Episode Report Card Joe R: B- | 8 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Lady Vengeance
By Joe R | Season 1 | Episode 11 | Aired on 04.17.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Elizabeth gets word from Claudia that General Zhukov has been murdered in Moscow. Retaliation from the Americans and the latest in an escalating series of murders. Moscow has decided to stop the escalation and not retaliate, but Elizabeth is TAKING IT PERSONAL that her mentor was slain, so she decides to go rogue and take out the CIA official who ordered the hit. Philip pretty strenuously objects, but he ultimately falls in line, dons the most ridiculous disguise he can find, and helps her out.
Meanwhile, after a night out with Elizabeth, Sandra is officially over Stan's constant absences from home. Especially when those absences are less and less explainable as "work."
Nina is tasked with logging all possible meetings to take place at the bugged Secretary of Defense's house. She still isn't getting any answers out of Stan when it comes to Vlad's murder, but she manages to keep Stan close despite his desire to break it off now that Sandra suspects he's cheating.
In between multiple flashbacks to various times when Zhukov gave her good life advice, Elizabeth goes through with her mission to rub out the CIA guy. Starting with picking him up in a bar, beating the shit out of him in the bathroom, dragging him to an isolated warehouse, and talking WAY too much once she gets him there. She's clearly acting under extreme emotion, and she ultimately decides against killing him. Instead, she and Philip drop him off, blindfolded, on a bench somewhere, so he can go back and be questioned by the FBI about what he observed. Which seems like the worst of both worlds, but I'm not an elite Soviet spy, so what do I know?
Also, Elizabeth figures out that Claudia probably told her about Zhukov's murderer so that Elizabeth would break protocol and kill him herself. Claudia says it's because she loved Zhukov too. Physically. Elizabeth, however, thinks Claudia is just trying to get her to fuck up so she can crush her. Because Elizabeth is having a bad time of it lately. No worse than when she awkwardly tries to invite Philip to move back home, only to learn that he bought a new apartment. Might as well have just killed the guy, girl.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Chris Amador was killed, which was apparently the most significant event in the entire Cold War. We saw the last of Gregory; Nina saw the last of poor, sweet doctor-wannabe Vlad; and Elizabeth was constantly asking about her good friend and mentor, General Zhukov, back in Russia.
At the FBI, Special Agent John-Boy is briefing his people about the latest covert retaliation for Agent Chris's stabby demise. In very haughty and flowery terms (including a "there's nothing Cold about this War" cliché), Agent John-Boy walks his team through the as-we-speak assassinations of three incredibly high-level Soviet officials, including one General Viktor Zhukov, head of Directorate S. While John-Boy monologues, we see kindly old General Zhukov at home, reading a book in his grandma-ishly upholstered wingback chair. When the assassin comes a-calling, Zhukov gets the jump on him, but he's a pretty old man and he's soon overpowered. Two silenced gunshots later and it's all over. R.I.P. Grandpa KGB.
After the credits/commercials, Elizabeth shows up to Sandra's house to take her out for drinks on the town. Sandra is clearly not entirely comfortable with these kinds of Banger Sisters antics, but she's allowing Elizabeth to drag her along. Cut to the nightclub, where it seems all of Elizabeth's honeypot missions for the KGB have got her quite studied in the art of partying down. Both women are getting sloppy on Harvey Wallbangers, and, as is this show's custom, Sandra constantly stumbles upon odd discussion topics that are, like, SUPER ironic if you know that Elizabeth is a spy. "Have you ever dated a foreign guy?" "I wonder what I would look like in a wig..." "Do you ever feel not-so-loyal to our home and native land?" Sheesh, Sandra, with all the questions! She then starts idly wondering about the first guy she ever slept with (a Finnish professor) and whether he's a happier guy than Stan is. And THEN she asks Elizabeth if she's ever thought of cheating. At which point, Elizabeth is like, "Even I'm not drunk enough to take that question in stride." They decide that thinking about it is one thing, but doing it another and when Elizabeth asks if anything specifically is wrong, Sandra deflects and Elizabeth is like, "Cool -- let's DANCE!"
While Elizabeth is dancing it up with the skeeves of greater Washington D.C., Philip is at "home" (his shitbag motel), watching Wild Kingdom with his kids and answering inane questions about the nature of Mutual of Omaha's sponsorship of said program. He then offers his boring-ass children a snack, but all he has is peanut butter and (warm) orange juice. The saving grace of this scene is that Matthew Rhys gets to break out his native Welsh accent when goofing on the TV show's narrator for the kids.