I guess I only care in relative terms, compared to other episodes. No episode has ever gotten lower than a B. You're right though, they don't really matter.

"With a little creative 'packing', we should be able to make this size work."

Yeah, he seems to mainly do surveillance for Philip and Elizabeth. He also warned off Philip in S3 when Stan was at Martha's apartment.

He's the tech-y guy in the FBI Counterintelligence office. I always noticed him because he was the only guy in the office not wearing a suit in all of his scenes. Philip killed him and planted the recorder in his apartment, along with a forged suicide note, to take the heat off Martha.

As someone who has spent very little time in either city, can you point out some scenes in this episode where it was distracting? It seems they usually go out of their way to show exterior scenes only at night in vague, non-specific park locations, but I guess if you knew both cities really well it wouldn't be hard to…

Nina did mention to that Belgian girl in the Lubyanka (or whatever political prison that was) last year that she was married, but I think at the time we all just thought it was an emotional ploy to get her to feel sympathy for Nina. Turns out it's true.

So we're okay with that grade? I thought it was more of a B+ episode. Not nearly as good as last year's premiere "EST Men", but that was because we got to see Elizabeth whack Gaad in the face.

Definitely. She killed that Northrop employee in like 2 seconds last season. Ditto for the South African woman in "Walter Taffet".

Ahahahaha those ears were YUUUUGE

Ha! Perfect response.

Ugh, I hate that. I think people who can only see the show from a nationalist point of view are actually more like Philip and Elizabeth than they think. Those people watch the show and root against the Russians pretty much because that's all they know, that's what they've been told to do, because the USSR was an enemy…

I think so. Without giving too much away, the season basically ends with everything about to fall to pieces. The second half of S3 isn't too different from the first half in terms of pacing, but from the preview of S4, it seems like things are definitely about to move up a notch, so I would get back into it purely for…

They must have been fairly confident about another season last year when they shot the finale…most shows with low ratings tend to end seasons on a "well, it didn't wrap everything up but I'm mostly satisfying" note, but not The Americans. Instead they ended on that total bomb of Paige telling Pastor Tim the truth.

I don't think you will? Unless you can steal someone else's cable login for FX's app.

I hope so. Top musical moments for me on the show:

Yeah, I hear that too ("I don't want to have ANOTHER show suck up all my time!"). It's a shame, because they're really missing out. I have a few friends who watch the show and we are all obsessed. It's far and away the smartest thing on TV right now.

Didn't Laura Poitras also live in Berlin?

The season wasn't too bad overall, but the finale just sucked. You know it's bad when the only storyline that actually went well was Frank's.

I'm hoping that they left Sammi alive for a dramatic faceoff in the finale, in which hopefully she does kick the bucket. Or at the very least, where she gets her ass kicked by either Fiona or Mickey.

Yeah, except Ian didn't do anything. Get back at Carl, get back at Fiona, get back at Frank, sure.