His gleeful takes-to-Abed's-camera were great, but I loved when Annie deliberately manipulated his put-on knee-jerk contrarianism to get Troy to aggressively interrogate Trout guy.

They both use sex as part of their job, but what happened with Irina was more than that.  Phillip still has an emotional connection to her, and he seemed tempted to go AWOL with her.  That plus the "oh, I might have a son with Irina" thing kind of counts as big-deal info he omitted.

Can it be both?  (I think it's both.)

"And while Phillip agrees to the thing he’s ostensibly wanted from the beginning of this series, the lie he tells Elizabeth, that nothing happened between him and Irina while he was in New York, is itself a betrayal, but one told in the service of honoring their marriage—or perhaps their mission. Again: shades of…

@avclub-26c0eb74eb2e815d15918a4ac46473ec:disqus Plus she's still not really in a position to say no, since she wants to be extracted, and this is what she had to do to distract her former Russian boss to frame him.  Nina's doing what she can to survive, and Stan's got puppy love.  Eesh.

I think Phillip's more slippery because he seems to lie to himself.  Elizabeth has that brutal pragmatism that she can't escape.

@avclub-754537075c5105c55477db49c94d584f:disqus Agreed regarding Matthew Rhys' versatility.  His character slips into character with ease!  He does murderous rage and nebbishy bemusement equally well, plus so much more.  The whole cast is great, but I hadn't seen him in anything before either, and he's really…

Well, I liked it, but I didn't laugh as much as I did during previous episodes.  The "tone shift" toward the end wasn't that sharp for me since I was already doing a fair amount of hand-waving around the premise.

"I feel woozy . . ."

"Let me see your teeth!"

If they had done The Californians, I feel like they would have crammed ALL of their special guests in there.

OK, now I want to see the "She's part MUPPET" romcom ad.

I was actually totally expecting Aykroyd to pop on just to say "Seth, you ignorant slut."  Stefon would have agreed.

Not odd — I would have liked that too.  I was glad to see her at all, considering the 5-Timers is such a boys' club.  I'd actually forgotten that Drew Barrymore was in it.  How many times did Lily Tomlin host?

Welp, I'll take your word then.  Could have sworn it sounded like him when he announced the host-and-musical-guest.

@avclub-858b67085072a6f2403cf500871f4068:disqus It was its 2nd appearance (the 1st was at the end of the Jamie Foxx ep), so I guess that makes it recurring now.  And much of the humor stems from the "what the hell crazy-ass thing are they gonna say next?" aspect.  Go find the Swarovski Crystals one, you won't regret…

Hmm, I thought it sounded like Don Pardo, but I surmised that they might have been working from old recordings of his voice.

"They WANTED this episode to be must-see."

Just one well-placed fan . . .

I loved that whole sketch.  Most recurring sketches take a downturn each time they recur, but this was as good or better than the crystals one.  Perfect placement at the end of the show — it's too weird to go on early, and leaves the viewer with one last wtf-laugh.