'The Americans' Recap: Even Cats Only Have Nine Lives
Warning: This recap for the “Chloramphenicol" episode of The Americans contains spoilers.
Her number finally came up: after more than three seasons of double agenting, manipulation, and ill-advised work-related romances, former KGB spy and convicted traitor Nina Sergeevna (Annet Mahendru) ran out of second (and third and fourth and…) chances. In Wednesday’s “Chloramphenicol” episode of The Americans, Nina was unceremoniously executed by the KGB after her latest betrayal of her home country.
Background intel: to buy her freedom after being found guilty of espionage and treason, Nina was asked by her homeland’s government to get close to kidnapped scientist Anton Baklanov. The KGB wanted him to build stealth technology, but suspected he was purposefully dragging his feet in his efforts. Nina, as she’d done so many times before, was expected to use her charm and beauty to woo the truth out of Baklanov.
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The two prisoners bonded instead, with Nina keeping his secret when she snooped in his room and found letters he’d written to his son. She told him the truth about her assignment to spy on him, and promised to keep the letters their secret. Earlier in the season, she asked her husband (the one we didn’t know she had) to help her get one of Baklanov’s letters to his teenage son in the United States, so the boy would at least know his dad didn’t simply abandon him.
But the plan didn’t work, and worse, Nina’s KGB handler, Vasili Nikolaevich, found out about it. Nina ‘fessed up to the plot in last week’s “Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow,” and resigned herself to a lifetime in prison.
In “Chloramphenicol,” she’d learn her fate was far worse. Her former co-worker and lover Oleg, back in the USSR for his brother’s funeral, begged his well-connected father to help Nina, agreeing to his father’s request to stay in his home country if he could do something for her. But she’d already been put back in drab prison sweats and dirty sneakers without laces and was relocated to a dungeon-like prison cell. A scene where she cries as she’s given a document that gives her and Baklanov their freedom — and two plane tickets — and sends them back into the world is just a dream. Instead, Nina is awakened in her room in the middle of the night and told she’s being transferred as a guard packs her few belongings into a small garbage bag.
She’s led out into the hallway, down a flight of stairs, and into a corridor where a man sits at a desk. He stands, and says her appeal has been denied, that her death sentence stands, and will be carried out shortly. As Nina dissolves into sobs and her knees buckle, one of the KGB guards shoots her once, in the back of the head. Her body is rolled onto a piece of burlap, and she’s carried away as a pool of her blood marks her death location and the KGB officials sign off on the paperwork of her execution.
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Spy Notes:
— Will Oleg, or Nina’s other former lover, FBI spy Stan, ever know what happened to her? Or will Oleg’s father let his son think he helped Nina, to avoid Oleg returning to his KGB assignment in America?
— Gabriel was at death’s door himself. He, Philip, Elizabeth, and biochemical warfare scientist William were exposed to a deadly pathogen, and Gabriel’s survival was touch and go, while Elizabeth had a reaction to the antibiotics William gave her. Both made it, but Gabriel seems like he’ll be worse for the wear for a while.
— Philip and Elizabeth’s need to disappear without a real explanation as they’re quarantined with Gabriel and William leaves Paige suspicious, and Elizabeth worrying about her relationship with her daughter. She and Philip ultimately decide to convince Gabriel they don’t want to have Pastor Tim and his wife Alice killed, because they know Paige would ultimately connect them to their deaths and never forgive them. They’re going to “work” Pastor Tim and Alice, instead. Any predictions on how smoothly that plan won’t go?
— Though he doesn’t know it yet, Philip, or rather Clark, has trouble brewing with his other wife, too. Agent Aderholt agrees to ask Martha out for dinner so the increasingly suspicious Stan can investigate her apartment for clues. Martha tells Aderholt she’s having an affair with a married man, something she doesn’t know isn’t a lie. She goes on to explain that they’re discreet about their affair, but that it’s not like she’s “wearing wigs” or sneaking into motel rooms. It’s a great line in a show where the two leads are so often wearing wigs and sneaking into hotel rooms.
— Philip tells William he wouldn’t choose to be a spy; he would choose to be “normal,” and he’d choose to be normal with Elizabeth.
— The show continues its unblemished record of picking the perfect song for every occasion. While Stan is at Martha’s apartment, snooping through her most personal possessions (oh yes, he found the Kama Sutra book), Dorothy Moore’s “Misty Blue” is the soundtrack, with lyrics like, “Deep in my heart, I know I’ve lied/I’ve lied, I’ve lied.”
The Americans airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.
