By Joe R | Season 1 | Aired on 05.01.2013
Just as Elizabeth feared, Prince is being swiftly broken by the Feds while they prepare for not only a meeting with the defecting Colonel, but also an FBI-engineered meeting between Caspar Weinberger and James Bakker that is purely a trap. Elizabeth and Philip haggle over who gets to fall on their sword, not knowing they suspect the wrong meeting of being a set-up.
Meanwhile, Nina gets orders from Arkady to not only inform on the Americans, but that her endgame will be to eventually turn Stan. Hello, Season 2 arc.
Grannie Claudia takes an extracurricular mission to kill Patterson in retaliation for Zhukov's murder. Later, she learns that the Centre is indeed re-assigning her, per the Jennings' request. Loyal as ever to the mission, she informs Arkady that she thinks the Colonel meet is every bit the setup that Philip and Elizabeth do.
Stan informs Nina that he expects good news today, after which he will be able to get her exfiltrated. This, of course, isn't the good news that it would have been for Nina, say, two weeks ago. She goes right back to Arkady and tells him about this expectation of big news, which she has to believe indicated that the Colonel meeting is a trap.
And while Prince has indeed agreed to talk in exchange for immunity and $500,000, the Feds aren't onto the Colonel yet. They're all over the Weinberger thing, though, waiting to snatch up the Directorate S agent(s) who come to retrieve the recording device. That turns out to be Elizabeth, because Philip decides to play the chivalrous husband and take the "more dangerous" Colonel meeting himself. He's already at the meet when Claudia sees the makeshift abort signal that Arkady sends. She busts up the meeting, but she and Philip soon realize this isn't the set-up. Philip races to Elizabeth, snatching her up in time to make a thorny and dangerous getaway from FBI barricades. Elizabeth is shot in the process, but Philip is able to get her to a black-site hospital in time to save her.
In the meantime, Philip asks Stan to watch the kids while he and Elizabeth travel to take care of Elizabeth's ailing great aunt. Paige ends up back in her empty home for a moment and begins snooping in the basement, where her mother had previously been suspiciously "folding laundry" the other night. We don't see Paige finding anything yet, but she's clearly on her way. Good, because the more narrative weight we can lay on Paige, the better.
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Previously: Twelve episodes worth of insanely horrendous disguises and repetitive marital strife that somehow got called the best American debut season since Homeland, which, fine, but Homeland was like a minute and a half ago. Also: Elizabeth and Philip were super-duper suspicious of a meeting their supposed to have with a U.S. colonel looking to flip, particularly after the source for that meeting ended up getting arrested for failure to pay child support.
Currently: that very source, our old pal Sanford Prince, is being questioned by Agent Stan. Stan's playing the good cop and Prince isn't being overtly suspicious about anything, but still, Stan's spidey sense detects that he's "holding something back." Outside the interrogation room, Stan shares this suspicion with Special Agent John-Boy. They decide to leave Prince alone for a long while to see if he starts cracking. You know, screaming at the walls and such.
SPEAKING OF WHICH OH GOD MARTHA IS ORGASMING LOUDLY. Yes, newlyweds Clark and Martha are engaging in the kind of consensual sexual act that most people don't associate with married couples. Clark is still submerged under the covers as Martha's cries of pleasure echo through her tackily-appointed apartment. His legs, however, are sticking out past the bottom of the covers, making Martha look like some ecstatic frog creature. If any one character on this show best represents the series as a whole, it's got to be Martha: gooberishly straightforward and enthusiastic, despite myriad flaws that her top suitor appears completely blind to. Clark's impenetrable wig isn't even slightly askance. The blue garter on Martha's leg tells me this is still their wedding night. She downshifts pretty seamlessly into asking Clark for his input on possible decorating changes. You know, so he feels like the place is his too. Clark is like, "This is place is great just as it is!" Distance, man. Distance.
Elsewhere, Elizabeth shows up to meet Claudia at a cute little breakfast restaurant, an oddly normalized location considering their recent trend of meeting at video arcades, fancy weddings and rock-climbing classes. Elizabeth refuses the plate of eggs Florentine that Claudia ordered for her, probably suspecting they're poisoned. We go through a light rehash of matters with the Colonel -- Elizabeth thinks the whole thing adds up to a set-up; Claudia says Elizabeth is probably right to be wary -- Prince is in Federal custody after all -- but the Centre wants it done, and besides, their job involves taking these risks sometimes. Elizabeth is once again amused at the idea of Claudia sitting in her cushy position, putting her and Philip into danger on a whim. Claudia also brings up another task necessitated by a meeting that's supposedly going to happen between Caspar Weinberger and James Bakker. There's a lot of something-something about Reagan planning an attack on someone-someones in Nicaragua, but the important thing is that Elizabeth accepts the meeting without even a bitchy remark, all the while we smartasses in the audience know that the Feds are all over Weinberger's house and THIS is a trap.
By Joe R | Season 1 | Aired on 05.01.2013
The more pressing point of discussion is that Claudia has been informed of Elizabeth and Philip's request to have her reassigned. Elizabeth says that can't have come as a huge surprise. Claudia narrows her eyes and says the whole thing ended up requiring her to fill out a 27-section form. Elizabeth: "I guess your job can be dangerous, too." Still more repetitive dick-measuring from these two, with all the old refrains. Elizabeth thinks Claudia is a soulless monster. Claudia thinks Elizabeth doesn't know half of what she thinks she knows about being a good spy. Round and round. "I know you better than you know yourself," Claudia says, taking a bite of the suspicious eggs Florentine. "And you don't know me at all."
At the travel agency, Elizabeth relays the news about the Colonel meeting and Prince's detention. Philip says the bug in Agent John-Boy's office has yielded a few hushed conversations that happened elsewhere, which could be any number of things. Basically, they won't know this is a set-up until they know. Elizabeth tells Philip that if this all does go bad, he needs to be packed and ready to go on the run with the kids immediately. Their timetable for this is very much shortened since Stan Beeman will be able to ID her on sight. (So... yet another reason why any other situation that wasn't the subject of a contrived TV show would have had Philip and Elizabeth re-assigned the moment Stan moved door?) Philip, oh so fucking predictably, tells her that it'll be her going on the run with the kids, since he's taking the meeting himself. Chivalrous and presumptuous until the last. Elizabeth's argument makes much more sense, of course. Not only is the Colonel her mission from her agent, but the kids currently have a much better relationship with Philip and will be much more willing to leave town at a moment's notice and not put up too much bullshit resistance if he's the one calling the shots. But Philip is the Man and the Man falls on his sword for his lady and blah blah blah. Besides, she needs Philip to pick up the tape at Weinberger's house. (The irony, of course, in case I needed to remind you, is that the set-up is at Weinberger's, not with the Colonel.) More posturing from the both of them, both of them trying to be the tough guy, until Elizabeth puts her foot down and plays the "the Centre said so" card. That trumps, for now.
At the FBI, Agents Stan and John-Boy are being briefed about the hows and whens of the recording device at Weinberger's. It's in the trunk of a nearby parked car, and when the agents want to retrieve the recording, they just pick it up at the car. Looks like Stan's forming a plan. He also stares at the sketches like they're about to give him some huge epiphany.
By Joe R | Season 1 | Aired on 05.01.2013
At the Rezidentura, Arkady is informing Nina of the KGB's ruling on her confessed mole-ery. He tells her that she can return to Moscow for trial, with the assurance that she will not be executed. However... there's another option, and that's Nina's offer to continue on and redeem herself. Moscow was skeptical, but Arkady sold them on his belief in her. He doesn't quite trust her, but her long-running deception makes him think she could be quite "effective" with this American agent of hers. During this whole speech, he's cold to her, but not angry exactly. He makes sure she's aware of the risks -- she could end up in U.S. jail, and if she betrays the USSR again, there will be no mercy. Nina knows. He tells her to continue her relationship with Stan, hand over all information and maybe bug him at some point in the future. Long term, says Arkady, the goal is to turn her Agent Beeman. She doesn't think that can be done, but Arkady quite confidently says that a man who falls into bed with his agent is "weaker and more vulnerable than he seems."
Back at the FBI, Agent John-Boy explains what Claudia told Elizabeth about the meeting between Weinberger and Bakker. He says they know they won't send anyone from the Rezidentura because they'd be followed. They'll send a Directorate S officer, and the FBI will be waiting.
Back at the Jenningses, Henry doesn't want to go to Philip's apartment for dinner. He says it's because it's Game 5 of Stanley Cup playoffs, but we also know he's reacting to this separation by sealing himself away. Philip offers to stick around and watch the game. So it looks like the whole fam will be together to watch the Islanders.
At the FBI, Stan really thinks this plan is going to work. When it does, the Rezidentura will go apeshit, which means it's time to get Nina out of there. Agent John-Boy agrees and says he'll put things in motion for exfiltration.
Back at home, Philip and Elizabeth duck into another room to discuss their exodus plans. The plan seems to be that Philip will take the kids out of town no matter what, and if Elizabeth makes it out of her meeting with the Colonel, she'll meet up with them by nightfall. If not, it's off to Ottawa! Philip then makes one more grandiose attempt at telling her that she should be the one to stay with the kids. He's trying to talk her into believing in her motherly bond or something. It just comes across as tedious. I get how, like, our personal lives wreak havoc on our professional brains or whatever, but there needs to be some nod to Philip behaving like a good secret agent at some point. These loosey-goosey notions of motherhood he's trying to push on Elizabeth are just taking away from the smartest course of action, and at some point, I'm going to stop caring about elite spies who are just not that good at being spies. She ends up wearing Philip down, earning his best "I'm disappointed in you" face. Stand strong, Elizabeth! You don't need them kids!
By Joe R | Season 1 | Aired on 05.01.2013
At home with the Beemans, Sandra opens up a present from Stan: a trip to Jamaica for 8 days. (Sandra: "Looks expensive." Stan: "Philip got us a rate.") She's not interested, though. He assures her that this assignment is all over tomorrow. He says he takes responsibility for what's happened in their marriage, but he wants to make it better Sandra's like, "I get it. But I can't." Their problems are more than what a vacation can fix.
The Jenningses. Elizabeth kisses Henry as he sleeps under his Star Wars bedspread, then, she heads for the basement, moves the dryer out of the way to reveal a secret hiding spit and listens to a recording that her mother sent her, seemingly recently. She updates Elizabeth on what's happening in Russia. Poor Uncle Anatoli has dementia. Her mom misses her so, so much. She says she loves looking at her photo of Elizabeth and her family. "I know I'll never meet them, but knowing you have them... that makes me happy. They are my family too." This hits home with Elizabeth, as you might imagine.
Elsewhere in D.C., Claudia is in Harmless Old Lady drag, knocking on an apartment door. She pretends her niece accidentally locked her out and we see what she's up to when the man who answers the door is Patterson, the CIA guy who Elizabeth nearly executed for ordering General Zhukov's murder. He's very wary ever since his unfortunate experience, by Claudia's old-lady innocence wears down his guard, and while he makes sure his gun is at the ready, he lets her in. Big mistake. She does a very good job of faking the phone call with her nephew, lasting long enough to get Patterson's guard down so that when she rounds on him with a taser, he's not expecting it. Once he's on the ground, she sticks him with a syringe and tells him it'll keep him immobilized for about twenty minutes, which is ten longer than he's got to live. And with that, she takes a delicate little knife and neatly nicks open his carotid artery. The smallness of that gesture was my favorite part in the episode and just SO Claudia. Ruthless efficiency. As he bleeds out, she shows Patterson a photo of Zhukov. She tells him the story of how they met, at Stalingrad, fighting the Nazis. She's telling the long version, too. Whether he'll have any blood left in his body by the time she's done is anybody's guess.
Back at home, Paige wakes Henry up and says she had a nightmare. Yeesh, she really is terrible at being the older sibling. Henry says he's tired. "I'm gonna wake up mom," Paige says. Henry: "No. You're not allowed and you know that." Interesting glimpse into Jennings family life, right there. Paige goes anyway, knocks on the door and sees that no one's in the bedroom. The bed hasn't even been slept in. She creeps downstairs and catches Elizabeth coming up from the basement. A guilty Elizabeth is like, "Laundry! Laundry. It's laundry." Paige says she didn't hear the washing machine. Elizabeth says she was folding. Leave your mom alone, Paige, Jesus!
By Joe R | Season 1 | Aired on 05.01.2013
Travel agency. Elizabeth asks around for Philip and a co-worker says he had to run, but he hands Elizabeth an envelope that Philip said to give to her. Inside the envelope? A note that reads: "I did it the way I wanted. Don't forget the pick up [sic]. See you later, I hope. I love you, Philip." Well, at least Philip's owning his selfishness in the letter. Still, way to boot your wife/partner in the nads, guy.
In a bit of cross-cutting, we see Nina leaving the Safe House/Fuck Pad at the same time that Elizabeth clears out her desk at work (of particular note: she takes her framed family photo with her).
Back with Special Agent John-Boy, everybody's in position for the bust at Weinberger's house. By the way, John-Boy tells Stan, Prince started shouting at the glass, like Stan said he would. He wants immunity and $500,000. Stan asks what he knows, and Agent John-Boy says they'll find out when they give him immunity and $500,000. There is then some talk about whether or not this "gambler" could be "bluffing" and I'm rolling my eyes too much to pay attention.
A poorly-disguised Philip (with an indifferent blond wig, wispy mustache and tinted glasses -- he looks like he dressed up as the FBI sketches of him) drives to the meet-up.
Rezidentura. Nina has taken the news of Stan's big development straight to Arkady. She's amped as hell, mostly because she's convinced that this can only mean one thing: the Directorate S meeting with the Colonel is a set-up. (Interesting that Arkady would have trusted her enough to tell her about the meeting with the Colonel.) He gets on the horn immediately.
The Feds wait outside Weinberger's house, all eyes on the car with the recorder in the trunk. One woman approaches, but it's a false alarm.
Back at the Soviet embassy, Arkady spray paints what look to be cock-eyed "7"s on a series of car doors -- a makeshift "abort" signal to send out to the Directorate S agents It's an incredibly unorthodox trick, but it's all they have.
Elizabeth -- wearing an equally low-effort wig and equally creepy shades -- rides the bus to make her pickup. Meanwhile, Claudia watches Philip's car pass her en route to his meeting with the Colonel. Suspense, suspense, suspense.
...Of course, not for us. We know Philip's not in danger. He finds the Colonel sitting on a bench and delivers his pass phrase: "The future is bright, don't you think?" The Colonel can't believe he requested such a lame-ass pass phrase, so points for self-awareness. A wary Philip sits as Claudia watches from her car. Philip begins by calling the intelligence he passed on "incredible." The Colonel goes for the old "Yes, from the Latin for 'not credible.'" Philip thinks he's just being a gasbag, but the Colonel is trying to tell him that these plans for a missile shield are quite literally not credible. At best, it's 50 years from being operational, he says. (Hi, I'm a grown adult, and the word "operational" still makes me think of the Death Star and only the Death Star.) It's basically a pipe dream, a bluff, a psy-op or just the ravings of a lunatic Reagan. "Another crazy arms race, this time in space."
By Joe R | Season 1 | Aired on 05.01.2013
Meanwhile, Elizabeth exits the bus.
Claudia, watching the meet, spots the first car with the abort signal and springs into action, driving right into the park and up to Philip and the Colonel. She tells Philip the emergency signal went out -- the Colonel is freaked, but at this point, Philip doesn't believe this is a set-up, both due to the Colonel. Claudia, thinking quickly, immediately shifts to Elizabeth -- the pickup is the real trap. Philip just starts running.
After the break, the FBI lies in wait. Seriously, we get a look at that damn car from every possible angle. Meanwhile, Philip defies every known traffic law to get there in time. Poor Elizabeth not only might go to Federal prison for life, but she had to walk all the way from the bus station. She approaches the car, seeing no outward signs of trouble. From behind her, Philip comes speeding up in his car. She hops in, and Stan immediately orders his fellow agents to swarm. They close in, but Philip pulls a U-turn. Stuck now between a roadblock and about six agents with guns drawn (Stan front and center), Philip throws the car into reverse. Philip fires and OBVIOUSLY Elizabeth is hit and OBVIOUSLY we won't find out for another 10 minutes, because not only is this a television show, but it's a television show that isn't half as groundbreaking as people think it is. So Philip busts through the roadblock in reverse, Agent John-Boy fumes like a crappy movie villain, and the chase is on.
Philip manages to wind around the city smartly enough that he gets them into a garage and out of FBI sight. She wipes their prints off the car, while he works on breaking into the adjacent car and hotwiring it. They strip off their disguises and hightail it outta there; I mean, at a reasonable speed, so as not to attract attention. It's only when they get on the road -- seemingly safe and sound -- that they discover that Elizabeth has been shot. "We should still take the kids to that hotel tonight," she says. "That'd be nice." Oh how very cinematic. Philip scrambles into action as Elizabeth fades.
Safe House/Fuck Pad. Nina's fresh out of the bath, playing the enthusiastic exfiltratee perfectly. He sadly tells her that it didn't work out. Good thing she didn't mail her Commie buddies a photo of her flipping them the bird, then, Stan. "It all fell apart," he says. She tells him she can't go back. He is crushed; he promises to make this right for her. She's got him vulnerable again. She kisses him and I guess this begins the work of turning him to her side. See you in season 2, I guess.
By Joe R | Season 1 | Aired on 05.01.2013
Elsewhere, Philip has gotten Elizabeth to a makeshift black-site hospital, where incredibly sketchy surgery is being performed. Claudia is stoic as the bullet is extracted Philip assists on the surgery. I guess she's stable now. Claudia tells Philip to go home to his children; he belligerently insists he's not leaving Elizabeth. Claudia -- right as always -- puts a magnanimous hand on his shoulder.
Cut to Philip calling Stan with some cock-and-bull story about Elizabeth's great aunt taking a fall and how they had to drive up to help her, so could Stan and Sandra watch the kids? Stan shows no signs of suspecting anything.
Cue the Season-ending montage set to Peter Gabriel! Martha returns home and dons her wedding ring. Prince identifies the defecting Colonel for the FBI agents. Nina presents Arkady with Stan's file.
Back at the "hospital," Elizabeth stirs and Philip's right there to her. She looks at him and says, "Come home" in Russian. He kisses her hand.
At the Beemans', Paige asks to duck back home to get her homework. She does, and then she sneaks into the basement, obviously suspicious of what Elizabeth was doing there the other night. She stares at the washer/dryer and at that laundry her mother said she was folding. She doesn't investigate further, that we see, but the implication is that she's going to keep snooping until she finds something. Which... awesome. If this show needs anything, it's Paige more centrally integrated into the central plot. Homeland certainly taught us how great it is when you make the annoying daughter a huge part of the intrigue.
Joe R gives the whole season a B-minus. Come for him. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.
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