Wow, Renee is way out of Stan's league. I hope she is on the up and up because Stan has already gone through the ringer. I was super proud of him tonight, being so protective of Oleg and ethical. I'm sure this will turn out well.

"Or maybe the Jennings’ appear less invested in the cause…"

I was appalled by that as well, then even more so when Iris yelled at Barry for not asking Joe's permission. And the specific word made it worse: permission, not blessing. I get that it's a quaint tradition(ish), and that Joe would of course say yes, but just because it's a tradition does not make it a good tradition.…

Philip also noted Stan commenting that his mother had the same (old fashioned) clock. Probably not a good look if your cover is a thriving capitalist business that keeps you ridiculously busy. So Philip decided to give the agency a makeover. I love that attention to detail and that it was left for us to infer why but…

IIRC, Philip credited that to Stan's friend, whose bachelor party trip Philip arranged. Apparently, he gave the agency a lot of business through his contacts. But that initial business demonstrated that Philip had an advantage over Elizabeth when he suggested a dude ranch over her pitch for "cosmopolitan" Montreal.…

I was surprised to read that in the review. I agree that it is apparent that Philip and Elizabeth genuinely like Stan, but especially Philip. If Philip only thought of Stan as an enemy asset, Elizabeth would not have had to pressure him to make up with Stan after their altercation in the S4 premiere. Stan actually…

Interesting theory, but the Js don't do puzzle box storytelling. They write for characters first, plot second. Whenever they've changed timelines, for flashbacks and for the one flash forward last season, they have explicitly conveyed it to the audience with chyrons. They're not interested in tricking us.

In addition to the bio-virus intel, Oleg had previously paired up with Stan to expose Zinaida as a plant to save Nina. So Oleg had already committed treason to save a Soviet traitor. The FBI has some damning stuff on him if they can convince Stan to use it on him.

My hope has always been that Oleg will part of Gorbachev's reform and will make it to the end of the show. Oleg seems to have a good balance of idealism, passion, compassion, ethics, and intelligence without the all the baggage that Philip, for example, has. And it probably doesn't hurt that he comes from a family of…

I think Philip genuinely likes Stan, although it must be torture for him to endure Stan's remarks about how awful the Russians are, and that they're "animals," etc.

And he pegged Zinaida for being a plant and Martha for being a traitor. And the colonel in S1 for being bad.

I am stubbornly clinging to my dream that Oleg will not get busted for his treason and will continue to do the right thing, as he did with the bioweapon mission, while working to reform the system from within. Just hang in there until Glasnost, Oleg! P.S. Where is Arkady? I miss him.

Thank you!

After the extensive balls jokes, when Curtis announced the name, T-spheres, I thought for sure the next thing would be something like:
Rene: So, is that T for testi—
Curtis: What were we just saying?
Rene: I know, sorry! I'm a work in progress.

It's also the third show I've watched recently (the other two being The Crown and The Young Pope) that treats Africa as if it were a country.

They have done it for other shows. I'm fairly certain they did it when HBO stopped sending screeners for Game of Thrones, which delayed the reviews.

I thought that, too. Even the Grand Canal seemed to form the haunches outline. Then I wondered if I was crazy and reading way too much into it. Glad I'm not the only one who thought that.

I just realized that perhaps Lenny's address came from his love letters.

This week in James is the Worst:

I view it as music is part of the art, like formalist theory. Everything has importance: writing, dialogue, performance, cinematography/lighting, editing, music, etc. It's when producers use music to tell you how to feel in a way that is unearned or lazy that I get annoyed.