You never know who you are dealing with.
I’ll admit for the better part of the season finale of The Americans I was wondering where it was all going. But when the action started it was well worth the wait. It seemed that a few of the characters were out for two things, redemption and retribution.
At the end of last week’s episode Nina confessed to her superior, Arkady, that she was the mole and this week we learned her fate. Luckily for her Arkady has seen something in her and instead of sending her back to Moscow, where she would have been spared execution, he allows her to remain in American and continue her liaisons with Beeman.
But instead of “working” for Beeman, she’s now working for the betterment of Moscow and must report all of their meetings to Arkady. It’s not long before her loyalty is tested. She meets with Beeman and he is overjoyed telling her that she should wait at the apartment for him that her exfiltration is only hours away. She immediately realizes that something is amiss and that one of the KGB missions of the day must be a set-up and reports back to Arkady. Since there is no time to verbally warn Philip and Elizabeth, he opts to spray paint marks on a few cars and have them drive around the area in hopes of someone seeing it.
For a moment I honestly thought that Nina wouldn’t tell Arkady since the idea of escaping her convoluted life must have been freeing to her, but it appears that she is steadfast in her loyalty to Moscow and wants to redeem herself in their eyes.
Elizabeth and Philip spent the better part of the hour debating who would take what mission. There were two things that needed to be completed. A meeting with an American Colonel who was going to provide them with information and the retrieval of Weinberger recordings. Elizabeth is convinced that the meeting with the Colonel is a set-up and tells Philip to make plans for him and the children to be away just in case she is the one meeting with him. Of course we already know that the set-up is the retrieval of the Weinberger recordings which the FBI has traced to a trunk of a car parked on a random street in the DC area.
Since Elizabeth and Philip never accounted for Weinberger’s housekeeper to divulge the location of the bug to the FBI they could have never thought that a simple retrieval could be a set-up. As such, at the last-minute Philip switches things up and takes the meeting with the Colonel himself sending Elizabeth to retrieve the recordings. I just have to say that while Philip kept telling Elizabeth that if anyone should be caught it should be him since the kids needed her it was definitely deeper than that. He truly loves Elizabeth and didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. He knows that she is tough, but as we have seen all season, he has become Americanized in many ways and as such has adopted the philosophy that the man should always take care of the woman. When Philip goes to meet with the Colonel Grannie is watching them and it’s a good thing to since she sees one of the marked cars and jumps into action crashing the meeting and saying it’s a set-up. It’s not long before Philip realizes that the set-up is actually Elizabeth’s mission and he races to get to her.
Thankfully he makes it to her before she reaches the car – she was within feet of it. Of course this tips off the FBI who has had the car under heavy surveillance and they spring into action trying to trap them. Elizabeth and Philip get away and sneak into a parking garage where they shed their disguises and hotwire another car and escape.
I found it hard to believe that none of the FBI or police cars that were in pursuit of them never thought to check the parking garage, but, that’s due to the magic of perfect writing I suppose. Unfortunately Elizabeth has been shot. At a makeshift operating room in a warehouse, with Grannie overseeing, a doctor removes the bullet and while Grannie insists that Philip returns to his children he refuses to leave Elizabeth’s side. He calls Beeman and asks him to watch the children and makes up a story that he and Elizabeth are on their way to visit an ailing aunt of Elizabeth’s.
It seems that Elizabeth and Philip have finally realized what we have known all along… They work better as a team as opposed to individuals. When Elizabeth regains consciousness for a few moments she asks him in Russian to come home and he agrees. I wonder though if they had followed orders as instructed would Elizabeth have rushed to save Philip from being caught by the FBI.
And let’s not forget about Grannie. While she will be reassigned per Elizabeth and Philip’s request, she did prove that she is a force to be reckoned with. Since Elizabeth failed to take her bait and kill Patterson as retribution for the murder of a KGB General she took matters into her own hands. She goes to Patterson’s apartment in disguise under the rue that she’s locked out of her niece’s apartment in the same building. Once inside his apartment she shoots him with a Taser gun, injects him with something to temporarily paralyze him and then makes a small incision on his jugular vein that will make him slowly bleed out and die. Talk about brutal! She was right when she told Elizabeth that she has no idea who she is.
Other tidbits to look forward to next season… It seems that Paige is realizing that something is amiss with her mom. She doubted her story of folding laundry in the middle of the night and checks on said laundry a few days later but you can tell she’s looking for something more. She’s the one that Elizabeth early on said was soft so it would be ironic if she’s the one who ultimately discovers her parents’ true identity. Then there is Martha. I couldn’t help but laugh at her when she arrives home and puts on her wedding ring and dances around her apartment. How can anyone be so gullible? How will Clark end that sham of a marriage without raising any suspicion?
And will Beeman finally crash and burn? His wife for all intents and purposes is pretty much done with him he offered her a trip to Jamaica and she refused which will only drive him further into the arms of Nina who he failed when he couldn’t grant her the exfiltration he promised – due to Nina herself of course. At this point he kind of reminds me of a hamster running in a wheel – he’s going round and round but getting nowhere. Will Nina be able to turn him like Arkady wants?
Some stats and info about The Americans, “The Colonel”
TV SHOW – The Americans
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 2
AIRED ON – February 6th, 2013
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FX /FXX/Hulu
GENRE – Drama, Relationship Shows, Period Show, Spy Shows, Crime Dramas
CREATED BY – Joseph Weisberg
CAST – Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Keidrich Sellati, Holly Taylor, Noah Emmerich, Costa Ronin, Lev Gorn, Richard Thomas, Alison Wright, Annet Mahendru, Margo Martindale, Frank Langella
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.