got a mention this week instead of having to watch her on screen.

Jay: Just a couple final thoughts:

1) I love how much you hate Granny. I’ve never been able to work up quite as much antipathy for her as you do, but it’s always funny to me just how viscerally you loathe her. That crotchety old Soviet spy, her.

2) My guess, in regards to your last question about Elizabeth, is that she kicked Phil out precisely because she knows that, at some level, theirs is a real marriage and she can’t, therefore, simply continue living with him as if their personal lives bear no significance to each other. Phil appears to have known this all along: much like he’s settled in in the United States, he’s done the same in regards to his marriage. Earlier on in the season (in one of the few well-done and prescient moments), Elizabeth remarked to Phil that he adjusted better than she did. She’s completely right. Phil is an adjuster: he doesn’t even really care if his life and marriage started out as fake, because over time they’ve both become more real than his former “real life.” For Elizabeth, things are obviously not so easy, for whatever reasons.

Sam: I forgot to say earlier: how absurdly conspicuous was it that a couple of FBI and CIA agents would be standing in a circle in the middle of a park in broad daylight talking about an assassination attempt? Even with a lookout, it would be evident that they were meeting. That whole bit just seemed silly.

Great point on Elizabeth and Phil’s relationship though. I completely get what you mean. I just don’t know why some people decided it’d make such a great show. Sometimes I wonder if the writers think to themselves, “Gosh, that sounded better in my head than on paper and on screen.” Probably not.

And yes, I really, really don’t like Granny. Ha!