Daily Archives: April 28, 2016

The Americans S4E07

Travel Agents

With Martha on the lamb, it’s a race to find her first.

FBI: They are 100% positive that Martha is the mole. She’s been employed there for 10 years and no one ever suspected her. Her boss, who she’s sat about 20 feet from the whole time, is shell-shocked that it’s Martha. His career is over after this. One of his main jobs is finding turned KGB agents and he’s been employing one and she’s had access to a ton of information over the years. Stan is in his element, he sniffed her out and can consume himself in his work to ignore his faulty private life. This is a major breach for the KGB as they’ve tracked down Phillip’s alias and are starting to put things together about their relationship. The Clark cover is burned and the feds are on the hunt. They need this win.

Philip and Elizabeth: Complete damage control. They are doing everything possible to get Martha and get her out of the country. She’s a massive danger to them all to the point where Martha’s life hangs in the balance. Philip is in crazy trouble, having to abandon his Clark character is one thing, but the FBI might be able to find him even if they don’t get Martha (if they do he’s totally screwed). Powerful Elizabeth, stopping Martha’s hysterics and bringing her in, that was just awesome. Extreme times call for extreme measures (although the extreme measure would actually be killing Martha). Surprised Philip didn’t lie to Martha about joining her in Russia just to make it easier to get her on the plane. Some super intense moments for these two. The simple fear of getting caught. Elizabeth telling him more than once that the possibility of killing her is very real. Elizabeth asking him if he could go back with Martha to Russia freaked him out and the very telling scene where she falls asleep in her PJ’s and he’s there next to her wide-eyed and fully clothed.

Martha: Alison Wright really gets to strut her acting chops on this. Her building paranoia is just overwhelming. Her whole lonely life has led her to this unimaginable situation and she can’t cope any longer. I really thought she was going to take her life, but she ends up still giving her husband “Clark” a chance. The part where Frank tells Stan that the KGB went as far as to marry her was fantastic. The scope of their effort blew their minds. Sure they are in the spy business, but they never considered this level of deception  and it scares the hell out of them. I really don’t think Martha is going to make it out of this.