Kind of amusing that Pastor Tim would allow a diary to exist in a place where the child of spies might find it. Intentional? Or just that he really doesn't know her as much as he thinks he does?

Well consider the audio recording of Oleg. Nothing beats physical evidence if you want to blackmail someone. There might be other things in that diary that we as the audience didn't see.

Oh, I totally agree. Paige is hardly abused. She's turning in Pastor Tim to preserve her family. Smart girl.

So who thinks the photos of Tim's diary end up in a diplomatic pouch that gets examined by the FBI thus causing a trail to lead back to the Jenningses?

When I was in high school I lined up recommendations for West Point, USNA, and USAFA before I ever applied to them - it takes time for people to write things or get around to them and it's great to have them lined up for when it comes time for the applications and interviews.

It was also one of the most common first uses for microwave ovens since potatoes are very suitable for that due to their moisture content.

He's Viet Cong who infiltrated the US pretending to be a South Vietnamese boat person.

Not unusual if the father attended the same school. I applied to colleges never needing my parents to sign for any of them and I was not 18 yet.

Yeah, I'm curious what 1980s underwear is supposed to look like since what I wear now is no different.

The lack of pay phones now is the main reason why I ended up having to get a cell phone.

How many kids "really" know what their parents do?

Well many "American" accents are actually just carry-overs from the UK that have lingered since the influx of Brits/Scots/Irish over the years.

The way Gabriel was speaking to Martha I almost expected him to ask her out.

Lots of scenes remind me of Sting's song "Russians"

Makes sense. Whenever I travel overseas I try to slip into using the native language of the country I am in (if I am fluent enough to do so). They're supposed to be "Americans" so by speaking only English it helps reinforce that for them. Plus sometimes it can be useful if you don't let others know you can eavesdrop…

Well that's true but probably only for the really good ones (my comment was mostly directed towards the lower hanging fruit like Martha). Now I'm sure if someone handed over secrets to a new ship or something they would have a nice dacha somewhere as a reward. Martha's never getting that.

I don't know - at this point none of the characters in TWD are worth watching.

It would probably explain why one went to Afghanistan and one did not (due to age).

I sometimes wonder while watching this if one of the reasons why we like it is due to no internet, cell phones, iPads, etc. Hard to believe there was a time when none of those existed (the first real cell phones would come out in 1985).

Because for us it really doesn't matter much - we're supposed to assume they are speaking in Russian (and as noted below non-native speakers of a language requires lots of coaching to phonetically speak another language - one such example was Gong Li in the Miami Vice remake several years ago - all of her so-called…