She's probably learned a thing or two from her years at the FBI, and she confronted "Clark" pretty firmly. Also, she has nerves of steel and icewater. . . and at this point probably a deep well of buried rage. These are all assets she can use.

I can totally see them expecting Alison Wright to start doing scenes in Russian. . not chatting up locals, but perhaps aggressively interrogating people like that supermarket manager who Oleg tried to "Good Cop".

True; but unless Martha is the new Mail Robot (which would be miserable), we saw her because she'll be playing an important role in the storyline unfolding in Moscow. I think that would almost require her to have picked up fluent Russian. . but we'll see.

Actually, the "high school student" bit is the part I buy least. Impersonating a high school student seems like the most tedious, time-consuming job imaginable. And he can't just fake it- he has to actually show up for school (with completed homework assignments, no less) day after day after day, and he has to…

Yes, the Jennings who are ironically the ones who really did commit the murder that Stan mistakenly killed an innocent man to avenge. . .

I think the common denominator is personal loyalty. Stan murdered Vlad because at the time he believed (wrongly) that he was exacting vengance for the murder of his friend. By this point, Stan has come to think of Oleg as his friend, so he wants to protect him.

True. She doesn't get enough screen time at all. If this show was just a little bit snarkier, they could have done an all-Paige episode like The Zeppo, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The Jennings aren't exactly slouches at gathering intelligence. The problem seems to be that the Soviets don't actually know what to do with the intelligence they gather. Their utter failure to replicate Stealth technology (notwithstanding that the Jennings did everything but steal a working stealth plane and fly it…

Sure. I actually didn't know any of this stuff myself until today. This conversation forced me to do some research, so I should really be thanking you for this info.

True. . . although in the world of the show, I think the KGB and CIA have both been upgraded from the real-world versions of themselves.

If they do that, I will open another Amazon Prime account just to buy this series again.

True (and of course they were going to kill the guy no matter what), but if the recipient is some random company run by a sweet old couple he's known for 15 years who breed insect-eating parrots to be sold as pets in Topeka or something. . . couldn't he have just said that?

The Soviets are certainly far from innocent in this chain of events, to be sure, but the real CIA wasn't exactly above playing precisely this kind of hardball.

What reason is there to believe this happened rather than the more straightforward: the KGB murdered a bunch of Americans to steal a technology they couldn't produce, and then bolted it onto a submarine without understanding it?

True. And they immerse us so deeply in the funhouse mirror universe of Soviet paranoia that it really does feel like anything can happen (and it's a work of fiction, after all, so technically anything can).

True. . . he might have pretended to be someone unimportant in the hope that the strange burglars in his lab wouldn't kidnap him and try to hold him for ransom. . .or maybe it was just a frantic instinct: "I don't know what you want but I'm nobody!"

P.S.: Alternately, depending on how crazy the writers are, they could just decide to say eff it and screw with history. I spent almost the whole third reel of Inglorius Basterds wondering exactly how the assassination plot was going to fail and unravel. . .because of course nobody actually killed Germany's entire high…

True. I forget when that famous McDonalds opened in Moscow, but if the timeframe works, that would be the perfect shot to end the season on.

He might be bad at it because of what happened to Oleg and Nina. Either consciously or unconsciously, perhaps he doesn't really want to turn these people.

Well, yes, Vietnam now is essentially a capitalist country, for all intents and purposes. But in 1975, their professed commitment to communism was the real deal. It was probably still at least somewhat real by 1985; but even if it wasn't, Tuan would have left the country in the 1970s.