Last week was an exciting beginning to what is sure to be a
strong season of the Americans. The
Americans is so good that NBC is trying to copy it with a new series on
Thursdays called “Allegiance.” They say
that imitation is the strongest form of flattery, but why watch a copy when we
have the brilliant original? I’ll stick with the Americans, thank you!
Nina is seen in prison, alone looking surprisingly well fed
and sane in a brown sweat suit. It’s
clear her fate is sealed but the question is, when will her execution take
place? The body of Annalise is growing cold on the hotel room floor as “Scott”
and Yousef make a plan. Philip calls
home, briefly speaking to Paige before summoning Elizabeth for help with their
“problem.”
Paige is suspicious of all the late night emergencies in the
travel industry! She asks her mom if she has considered that Phillip may be
having an affair. Elizabeth scoffs at
this but Paige observes that mom and dad look out for each other more then they
look out for their children. With this
statement, Paige has nailed the family dynamic, she has great intuition.
Yousef and Phillip set about their grim task of disposing of
the body. Yousef asks, “Who are you?”
“My people are dying in Afghanistan.” Phillip replies, and
since it’s the eighties that means the Soviets.
The FBI meets a wooden crate at the airport carrying the
high-level defector from the Soviet Union. She looks tired and weak but happy to be on
American soil. Back at the hotel
Elizabeth, Yousef and Phillip work breaking Annalise’s bones to fit inside a
suitcase. It’s a horrifying scene and
Elizabeth takes a picture to ensure continued loyalty from Yousef.
Nina gets a roommate from Belgium who is anxious to talk and
obviously is scared to death. The
defector is at the FBI waiting for a secure hotel to become available. The
woman tells Stan that she is glad that the she is now safe in America. Stan replies, “It’s not all over, yet.”
We see a flashback to Elizabeth as a girl with her mother. She is asking to go see the war memorial. (The
Great Patriotic War, as WW II is known in Soviet Union) Elizabeth’s mother
states bitterly that the memorial is not for her father, because her father was
a deserter and shot for his crime. Harsh.
I think that we will learn more about
her relationship with her mother as she decides what to tell Paige about the
family business.
The defector is giving a press conference and speaking out
against the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. (So much for keeping her presence
a secret.)
Yousef and Phillip meet and talk about Annalise. She’s been reported as a missing person. It is sad to think that Annalise's husband and
family will never know what happened to her. Phillip is eager to use Yousef to discover the
identities of the CIA who are working with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Yousef has no choice but to cooperate and
agrees to make contact.
Stan is walking to his car at night and hears footsteps
behind him. Oleg appears from the
shadows and he’s pointing a gun at Stan. In a brief but tense conversation, Oleg tells
Stan that he knows he killed Vlad. Stan
says that he loved Nina too, and will try to help free her. Disgusted, Oleg seems ready to pull the
trigger. Oleg orders Stan to get on his
knees. Stan refuses and says, “You’ll
have to shoot me in the back.” Stan
turns and walks away slowly as we hear Oleg get into his car and leave.
With the grim image of Annalise dead in a suitcase,
Elizabeth and Phillip again talk about Paige. Elizabeth has the view that she as the mother
should be the one to dictate what her daughter will do with her life. I think that Phillip has a more American
perspective that Paige should be able to choose her own path.
Stan, shaking from his near brush with death, calls his
ex-wife Sandra from a payphone. The
message he leaves on the answering machine is tense with emotion. He soon goes
to her to tell her what happened. Sandra,
while glad Stan is alive isn’t going to take him back because he was almost
murdered. Sandra may still love him but it’s a “little too little too late” for
Stan to be opening up about his work and his emotions. It’s a tender and sad moment between two
people who’ve shared a relationship that is gone.
Elizabeth is listening to her mother’s tape again in the
basement. Phillip encourages her to
consider going to see her. He says,
“They owe us that much.”
But Elizabeth feels that she can’t go back, ever. She goes to see Gabriel and they discuss
Elizabeth’s mother and Paige’s readiness for training.
Nina’s roommate continues to try to engage her in
conversation. She says she’s innocent
and fears that the Belgium embassy doesn’t know that she’s being detained. Nina cryptically replies, “This isn’t a prison
for the innocent.”
With fresh wigs, Phillip and Elizabeth begin their stake out
of possible CIA operatives who work in Afghanistan. Elizabeth is determined to
find the information that she lost when the FBI agents nearly caught her. They enter a seedy bar where Yousef and the
mystery men are meeting. It’s rare to
see Elizabeth and Phillip out in public together, he snaps his photos and says,
“We should do this more often!”
At the Soviet Embassy, Tatiana ( the new woman) and Oleg discuss
Ronald Reagan’s visit there to pay his respects to the late Brezhnev. Their discussion moves to the new high-level
defector, Zianda, from the Soviet Union.
They know about her upcoming appearance on “Meet the Press” and a plan
to do a Newsweek interview. Oleg asks
what she wants him to do as he works in the technology sector.
Tatiana smiles and says, “I think you understand the
importance of propaganda.”
Nina is retrieved from her cell and enters an interrogation
room. A middle-aged bureaucrat enters
and introduces himself as the Minster of Railways. He then reveals that he is Oleg’s father and
has been asked to “Use his influence to save her.”
He looks thoroughly disgusted by her and her crimes. Nina knows she cannot be saved, but implores
him to tell Oleg, “That I wasn’t pretending with him.”
Elizabeth and Phillip are at the travel agency office. She recounts about how she was selected for
Directorate S service when she was just sixteen. She wasn’t allowed to tell anyone and she had
a week to decide. Elizabeth ended up
telling her mother and her mother encouraged her, “Go and serve your country.”
She turns to Phillip and says, “When I was called, my mother
didn’t hesitate.”
Clearly, she is thinking of Paige. The silence between them
speaks volumes and the battle for Paige’s future has just begun.
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