Munchkins

There were some great parallels in this episode and the kids take more of a center stage. Paige is curious about Philip’s past and they bond over the story of how strong (and the tough life in his home country) his own mother was. A fine night at home is shattered when Pastor Tim’s wife, Alice, knocks on the Jennings’ front door. Their biggest fear of Paige’s mistake storms into their house. Tim went to Ethiopia to do missionary work (with travel arranged by the Jennings’ travel agency) and he’s gone missing. She’s convinced they had something to do with it and threatens them with a recording she made about Philip and Elizabeth being spies.

After Alice storms out, they’re all stunned. The threat of her parents being caught has been very nebulous until now. I don’t think she put much thought into them being punished more than them getting into “trouble” and she and Henry having to go live somewhere else. When she hears them say we may have to seriously flee to Russia, she’s dumbstruck. “I’ve never been to Russia! I can’t speak Russian! And what are you going to do? You can’t be Russian spies in Russia!” She didn’t mean to be funny but that line was hilarious. Elizabeth gets more assertive with her to try and calm her down.

The immediate aftermath is interesting. Deep down Paige doesn’t trust her parents. They say they had nothing to do with PT disappearing, but she can’t be sure. This later brings up the discussion of when they are going to tell Henry about what they really do. In a brilliantly set up scene, Phil and Elizabeth try to dodge the question and basically say they will only tell him if he starts putting things together like Paige did. In this conversation, Henry is outside bouncing a tennis ball off the garage door. It sets the soundtrack to an interrogation like level with Elizabeth commenting through irritation that Phil should stop him from doing that because Henry could break the door doing that. “It’s only a tennis ball.” Paige comes in and says the exact same thing as her mother. As much as she may not think or realize it, she’s just like her mother. Plus, Philip and Elizabeth are annoyed that they are getting heat for something they didn’t do. After Paige storms off, Elizabeth laments, “Like we’d do it and leave Alice around to talk!” I appreciated the gallows humor in such a serious moment. Things end up working out on their own and Paige falls right back into working with her “agents.” Despite the ultimate stress test, the indoctrination is still working.

Much like Philip’s mother, Elizabeth is the strongest of the family. She’s been that way since the start of the show but the “Patty” mission is weighing on her soul more than any mission before. Gabriel see’s this in her uncertainty with getting the codes from Don (super awkward visit with Young and Don and their home and a heartbreaking phone message from Young). He offers to see if there is another route The Center can take to alleviate Elizabeth.

The Russian’s send some guys to talk to Gadd when he’s on a trip with his wife (Stan told Philip about it last week) and it goes off the rails. While it’s unclear what they went to see him for, we see the disaster was done under Arkady’s watch. Another person close to Stan has been taken out, we’ll see if it prods him anymore.

I’ve already covered Paige, but there are two other kids that need to be mentioned. We go with Philip to visit Kimmy. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen her, but Philip brings her pot as a cover to plant a fresh bug in her father’s bag. As we watch them catch up, Kimmy tells Philip that her father is really in the CIA, not the State Department. She tells a stranger a secret that she shouldn’t have. Philip gently tells her she shouldn’t break her father’s confidence (sound familiar?). Second is Matt, Stan’s son. He’s popped in and out of the show for awhile, but it looks like he’s being pulled into Paige’s orbit. She talks to him about his father being in the FBI and if it ever feels “weird.” If you immediately jumped back to thinking about Kimmy, we are sharing the same concerns about what could happen in the very near future.

It’s a tense time right now that’s for sure. There are a lot of people being used right now: Philip->Kimmy, Tatiana->Oleg, Elizabeth->Don. Gaad’s death is going to have some serious blowback, can Paige get the tape from Alice to get some kind of security, what role is Tatiana going to be taking (she’s the most mysterious, I’m curious to see where they go with her), and will a piece of Elizabeth’s soul be spared from the “Patty” mission?