Episode discussion post: "Clark's Place"

[jae]

Aired:
13 April 2016 in the U.S. and Canada

This is a discussion post for episode 405 of The Americans, intended for viewers who are watching the show on the U.S./Canadian schedule. (Feel free to dive in to the discussion even if you're coming in late--and you should also feel free to start a new thread if it seems too daunting to read through what's already been posted first. If you're reading this at a point where you've already seen subsequent episodes, though, please take care to keep comments spoiler-free of anything that comes after season four, episode five.)

Original promo trailer

"The Americans 4x05 Promo "Clark's Place" (HD)" (Watch on YouTube)

Overnight reviews

From Vulture
From the AV Club
From Hitfix
From Vox
From Entertainment Weekly
From Slate (official podcast)
From the LA Times
From the New York Times
From the Wall Street Journal
From Slant
From IGN
From tv.com
From TV Fanatic
From Den of Geek
From Geeks of Doom
People's World
From Inverse
From For the Win
From Hidden Remote
From Mstarsnews
From Mashable
From The Young Folks
From TV Over Mind
From Celebrity Dirty Laundry

Comments

Re: KGB's patience with Wiliam

[jae]

I think that was intended to say something about the particular area of work that William is in, rather than William's competence.

What's kind of funny about that line, though, is that it's a charge that's leveled at real-life illegals all the time by people in the espionage world who think this peculiarly Soviet/Russian way of spying isn't worth all the trouble. Lots of people think that was the norm for all illegals--they underwent ridiculously rigorous training, went to other countries and posed as locals or other nationals, only to never really deliver on anything that was of use to the Soviets.

-J

Re: KGB's patience with Wiliam

[quantumreality]

I think it's a really long view of spying in terms of cost-benefit terms.

Like, they might hit the jackpot only once in 40+ years, but getting that vital piece of info that stops a war or changes the course of some other major government policy - that's enough of a payoff to consider the whole thing worthwhile.

Like, say William had come through with the Glanders and there hadn't been this darkly comedic chain of total fuck-ups over it: about two weeks later a bio lab in the USSR would be sitting down with it wondering how to protect against it, and one of the US's covert biowarfare weapons becomes a million dollars of useless goo.

You almost can't quantify in monetary terms how big a ROI that is, but let's say the USSR was spending $1 billion a year on biowarfare and biowarfare countermeasures. They're paying for scientists, computers, lab equipment, machinery, etc.

So every time they make what they think is a defence against a virus the USA has hatched, that eats up a chunk of that billion smackers and can only really be tested fully under battlefield conditions.

Same goes for tests of what they think the USA has no defence for, and which they can apply in battle conditions only.

So conservatively they could save, maybe 10%? of that money just by knowing one of the viruses the USA has.

That can be one of the ways to justify a long-term sleeper program.

Re: KGB's patience with Wiliam

[lovingboth]

Yes.

Given how big the Soviets were on chemical weapons* they have to have someone(s) in US biological weapon research, even if just to make sure that the Americans haven't come up with anything useful. Until now..

.. and in its current form, its not actually usable either.

* In the event of WWIII kicking off in Europe, NATO believed the Soviet plan was to start using them from day one.