How are we doing since last week’s episode? Have you recovered from the fact that Paige knows the truth?
I’m not sure I have so I’m glad the show gave us a little breathing room this week. The Americans settled into its two main shocking plot twists—Paige and Martha know the truth (kind of). Paige has LOTS of questions for her parents and a little bit of an attitude. “You guys don’t have to whisper when I come into the room unless you have some other secret that you’re keeping from me,” she tells them. Paige has earned the right to be snarky.
She wants to know why her parents don’t have accents. Is Mr. Beeman really their friend? What are their real names and is the travel agency even a travel agency? Philip and Elizabeth are happy to talk to her, even relieved they don’t have to keep lying to her. But they really don’t want to talk to her while Henry (still perfecting his Eddie Murphy imitation) is in the house. “You cannot speak about this when Henry or anyone else is around,” Elizabeth tells her daughter. She then tells Paige a story about growing up in Russia. It is touching and heartbreaking and Paige responds, “How can I believe anything you say?”
The chasm between parent and child almost seems irreparable at this point. And think about it—Paige still doesn’t know all that her parents do. The killing. The sleeping with other people (as Elizabeth had to do again this week). The torture. The long, long cons.
Elizabeth and Philip tell Gabriel that Paige knows. Philip hopes this will keep the Centre happy for a while. He also asks Gabriel to arrange a trip for Elizabeth to see her dying mother. Gabriel says it’s not possible. Philip reminds him that he and Elizabeth are asked to do impossible things all the time, citing specifically that time when he had to stuff Annaliese’s dead body into a suitcase (how could we ever forget?). “You need to tell me something Philip. Are you falling apart?” Gabriel asks. “I don’t want to keep hearing ‘no’ from you,” Philip tells him.
Martha is being called in for questioning and is understandably panicking. Philip teaches her how to lie convincingly (you stare at the tip of a person’s nose) and reminds her Agent Taffet doesn’t know anything. “His job is to make you feel as if he knows,” he tells Martha. Taffet, for his part, knows how someone could have gotten to Martha, asking her if she had “any romantic relationships that could have compromised” her in anyway. I still would like clarification on exactly what Martha thinks is going on here. Who does she think Clark is working for, and why hasn’t it occurred to her that her marriage is a sham? Denial, thy name is Martha.