FX’s new series, The Americans, has been playing it coy throughout the first half of the season. It’s a quiet spy drama, occasionally sly, that has deftly mixed spy missions with an overall series arc about two KGB spies posing as a married, American couple. There have been a few short bursts of violence — Keri Russell’s Elizabeth has coldly, ruthlessly shot a couple of guys in the head while her husband, Phillip, killed a defector in the pilot — but the show has been mostly low key, developing the characters, building foundation.
But last night? Dayum. Elizabeth went psycho on Mags Bennet, and I’m guessing there will be hell to pay for that.
There were two major and independent storylines at play last night. In the first, Phillip — and later Elizabeth — were abducted by some shadowy figures in a black van, interrogated, and threatened with torture. They knew everything about the Jennings’ family: Their real names, their fake occupations, their abundance of passports, and their daily lives of their children. Despite some harsh interrogation techniques — they beat the sh*t out of Phillip with a phone book — Phillip wouldn’t crack, even when they threatened to dunk his wife in the drink.
Satisfied that Phillip and Elizabeth wouldn’t cough up any Russian secrets, Claudia (Margo Martindale) revealed herself, and outed the shadowy figures as KGB members trying to shake loose a mole. Elizabeth was none too happy about that, dunking Claudia’s head, raring back, and then nearly beating the Commie out of her. It was a sublime turn, and one that will likely put Elizabeth and Phillip at odds with their handler in future episodes.
The more immediate payoff, however, was that it put Elizabeth and Phillip at odds, too. Phillip discovered that Elizabeth had, in the past, launched a small whisper campaign against him to the KGB, which is what led to the KGB’s suspicions that they were the moles. Just as Phillip and Elizabeth’s fake marriage began to feel real, this happened, pulling them apart again. Unable to trust the KGB or themselves, Phillip and Elizabeth are both alone on an island of distrust. It’s an important turn in the series, in part because it reveals Phillip to be the more human of the two. After living in America for most of his life, of course, he’s grown to become fond of it, and of course, he trusts his fake wife. It’s Elizabeth who doesn’t get it, who still puts her job and country above all. But her distrust of the KGB does compel her to seek out Gregory (Derek Luke) for protection.
Meanwhile, for all those complaining about the stupidity of the FBI, Stan Beeman pulled off a nifty little double cross. Nina, who is the actual mole, began to fear for her own life after the Russian embassy intensified their search for the rat. She sought Beeman’s protection, and while I thought he was merely playing her for information fully expecting that he’d leave her in the wind if she got caught, it turned out that there’s far more trust between a Commie embassy worker and an FBI agent than two people who have been fake married for 15 years. Stan and Nina beautifully set up Visili — dropping a few mysterious phone calls and planting diamonds and information — to take the fall as the mole, both removing Nina from a dangerous situation and ensuring she won’t have to sleep with a guy who sounds like he’s hacking up lung while he’s f**king.
It was a good day for Stan, but not so much for the Jennings children, Henry and Paige, who learned a dangerous lesson about talking to strangers when a man who picked them up threatened some funny business. Henry took care of the situation with a well placed beer bottle, pissed his pants, and the two kids ended up walking home, in what felt like a throwaway subplot. Phillip and Elizabeth staged a car accident to explain their absence, and in the closing scene, Phillip closed the door on his wife — and her trust — and slept on the couch just like the old days.
It’s a major step back for their marriage, but it’s the hot water they’ve gotten in with their own people that may ultimately bring them back together.
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I don’t understand how Beeman’s plot is going to protect Nina…Visili clearly knows it’s her now and we have to assume he’ll be shouting her name to anyone and everyone. Even if the Russians think Visili is a real mole, don’t you think they’d grab Nina too just to be sure after they hear what he has to say? It seems like it may have bought her a day or two at best.
Loved it. That’s all I got.
It definitely wasn’t the best episode this season, but I really liked how it changed/set up the relationship dynamics between the most prominent characters going forward. I’ve really been liking this show a lot, and I hope it continues to improve and doesn’t fall apart in to nonsensical soap opera like SOA has.
i liked this episode much better than last week, but damn, it was so obvious that it was the kgb that was testing phil and liz. c’mon, make it a little more exciting there.
agreed, I was at least hoping that someone at the FBI could say “We’ve got a possible kgb operative in custody” and have it be some no name guy from the embassy to throw us off the trail.
That being said, I think it was how they reacted to the kgb mole search that made the obviousness okay.
The biggest issue I have with the show is that they still feel the need to play the same audio clip they played prior to the premiere and have played every week since. I am well aware what age Elizabeth joined the KGB. I am aware she was sent to a strange place to a strange house with a strange man. Please stop.
I was hoping that Dutch Beer Predator Guy would say “Chief” a few more times. 400 times just wasn’t enough for me.
Yeah, you got that right, Chief.
Plus…Dutch beer? Who the hell, in 1981, was drinking Dutch beer?
that whole subplot was…off. I kinda wish there had been a real altercation, like maybe Paige gets roughed up a little to really show consequence for when KGB operative parents go missing for a night.
I did have a good laugh at “Henry took care of the situation with a well placed beer bottle, pissed his pants, and the two kids ended up walking home”
I’ll never look at phonebook the same way again, and in the 21st century, that’s saying something.
I watched the episode. I don’t need a recap, i need gifs!
I kind of wish the guy who picked up the Jennings kids had just been menacing and dropped them off. I think it would have tied nicely into the idea of playing with expectations and appearances being deceiving. THAT SAID I cannot imagine a network allowing hithchiking to be shown in a non-negative light.
I liked the way it gave Henry a chance to step up and gave the kids a secret to share from their parents.
Henry Jennings beats up kids like Chris Brody on his way to fights.
And Bobby Draper, and heck, AJ Soprano
That episode was a bit too predictable (the Russians, the car wreck, hell even every beat of the kids terrible subplot) that this was definitely the worst episode of the season. But I like what they are setting? This shows is showing itself to be good but not great like Justified and Breaking Bad, which even when it has predictable shows manages to make up with humor and characters.
Also am I the only one who is finding the FBI story WAYmore interesting than the actual storyline?
I hate to be a “wait and see” guy but it’s hard to judge a serialized drama midway through the season. I have a rule that I follow a show for a season which is why I didn’t give up on Justified. But I agree, at the moment the Americans seems like it’s headed for the SOA second-tier drama level rather than the Game of Thrones/Breaking Bad/Justified/Boardwalk Empire top tier.
I agree. It’s. still good enough to keep watching, I think it’s just that it could be great but it’s too wrapped up in itself. I hope it fixes the small problems it does have
Say what you will about the kids’ subplot, but Henry Jennings just pulled way ahead of Chris Brody in the Dumb Wiener Kids Decathlon.
How old is Henry supposed to be? Because that was a boss move on his part.
in that 5 seconds, he did more that Chris Brody has done in 2 seasons.
mid way through i thought how the F are they gonna get out of this one?!
I wont put this show above Season 1 of Homeland, but definitely kicking Season 2′s ass.
it’s no where close to season one of Homeland, closer to season one of Justified.
Forgot one thing, the daughter sub-plot was a little too Kim/Mountain Lion for my liking. Otherwise, episode was awesome.
LOL!!! It was moving in that direction but thankfully it didn’t go full Mountain Lion. Henry did just what the audience wanted him to do. Kim Bauer tended to do the opposite of an obvious solution. She could have used a little brother.
I’ve been waiting all day just to say that last night’s episode was the best hour of TV I’ve seen for a long time.
I can’t be the only one who thought it was the Russians pretty early on. I wish that They had let us, the audience, in on that earlier because it was fairly obvious.
Wasn’t a huge fan of the afterschool special with the children but was happy they left it ambiguous.
But why didn’t the Rezident make a bigger deal out of being obviously set up? “Hey, how about you check out this chick because she’s pretty clearly a mole and with some cursory checking you can catch her. She really only knows stuff because she was blowing me when people came in and told me important stuff.”
I figured it was the Russians immediately… I thought if it’d be the real FBI there would be an agent involved that we’d recognize…
Also, Nina did her job really well… sexually petting a lonely old man, making his dreams come true and convincing him that she’s actually interested… He seemed genuinely into her and may not suspect her at all.
Well, if the Resident admits to banging Nina and giving her info I don’t that saves him from taking the long flight home. Heck, maybe he really believe that Nina liked him. I’m sure smarter people have been so duped before.
@False Yeah, once we went back a couple of times and no one was involved we knew, it was sort of obvious.
@Reggie But did he give her that much info? I’m blanking if he gave her more than “we know there is a mole” and what she caught when the agent barged in while she was blowing him. It might not save him from being sent home but it might save him from some gulag in Siberia.
I figured it was the Russians fairly quickly, when I realized it didn’t make sense that the FBI would catch them so early in the show. It didn’t make Elizabeth’s reaction to the reveal any less shocking. The worst part was the way Mags/Claudia writhed in pain at the end. It was brutal.
@Peter One thing I’ll give the show high marks on is the way that violence is presented. It’s way more real world than action hero and I expect that we’ll be seeing the characters feeling the physical effects of this for a while.
@SHough610: I agree about the violence. I also thought about what the kids would think when they got home and found a mess. How would Phillip and Elizabeth explain that?
@SHough:
Count me as one who thought it was the Russians from the start. As for Vasili, two problems with him fingering Nina as the mole to the KGB. (1) Even if he deduced she hid the camera in his office (and there was no reason that she alone could have done that), there would still be no way to tie her to the diamonds planted on him. (2) Vasili was trapped as any admission shifting blame to Nina would inherently doom him. The “I told her there was a mole then she overheard sensitive information while giving me a beej” wouldn’t serve to help him out, he’d STILL be guilty of letting slip classified information. And the Soviet Union was not at all forgiving about that kind of thing. You’re right that he wouldn’t be sent to a Siberian gulag, but only because he’d be dead from a bullet to the head long before he had a chance to make it there.
i think it was supposed to be obvious it was the Russians. Elizabeth’s reaction was the real payoff. She has done nothing wrong, and has never questioned the cause once, yet they still didn’t trust her because of some offhand comments she made about her husband. That beating was amazing, but the conversation between her and Phillip outside, when he realizes she expressed her doubts in Phillip to her higher-ups, was so intense. I don’t think the show wanted the audience to think, “Holy shit, bet you didn’t guess it was the KGB all along, did you?!” I’ve read a good amount of feedback today from people who were genuinely shocked, but most of it seems to be, “I knew it was the Russians.” I knew it too, but like I said, it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the episode at all. This show just keeps getting better and better.
I gotta say too…FX hit it out of the park with this one. This show has the potential to be The Shield type good if it hits its stride. Maybe even Breaking Bad….soooooooo damn complex.
agreed, this show has far exceeded my expectations, btwn The Americans and Justified, it’s like back when Rescue Me and The Shield were both running concurrently in their primes.
When they got nabbed I thought for second we were going to have another ‘Homeland’ on our hands; burning through the plot points at a rapid pace. Thank you FX.
When the FBI had no knowledge of it I figured it was the Russians.
Sorry, didn’t mean to sound superior or smug and that came across REALLY dickish on my part.
Ha, no worries. That’s the point I realized it as well.
Wooooooah. That show is DARK. Probably the darkest show on TV, perhaps even moreso than Breaking Bad. The set up of the Rezident to save Nina, Felicity’s ground and pound of Mags, and I could have sworn those kids were going to get raped. The sex scene with Nina and the Rezident was probably one of the most disturbing non rape scenes I’ve seen in a while. It could have been worse than when Felicity got raped.
I think, the dude who picked up Henry and Paige was part of the plot to see if Phil and Elizabeth would break but the dude got sloppy and took a beer bottle to the dome. Also, the director seemed to soften his dick head personality. The scene where Elizabeth beat the breaks off of Claudia made me think of the scene in Fight Club “YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE I’VE BEEN, LOU!”
I doubt the driver was in on the KGB plot. If only because there is no way the KGB would risk bringing in the kids and having them realize that their parents are/might be spies, that’s a loose end that could result in the whole operation being unraveled. The KGB has no idea of where the kids’ loyalty (family or country, the USA) might lie, best not to test it and find out to their detriment. Also, it would only serve to drive Phillip and Elizabeth away, if they weren’t the mole, they might become one once the kids were directly threatened rather than by the implication.
They’ll definitely come back together. This is Elizabeth’s first time feeling betrayed or at a loss, while Phillip has been struggling with it for a long time. We all knew Lizzy wasn’t going to crack, and it was great to see the solidarity of Phillip saying “yeah…. we’re not going to talk, go ahead and kill us.” Elizabeth will do some groveling or they’ll pull themselves back together in the midst of a mission.
GAWD it was so good to see her go apeshit on the handler…. damn…. And the whole “they put you on a plane and that’s it” foreshadowing… duhnduhnDUUUHHNNN….
But this isn’t the first time Elizabeth has been betrayed. She was raped by her KGB trainer/commander prior to ever reaching the US. And that didn’t shake her faith in the system. It’s only been the recent events that have demonstrated to her that her loyalties may have been misplaced: the country she puts first and foremost has no qualms about using them and discarding them or asking them to do missions that threaten their lives and operation, while her “fake” husband is more loyal to her (why he killed the defector) than he is to the “motherland”.
I think the key point is that until very, very recently, Elizabeth has been blind to, or blinded by, the realities of the world. She resolutely believed in communism and her duty to the Soviet Union on abstract grounds. Phillip, on the other hand, is much more grounded and narrow in his focus. Though he started out as loyal to the Soviet Union as Elizabeth, life in America, and his family in particular, have changed his priorities. He doesn’t hold out the fantastically romantic notions of what life in the “Workers’ Paradise” is really like, he knows that America is pretty good. I don’t know that he has a larger ideology other than family.
@Miguel – I got the impression that the trainer raping the trainee was a standard part of KGB training, like a test that all female trainees have to pass without losing faith in the system.
I liked Beeman’s setup of the KGB Resident. You do have to wonder how much he is doing this out of interest in Nina as a spy or because he likes her (as in likes her likes her).
The kids subplot did seem like something of a throw away. But it does make for a somewhat interesting questions of what they do when their parents are off doing spy stuff and whether they will ever notice their mom and dad coming and going at all hours of the night.
Bingo!… on all of this… With Beeman it was nice to see him do his job and do it well. But he definitely wants wants Nina’s babushka on his cockpushka ifyaknowwhatImean….
I agree that it was good they address the fact that the parents are always missing. It would have been too big a hole if they hadn’t
Well I mean the kids need to be a big subplot. They’re a big part of their lives, and I’m guessing that the fact that the daughter wants Beeman’s kid’s nuts I’m guessing that becomes a big part too. They’ll leverage Beeman’s love for Nina into turning him.
I’m really looking forward to Nina using her vag and mouth to manipulate the shit out of Beeman. The schadenfreude will be exquisite.
I don’t think the kiddie subplot was as throwaway as it seemed. Henry made up some story about another kid’s mom driving them home and I think that’s a lie that’s going to unravel right quick when Philip or Elizabeth runs into said parent. When it comes out that the kids almost got murder-raped because of the KGB’s distrust I think that’s gonna be the last straw for Elizabeth’s loyalty to the motherland.