Episode discussion post: "Cardinal"

[jae]

Aired:
5 March 2014 in the U.S. and Canada
9 March 2014 in Israel
22 March 2014 in the UK

This is a discussion post for episode 202 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 if you're reading this later and have already seen subsequent episodes, but please take care to keep comments spoiler-free of anything that comes after season two, episode two.)

Original promo trailers

"Next On: Cardinal" (Watch on YouTube)

"The Americans: Exclusive Scene from Episode 2" (Watch on YouTube)

Episode recaps

From Vulture
From Hitfix
From The AV Club
From The Huffington Post
From IGN
From Think Progress
From SpoilerTV
From Zap2it
From Television Without Pity
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From Filmthrasher
From showratings.tv
From Newsmanone
From Screenrant
From the LA Times
From Geekbinge
From tvrage.com
From Unreality TV (UK)

Comments

[quantumreality]

Another thing? I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the VADWP truck! A standard "social engineering" trick is to look like something totally ordinary while doing something nefarious, and what better than to have a water utility truck going into a manhole to fix (allegedly) a pipe?

... when in reality you're probably setting a bug or three on the phone lines.

[lovingboth]

In my case, it was partly not realising that it was a water utility - it was clearly some utility van, but what? - but mostly because it was so obviously a bluff on the part of the writers.

Elizabeth was clearly worried, but without any indication that someone's that on to them, why should we be?

And if they're really worried about phone taps, why use Martha's name on the phonecall later? If it's FBI, someone may go 'Martha? 102? That's what your secretary Martha called in with...'

[quantumreality]

In this case it probably legit was the water utility, but having watched way too much Leverage, my mind instantly goes to the "make 'em see what they expect to see" trick when I see $RANDOM_TRUCK_WITH_NAME in a movie or TV show. :P

[treonb]

Me! Me! *waves* I wasn't sure by the end whether they were really workers or not. In the end they showed Elizabeth looking at the street and seeing.. what?

But I also didn't realize it was water utility. I thought it was road works.

[quantumreality]

So, googling tells me no company named VADWP exists. If I had to guess, though? VirginiA D(?) Water and Power.

[treonb]

DWP - department of water and power.

But I see it's usually a municipal service.