The Americans (FX)

Very good season finale. It feels weird rooting for the KGB. Interesting how you have to improvise when you do not have cellphones. I’ll save additional comments until others have a chance to watch and post.

I’m never quite rooting for the KGB - mostly because of their sanctimonious posturing. You evil bastards killed a good man and I’m looking for revenge. Chill, KGBitchs, it was in retaliation for all the evil murders you committed. Phillip doesn’t deceive himself so readily, so maybe I’m secretly pulling for him a little. But all in all, it was a pretty good season finale, though with the on-again-off-again relationship almost every single episode. I hope they don’t keep doing that next season.

And yes, Elizabeth getting shot didn’t bring a tear to my eyes. Suffer. :-)

OK, I’m watching the final episode and I’ve got to call shenanigans on one thing. How the f*ck do the counter-intelligence people pinpoint where the receiver of a radio bug’s signal is? That’s BS of the highest order, no?

Okay.

Assume clock was a radio-frequency transmitter.
Assume trunk of car contained a tape recorder. Somehow it was high-density or only activated when there was noise to record. Old consumer tapes held only a couple of songs each side or something? five songs? I don’t remember.

What I figure is it does not need to be done with fancy tech. They know the receiver has to be within a certain radius. So they inspected the surroundings and noticed that one car never moved from its spot. They popped it open to check and found it. Then they set up trap.

Good points–we know that the clock in Weinberger’s den was transmitting–that’s been made clear in earlier episodes. I see what you’re saying that the receiver would have to be within a certain (probably quite limited) radius. Consumer cassette tapes of the period were good for about 30-45 minutes per side, max IIRC (they got to the 45 minute mark per side at some point in the 80’s anyway) so someone would have to come around pretty frequently to swap tapes out.

They said something about having activated the transmitter for a couple of minutes and then tracking the receiver in some way, didn’t they? Don’t know how they did that, but I think that’s what they said.

Season 2 on Feb 26, 2014. Set your DVRs.

I’m so there.

So, what did you all think? I’m trying to figure out what happened in that scene between Phil and the Afghanis. Had they made him and that’s why he shot his way out?

He was trying to use the Afghan he initially spared (if you consider shooting him in the leg to be “spared”) to send a message that the KGB was everywhere, but the guy tore off his magic wig and got a good look at him, so he had to kill him. Same with the kitchen help…which is what shook him up, I think. It was just a kid. The rest of that episode helped to form my opinion that he’s still uneasy with the things they are told to do.

Interesting episode, and I like how they set the other family up for the reveal. I’m not sure who the guy was that was coming back from the pool, however. Was that the contact?

Anyway, the kids still kind of annoy me, but I keep hoping for more of their perspective to explain the snoopiness of the daughter.

The guy coming back from the pool was the son of the family, who walked in to see his parents and sister murdered.

Yeah, that was a horrific scene. That they can’t help their friend’s son makes it even more heartbreaking.

I’m so glad they got Russian-speaking actors (including the unbelievably gorgeous Annet Mahendru) to play the Russians (well, most of them). It’s so much more convincing to hear them speaking Russian at the Agentura and reading subtitles than doing some BS where they’re speaking English with (sometimes really fake) Russian accents.

URGHH my stupid DVR cut off after they walked into room 1231. I saw the family. What else did I miss? So they see the boy come back and what happens?

FX online doesn’t support TWC or FIOS so I am out of luck :(

They will repeat it next Wednesday at the least, so check your local schedule (I think it is sandwiched between two showings of the next episode).

The kid backs out of the room screaming, understandably.

Here’s a decent recap: http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/season-premiere-review-the-americans-comrades-maurys-wigs-dont-come-off

Yeah, exactly this. I thought the intimidation scenario was kind of half-baked, particularly since they’re talking about the f’ing Mujahideen. They’re fanatics. But it was clear the wheels came off when he lost the wig and felt he had to kill all witnesses because he was now identifiable. This is something they occasionally touch on, that these two are agents and sometimes very ruthless.

Man, the murder of the other undercover family took me aback. Not the murder of the parents, the murder of the kids. What the hell is going on there?

It’s not the FBI. The FBI doesn’t murder kids. The CIA has an unsavory reputation, but it doesn’t seem necessary the way Phillip’s murder of the young guy earlier was, if it’s the CIA. Murdering children to keep operational security implies you have no local power. The CIA could presumably just whisk the whole family away to a black site without killing anyone. Whoever killed the kids was just as limited as Phillip. But who is that limited who is also acting against KGB agents in the US?

Yeah, I was trying to figure out who did this.
Whoever killed them is not American security because it makes practical sense to capture, interrogate, and trade back to the U.S.S.R.

It seems likely it’s something to do with the brush pass? What do we know? The second family acquired an item from target A. This target A was accompanied by a security detail of two men. The security detail was to be kept in the dark.

Possible actors:
French?

Iran still had the UK puppet right? Iranian revolution was 1979.
Looks like intellivision was released 1978. Colecovision was 1982. The show is between 1978 to 1982? I wonder how careful they are with chronology. Can’t be that hard, it’s not too long ago. I remember they were watching something on the news on season 1 but I can’t remember what event.

Random questions:

Is that bridge in the opening series supposed to be recognizable as a DC/Virginia bridge? I don’t know the area.
Did you guys know the FBI used land-drones to deliver mail 40 years ago?!