The Americans "The Midges"

"Should we tell Paige about this?"

Well, I'll say that The Americans achieved just about the most natural exposition-delivering device I've ever seen on television.  In an obvious development between the relationship of Paige and her parents, Phillip and Elizabeth tell Paige an update on their latest mission.  Not only is it an important plot point, but boy did I need that update.  Sometimes these plots can be too dense for me to follow and having a literal newbie to this thing get it explained to her was helpful.  Granted, this is certainly not the first show or movie to have characters deliver exposition to a "new" character, but I don't think I've ever seen it done where it was, you know, a plot development and the natural next point in a relationship.

Paige can only handle so much though, at least right now.  I have absolutely no idea what the endgame plan is for Paige - she turns to Russia, she rejects her parents, she dies? - I feel like literally anything could happen at this point.  Her parents tell her this to distract her from Matthew with the theory being that she'll be so concerned with their mission, Matthew will seem unimportant.  Which is true and is what happened, but damn: Paige is going to be even more stressed out than before.  (Hypothetically, imagining what her parents are doing could stress her out more though than getting told what they are doing, even if they aren't strictly telling her the whole truth.)

They tell her for obvious reasons.  The potential problem, as Elizabeth and Phillip understand it, is literally life or death for Russians.  They don't need to pretend at all here.  They are genuinely trying to prevent a disaster from happening.  It's also the next logical step in gaining Paige's trust.  Share specific details about a mission after trying the whole "be as vague as possible" strategy.

Paige seems to be trusting her parents more too.  She employs the thumb trick when evading Matthew's question about what's wrong with her (with a helpful update on the progress of Stan and Laurie Holden's relationship - still going strong, Stan's crazy about her).  She finds it remarkably easy to lie, even though she feels gross doing it.  Like I said, this could go in about a million different directions and I'm honestly not sure in which direction that will land.

Phillip and Elizabeth get a lead from Gabriel to go to Oklahoma to further investigate the bugs.  I'm not entirely sure they made much progress.  The bug is a type of midge that destroys grain, but they found that out from Gabriel.  Randy, that poor, poor guy, said that it was a weed killer and that they shipped 400 eggs to a location we are not currently privy to.  But honestly, it's possible it's just a weed killer.  Then again, it was curious at how top secret the whole thing seemed to be, which would certainly indicate there's something to their worries.

We also find out more information about Alexei, the apparently main source of this season.  He unexpectedly left the country without telling his son or wife.  So he's probably a traitor to the USSR.  That's not a surprise in the slightest but it does help explain why neither his son or wife are happy with their move.  Once again, he talks shit on Russia again and Elizabeth manages to not immediately strangle him on the spot.

Unless I missed it before, we find more details about Tuan too.  He's from Vietnam so he is definitely very angry with the US for damaging his country.  He seems weirdly convinced that the US is definitely going to destroy the USSR, which I found odd.  You'd think he would think the US would lose given whose side he is on.  He has an extreme hatred of Alexei.  Honestly, I think it's about time to place bets on who kills Alexei between him and Elizabeth.  I'll take Elizabeth.

In Russia, Oleg is trying to avoid being a traitor in his country and it's unclear if he'll succumb, but for now he knows the Americans have something on him.  He missed his meeting with a secret agent, but they found him and placed a tape of him in his pocket that would probably not go over too well with his superiors.  At least it seemed like he was good at his job, sweet talking the grocery store manager into giving up her source for the good groceries.  She definitely seems like she's going to rat that person out.  Stay tuned for the extremely slow burn on: food corruption in Russia.

Lastly, Stan and Aderholt try with little success to talk to a man involved with the Amtorg Trading Corporation.  Wikipedia is not very clear on what the organization does, but it seems as if it was mostly dead during this part of the Cold War and became extinct when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1988.  So I have no idea how this is relevant.  Again, slow burn of The Americans happening here.

Notes

- We got a very quick flashback to Phillip's childhood.  Matthew Rhys did that thing where he just stares at a mirror and with his eyes alone you can tell what he's feeling.  Honestly it was a quick enough flashback that I'm not entirely sure what that scene was about except to point out how poor he was when growing up.  I expected flashbacks to be a recurring thing throughout the episode, but nope.  Just that two minute flashback.

- MARTHA IS ALIVE.  That is literally all we get.  She's shopping at the same place Oleg is.

- More slow incremental progress on Mischa coming to America - He needs to go from Yugoslavia to Austria and his mom's source has gone to prison, so he's dealing with an unknown here.  This guy seems perfectly willing to screw over Mischa.

- "You think it would be fair to put that burden on him?"  Man Elizabeth is good.  It's not that it would be wrong to tell him the truth, but THINK about how Matthew would feel?  As if Elizabeth gives even a single shit about Matthew.  I also thought Elizabeth gave some pretty bad advice to Paige about relationships, but I suppose it's not terrible advice in the spy business.

- Phillip somewhat agreed with Alexei about why Russia has such problems growing their own grain and Elizabeth responded with tenderness instead of lashing out.  Those two are in a good place right now.

- Ok I can't be the only one who laughed at that final line right?

Playlist
"Old Flame" - Alabama - 1981 country song that accompanied some good ole fashioned banging

"More Than This" - Roxy Music - 1982 pop song that accompanied some good ole fashioned murdering