Under the skin.
By Eric Goldman
Warning: Full spoilers for The Americans: Season 4 premiere follow.
The Americans kicked off Season 4 with a strong premiere that dropped us right back into the thick of things and the ever more complicated life the Jennings are living.
After Martha was oddly left out of the Season 3 finale, it was good to see some huge follow-up on everything happening with her, now that she (kind of) knows the truth about “Clark.” Alison Wright was terrific in the early scene where Martha discovered Gene had been killed in order to protect her, as the weight of this man’s life being taken to protect hers was felt.
Of course, Martha is still not done with all of this. Whether it be her love for Clark, the danger she’d put herself in by confessing to her bosses or the fear of what it would mean to simply flee – or, more likely, a combination of all of that – she is still helping Philip. And now that she is even more actively working against her bosses, it’s even more nail-biting watching Stan watching her, as she makes copies she shouldn’t be making.
So how about Nina having a freaking husband?! That was a great little reveal thrown into the middle of a scene. Nina and Anton’s bond seems to be very genuine at this point, but they’re still utterly trapped in this situation and I’m impressed how The Americans’ showrunners, Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, refuse to give them an easy out.
Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings on The Americans
Noah Emmerich as Stan Beeman on The Americans
Alison Wright as Martha Hanson on The Americans
Holly Taylor as Paige Jennings on The Americans
Keidrich Sellati as Henry Jennings on The Americans
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Frank Langella as Gabriel on The Americans
Richard Thomas as Frank Gaad on The Americans
Lev Gorn as Arkady Ivanovich on The Americans
Costa Ronin as Oleg Burov on The Americans
Annet Mahendru as Nina Krilova on The Americans
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Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings on The Americans
Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings, Noah Emmerich as Stan Beeman on The Americans
Lev Gorn as Arkady Ivanovich on The Americans
Costa Ronin as Oleg Burov on The Americans
Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings on The Americans
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Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings on The Americans
Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings on The Americans
Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings, Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings on The Americans
Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings on The Americans
Dylan Baker as William on The Americans
Speaking of situations with no easy out, Paige continues to speak to Pastor Tim about her parents’ true identity. Philip once nearly killed Tim out of anger, but the way this situation is going, he may need to be dealt with simply to protect the Jennings’ cover. Of course, if Tim goes to someone else with what he knows before Philip and Elizabeth even find out what he knows, none of that will matter.
On a show (and an episode) with so much tension, The Americans then threw in something to make things really freaky – a bio-weapon!
Everything about the introduction of this weapon (and Dylan Baker as William, the spy handing it over to the Jennings) was suitably unsettling. Gabriel calmly, if sympathetically, telling the Jennings they would need to pick this thing up and keep it in their home got things off on a sufficiently unsettling foot – a situation where them taking a vaccine only seemed to spotlight how bad this could be.
William than telling them the vaccine they took would do them no good was especially disturbing, as they needed to still go through with their mission and bring this thing home, where their children are…
…all of which brilliantly set up Stan angrily confronting Philip and jostling him, as the knowledge of what was in Philip’s pocket made things absolutely agonizing. On a show where the set-up had Stan the FBI agent living next door to two KGB deep cover agents, this was a riveting scene that instead made Stan’s confrontation completely personal, as he assumed Philip and Sandra were having an affair. What was great was everything going on with Philip going to the EST meetings, bonding with Sandra and Stan misreading the situation could have been in a straight-forward, quality family drama… But here, we had Philip sharing at EST the time he beat up a bully, while leaving out that he killed him, and then having a horrifically lethal bio-weapon on him when Stan showed up.
Oh, The Americans, you are awesome.
The Americans returned as excellent as ever. Nothing is easy for the Jennings and it’s always impressive how this show manages to juggle so many elements that could so easily turn to melodrama in the wrong hands, and make them into exciting, involving and compelling drama. The way the spy world and the family world are overlapping is more profound than ever, as Paige’s knowledge of their secret could blow up in their face… if they don’t all die from bringing home a bio-weapon.
