Dinner With Foes

Crappy Birthday

Situation: It's about to be Paige's birthday, and while Paige doesn't want to make a big deal about it, she does agree, at her parents' urging, to have some friends over for dinner.

What makes it awkward? The only friends she wants to invite are Pastor and Mrs. Groovyhair.

How is order restored? It's not, but Philip and Elizabeth really have no choice but to suck it up.

Love's Baby Soft!

Have you been directed to cultivate an underaged female asset and feel weird about it because you're not a pederast? Don't worry: Love's Baby Soft is here* to remind you that sexualizing children is a-okay!

And will be okay for decades to come!

*I have to assume the show's producers chose to put the entire ad in the scene because they couldn't get over the fact that it's totally fucking real and creepy as hell.

Rhodes To Recovery?

Stan vs. Sandra...'s Proxy, Lawrence

After Tori has a breakthrough or whatever, Lawrence -- the est leader last seen waxing philosophical about "balling a woman" in the season premiere -- calls Stan up to talk about his issues. When trying to wriggle out of it by throwing Philip under the bus doesn't work (which is a shame, because if there's anyone who could credibly work up a fakey cover "issue" guaranteed to satisfy an est leader, it's Philip!), Stan trudges up and goes along with the exercise, in which Lawrence asks him to imagine Sandra standing in front of him, and to tell her/Lawrence what he wants to say to her about the divorce. Still loyal to Sandra because he's still in love with her, Stan resists being very honest about what he'd say to her if she were there, but when Lawrence tries to provoke him by calling him an asshole, it totally works, tripping Stan's trigger so that he sputters back, "Don't call me an asshole, asshole! This is bullshit!" It's not clear whether Stan is directing that to Sandra or to Lawrence; if the latter, it's certainly true.

Winner: Sandra, somehow.

Breakable Kimmy Breland

Opportunists Anonymous

Alert Type: "Slip" Alert.

Issue: Recovering alcoholic "Michelle," having a rough night, makes her way to the home of her sponsor, Lisa.

Complicating Factors: Though Lisa is very warm, welcoming, and concerned, her husband Maurice is a real dick about the whole thing -- and, after Michelle spends the night, he seems even more suspicious of her the next morning.

Resolution: After he leaves for...wherever, Michelle sits down with Lisa and teases out of her everything that's been going on in her marriage of late, including that Maurice has been out of work for months and that Lisa had to send their kids to go live with her sister because, it is implied, he's been beating her.

Spoiler: Being this honest with Michelle might feel good to Lisa in the short term, but she will probably regret it soon.

Diner Dash

Situation: Stan's still on Zinaida guard duty.

What makes it awkward? After her stridency in her last TV appearance, Stan's developed suspicions about her true loyalties, particularly given that her status has put her in contact with all kinds of politicians; she may even get to meet the president. Gaad having encouraged him to keep a special eye on her, given his hunch, Stan is watching her like a damn hawk as he sits across from her in a diner waiting for dinner, particularly after she comes back from the ladies' room talking a mile a minute.

How is order restored? It's not. Stan doesn't do or say anything during their time together that might cause her to think he's changed his view of her, but he returns to the diner later to check the ladies' room and make sure she didn't hide anything. It doesn't end well.

Yaz!

If hanging out with a high school student to make her fall in love with you so that you can deploy her to bring you intel on her father, the head of the CIA's Afghanistan group, makes you uncomfortable, try getting something out of it that's a little more wholesome! If your target likes Yaz, then maybe your daughter will, too! Buy her a copy of the band's latest album and make her think you're the coolest dad in town! Who needs to know the truth? Only You!

Elizabeth vs. Philip

Having come home as excited as she possibly could be about Paige's birthday dinner only to find out (a) Paige and Philip had already decided on a menu of steak and not the tacos she'd pitched and (b) that Philip just surprised Paige with a new Yaz album, Elizabeth is ready for a battle as soon as she and Philip are alone. She bitterly reminds him that they were going to get Paige a necklace for her birthday, to which Philip wearily replies that the album was just a little surprise and not a birthday present. (And what a chintzy birthday present from a parent to a child it would be, too, if that's all she got: weren't albums like $5 back then?) He picks up on her implication that this gift is some kind of bribe -- again: price point under $10 -- and sneers that it's his version of going to church. And then apparently we're officially past the point of debate with regard to Paige's recruitment because Elizabeth tells Philip, "Just because you want to do nothing does not make it right." "Oh, so you are doing something," Philip surmises. "It is happening," she hisses. "IT IS HAPPENING, PHILIP. And yes, I am doing it, with or without you."

Winner: Elizabeth...but only for now. Soon it will be a draw with both of them in last place.

Break On Through To The Snuggler Side

So the story of Nina's cellie Evi -- at least as it's told to her by Viktor, some muckety-muck who's visited Nina in prison -- is that Evi was in the country on a student visa, and had been involved in international peace programs while she was there. She was caught leaving a dead drop, and claimed under questioning that she was just leaving a package at her boyfriend's behest; however, the boyfriend had left the country a week earlier. If Nina can get her to talk, then Viktor has promised to get Nina a more lenient sentence, so Nina's been swallowing her pride/bile and using every trick she could think of all week to draw Evi out. Asking Evi about a husband or boyfriend and saying she's pretty enough to deserve at least one didn't work, nor did confessing her own actual crime. But when Nina "wakes up" from a "nightmare" "crying" about her husband and how she betrayed him, Evi can't resist comforting her. Like, a lot.

Nice work, Comrade Nina.

A Watery Grave

What's the occasion? After seventeen episodes of build-up, it's Paige's birthday.

What are the refreshments? Steak, Elizabeth's chocolate cake, the fakest smiles on the eastern seaboard.

Whose embarrassing public scene will everyone be talking about tomorrow? I wish we could be in the Groovyhair car on the drive home as they discuss the looks on Philip and Elizabeth's faces when Paige announced she wanted to be baptized.

Stan makes another super-welcome visit to Sandra and Arthur's! He's just "trying to be honest with this est stuff," so he's come by to can admit to Sandra what he knows she already knew: that he had an affair! He doesn't give specifics, except that it was bad for the woman he had the affair with, and for Sandra, and for Stan himself! "I was an assHOLE!" he says, weirdly! For some reason, Sandra does not seem cheered to have her suspicions confirmed! I say she should stop looking back, and just look forward, to Arthur and Arthur's very nice house with its lovely location!

After dinner, Elizabeth spits, "It was a setup. She set us up." She and Philip were fighting amongst themselves while all along Paige was working them, manipulating them into position so that they couldn't say no! Elizabeth, repeating Paige's churchy language: "She's going to wash her old life away, and make herself clean for Jesus Christ?" If they tell her about The Centre now, says Philip, everything's going to blow up! "But at least she'll know who she is," counters Elizabeth intensely! And then Philip gets a call! Kimmy wants to see him without her other shitty friends!

On the steps of some monument or museum or whatever, Kimmy admires the workmanship on the IDs Philip's brought her!

As he rolls her a joint, she puts on "Only You" and starts dancing like an asshole, urging Philip to join her! He says he's too old for that, and she tells him she knows all about his old-timey musical icons like The Who and Pink Floyd!

When she makes a point of shivering and looking ostentatiously cold, he obliges by letting her snuggle up with him, even though she didn't take the bait he set out by telling him more about why her dad hates lobbyists! Imagine what he'll do if she can cough up any decent blackmail material in the weeks or months to come!!!!!