Previously on The Americans: Stan is working with Oleg to prove that a recent Soviet defector is a spy, Paige's recruitment is a slow moving, but excellently suspenseful process, the FBI found the bug in Gaad's office, and Martha knows something is up with Clark.
The first time I ever heard the phrase "Ignorance
is bliss" was from Cypher in The Matrix.
Explaining that he was bored with the real world,
Cypher wished to remain in the matrix, completely
ignorant of the real world. While the phrase
itself is simple enough, the meaning behind the
phrase is a great moral dilemma. To turn a blind
eye is to deny reality, but it has the added
benefit of preserving one's own happiness. In
the last episode of The Americans, Martha decided
that, instead of fessing up to her crimes and
blatant stupidity, she would rather remain in the
matrix. As convenient as this may seem for the
show's longevity, it makes complete and total
sense for Martha. She has spent the last few
seasons ignoring the oddities of Clark and now
when her common sense has finally kicked in, she
decides to maintain whatever happiness is
possible in her false reality. Clark and Martha's
first dinner after Martha's breakdown was
surprisingly blunt. Clark puts on the show for
Martha and she feeds him FBI information in
return for perpetuating her fantasy. It's all
really quite depressing when you think about it,
but it makes for fantastic drama. It looks like
Martha will be around for awhile after all.
This episode also featured quite possibly the most sickening death in the show's history. Surpassing even last week's burning alive and this week's botched murder by Hans, the forced suicide of late working accountant Betty (Lois Smith) was painful to watch. On top of the obvious sadness involved in watching the poor woman slowly die, I found myself uninterested in the overall scene. I didn't find the effect of Betty's death particularly enlightening for our central characters because they have reluctantly killed people before. In spite of the excellent acting, I found that it simply wasted a large amount of Phillip and Elizabeth's time, almost as if the writers were stalling. What could they possible be stalling for? We'll have to see in next week's episode.
In other news, Stan and Oleg's team up continued
quite well in this episode. Ruling out Zinaida as
a Soviet spy was an important step for Stan as he
continues to grasp for straws in everything that
he does. For once,
Stan has something in his life that is moving even slower
than his boring love life. I'm still not
completely convinced of Zinaida's innocence
myself, but in the event that Zinaida is
completely clear, Stan is really looking quite
stupid. His off-the-books investigation is backed
up with zero evidence and he seems to simply be
unable to let it go (Yes, Frozen fans I hear
you). If more information is introduced that
points the finger at Zinaida's guilt, this could
end up being a bit more interesting, but in the
meantime, it's just not all that compelling. To summarize, Stan is either the most intuitive FBI agent of all time (unlikely considering his neighbors are KGB spies) or he is the biggest idiot of all time. One has to wonder where the writers could possibly be taking him next time.
My favorite parts of this episode were Gabriel's
talks with Phillip and Elizabeth. Phillip seems
to have lost any and all respect that he ever had
for Gabriel. While Gabriel was first welcomed
back with open arms, Phillip is not blind to
Gabriel's brainwashing and their confrontation at the end of this episode was good proof. I've
really enjoyed Gabriel as a character so I hope
that he stays through next year, but something
tells me that Gabriel's time on The Americans is
going to be somewhat limited. His slow working manipulations have not set well with Phillip and depending on how Paige's development as a spy goes, Gabriel could find himself on the wrong end of a gun.
8.9/10 - Tying last week's score, episode nine did not feature any major changes to the overall story, but did provide an entertaining hour. With Martha's suspicions confirmed, but set aside, we should have some time for Paige's recruitment to come back to the forefront of the story in episode ten.
