Previously on The Americans: Phillip and Elizabeth are working to intercept "someone important at the CIA", Nina is working to gain Anton's (the scientist from season 2) trust in order to get herself out of prison, and Paige knows that her parents are Soviet spies!!!!!!!!
Following last episode's major reveal, this episode starts off with relatively quiet scene. That being said, Paige has a million questions, some of which her parents are not going to want to answer. The fact that her parents are complete strangers to her is going to be a difficult thing for Paige to learn to accept. Additionally, Paige will learn that an unprecedented level of discretion is required for discussing anything that is even remotely related to the Soviet Union.
Also undergoing a learning process is Gabriel, who continues to attempt to "work" Phillip. Gabriel will learn that Phillip is, as you would expect, anything, but receptive to these talks. Something that is awesome about this show is that we are never quite sure where people's loyalties lie. There isn't a single character (besides maybe Agent Gaad) in The Americans that you can definitively label as loyal to their cause. Gabriel clearly has a certain amount of push and pull in the government (i.e. Requesting that Phillip's son be removed from duty in Afghanistan) so it's always struck me as odd that he never stuck up to his superiors for Paige's sake. In this episode, Gabriel learns of Paige's recent discovery and attempts to give Phillip and Elizabeth a sense of hope that everything will be okay. I wouldn't be so sure, Gabriel. Paige's reaction to learning that her parents are spies went relatively well, but I doubt that she would respond as nicely to being told that she has to join them.
Back at the FBI, Agent Gaad is under an extreme amount of pressure, some of which is self-induced and some of which is because of the bug discovery. It is quite humorous that his act of frustration (attacking the mail robot), unknowingly worsened his situation. With Walter Taffet closing up his investigation, it will be interesting to see how Agent Gaad is able to move forward with his job. The revelation that their communications from the past few months was compromised truly rattled the office. No one's life has been more rattled by the bug's discovery than Martha's however. In this episode, Martha receives an interesting bit of advice from Clark on how to function while nervous that viewers will undoubtedly be inclined to try for themselves.
Teasers (In addition to the above major story lines, I wanted to tease the smaller story lines of this episode shortly because they are really good too!):
Oleg and Tatiana are informed of a major KGB operation and are given a vital role to play in it.
Lisa and Maurice come to Elizabeth with a request that may be just what Phillip and Elizabeth want.
Nina is very good at her job, even when she appears to be awful at it.
Elizabeth's job seducing the hotel manager is quite entertaining.
Tune in to The Americans on Wednesdays @ 10/9c on FX. Be sure to come back here to SpoilerTV to let everyone else know what you thought of the episode.
