I thought the same thing (that he was going to jump, and when he didn't I thought was he going to meet someone up there, and then when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, square object, I was like, "a cell phone…no wait a minute, this is 1984…cigarettes?"

I thought Elizabeth was giving the Mary Kay lady the bum's rush, because she was afraid that the MK lady might recognize her from an MK training…

I was in college in 1984. I was an undergrad taking a Master's level History class in which we manipulated voting data during the French Reign of Terror, to see what might have happened if people had voted a different way. Anyway, I remember entering huge, long, lines of code to do a calculation program, leaving the…

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I don't think he was robbed. I think the Yugoslavian guys took most of his money, so that if they needed to bribe anyone, they had it. His mom sent him to people she knew and could trust. I think they took their payment and then gave him his money back once he crossed the border. After all, if he got busted,…

If he knows their American names, couldn't he just look them up in a phone book? Phone books showed name, telephone number and address in the 1980's.

It looked like his mother had been saving money for him. He had a wad of cash in Yugoslavia. And, even though others have said that he was robbed, I am thinking the Yugoslavian guys were known and trusted by his mother, and that they would have wound up giving it all back to him once he crossed the border.

After eating vegemite in Australia, I literally took liquid hand soap and put a little bit on my tongue to get the taste out of my mouth. It was such a bit of salty grossness, blech.

I thought they were frozen "road apples" to be used for fuel. When little Mischa lifted it up to eat it, I was like, "WHAT!?!?!?!"

Dan Fisher - I love your props. I ALWAYS stop and look closely at every scene. The first thing I noticed when you showed Oleg's parents' apartment was the avoska (string bag) on the coat tree. I've been noticing other little things in P & E's kitchen and in Stan's kitchen, Paige's room, etc. THANK YOU!

Yes! I thought of a speed dating scenario!

What about those other competing programs like "Word Star"? Remember, that?

I don't agree….I think that Stan's new girlfriend is with the FBI. I think that they don't trust him anymore and are getting close to him to see if he's been turned by the KGB.

I totally understood the weeping…she lost one son to the war; now she is afraid she'll lose Oleg.

I totally agree. I was thinking that the teacher will say something like Henry is bored, we need to get him into more advanced classes, and I was thinking about the whole math/STEM/computer connection. Or, that they are looking at Henry and a vocational training type of opportunity, like at the FBI?

I said the same thing - where did they get all that old gym equipment?

Did you notice the "avoska" bag hanging from the coat tree at Oleg's apartment? I think that was a nice touch….everyone carried an "avoska" so that they could be prepared for whatever was "thrown" out on to the store shelves…like the scene that showed Phillip's family getting a pair of pants.

First time I heard of "schmatta" was in the Rolling Stones' song, "Shattered" (they're talking about the garment trade in NYC):

Those are "matryoshka dolls", (the nesting dolls), not babushka dolls.

Re: conditions in the USSR, even up to the late 1990s, when Russians would come to the US they were amazed at how everyday Americans lived. I worked for a manufacturing company in Chicago and around 1996 or so, 3 Russian customers came to Chicago with a translator to view our plant and meet our sales people. I was…