Episode Report Card Joe R: B- | 6 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT The Spy Who Loved Me
By Joe R | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 02.27.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.So there's this Soviet agent who's been infiltrated in the government tech business for years and is currently involved in the Star Wars business that's been hinted at in previous weeks. Problem is, his wife of 35 years recently died, and a covert visit from Elizabeth (in the guise of a security professional) confirms that he's shaky as hell. He needs his handler bad, but Claudia says that nobody can get out of the Rezidentura because the FBI has this swanky new encryption process that keeps the Soviets from knowing when they're being watched. The agent, Udacha, places an off-limits phone call to his handler at the Rezidentura, who turns out to be Vasily and he's made super nervous by the call, but also moved by the man's plight. This whole episode is about the bonds that form between agent and handler, see.
The FBI got ears on that phone call, so they know a Soviet agent is looking to come in from the cold. Stan once again reaches out to Nina to get information and the vibes between those two got fraught with romantic tension REALLY suddenly. Nina's chosen method to get information out of Vasily is by sucking his dick, which -- sorry, girl. She's not the only one using her feminine wiles, though. Look at Philip, who is romancing Martha, Special Agent John-Boy's assistant, in order to get information on the company that makes the new encryption methods the Feds are using. And then it's Elizabeth's turn, as she sexes up the developer, one Carl Schultz, who turns out to be depraved and violent in the bedroom. Philip sees the welts on Elizabeth's back and decides to play the Avenging Husband, which just pisses Elizabeth right off.
Elizabeth finds out that the encryption devices are in the trunks of agents' cars, so she and Philip arrange this complicated little scam that involves causing a fender-bender, sneaking Elizabeth out of her car's trunk and into the FBI agent's trunk on a parallel rack at the garage (!), and after the agent leaves with his car, she has to saunter out of an FBI parking lot. But she gets the encryption codes! Unfortunately, Nina's on her knees under Vasily's desk when he learns that they got the codes, so she tells Stan, and the Feds are able to change the codes. THIS information gets back to Vasily and he has to make the command decision to risk it and retrieve Udacha or else bail. When he ends up deciding is to send Elizabeth to shoot Udacha in the head at the meeting point, eliminating that loose end before the Feds can get ahold of it. He feels really bad about it, though. The whole ordeal tells the Soviets one thing: there's a mole in their organization.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Reagan decided the idea was to defend against Soviet nuclear aggression from spaaaaace. And so Star Wars, the Strategic Defense Initiative, was born. Our friends in Directorate S were on to him waaaaay before it became a national punch-line.
Currently, Elizabeth is undercover (glasses and a bun!) as a security agent for a place called VisioTech. They're independent contractors for Defense Department stuff, and she's at the house of one Adam Dorwin. "Frances" is here to perform a standard security review for all defense contractors working in the Ballistic Missile Defense Program. Adam looks to be in his 60s and is in complete DGAF mode. "Frances" even has to prompt him to give her security credentials a proper look. Inside for the interview, Elizabeth gingerly brings up topic of Adam's wife's passing after 35 years of marriage. Adam is clearly still grieving, but he's appreciative of Elizabeth's kind words. She asks the usual loyalty-oath questions, asks whether he thinks his colleagues in the DoD are trustworthy (his response of "trustworthy idiots" raises an eyebrow). The topic veers to, and lingers on, questions of whether he's had unusual sexual attention from women since his wife has died (if not before). The idea is that someone might have pulled the kind of honeypot scam on him that Elizabeth employed in the season premiere. He says no. She then asks whether he ever told his wife anything about the project. She's quite incredulous when he says she knew enough to never ask questions. She's all, "Never? Never-ever-never?" "That's right," Adam says, though tears.
Cut to Elizabeth meeting with Claudia in a car nearby. She reports that Homeboy is about to crack; he needs his handler, face to face, stat. Claudia says he's apparently left four signals for a meeting, but the Rezidentura is locked down and his handler can't get out. Seems the FBI surveillance teams are using new encryption technology that the KGB can't break, so there's no way to know when they're being followed anymore. They can't chance any in-person meetings. Elizabeth offers to talk to Adam in his handler's stead, but Claudia's resistant to the idea. It's how the CIA does it, where multiple handlers can deal with an agent; there's no real bond that way, no true loyalty. Elizabeth's like, "Okay, but if we're desperate?" Claudia tells a story about running an agent in Germany who had no other friends, so Claudia became his friend. When she eventually left Germany, the KGB had no further use for him. She nicely explained to him about how they were cutting him loose, and he thanked her for the chance to work together. He killed himself shortly thereafter. "We didn't need him anymore, but he needed us." She says they very much DO need "Udacha" (Adam's code name, apparently), as he's currently their only source inside the anti-ballistic missile program. So Elizabeth and Philip need to break those FBI encryption codes so the KGB can send the one man Udacha trusts to meet with him. Looks like we have a plot for the week!