The Americans Season 4 Episode 7: Есть EST?

This week's show seems to be a kind of housecleaning before the big blowup.  John Boy gets fired for a host of things that Stan the Man did;  Martha goes to Russia, Stan the Man is palling around with Phillip again, Elizabeth and Paige have a couple nasty spats about why it's Paige's responsibility to monitor Pastor Tim and his wife before they turn the whole Jennings family in, and Elizabeth goes to EST!

TheAmericans Season 4 #6: Martha Martha Martha!

So in this one, Martha is running for school president, and Elizabeth gets jealous when Phillip/Clark helps her with her campaign...oh, sorry, where were we?

Americans #4 season 4: Chlor-and-trash-it-all

Presented as a public service to any Americans fans who may be browsing (spoiler alert if you haven't watched last week's show yet):

The Americans: Run Away! Run Away!

This could apply to Pastor Tim, who gives this episode its name, who is now in Elizabeth's crosshairs; or to Phillip and Elizabeth themselves, because of the knowledge Tim now has about them and its threat to their cover.

Holy Show Trial, Batman!

OK, after a few weeks hiatus, your Cold War anti communist "McCarthy was right dammit!", Soviet-kitsch-o-phile blogger is back to "The Americans."

Actually, I've seen all the episodes, but episodes 11 and 12 were kinda boring.  Except for the fact that Nina (remember her?  She's the KGB agent the FBI guy who lives next door to the KGB spies masquerading as The Donna Reed Show,  fell in love with, and whose activities and pillow talk Nina is faithfully sharing with the Residentura at the Russian embassy) is in a bit of a pickle.

"The Americans" Update: "Martial Eagle."

More about the show that makes you wonder, "So is there a TV show in Russia about CIA spies with perfect Russian accents living in Moscow called, 'The Russians'?"

WARNING:  Spoilers-a-plenty ahead.  

From Russia With a 2 Kid, 1 Car Family, 2 of whom are Soviet Spies, a Clueless FBI AGent who Lives Next Door, and a Promise of Sympathy Distortion

Those are my words, those last two, and sympathy distortion is something the fan of FX's "The Americans" must learn to live with.  Or stop watching it.

The KGB family brings brownies for the FBI agent under whose nose they reside

If you don't watch much TV, then you, like I before a friend told me about it, may not know about this show. It's a little difficult to explain unless you are a Cold War nerd like myself, but basically, the "stars" are a couple (marriage arranged by the KGB) from the Soviet Union, their accents somehow magically erased, living in a cushy split level in 1980s Washington, DC, next door to a clueless FBI agent; amusing themselves with kidnapping, forced repatriation of the odd Russian intelligentsia, a fake marriage (the husband's), meeting cool people and killing them, and by magically keeping their kids from knowing they are KGB spies from the Soviet Union (don't these kids wonder why they never meet their grandmas?)  While all this is going on, the clueless FBI agent not only misses the KGB agents under his nose, but has fallen desperately in love with the woman he believes is his KGB informant, but who used him to get her way back into the good with her "Soviet ambassador" boss, and who may have been in love with him, but is now sleeping with another sort of free-agent agent who is extorting FBI information from the FBI agent by threatening the life of his KGB "informant"/triple agent informant/lover.  All in the context of wives, children, and innocent bystanders who are flicked away like so much acceptable collateral damage.

Are you getting all this?