hellmouse

I assumed it was the KGB. Remember when Gabriel told Philip that they could make Mischa leave Afghanistan? But if it is the KGB, why did they decide to pull strings to get him out of that place now? If he's doing anti-Soviet stuff, wouldn't they want him to stay there?

Your last sentence made me literally LOL. It will be hard for Philip and Elizbaeth to explain some Russian guy showing up on their doorstep out of the blue.

Totally agree. It was almost like he thought he was talking to Henry, not Philip. But he's been shown to be this kind of guy before, and honestly back in the 80's it wasn't that unusual. But it did show that he has NO IDEA that Philip and Elizabeth are the couple William was talking about. Here he is seeing Philip as the father of the bride!

The pace of this episode was brilliant. It was like listening to a classical music piece with different movements, some slower, some sadder, but all leading to an incredibly foreboding ending. The only part I didn't love was Mischa Jr. It seemed a bit too contrived to have him appear and be so intent on finding his father. Almost like a soap opera plot. BUT I adore this show and trust the show runners so I will give them the benefit of the doubt. I do expect somehow that Oleg and Mischa Jr will be connected to do some anti-Soviet type activities next season. But Arkady! I don't want him to go. He's the best. Maybe he will work with Oleg and Mischa Jr too.

Interesting article (no spoilers for S4ep13) about their process and how they approached the season. 'This Has Been Brewing For A Long Time': An Interview with The Americans' Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg Speaking with the showrunners ahead of the spy drama’s season-four finale about building to big narrative payoffs, allowing themes to emerge subconsciously, and when the show surprises even them.

MISCHA JR! Living in a communal apartment! I hope it's young Philip too. We need more of his history. The season started with a Philip memory - maybe it will end with one too!

I was thinking about Oleg telling Stan about the scientist. We know it's William and that this will be the second time Oleg has given up a Soviet agent (the first time being Zinaida) to the Americans. I know he did the first one to try to help Nina. Now he's now trying to prevent biowarfare, and it's totally possible that he doesn't realize he's betraying the identity of an illegal. The only other character I can recall giving up so much information was Martha, and she at least has the excuse of having been emotionally manipulated into doing so, at least in the beginning. Could that mean Oleg's fate will be similar to Martha's, and he'll be going back to Russia? Will Arkady be forced to designate someone who will be PNG'd as a result of the biowarfare revelations? Maybe he will have to choose between Oleg and Tatiana, and ends up choosing Oleg to go back to Russia. It seems most likely that it's Tatiana who's going, with Arkady and Oleg sticking around. But this show always surprises, and it would be interesting to see Arkady forced into that tough decision.

True! But Henry doesn't know that.

Elizabeth grew up in Smolensk. Philip grew up in Tobolsk.

You're right, it might be worse with Henry. Even though he is not as anxious as Paige, he is positioned to have his own conflict about what his parents do because of his relationship with Stan. His potentially competing source of moral authority is Stan, who represents the FBI, the rule of law, the USA. That's very different from Paige feeling a connection to Pastor Tim, who represents the church, the rule of God, the authority higher than the state.

I agree - I don't think he's at the end of his rope. He's in a much better place than almost everyone else. But I think his equilibrium has been shaken by Gaad's death.It's got to be strange to be at the office and realize that three of your former colleagues are dead, one is gone and presumed to be a spy, and a key asset you worked and fell in love with is dead. I don't think Stan is falling apart, but I don't think he's on 100% solid ground either.

There is that racquetball game where he comments on how much energy Philip has, and alludes to how things aren't great with the new boss at work. It's not a huge thing, but it shows how he's in a worse place than before the time jump. And that was before Gaad was murdered.

To me, Stan seems happy when he is with members of the the Jennings family, Philip and Henry especially. He seems to enjoy working with Aderholt. He no longer seems to be pining for Sandra, and he has Matthew around more, but he seems just as disconnected from his family as he did in the beginning of the show. I think Gaad's death has made him angry and unsettled. He's able to channel those feelings into his work, where he is having some success. But he's as clueless as ever about his emotional life.

Interesting article about a Russian convicted of spying in the US just last month. The Russian Spy Run by Dumb and Dumber Zhenya Buryakov, a Russian spy convicted this past month of espionage in the U.S., had the misfortune of having comically inept handlers from Russian foreign intelligence. Zhenya Buryakov lived a quiet Bronx existence with his wife and two children in Riverdale, an affluent neighborhood, working at a state-owned bank by day. He moved there, his wife would later say, because he wanted his children to speak perfect English, and two nuns next door would even pet-sit the family’s bird. But by night, Buryakov met with his handlers at SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, and passed along information his bosses in Moscow hoped to use against his host country.

Hopefully it won't end as badly for him as it did for Nina!

I suspect that we will see them handle telling Henry much better because they've learned from this experience with Paige. It's just like so many other things in parenting - things that terrify you with your firstborn are easier with the second because you have gone through it before. Henry is also less tightly wound than Paige. I'm sure he'll have questions and concerns but he won't react the same way Paige has.

I feel like they could be setting up a Henry-Paige conversation, where he asks her if she is okay. He's picked up that something is going on, but he doesn't know what. When Tim and Alice dropped off Paige from miniature golfing, the parents immediately followed her inside and we lingered on his reaction. When Philip followed them upstairs, we lingered on his reaction. This time he actually followed upstairs. I don't know what he's imagining, but I could see him wanting to make sure his sister is okay and seeking a time to ask her. She would probably lie in an unconvincing way. But I think it's leading to Henry finding out the truth about his parents next season, if not the next episode. ETA: Also, as AllyB pointed out, Paige completely trusted Pastor Tim, and I think that laid out some of the groundwork for her not immediately thinking of the authorities regarding her parents. He holds himself and the church as a higher moral power than the state and the police. Paige came back from the anti-nuke rally shocked at how the police acted, and on the side of Pastor Tim's civil disobedience and activism. When she tells him about her parents being Russian spies, he never says we need to report them because it's illegal, only that they need to make sure they're not hurting anyone. Now her parents say they can't report the attempted mugger's death because they can't draw attention to themselves, and she accepts that logic. It's interesting that both sources of authority in her life - parents and church - fall on the same side in that way.

I agree. I don't think Paige realizes that she is becoming an accomplice to illegal activity and what that entails. She is focused on what this means for her family and her relationship with her parents. I'm sure she'll start to see the larger ramifications over time, but for now, her not thinking about it is just another way in which she is a sheltered teen. I don't find her naivete unbelievable at all. I actually find it fascinating that two spies raised such trusting, innocent and generally happy children.

In rewatching that scene, i thought that Philip and Elizabeth were alarmed that Paige was going to start working Matthew and getting in over her head. Philip said you do not have to do anything for us, and I think by anything he meant with Matthew. They would be horrified if Paige started dating Matthew in order to report on Stan. But Paige didn't understand that. She probably wasn't even thinking of that. Her parents are ten steps ahead of her in terms of how a relationship can be used to gain information. Paige was just thinking, wait a minute, that isn't true, I do have to do things for you. And then of course the phone rang, ending that line of discussion. I also think that Philip was being specific but vague when he answered her question about what he was picking up. It was Elizabeth who decided to tell everything, about it being part of a weapon, and I think that was a result of their conversation earlier, when Paige said "you never tell me the whole truth". So in this moment, Elizabeth decided to tell the whole truth. IMO it's a mistake because Paige can't handle it, but I can see where Elizabeth was coming from.

I completely agree about the family stuff being the point of the show. Your observation about the theme of the season is fascinating. I think you could add at least two more people to that list fo characters facing moral quandaries. Nina chose personal ethics - trying to help Baklanov - rather than continuing to do the bidding of her masters. Oleg revealed the biowarfare threat to Stan because he felt it was too dangerous for the Soviets to get the virus, even though it meant going against his own country.

They never thought their children would be involved in the cause. In the pilot, Elizabeth says "we promised, we swore that we would never tell them"; Philip says the same thing in Season 3. It's the Centre that has created this mess. It's like when they sent the assassin to kill the scientists and then changed their mind. They sent Philip and Elizabeth to be normal Americans with a normal American family. Now they've changed their mind and want them to change their children from being part of their cover to being undercover with them. If they had known back when the kids were first born that this was the plan, they probably would have raised them differently. It would probably also have jeopardized their cover.

Philip and Elizabeth are masters of improvisation. But Paige being their daughter complicates everything. They can't outright lie to her. Their most frequently stated fear is that she will hate them. What they could do is say "we will talk about this later tonight" and give themselves some time to figure out what to say. But that could irritate Paige, and they don't want to take that risk because they don't know what she might do. One thing I thought was interesting in that final scene in the kitchen is that the phone rings a few times before Paige answers it. Philip and Elizabeth are both so fully involved in the discussion with Paige that they don't go to answer the phone. Normally, one of them answers, and they do it fairly quickly. But this time it seemed like both of them felt the conversation with Paige was more important than the phone, which usually represents "work". But I do think it would benefit them to find some time to sit down with Paige and talk, uninterrupted, instead of these random tense exchanges.

They do keep their special radio in the bedroom, the one that Philip uses to listen to the BBC. It opens up to let them get their coded messages. Maybe Henry will find it and ask questions about it. Of course, he'd have to go in their bedroom to do that, which he has said they're not supposed to do.

Okay, I did a little googling and I found this article from TV Guide's 2013 annual salary report. TV's Highest Paid Stars It lists Keri Russell at $100k/episode, Matthew Rhys at $75k/episode and Noah Emmerich at $50k/episode. Since the article is from 2013, I suspect they each earn slightly more now, assuming some standard % raise each year. If The Americans were on a big network like CBS, etc, they'd probably earn more. But a big network would have probably cancelled it long ago. I also found an interesting article about salaries in all areas of Hollywood, from actors to agents to wig makers: Hollywood Salaries Revealed For TV stars, it said: "TV STARS $150K-$1M AN EPISODE: It used to be when movie stars did a TV show, it was seen as slumming. Now it's considered moving on up. Just this summer, Oscar winner Halle Berry debuted on CBS' Extant, and this fallKatherine Heigl stars on NBC's State of Affairs, while Tea Leoni plays a better-dressed version of Hillary Clinton on CBS' Madam Secretary. Each of these actresses is being paid $150,000 an episode, the going rate for luring big-screen names to TV (for a 22-episode season, it adds up to $3.3 million). That's a far cry from the $15,000 to $25,000 per episode an unknown actor is offered for a series regular role. But established TV actors with virtually no big-screen experience can do very well. Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting now will make $1 million an episode on The Big Bang Theory (up from $350,000). Then there's Mark Harmon, who makes north of $500,000 per episode of NCIS, and Ashton Kutcher, who earns $750,000 per episode of Two and a Half Men — or about $34,000 a minute. With paychecks like that, who needs a film career?"

My understanding is that actors have quotes for work, largely based on what they've made in previous jobs. Right off the bat, her quote would be higher than his. He was on an ensemble drama (B&S) and some movies, but was hardly a household name. She is Felicity, for goodness' sake! ;) That being said, it's entirely possible that the difference is not as great as it would be if the roles were reversed. If a man was the lead, with the bigger name and larger quote, he might make X+50 to the female co-star's X. Whereas maybe Keri makes X+25 to Matthew's X. That would all come down to how hard her agents negotiated. But who knows.