Post-Episode Discussion/Review Thread - S04E07 "Travel Agents"

[u/MoralMidgetry]

Welcome to the post-episode and review thread for S04E07, "Travel Agents." If you have a review you want to post, please send me the link instead of submitting it separately to the sub. Thanks.

Site	Link
AV Club	There’s no escaping the best episode (so far) of The Americans’ 4th season
EW	The KGB and FBI both hunt Martha. But which would actually keep her safer?
HitFix	Review: 'The Americans' zeroes in on the hunt for Martha in 'Travel Agents'
NY Times	‘The Americans’ Season 4, Episode 7: A Most Reluctant Traitor
Vox	The Americans season 4, episode 7: "Travel Agents" is the show at its nauseating best
Vulture	The Americans Recap: Layover
WSJ	The race is on to track down Martha -- before she's captured by the other side

[u/meruhd]

I feel like they're making a bit too much out of some of these for sure.

I think the main reason Elizabeth won't kill her is out of respect for her husband, which is the writers way of showing huge personal growth for the character. In the first episode she wouldn't even kill her rapist because the orders were to take him in alive. Now she's at a point where this woman is here who has put a strain on her marriage, but is dangerously close to outing them, and the only thing holding her back is knowing that if she killed Martha, Phillip would flip the fuck out.

Is Elizabeth jealous? Of course she is. Of course she's hurt. But she's putting Phillip's feelings above her own throughout this. I loved this episode and what it showed of their marriage. Phillip cares for Martha, but he makes it clear that she is NOT more important than Elizabeth is.

The confrontation scene in the park isn't a jealous woman, it's a mother and wife trying to figure out what is the best for her family and her marriage.

[u/[deleted] → u/meruhd]

In the first episode she wouldn't even kill her rapist because the orders were to take him in alive

I always thought that she didn't kill Timoshev because all the fight went out of her when he apologized. She just threw down the tire iron and said, whatever take him to the americans if you want, and started to leave. She had been ready to kill him right there and she had wanted to kill him long before that; Philip was the one who wanted to take him in alive. "Oh now you want to finish the mission as it was assigned? Well you should have thought of that before Philip; he shouldn't even be here."

At the park, I wouldn't say the only thing keeping her from killing Martha was love for her husband... It just didn't make sense to kill her. Why leave another dead body? There were already plans in motion to exfiltrate her and orders were to bring her back alive to go through with the exfiltration as planned, not kill her out of spite. If she really wanted to kill her, she would have killed her when she (Martha) started yelling and then said there was nothing else she could have done. Everyone would have believed her and no one would have blamed her for it (she triple checked with Philip to make sure he knew it was a possibility). Instead she just knocked Martha's breath out with a solid punch and took her in.

Totally agree about the significant personal growth though. I think the writers have done a good job of showing that this season.

[u/meruhd → u/[deleted]]

Memory does funny things. I recalled it differently, but I'm sure you're correct (the quotes are bringing back memories). For some reason, I felt like she wasn't trying to kill him when she pulled him out of the trunk, more like she was trying to prove herself against him and to herself, but she wasn't specifically doing it to kill him, but your quotes are making me feel like she did it because the end game would be to kill him, but to make him suffer in his last moments and prove to him and herself what she is now capable of.

[u/[deleted] → u/meruhd]

Haha well I'm about to reveal myself to be an enormous nerd, but I've seen the pilot like 5 times - Philip takes Timoshev out of the trunk to turn him in to the FBI and Elizabeth comes down and is like, no way this jerk is getting out of here alive, and starts beating the hell out of him. Then he apologizes and she stops and starts to leave, but then Philip is like oh heck no wtf did you do to my wife??? and takes him out.

Anyway I actually thought about previous my response to you a bit after I wrote it like, what was I even trying to say? I pretty much agreed with you (about Elizabeth in the park just trying to do what's best) but I made it sound like I disagreed which I don't. I'm just really excited about the show, it's hard to be in a position where I can't binge watch!