Episode discussion post: "The Walk In"

[jae]

Aired:
12 March 2014 in the U.S. and Canada
16 March 2014 in Israel
29 March 2014 in the UK

This is a discussion post for episode 203 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 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 two, episode three.)

Original promo trailers

"Next On: The Walk In" (Watch on YouTube)

"The Americans: Exclusive Scene from Episode 3" (Watch on YouTube)

Episode recaps

From the Washington Post
From Vulture
From Hitfix
From the AV Club
From the Huffington Post
From IGN
From Collider
From Television Without Pity
From Sound on Sight
From tv.com
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From the Houston Chronicle
From spoilertv.com
From showratings.tv
From The Cloture Club

More to come once they're available!

Comments

[quantumreality]

This was the first episode where I kind of wondered if maybe Nina was getting feelings for Stan, but then her little smile made me go straight back to nope, she hates his guts. She fakes it REALLY WELL though. Damn. Also, I wonder how much report Oleg saw and whether it's telling him anything he isn't supposed to know.

Maybe it's just me, but when she was doing that typing? She had a kind of expression on her face that seemed to resemble the way she looked when she gave Vasili a BJ and then spat into her teacup as soon as he left the room. I wonder if she resents having to "service" Stan because he coerced her into spying for him to begin with and now she has to keep the whole thing going so Arkady can get his back-channel intelligence, plus he killed Vladimir and won't even admit it to her, while she has to coo over him for being the brave American defender of freedom when Dameran was a patsy anyway.

I think Arkady does kind of respect her, but he's still keeping his eye on the long-term ball of having his finger on the pulse of all that isn't reported in the press, and to that extent has to pragmatically accept making Nina go googly-eyes at Stan.

Nina/Stan

[soupytwist]

I definitely got a lot closer to your impression of Nina/Stan most of the time, yeah - although I'm not sure how much is me thinking that if I were her, I would absolutely have a whole lot of resentment towards Stan! And whether or not she's enjoying the sex part on any level, she definitely wouldn't be doing that sort of cooing if she didn't have to, I think.

And actually, as far as Arkady is concerned I think landing a link to Stan is a major coup! Even if the actual actionable intelligence is limited, it's the sort of thing you can play to sound REALLY GOOD to your bosses back in Moscow...