The opening scenes of this episode demonstrates precisely one of the major reasons why I love this show so much. It took the time to decompress and unpack all of the implications of Elizabeth quickly and smoothly taking down the two muggers in front of Paige, leading to the severe injury and possible death of one of them.
Many other shows would acknowledge the moment in one or two minutes before moving onto the next thing, but The Americans goes through the whole array of issues from the moment: Paige seeing her mother possibly kill someone, the incredible ease of that action, and how calm Elizabeth was during those quick situation.
Was Elizabeth trained to do this? Has she done this before? Was she afraid? Did she know she would have to do this when she joined? Why did she join? All of these questions and concerns weren't just handled in one scene, or even a couple of sequential scenes, but carried throughout the whole episode. Beautiful, powerful stuff, all leading up to Paige quietly demanding "Do you trust me or not?"
Meanwhile, we rush into the climax of season 4: William pushes on his worries about taking the biological weapon and Gabriel pushes back. Oleg further questions the action and spills the beans to Stan, and Stan quickly turns the information to a solid lead. Next week is going to be intense.
