Jae (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jae) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
theamericans2015-02-04 07:45 pm
jae) wrote in theamericans2015-02-04 07:45 pm
Entry tags:
Episode discussion post: "Baggage"
Aired:
4 February 2015 in the U.S. and Canada
This is a discussion post for episode 302 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 you should also 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 three, episode two.)
Original promo trailer
Episode recaps
From Hitfix
From The AV Club
From The Atlantic
From the LA Times
From Slant Magazine
From IGN
From TV.com
From Sound on Sight
From Geeks of Doom
From TVEquals
From examiner.com
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From the International Business Times
From Uproxx
From MovieNewsGuide
From MStarz
From Starpulse
From Romance at Random
From SpoilerTV
4 February 2015 in the U.S. and Canada
This is a discussion post for episode 302 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 you should also 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 three, episode two.)
Original promo trailer
Episode recaps
From Hitfix
From The AV Club
From The Atlantic
From the LA Times
From Slant Magazine
From IGN
From TV.com
From Sound on Sight
From Geeks of Doom
From TVEquals
From examiner.com
From TV Ate My Wardrobe
From the International Business Times
From Uproxx
From MovieNewsGuide
From MStarz
From Starpulse
From Romance at Random
From SpoilerTV
QR's Usual Rambliew
- Yousaf's in over his head and Philip's in the perfect place to take advantage of it. Sonny, you acted impulsively and now you're in a hole so deep you can't dig out of it.
- Elizabeth and Paige! Quite the change from "get up in the middle of the night and clean the fridge, missy!"
- Paige still thinks her parents are having affairs! But she also likes knowing her parents make a good team, after Elizabeth reassures her.
- Rene Auberjonois as a guest! :D ODOOOOOOOOO.
- Srs FBI guys are very srs.
- WHOA. Holy defector box! :O
- Grisly scene is grisly. I'm not sure it was necessary or useful for the show to reveal this aspect of getting bodies into suitcases, even if it means blackmail material on dear Yousaf.
- Hmm. Looks like the KGB is trying the standard old trick where the "newbie prisoner" makes a connection with the old hand, and so tricks them into revealing something they can use. Although there really isn't much of a need for it here; the KGB already know all they need to know about Nina's activities, which honestly, would be illegal under just about any country's laws (betraying oath of office, attempting to defect to the enemy, et cetera).
- Aside: No Foreign Minister post for Nina, whose career is decidedly NOT on fast track now. :(
- The past! But is it real or a mixture of reality and fantasy? English shows up in the dream, so I suspect maybe part fantasy. It is true that Elizabeth grew up with her mother without a father, though.
- USA and Canada Institute lady defected over Afghanistan. Hmm!
- It's a little weird seeing the guy who plays Jackson Davis in Revolution being one of the middle-management good guys here :P
- Yousaf mooning over the woman he killed. :\
- Well, helloooooooooo Oleg. He's being a bit of a cowboy here, and I can't tell if it's a charade or if it's the real deal unsanctioned mission kinda thingy.
- :D For once, Stan is not the butt monkey.
- Ouch! Elizabeth's still healing. And Phil is being a bit snarky and pushy about the CIA Afghan group thingo.
- And Elizabeth decides to be snarky back!
- Philip has a point. The spy game might seem fun to a teenager, but the instant shit gets real she's going to find a whole new eldritch level of horror to the job.
- Given that food in American prisons is considered shitty enough I can't imagine that any of that food Nina ate (in a Soviet prison) actually tasted like anything.
- When I was Paige's age I read the paper, too XD
- Holy crap shit is gonna get real with this CIA thing. :O
- At least in the bar the CIA guys will be distracted by the waitresses with nice knockers. :P And holy list of beers, Batman. :P Elizabeth's smile was so fake. :P
- Yousaf is mixing some reality with the baited hook. The CIA was throwing money around along with the ISI and in the process helping along not just the usual freedom-fighter type, but also the more radicalized people who would end up not taking kindly to anyone else's way of doing things, even other Afghanis'.
- *gigglesnorts* at the cynical Soviets snarking about Reagan. I imagine it's not so different the world over when leaders show up where they're not necessarily invited. :P
- Lady's name is Tatiana. She appears to be some kind of foreign policy expert type. "Propaganda is more important, etc" - true, but I can't help but get the feeling she's unintentionally referring to the USSR's tendency to substitute sloganeering in place of addressing the fundamental problems within their country.
- Defector lady is about to find out she's a new kind of prisoner. Alas. :| IMDb gives her name as Zinaida Preobrazhenskaya, and I kept thinking I've seen her before, and then it clicked. XD She was in "Motive", playing a Bosnian Serb who'd sneaked out of the former Yugoslavia just after the civil war there and who was wanted for the crime of refusing medical assistance to Bosnian Muslims injured in a battle.
- Nina is let out of the shitty prison cell for a bit :O And she sees the Minister of Railways, Igor Pavlovich - Oleg's old man!
- It's interesting how the buried Soviet past of the Jenningses is nonetheless continuing to inform them in the present day.
Re: QR's Usual Rambliew
Where was there English in the dream?
Re: QR's Usual Rambliew
Re: QR's Usual Rambliew
What's the subgroup?
Re: QR's Usual Rambliew
Re: QR's Usual Rambliew
Rene Auberjonois
Wait, really? How did I miss that? Who did he play?
-J
Re: Rene Auberjonois
Re: Rene Auberjonois
Re: Rene Auberjonois
Re: Rene Auberjonois
Re: Rene Auberjonois
(Anonymous) 2015-02-05 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)