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In this installment of The Americans, Philip struggles with how to engage an especially dull target. That’s sort of how I felt about this whole episode.

After three stellar opening shows, the fourth one of this season just feels like it’s running in place. We open in Gabriel’s house, where they’re going over potential contacts with AgriCorps, the company that they uncovered in the previous episode as the outfit purchasing genetically engineered grain-devouring pests.

The suspicion is that this company is working with the American government to destroy Russia’s crops and create an artificial famine – something Soviets would have known a lot about.

The two marks are in Kansas, which means Philip and Elizabeth will be traveling to ensnare these two marks. Given that they’re already playing dual roles as Tuan’s parents, getting close to the Morozov family, and their regularly scheduled identities as Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, they feel they’re a little overburdened. Continue reading The Americans recap: ‘What’s the Matter With Kansas?’

We’re bowling with the Morozov family, and Alexei is griping about Russia again.

Philip and Elizabeth are barely holding their tongues. “Again with this,” Elizabeth whispers.

“The systems destroys anyone who tries to make change,” Alexei says, and his wife decides she isn’t holding back anymore. “You’re the one who destroys,” she snarls at him in Russian.

“They would have shot me,” he tells her.

“You should have told us that before dragging us to this miserable place like your luggage.”

After the fight, Alexei tries to explain his hardline attitude to Russia to his two nice American friends. “We had different time growing up. When I was 14, they dragged my father out of apartment. No explaining.” He tells them of traveling for days to go visit him, only to be told: no visitors.

“He died 15 years later,” Alexei says. “That is the Soviet Union I know.”
Continue reading ‘The Americans’ recap: ‘The Midges’