The Americans: Cardinal

Spoilers to follow

The Americans returns this week with an episode that I found was as equally strong if not better than last week's.  Granted, last week's held a stronger punch - that tends to happen when a family get killed point-blank and a son is left to witness the details.  But this focused on characters we actually know and care about.

Since the second season of The Americans will have a tighter focus on the Jennings' relationship to their two children, I feel a theme developing.  In both episodes, the Jennings are forced to do something with their kids they aren't comfortable doing.  In the first, Phillip brings Henry to a secret switch of information from John Carroll Lynch.  In this episode, Elizabeth wants so badly to have a family night only for her country responsibilities to get in the way.

The Jennings are on high alert after the cold-blooded murder of their two friends.  Elizabeth is jolted into reality in that she's facing potential consequences of their life's work for the first time.  Sure, she could die, but that's kind of understood when entering life as a secret spy.  But the implication that their kids will be hurt?  That's something they should have seriously considered and for the first time are forced to deal with.

And it shows on Elizabeth throughout this episode.  In the first season, it kind of seemed like Phillip was more of the family man and Elizabeth was the colder character.  While that certainly may be the case, she is freaking the fuck out over her family right now.  Phillip seems more in control, although Matthew Rhys is playing him nicely as a man who isn't really in control, but projects it on the surface.  Elizabeth is pretty openly losing her shit.

She sees construction workers - it's pretty obvious they are actually construction workers early on.  But one of them gives her a glance while she's in her house and she thinks they are spying on them.  I mean wouldn't you think that?  So she's constantly looking out the window throughout the episode.  Also, Henry's right: Paige is crazy.  Who would want to play Life instead of see Raiders of the Lost Ark?  (Note: The timeline seems a bit off unless movies were in theaters for like a year back then.  Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in the summer of 1981, while later on we find out it's the summer of 1982.  But hey it's not that big of a deal and I'm sure some theater may have carried it.)

Meanwhile, Phillip needs to go see if John Carroll Lynch - I'm not sure what the character's name is as the Episode 1 credits on IMDB don't give him a name - to see if he's the one who ratted them out.  We get some new cool wig work this episode again.  I'm all for a new wig/persona for every episode.  The costume people earn their money.

Anyway, a surprising amount of tension hangs over the scene when Phillip gets electrocuted even though there's no way he's getting caught or killed.  Still, that whole scene I half expected him to maneuver his way out (which I guess he did technically).  We find out Lynch really cared about that couple and that he has no idea they were killed.  Well, he may have an inkling, but refuses to accept it at the very least.

Tension remained over that scene for me personally as I was genuinely expecting him to kill Lynch for... some reason.  Like even when it was clear Lynch was a "good guy," I thought the source's integrity had been destroyed and he needed to be removed.  Anyway, an important movement seems to be happening as Lynch tells Phillip they need to get moving NOW because some important development is happening.

Speaking of double agents, Nina plays Stan like a fiddle in the episode.  It's kind of sad really.  For some reason, Stan is resonating with me less as a protagonist this season and it's way easier for me to root for the Russians.  I feel dirty typing that, but damn it, it's the truth.  His whole approach to Nina is slightly disturbing and it doesn't help that Nina is sympathetic and essentially forced to do this.

Nina gains Stan's trust by telling her about the walk-in (Name: Bruce Dameran).  I'm not sure of the significance of the walk-in, except the last walk-in to the KGB office was really important.  But the walk-in doesn't seem that important because they allowed Nina to tell Stan about him.  At least, I'm pretty sure that's what happened.  That scene where Nina describes what she did with Stan was just... cold.  It forced the audience to see the situation for what it was and it wasn't pretty.

Also, in the news of potential problems later on, Nina has drawn the attention of Oleg Igorevich.  I'm not sure what kind of problems he'll be, but he's either a potential love interest for her, someone who will be drawn in by American ways, or he could fuck something up.  Either way, he's way too prominent for something not to happen with him in the future.

And lastly, Phillip as Clark makes some new ground on Martha, convincing her to not only not leave counter intelligence, but encouraging her to put herself in a position to get promoted.  That was well done on something that could have been a total disaster for him.  Also, Martha wants to get a gun.  Well, that sounds like Chekhov's gun to me.  Think she'll be aiming it at Clark sometime in the future?  I sure do.

Oh yeah, and Paige is still trying to find things out.  She gets stopped in the process and frankly it looked like Phillip caught on that she was doing something wrong.  But they already kind of are aware that she's snooping of them so that was probably not a huge deal.  Anyway, Paige I encourage you to stop so that your life won't get ruined.

Oddly enough, I found myself liking this episode more than the previous one.  I think it's because I had my wits about me and was aware of everything happening.  Last week, it took me a bit to figure out what was going on since I hadn't seen an episode of The Americans in months.  Either way, it seems like The Americans is better than ever.