Episode discussion post: "Cardinal"
Mar. 5th, 2014 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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theamericansAired:
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
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)
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
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)
no subject
Date: 2014-03-07 03:19 am (UTC)Nina has been pushing to find out who really killed him, and that was neatly tied off with Nina listening to Gaad's bug with all but certain proof that someone in the FBI (if not Stan himself) killed Vladimir.
Remember how she said "Those bastards"?
• Oleg is totally flirting with Nina, but Nina's having none of it so far. I think he's coming across as totally slimy, but he's definitely going to be a great foil for her.
I got the vibe that he doesn't get that not everybody in the Soviet Union had the advantages he had; Konstantin Simis wrote about a time back in the 1970s about how he encountered not only the spoiled kids of the nomenklatura ("Break a dozen dishes, it doesn't matter. The government pays for it all.") but also the kids of hidden capitalists within the USSR who were champing at the bit to spend the rubles their fathers and mothers had spent their lives piling up in hidey-holes.
In both cases it was clear the kids didn't understand what their parents had to do (kiss-ass the local CPSU boss / make their local area look like it fulfilled the Five-Year Plan, etc) (secretly commandeer factories or warehouses to produce goods "off the books" for resale in the tens of thousands / risk being caught and executed for misappropriating state property for private benefit, etc) to get into a position of power in Soviet society, and only saw the material advantages potentially open to them.
Ironically, not that different from how some children of Western families don't appreciate how their family got to be very fortunate.
Nina smacking down Oleg ties in nicely with Arkady being all like "fuck off, I got shit happening right now" when he kept nagging at Arkady about his science and tech thing. It's clear they don't think much of Oleg's attitude.