Author

Mary

We’re close to the halfway mark on the final season of The Americans, and the title of this episode gives you some idea where we’re heading: “The Great Patriotic War.”

As Paige learns during her Russian Immersion Training from her mother and fairy spymother Claudia, this is what Soviets call World War II, where they lost (by Claudia’s estimate) 27 million people to the Americans’ 400,000.

There has always been a body count on this show, but it’s usually strangers who meet untimely ends. Chances are, we’re going to start losing people we know very soon.

That brings us to Sofia and Gennadi, the Russian defectors nicknamed Mr. and Mrs. Teacup by the FBI. Stan helped recruit and manage them, but now their cover has been blown and they are in protective custody.

This humiliation cannot be allowed, so The Center has dispatched Elizabeth and her team to eliminate Mr. and Mrs. Teacup. We open with them using Stan as the trail of breadcrumbs that will lead to them. Continue reading The Americans recap: The Great Patriotic War

Elizabeth Jennings keeps killing. Halfway through The Americans‘ final season, the Soviet spy played by Keri Russell has shot, strangled, or stabbed six people. That’s 1.2 murders per episode.

Well, “murders.” She could plead self-defense in one case: Attacked by traitorous General Renhull (Victor Slezak), she shot him with his own gun in his own hands. That blast face painted her with chunky blood, boiled skull, and ambient cortex, so she looked like Bill Paxton at the end of Near Dark.

It’s not always so messy. Last week, Elizabeth earned a 100% stealth rating by Solid Snaking her way through a darkened warehouse. She popped the lightbulbs with her silenced pistol, and then she popped three security guards. That scene was thrilling, but death can be funny on The Americans, too. In the third episode, Elizabeth staged the old “Security Audit” ruse, inviting a guy from the warehouse to a hotel room. The rube explained all the ways a savvy operator could sneak past the guards — and then blathered on about his gal pal, who worked in security. With a weary my-day-just-got-longer sigh, Elizabeth thanked him for his service — then grabbed his neck, and pressed Triangle for Skull. Continue reading The Americans: Philip and Elizabeth are living in very different final seasons

“We can make peace with them. Now…is maybe the best chance we’ll ever get. That’s why I’m here.”

This is Oleg and Stan….I mean, Philip (God, I’m so used to writing about the other pairing) standing on the steps of a park at night. Philip is considering the idea of spying on his own wife, but first he needs some answers from the man asking him to do that.

“I don’t really understand what’s going on.”

“The people running The Center, we believe, are actively trying to get rid of Gorbachev,” Oleg tells him. “They can’t stand progress. It’s a threat to them. Our country having any kind of openness or freedom…they think it means we won’t be communists anymore.”

“My wife would never do anything to hurt our country,” Philip answers.

“We know how loyal she is,” Oleg says. “But that loyalty can be used. We have to know what she’s up to.” He tells Philip about Elizabeth trying to secure a radiation sensor. He tells him about the Air Force general who ended up dead. Continue reading The Americans recap: Mr. and Mrs. Teacup