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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 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!
At the Rezidentura, our old bureaucrat pal Vasili is fielding a call from none other than Adam/Udacha, who's at a payphone. Looks like Vasili is his handler. He scolds Udacha that he's not to directly call him there. Udacha's in a bad way. He says he lost his wife and now he's all alone. It's kind of heartbreaking, I guess, where Udacha just needs a friend, but I also can't really see Vasili as the type you'd go to for comfort. Anyway, Vasili promises that they'll meet soon. Udacha just sadly hangs up the phone.
The morning, Elizabeth's driving the kids in to work. On her way down their street, they pass Stan and Philip, returning home from their early-morning racquetball date. Elizabeth's like, "Hey, that took a while. We were supposed to drive in to work together." Could not hate this newfound neighborly closeness any more. Philip either doesn't notice how tight-jawed his wife is right now, or else he's doing a great job of ignoring it and playfully bickering with BFF Stan about whether the game-point was in or out. Stan offers to drive Philip in to work, which only makes Elizabeth more put out. I think the idea is that she's surface-mad (the parts that bubble up to the surface, at least) about the strategic dangers of getting too close to the Fed door, but she's also maybe unconsciously becoming jealous of her husband's time.
At the Rezidentura, we see that Nina can't even make a pot of tea (from a very fancy-looking silver teapot, like, no wonder who was stealing shit to send home if the Soviets are gonna flaunt it like that) without hearing it from the comrade-splaining men she works with. This time, it's Vasili, who condescendingly chides her for using teabags instead of making "zavarka" tea the way they do back in Russia. He walks her through the process, and she's very good about not seeming annoyed by it. "time I hope you'll try it my way from the start," he says when finished. Poor Nina.
Back at the FBI, Agents Chris and Stan are looking across the room at Martha (Special Agent John-Boy's assistant and also the woman we saw Philip plumbing for information when he was disguised as counterintelligence security in the premiere). She's showing off her new high-heel shoes to a co-worker, while Chris whines that he dated her for two months and all she wore were nurses' shoes. Martha is like the answer to the trivia question, "What would happen if Beth Grant had ever looked young?" Stan suggests asking nice for another shot. Chris says he's already asked twice. This thrillingly retrograde conversation is interrupted by Special Agent John-Boy, whose knickers are like PERMANENTLY in a twist. He tells Stan and Chris about an intercepted conversation from a pay phone to the Rezidentura where the unknown communicant said, "I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a diving board and there's no water in the pool," which all three of them agree sounds pretty desperate. John-Boy sees an opportunity.
They're interrupted by Martha, who tells John-Boy there's somebody from the DoJ on the phone. Chris takes the opportunity to compliment on Martha's new shoes. "They flatter your calves," he doofs. But of course because it's the '80s and Sexual Harassment Awareness Was a Thing, so Martha calls Chris on his "sexist comment" and Agent John-Boy is like "That's right, Chris, you should be ashamed of yourself," but as soon as Martha walks away, he rolls his eyes all, "Oy, women," because it's the '80s and Men Being Perfunctory But Not Understanding About Sexual Harassment in the Workplace was also a thing. Still, though, Chris must just HATE coming into work every day.
Stan meets with Nina at a park somewhere, and she confirms to him that there are rumors around the Rezidentura about a desperate asset, though she doesn't know anything for sure. She's being really short and annoyed with Stan today, and he's kind of taking it to heart. "I'm on your side," he stresses. "You need to think of me as a wall that's protecting you." He says on the other side of that wall are "freedom-loving" people whose freedom-lovingness makes them want to trample her in order to get at information that will advance the cause of freedom-loving. So she needs to find out what's going on. He tells her she's a "beautiful, intelligent, intuitive and ... beautiful" woman, and she'll "figure out a way" to find out all she can. He tries to say something in Russian to her, which actually causes her to smile. She corrects his pronunciation of "davertyes mnye," which means "trust me," but not exactly in the way he intends it. Saying it like that, she says, is saying it like you don't have a choice. She walks a bit, and then turns back for a longing glance between them. Huh. This angle on this subplot came about a bit suddenly. Speaking of which...
Philip's back in his doofy disguise as Clark the Internal-Affairs Guy (or whatever the hell his title is that makes Martha think it's okay to just spill everything to him). The way she's looking at him, it's obvious who the new shoes are for. They're both drinking wine and being really awkward around each other and finally he just kisses her, and by this point, I think the show has really sufficiently established the theme here. Clark backs away and is all, "We can't do this because of work!" He's really got her on a string at this point. He then pivots into talking about the Bureau's surveillance operations and how Special Agent John-Boy feels about the current state, and Martha says he's very happy with the new surveillance contractor. Philip plays the game where he pretends to need his sentences finished so that Martha eventually just gives him the name of this new contractor: Kurt Schultz. Martha, you are a ridiculous person.
Back at the Soviet embassy, the Directorate S representative whose name I am still not sure we've ever gotten is meeting with Vasili about bringing Udacha in. It's basically the same information we got from Claudia and Elizabeth: Udacha is their only in to the ballistic missile shield program, and the way he's behaving right now, it doesn't look like he'll hold up under question if the Feds track those missing blueprints back to him. The Directorate S guy says his people are working on getting those surveillance codes.
That night, Philip gets ready for bed and bemoans his aching body, post-racquetball. Aching or no, that most '80s of recreational activities is doing a body GOOD, so keep it up. Rather than just appreciating the view, Elizabeth pokes at him about his new BFF Stan. Philip insists it's a strategic friendship, but Elizabeth is unconvinced that it's a good idea. Philip decides to combat this naysayer attitude with flirting, which is not the world's worst idea. He asks her about her plans to infiltrate this Kurt Schultz person. She plans to pretend to be a competitor looking for a job. Philip's kissy-flirty stuff eventually wears her down and they stop talking business.
Philip and Elizabeth's marital makeout then gives way to the smuttier scene of a be-wigged Elizabeth in the heat of passion with Schultz. Competitor looking for a job, indeed. He's quite aggressive with her, but it seems like he's a two-pump chump. Oh, if only. Now that he's done with intercourse, he's still gotta get off by spanking Elizabeth. The spanking gets less sexy and more straight-up abusive, until Schultz takes off his belt and starts using that. You can see on Elizabeth's face that she's making the mental calculations as to when (or if) she's going to have to break character and end this guy. It fucks up the mission, but a girl's gotta survive. Once she yells out "That hurt!" Schultz gets even more violent, and when she rolls off the bed to avoid further whippings, he switches to the buckle side. At this, Elizabeth shrieks out "PLEASE!" enough to alarm him that someone in the room might hear. Miraculously (improbably?), he backs down and is like, "Okay, okay, shut up!" She cowers and cries and crawls towards her clothes. With her back to him, we can see this is as much an act from Elizabeth as anything. She managed to stay safe and keep the mission afloat, so a gold star for her today, I guess.
After the break, Nina visits Vasili in his office with a tray of tea made just to his specifications. She leaves it on his desk and then shuts the door ... with her still inside the room. By the time she starts untying the bow on her blouse, Vasili knows what's up. He just doesn't know why. "I think we're both a little lonely," she says. Which is certainly a more plausible explanation than "I could not resist your animal lure" or something, so points for strategy, Nina.
While Nina unbuttons, Elizabeth (or whomever she's trying to be) is buttoning up. She's got an advantage now -- she could tell her "boss" about Schultz's personal business and make him not want to buy the company (though if sexual perversion were a reason for not doing business with someone, this country never would have gotten anything done) -- and she presses it. She goads Schultz into bragging about how his company if worth far more than it says on paper, largely due to classified work. She tells him she already knows about the encryption technology, but he's like, "The technology is one thing -- I figured out how to make it portable." Apparently the encryption devices fit right in the trunks of the FBI cars. He blusters that he wants $30 million for the sale, but of course he's going to have to charm some actual prospective buyer to get it.
Now Nina is buttoning up. Vasili goes to leave his office, but he turns and thanks Nina for comfort during a difficult time. So, yes, okay. Human beings -- the human condition -- we reach out for connections with people, desperately. It makes us vulnerable and desperate. Those human connections are rare enough that we're willing to compromise ourselves for them. GOT IT. Vasili then tells her the story of an agent he recruited 23 years ago. He calls the guy a "bureaucrat with a soul," even then. But now he's got the jitters. There's a funny bit of business where there's no Russian word for "jitters," so Vasili pantomimes them, because The Americans needs some GIF love too. (In truth, he looks more like a man in an electric chair, but so long as he's not on my team in charades, we're good.) Anyway, Vasili intends to calm this guy's jitters and assure him everything is okay. Nina asks if it actually is. Vasili doesn't answer her, instead just saying he hopes they can "meet again." She says "Of course," but after he's gone, she rinses the taste out of her mouth with a swig-and-spit of Vasili's old-fashioned brewed tea.
Elizabeth gets home and tells Philip that she got the intel, and they're going to need cars for the step. She changes clothes, and when he sees the giant welts on her back, he freaks out. She doesn't explain what they're from, but he infers pretty quickly. He gets up, clearly in major Husband Mode and ready to defend his wife. For her part, Elizabeth doesn't want any part of it. "It happens sometimes," she tells him, not as a simpering excuse, but as a simple statement of fact from a woman who can take it. But Philip can't accept that. He puts on his shoes and prepares to go "deal with it." Elizabeth: "If I'd wanted to deal with it, don't you think it'd already be dealt with?" He's undeterred. She tells him she doesn't want him fighting her battles for her. He doesn't care. He marches down to the garage and retrieves a gun from his little weapons-'n'-wigs closet. (Where I refuse to believe the kids have never gone snooping for Christmas presents, by the way.) He's way more emotional about this than she is. He might even cry. She finally is like, "Cut it out. You are not my DADDY." He says, "No, I'm your husband" in a way that comes verrrry close to meaning, "So...same difference." He asks her -- accuses her, which is a great tactic -- what she thinks husbands do anyway. Elizabeth: "I wouldn't know." Seriously. Let your awesome spy wife be awesome, dude.
We don't see what Philip does after that, but considering how angry and pent-up he is the morning, it doesn't look like he was able to vent much. Poor Henry has to take the brunt of his father's snappishness, for losing his thermos. Elizabeth smooths things over for Henry and glares at Philip.
Stan and Nina meet at the same park, and she tells him what she heard about Vasili planning to meet the jittery agent, though she doesn't know when or where. He expresses surprise that she's smoking, since he didn't know she did. "You don't know anything about me," she says, darkly. "How did you get him to talk?" he asks. "I sucked his cock," she says, "just like you told me to." He gets all "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I never said that," but if I'm Nina, I'm pointing to the transcripts where he was all "You're a beautiful, capable, beautiful woman." Another parallel, though, as Stan is getting all paternal on her now. "I wouldn't ..." he says, meekly, and Nina looks away. TOO MUCH FEELING IN THE PARK RIGHT NOW. After the silence, Stan starts talking to her about how this will all be behind her one day soon. She'll get to pick out a new name for herself, the name of "someone who sleeps soundly at night." Just not yet. There might as well be big flashy signs on the screen yelling "NINA'S GONNA DIE SOON!" He promises that exfiltration is coming. For now, they have to keep working. "We need to nail down when that meeting is happening," he says. "We?" she says. Damn right.
After the break, Elizabeth meets with Claudia while Claudia's out walking her dog. She updates her on the encryption devices in the trunks of FBI cars and how tricky it's going to be to get the codes right out from under their noses. Claudia says the Rezidentura keeps pretty close tabs on the cars that tail them, so she'll get them started on it. She also notes that Elizabeth seems troubled. Elizabeth tries to play it off, but Claudia's been around the block a few times. "I won't say this job is twice as hard for women," Claudia says, "but it's close to that." Elizabeth says she'll be all right, and Claudia says she knows she will. She then pivots into talking about the "sad progress" of the Equal Rights Amendment in the States. "These women need to learn what you and I have known forever: you can't just wait around for the law to give you your rights. You have to take them and claim them every second of every day of every year." Wise old Granny.
The day (or however long it took the Rezidentura to get them the info and for them to set up the op), Philip and Elizabeth are in a borrowed car but wearing no disguises. (Damn, and I was hoping for a tiara/sombrero combination.) The FBI is two cars behind them. Philip and Elizabeth are still tense about the other night, and when Elizabeth is like, "At least I'm not tormenting little boys about thermoses," Philip slams on the breaks. All part of the plan, however! This causes the car behind them to break, which causes the Feds to crash into the back of this old lady's car. The Jenningses speed away as the Agent gets out to survey the damage.
Cut to a local garage, where the Fed's car is already up on the rack. HERE'S where Philip and his disguise-o-matic come into play. The look: big-frame glasses, dark blonde shaggy wig, blonde mustache. He looks like he just got dropped off by the plane in Argo. Elizabeth's in a more traditional cat-burglar garb. They put their plan into motion. Cut to Philip talking to the mechanic as his car is now on the rack to the Fed's car. While Philip and the mechanics talk automotive garbage, Elizabeth is busy emerging from the trunk of their car, stealthily moving across to the Fed's car, and sneaking INTO his trunk. Unnoticed, of course. I'm pretty sure the mechanics are scamming Philip, too, so it's a whole circle of deception here. Philip coaxes one of the agents out to the sidewalk for a cigarette and some commiseration over price-gouging at these garages. Inside the trunk, Elizabeth quickly gets to the work of copying the encryption key from the device. Suddenly, the rack starts moving. Philip looks back from the sidewalk, unsure whether his wife got out or not. While the Feds get in their car and drive off, Philip hurriedly gets the mechanics to take his car down. Shitty drive shaft or no, he's getting the eff out of here.
So the FBI car with the KGB deep-cover agent in the trunk pulls into the guarded parking lot of FBI headquarters. The belly of the beast. Meanwhile, Philip pulls onto the nearest side-street so he can get out and check if his wife miraculously made it back to home base. She didn't. Philip's so stressed, he could start pulling his fake shaggy hair out. Back in the lot, Elizabeth somehow manages to sneak out of the trunk without anybody seeing her. She remembers to remove her "HEY, EVERYBODY, I'M BREAKING AND ENTERING" beanie and then plays it super casual as she just walks right past the gate. You could get on the FBI's case for not checking credentials on her way out of the lot, but I guess expecting security to plan for the contingency of a foreign agent sneaking into the parking lot only to sneak right back out again isn't realistic.
Cut to Elizabeth on her walk home, met halfway by Philip, who brought coffee and a donut. She tries to stay annoyed at him, but we all know the power of coffee and a donut. Elizabeth is as powerless as you or I would be. Inside the car, he apologizes for last night, and she reminds him that their job requires them "being a certain way." She tells him she wishes every night that she will wake up and not be worried. About EVERYTHING. "You can't live like that," he says. "Show me another way," she says. So they're bonding over the inhospitableness of a cruel world? It's a start.
Stan's at home, trying to learn Russian FOR HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND. He's interrupted by his wife, which is pretty awk. She's all dressed for bed and tries to get his attention, the implication being pretty heavy that sex is imminent if he decides to say nyet to the studying for the night. But the problems in the Beeman marriage persist. She reminds him that they used to go line dancing and drink wine and have family time and he knew his son's best friends' names. "Life was pretty freaking great, remember?" And still -- STILL -- Stan will not be moved. You know this can wait. It's not even about Nina, I don't think. He just straight-up can't be close to his wife because of his weird KKK PTSD. ...Okay, it's at least a little bit about Nina, since when he goes back to studying, the phrase he's working on begins "You have a beautiful..."
At the Rezidentura, Vasili is staring at a beautiful painting, but before you get too cheerful about art and stuff, we soon spot Nina's legs sticking out from under the desk. So not only will Vasili accept a beej from a subordinate, but he'll do it while being creepily still and listening to classical music and staring at art. You're really not looking too good on this, Vasili. They're interrupted by the Directorate S guy, who doesn't see Nina under the desk. He says they have the encryption codes, and Vasili hurriedly tells him to schedule a meeting with Udacha, tomorrow at 14:00. Vasili breathes a sigh of relief. Thank God for Nina being steady under pressure, eh, comrade?
After the break, Nina wastes no time in relaying the information about the meet-up to Stan -- hey, the promise of getting the hell finished with this whole informant thing would be quite the motivation. Stan pushes the news to Special Agent John-Boy who is PSYCHED that they're gonna get their hands on this guy -- and his handler. He hollers out to Chris to put three teams of agents together. He's all, "Oh, have I waited for this day!" He tells another agent to get the word to Schultz to change the encryption codes, which, yes, would be important.
At the Soviet embassy, Vasilly and the Directorate S guy (should I just call him "Boris" and leave it at that?) are frantically talking about how they just lost the FBI signal. It's either a glitch or the Feds are on to them. Which means one of two things: either they abandon the meet and risk Udacha going off the deep end and possibly blowing them in, or else going through with the meet and risk leading the FBI right to Udacha. Vasili looks at Boris and says plainly: "We have no choice."
Staking out the meet, Chris attempts to find out why Stan has been so moody all day. Stan just snaps at him about how everything Chris doesn't know about marriage and family would fill a warehouse. Chris, rightly, is like, "See what I mean?" They spot Vasili walking, and I can't make out what Stan says on the radio, but it sounds like he refers to Vasili as "Grey Goose," and even if that's not true, I'm making it true.
Elsewhere, Udacha walks to meet Vasili, and he looks like he might actually fall into pieces right there. We cut back-and-forth, Vasili-and-Udacha, every once in a while Stan and Chris. Vasili ultimately settles at a railing, overlooking the water (the Potomac? You guys, I don't know). Stan and Chris debate whether or not the man is "gazing." He may well be. They don't know what he's doing, since it's 2 PM and no Udacha. We get a good hint when we see Udacha. He turns and sees a familiar face. He starts to say, "Did my friend send you?" but he can't even get the sentence out before Elizabeth shoots him in the head. She is really not that happy about having to do it. Yeah, especially since that little idea she pitched where she would meet with Udacha and tide him over until Vasili could meet without danger looks PRETTY DAMN GOOD right about now. The flock of pigeons that flew off when Elizabeth fired are visible flying past Vasili, so this all happened in pretty close proximity. Which is also kind of dumb. If Vasili was leading the Feds on a wild goose chase, why not lead them far away from the MURDER? No wonder the USSR crumbled, man. Anyway, Vasili looks heartbroken, and Stan looks at him meaningfully, like he's drawing the same parallels between his and Nina's relationship and Vasili/Udacha's as the audience is supposed to.
That night, Philip meets with Claudia. She tells him that as soon as they got the encryption codes from him and Elizabeth, the Americans changed them. Which very strongly suggests that there's a mole at work. Which should end up being fun for Philip since there is no WAY he and Elizabeth don't end up as suspects of the witch hunt that's about to ensue.
Back at the Rezidentura, the certainty of this mole is causing even more strife. Apparently, Boris went over Vasili's head and cabled Moscow about it. Boris says it warranted breaking protocol, since it threatens their entire US operation. "The Centre demands we use all measures to catch them." Sounds like fun.
Back at home, Philip returns from the meeting but decides that the mole talk can wait until the morning. He kisses sweetly, and he cuddles up to her. You guys, if Alias has taught me anything, it's that mole hunts end up in pain and hurt feelings.
Joe Rmight actually be hypnotized by Keri Russell's lip mole. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.