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

[apolla_savre]

To be honest, it was painfully obvious (at least to me) that he was calling in a distress signal. No one emphasizes how great a steak was like he did.

It also makes me think that maybe Emmett's job was as a chef at a restaurant? Annelise signaled Philip at the Travel Agency, where he works, so did Emmett and Leanne have a restaurant?

[sistermagpie]

Oh, it was obvious to me too! But I was more referring to Philip just having regained consciousness and going straight into calming the guy down as if he'd been awake the whole time instead of only waking up halfway through the comments about steak. He hit the ground running with a lot of new info to take in (a second ago he was reaching into a box. Now he's tied up etc.)

[katiac]

Makes me think of an article I read on CNN a little while back about "Could you have talked your way out of this?" like the woman did with the guy who broke in armed to a school and managed to talk him into surrendering. I thought of Philip when I read it, and then in this episode he hit on all those points.

That's just purely Philip at his best. He reads people and figures out how to reach them.