I didn't think that was news to Jim. He's always had headaches at his new job. He's still invested in it.

But it's not in doubt that he went for her. He was always earnestly trying to get back with her. He talked big about only wanting female company and went out and got it, but he wanted his girlfriend. I don't know how well it came across but I saw things that were trying to say that.

They knew who everybody at the embassy was, so they knew he worked there. When they saw it wasn't Arkady they aborted the plan. It was only Stan who decided to take him because he figured one embassy guy was as good as another as a hostage and a revenge victim.

Yes, they were going to kill him after getting the info.

@avclub-0e97e6f344f9103d117ec4f9f40ca670:disqus I think she was even recommending that he kill him with the morphine so it would be gentler.

Sure you can be self-interested and nice at the same time. But Ken's often described as having evolved into being a significantly better person than he was early on, and I don't think anything he's done really requires that. You can be amiable without being that good of a guy. He's easy-going and makes people feel…

I think Ken gets credit for being nicer than he's ever really shown himself to be because he's surrounded by people who are worse. He seems like he's still pretty selfish, to me. He's just passively selfish where others are actively selfish. He doesn't hurt people the way others have, but he doesn't do much for anyone…

I don't think they're strictly that, though. You can want to sell things to Negroes and still think jokes are funny and think the Civil Rights movement is unnecessary. I think part of his views come out of thinking the system sucks in general.

@avclub-f7f8eb12e0f61a9321597157c0d61791:disqus I can't see how much more clear they could have stated that he was actually gay. He wasn't just playfully flirtatious, he was grabbing butts, making jokes about how playing Juliet was his dream and admitting that this was his first time with a girl.

It's interesting the Don/Pete difference. When SCDP had a "lobby full of Negroes" (Roger's words) Don was happy to hire a black employee but wasn't horrified at the ad. Likewise, when the other agency sent the African statue over to SCDP the same day that everyone saw Pete looked disgusted and Don laughed at the joke.

Yup. Often as soon as an ep is over and people start talking about it Pete even gets distorted to be worse than he is, with other people being a little better than they were.

@avclub-3be42d8a3412057f79af152555e39bd4:disqus I think MW said Season 5 would be "orange sherbet" instead of chocolate ice cream and some wouldn't like it. It seems like people either think it was really brilliant or a step down. I'm definitely on the side of really brilliant, despite thinking there was too much…

@google-bb930f0a4639d7f0d79f2a0305581e78:disqus I think Nina is far more of a KGB agent. Martha works at a local agency. The Soviets wouldn't send anyone to the US as just a secretary. Martha could never play the game the way Nina's doing now.

But as you pointed out, they don't have to travel a lot for their job anyway. They're just embedded in their lives. They're not the kind of spies that get sent all over the place.

The key phrase there is "supposed to." Phillip obviously broke the rule.

Don't remember the details of all of these but Travel Agent is I believe a pretty common cover for spies. I don't think customers at a travel agency would have much idea how much time they spent away and since they run the agency they can come and go as they please.

I think they have had those conversations, though. They just always knew the answer. They've just now added a new wrinkle to it. For 15 years their marriage has been real in most ways. They raised kids together, they run a business together, they run a house together. They have sex whenever they're both up for sex…

The necklace was a passive aggressive jab from both of them. Phillip was angry at Elizabeth for what she said to the KGB, so he specifically asked her to give him some jewelry to give to Martha. Elizabeth then gave him a piece of jewelry that was special as a fuck you back to Phillip, which is why Phillip was then…

But wasn't Phil's whole "It's nice to talk to someone" to Martha in the service of bringing up his "stress" at work which led to her offering to help out by stealing documents for him? He's always been somewhat unprofessional with Liz. Not so much with the women he's having affairs with. Liz, by contrast, was…

They're coming up now because when Phillip killed Timoshev it changed everything for Elizabeth. Until then they had a stable status quo—he loved her but didn't hope for any real relationship that way and she saw the marriage as a job, period. So yes, these questions really are just coming up now, starting the story of…