The Jennings are assigned to investigate the potential sabotage of grain imports to the Soviet Union.
This is a strong episode that builds on what we saw in the series opener and brings out what appears to be the series 5 themes and story arcs.
The story is built around the American grain imports to Russia with many scenes directly or subtly tackling this theme. It also keeps a focus on Paige, Stan and Oleg with a number of good scenes involving these characters.
Personally, I'm baffled by the negative comments of other review (written previously) as there are plenty of compelling and well written scenes to enjoy. Some of the ones involving Paige are, from a parent's perspective, quite harrowing. I think all Stan's scenes are pure gold with him not just entertaining but at one point I actually felt like saying "good on you Stan" for making a stance. One scene with Elizabeth on a mission shows a horror-movie level of creepiness and suspense.
Visually it is particularly strong, not only the tension and creepiness it creates, but how visually it tells a story of American excess and Russian need just by the camera focus on food. This as always is used to maximum effect by the editing, where scenes are perfectly placed to compliment each other and display irony.
All performances are as great as ever with Noah Emmerich and Holly Taylor for me being that standout actors.
I think it's an 8.5/10, but I like to round upwards.
This is a strong episode that builds on what we saw in the series opener and brings out what appears to be the series 5 themes and story arcs.
The story is built around the American grain imports to Russia with many scenes directly or subtly tackling this theme. It also keeps a focus on Paige, Stan and Oleg with a number of good scenes involving these characters.
Personally, I'm baffled by the negative comments of other review (written previously) as there are plenty of compelling and well written scenes to enjoy. Some of the ones involving Paige are, from a parent's perspective, quite harrowing. I think all Stan's scenes are pure gold with him not just entertaining but at one point I actually felt like saying "good on you Stan" for making a stance. One scene with Elizabeth on a mission shows a horror-movie level of creepiness and suspense.
Visually it is particularly strong, not only the tension and creepiness it creates, but how visually it tells a story of American excess and Russian need just by the camera focus on food. This as always is used to maximum effect by the editing, where scenes are perfectly placed to compliment each other and display irony.
All performances are as great as ever with Noah Emmerich and Holly Taylor for me being that standout actors.
I think it's an 8.5/10, but I like to round upwards.
