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

Re: How old is Philip?

[sistermagpie]

Right, I know that whatever age he's got as Philip it's not going to be his actual birthday. It's more that it just seemed instinctively wrong to put any significant age difference between them. Three years isn't that significant, I guess. I think there's 2 years between MR and KR. But I like the idea of them both teenagers when they're stuck together.

Also, just realized that both ages we're talking about come from Philip's fake backstory anyway, so there's just as much reason to take the ID of somebody the same age as Mikhail as there is to have Philip's dad die when he was the same age as Mikhail.

Actually, this reminds me of a funny comment I saw somewhere. There was an interview on The View where they watched the scene where they meet in the flashback. The View people ask KR how old she is in that scene. She says about 19. Then they say, "And you?" to MR. He says, "Um, 36?"

And a few people took that literally and talked about how wow, this changed everything that they had this significant age difference! Not getting that MR was totally joking about his inability to pass for anything close to 19.

Re: How old is Philip?

[jae]

Oh, fandom. Rule of thumb: take everything Matthew Rhys says with a smile with a HUGE grain of salt. It will serve you well.

-J