Episode Report Card Al Lowe: B | 45 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Here Comes the Blood
By Al Lowe | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Aired on 03.12.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Still very disturbed about the brutal massacre of Emmett's family, Philip and Elizabeth are not exactly comforted by the fact that they'll now have unseen protection on their kids while they're out having sex with and/or killing various people while wearing various wigs. Thing is, Paige and Henry need the extra lookout because, guess what? They're dumb kids. For example, Paige decides to take a little trip during school hours in hopes of finding out what her parents were really up to recently, and spills her teen angst to another girl, a stranger on the bus. Obviously taking after her mother in the fearless department, she walks into "Aunt Helen's" house looking for clues. What she finds instead is Aunt Helen, who appears to be a loon, but is in fact an agent who busts her to Philip. He brings down the dad hammer on her and somehow avoids locking her in a closet when she dares to sass back, which is too bad, because she takes the first opportunity to sneak out of the house to hang out with her new bus friend.
Elizabeth attempts to fulfill her promise to deliver a letter revealing the truth about Emmet's family to his surviving son, but chooses instead to burn it. On the spy front, Elizabeth and Philip wig up to complete Emmett's previous mission to get the settings on some grinding tools central to KGB interests. They get them, but only after Elizabeth does some menacing on a feckless warehouse worker with a hard stare and a tire iron, threatening his children with bone-chilling subtlety.
Meanwhile, Stan's literally running through streets of D.C. to thwart Bruce Dameran, who strolled into the KGB in last week's episode setting off visions of grandeur for Stan and John-Boy, who thought they were about to expose and defeat attempted treason. Nope. You know what Commies are good at? Red herrings. Bruce was, in fact, merely a crazy Vietnam veteran sniper who wanted to kill some World Bank execs. So, while Stan did in fact save the day due to Nina's intel, it was all according to Arkady's plan to keep him distracted by and indebted to Nina. Ol' girl is keeping pretty busy fending off advances from Oleg -- what does he know about her double/double agent life? -- while she gives detailed reports to Arkady about Stan who, like a dummy, has sincerely expressed his love to her. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Hey, hey. Al Lowe here, subbing in, Americans-style.
We start with a flashback to 1966. Elizabeth and her now-dead friend, Leanne sit in the park, talking about Leanne's infant son, Jared. When I first watched this, I thought that Leeanne's opening line about her precious baby was "He sheds a lot." Which… doesn't make sense, at all, no. I hear it, now. She says, "He shits a lot." We get it, FX. You love cursing! And naked asses! Ugh. Anyway, I guess the wig department was taking a much-needed vacation, because these two ladies -- particularly Elizabeth -- are wearing some Questionable Sixties Hats while they keep an eye on some shady character across the street and Leeanne talks about how sweetly her husband, Emmett, sings to Jared at night. She hears him at night by the crib singing "Here, There and Everywhere," she says. "You know that Beatles song?" she asks, in her Russian accent, and Elizabeth says she thinks so. Leeanne helpfully tells her that the best Beatles album is Revolver. (I may agree…) The reference to that song is very sweet, indeed. Listen to it and think of poor Jared, who found his whole family murdered. YAY. No, you're crying.
Leeanne asks Elizabeth when she and Philip might start trying to have a family. "It's not something I've always wanted," Elizabeth says, sort of cringing, and Leeanne suggests she never tell the Centre that, implying that children are something KGB spies are expected to produce. You'd think Elizabeth -- poster-girl for all things Motherland -- would have been only too happy to comply with this requirement, but the way she sort of cringes about it indicates the negative. But speaking of the Centre, Leeanne needs a favor. Before she can ask, however, their mark arrives on the street and they stride toward him, no doubt to kill him. (After, presumably, having crazy sex with him, since hardly anyone gets killed on this show before being resoundingly drilled).
Back in the show's present day, Elizabeth is applying medicine, post-shower, to the wound she picked up during the last episode. Philip, who is spying (har har) on his wife, sexily comes over to help. "Looks good," he says, and they have a little moment. "We drive to Newport News as soon as you're dressed," he says and you can hear the weariness and wariness in both of their voices as they discuss it. "What about the kids?" Elizabeth asks, and Philip sighs that the Centre is putting eyes on them in while E & P go off to complete their mission. Is it any wonder that the Cold War lasted as long and became as bloated as it did? These networks were employing agents to spy on their own spies? That shit is expensive. Elizabeth doesn't like the whole concept. "Is this supposed to make us feel better?" she asks. "Do you feel better?" Philip can only, again, sigh.