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

[treonb]

I was thinking about the playboy that it's an excellent idea when you're hiding something to hide something ELSE in there too. Philip just looked at the first magazine and ignored everything else.

[jae]

Oh, sure, that's definitely why he looked at it. What I don't understand, though, is why he touched it with his hands when he was being so careful about not doing that with anything else.

-J

[treonb]

I don't understand that either. He also put that electrical thing (what was that?) without putting on gloves. I can understand they don't have to worry about DNA, but they seem way too careless with leaving fingerprints.

But what I meant - Philip shouldn't have assumed that this guy only had playboys locked up in the drawer. There could have been something else there. But the show didn't go in that direction, so he was lucky ;-)

[sistermagpie]

It is very weird when it's usually so second nature for him to just grab a handkerchief to touch things.

Though I don't think the Playboy would be any real danger. It's a magazine inside a drawer, and a Playboy, several years old. It's made to be thumbed through by whoever picks it up, and I don't even know how clear fingerprints would be from holding it anyway. Probably partial smears most of the time at best. If they did dust for prints I don't think they'd be dusting that.

[jae]

Yeah, okay, good point.

-J