Previously on The Americans: Phillip threatens the pastor at Paige's church, Elizabeth is developing a number of assets, Stan has a new theory about the latest Soviet defector, and Phillip and Elizabeth
have hit the gold mine with a connection between two members of the CIA Afghan group.
The end of the last episode was both a fantastic discovery and a heart breaking reveal for Phillip and
Elizabeth. While Phillip and Elizabeth are obviously going to have to go after the CIA's Afghan group
from a new angle, it's not going to be fun for anyone involved.
If there is one storyline that I will always complain about, it's Stan's never ending marital problems. For a lot of the last two seasons, his romance with Nina used up a lot of his
screentime. While I'm unsure of Nina's role in the series going forward (a little more about this later), it's definitely been a good thing to have Stan doing something other than sleeping around. Luckily for us, Stan has quite a bit of screentime in this episode with the suspicious new Soviet defector that could potentially lead down a very interesting path. How do you feel about Stan's role in the series? I'd love to hear all of your thoughts.
Nina, meanwhile, does not have a lot of screentime, which makes her story extremely difficult to tease. All I
can really say is that she gains more intel into what her new mission (and role in the series) will be.
My favorite part of this episode is a scene between Elizabeth and Phillip that gets pretty intense. While the major disagreement between Phillip and Elizabeth this season has been about Paige becoming a spy, this disagreement has stemmed into multiple arguments over the most insignificant of things. This week, they argue about what to get Paige for her birthday and it breaks out into a pretty major feud. You'll have to tune in to see how it is resolved.
Additionally, Paige's birthday dinner with Pastor Tim doesn't go without its issues. Paige is the daughter of two highly capable spies and professional manipulators. As you might expect, a fair amount of this has rubbed off on young Paige. This leads to an extremely awkward moment for everyone at the table and leads Elizabeth to consider some pretty drastic measures.
Tune in to The Americans on Wednesdays @ 10/9c on FX Network. Be sure to come back here to SpoilerTV to let everyone else know what you thought of the episode. We will have a full review posted after the episode airs.
Additionally, SpoilerTV discussed the third season of The Americans with comrades Annet Mahendru (Nina) and Matthew Rhys (Phillip). The full transcripts for these interviews will also be posted after the fourth episode airs.
