There are a couple of explanations for the title of season four, episode 10 of The Americans, “Munchkins”. First, munchkins were the short people in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Today the term is typically used in reference to young people, and indeed, a young person, Paige, takes center stage in this episode with appearances by other teens, Kimmy and Matt Beeman.
As the episode opens, Paige (Holly Taylor) is curious about her dad’s family and as they cook, Philip (Matthew Rhys) tells her that his father was a logger in Siberia and his mother was tough. He relates an anecdote to illustrate just how tough she was. Once, as a boy, Philip received only half what he was owed from his employer. After a visit from his mother, Philip received all of his pay. This father/daughter discussion is intercut with scenes of Elizabeth, as Patty, having dinner with Young Hee, Don, and family. She appears to be enjoying herself, but only as Elizabeth (Keri Russell) leaves the house do we see how distasteful this façade has been for her. Paige has a tough mother too.
Elizabeth no sooner returns home than, Alice, Pastor Tim’s wife, comes to their house. She tells them that Tim is missing in Ethiopia, which is a client state of the Soviet Union, and angrily blames them: “I know that you have people all over the world.” Unlike her husband, Alice doesn’t believe the best of everyone. She threatens the stunned Jennings family that if Tim doesn’t come home, or if anything happens to her, her lawyer will turn over a tape detailing their true identities to the Justice Department.
When Alice leaves, Elizabeth and Philip tell Paige that if Alice does turn over the tape they will have to leave the country. Paige explodes with serious but unintentionally funny concerns. She can’t go to Russia as she doesn’t speak Russian. Besides what would her parents do; they can’t be Russian spies in Russia! The cracks in Elizabeth’s armor are showing again when, alone with Philip, she says, “I thought that I could live like this.”
The consequences of Paige’s indiscretion in confiding to Pastor Tim and Alice that her parents are Soviet sleeper agents, weighs heavy on Philip also. Philip, as James, uses the cover of supplying pot to Kimmy in order to plant a listening device in her father’s briefcase. As they talk Kimmy tells him that her father works for the CIA, not the State Department. This hits Philip very close to home and he tells her what he would have told Paige: that she broke her father’s trust and shouldn’t have betrayed his confidence.
In the next scene, Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) uses the term munchkins and munchkinland derisively to refer to the new FBI office environment with a rule-obsessed superior who replaced Agent Gaad. The new boss had returned a paper written by Agent Aderholt with the admonition to watch the margins. Later, Stan and Aderholt have lunch with Martha’s dad, who is having great difficulty believing that his daughter could have done anything criminal. He wants them to promise him that they won’t give up on Martha’s case and Aderholt kindly tells him that it is an ongoing investigation, although a look on Stan’s face shows that he is clearly skeptical that anything can be done.
A final tie-in to Munchkins of the title, relates to several plot points. There is a Munchkin card game that allows players to succeed by using unfair tactics to further themselves at the expense of others. These are the ground rules in espionage as well. Elizabeth is going to blackmail the husband of a friend and ruin their relationship in order to obtain a hazardous pathogen that could be used by both the USSR and the United States as a bioweapon. Philip ingratiates himself with a teenaged girl in order to spy on her father. Agent Gaad is accidentally killed in a Soviet scheme gone awry. Tatiana may or may not be using Oleg.
Finally, Philip and Elizabeth are slowly indoctrinating Paige and recruiting her to their cause. When Pastor Tim is found alive, Paige is sorry that she reacted the way that she did with her parents. They tell her that trust is very important for spies and while they may not tell her everything, they won’t lie to her. Paige, on her own, decides not to ask Alice for the tape–one that her parents know doesn’t exist.
