Agreed. Good analysis. I’ll keep watching it for a few weeks to see where it goes.
This seems prefigured in that the show's creator -- a retired CIA officer turned scriptwriter -- had the KGB section in the Soviet embassy (the official rezidentura) contact the Jennings, even though Soviet tradecraft was to run their officers posted abroad as illegals with separate personnel, lines of communication, and a strict avoidance of the embassy.
Now, the FBI is on the Jennings' trail through a forced recruitment of a Soviet embassy clerk -- performed no less by the Jennings' new neighbor -- who, by pure coincidence, is a talented, energetic, and vigilant FBI agent newly assigned to counter-intelligence and relocated to Washington.
I am pleased though to see that the separate KGB hierarchy for illegals is nevertheless indicated and that it is now personified by the superb Marge Martindale. She had a memorable role recently on Justified as Kentucky coal country crime boss Mags Bennett.
The ruthlessness of the Soviets was demonstrated again in the last episode. Martindale spun a fairy tale to Robert's Puerto Rican widow of a relocation to sunny and congenial Cuba -- but the hapless and trusting woman is later shown to have been murdered, with their infant son repatriated to the USSR to be raised by Robert's parents.
Although the Jennings are shown sympathetically, there can be little doubt for viewers that they are serving evil masters. Martindale will almost certainly be a continuing character and will do a superb job of combining sinister conduct with a superficially sweet appearance and manner.
Thus, although the Cold War FBI is shown as tough, it does not wantonly kill people as the Soviets do. And another good point for conservatives is that the Reagan administration is shown as determined to beat the USSR in the Cold War and as taking Soviet espionage as the deadly menace that it was. That stirs recollections of a bygone era in which American presidents were, well, vigorously pro-American.