Note: Major spoilers follow for tonight's episode of The Americans. If you haven't seen it, leave now and come back when you have. Also, if you have watched, be sure to check out Annet Mahendru's thoughts on Nina here.
When FX issued the first four episodes of the season, they were accompanied by a note asking that the major event at the end of Chloramphenicol not be spoiled. As a result, I spent much of this episode waiting for something substantial to happen, and so I foresaw Nina's death from the moment that she awoke from her dream of being free.
That didn't lessen the impact of that gunshot, but I feel that the effect this had on me - shock, not that they had killed Nina off out of the blue, but that they had gone through with it with such immediacy, brutality and just at all, particularly given the numerous instances over the past seasons where I expected her death - would have been much different to the fans watching, so I'd be curious to hear from readers as to how her death came across.
That changed here as Nina's death was used not only to bring her story to a close (though I'd imagine that the ripple effect will long be felt by Oleg and Stan) but as an episode closer: in effect, a cliffhanger. Again, The Americans has never been one to shy away from cliffhangers - hell, last week's hour ended on one - but for such a substantial moment to occur at Chloramphenicol's climax is a bold and surprising move for the show to make.
What is most unsettling about this is how quickly everything was resolved. I’m not just referring to Nina’s death coming a mere three seconds after she told that the sentence of death would be carried out “shortly”, but that her demise has come somewhat out of nowhere. Yes, the signs were there. Yes, Nina violated the terms of her agreement (to say that she “interfered with the project” is perhaps a slight exaggeration) and so that put her back firmly into the traitor camp, but to off her four episodes into the season after having her be so excluded from the main story and without a great deal to do for so long, that leads me to wonder whether or not this was planned for a while or if the story just dried up. It’s not necessarily problematic to jettison a character whose story has run out, but Nina’s final arc strikes me somewhat as a slightly hasty way of removing one of the very few weak links that The Americans has. It was 25 minutes into the episode before she made her first appearance, and I don’t think that’s the best recipe for killing a character. It’s a brave move, and one I’m glad the show made, but one that I think is a slight disservice to a fascinating and complex character.
Full credit, however, to Annet Mahendru, who has done a fantastic job in the role over the past three and a half seasons. Her display of emotions in her final minutes, both in the dream sequence and as she was being read her sentence, was a joy to watch, heart-breaking as it was. The Americans has lost one of its great performers (not that there’s anyone on the series who isn’t), and that’s real shame.
But enough on Nina, because the events that transpired back in D.C. were undoubtedly standout. Phillip, Elizabeth and William spent almost the entirety of Chloramphenicol trapped in Gabriel’s safehouse, having been potentially exposed to the glanders virus. What followed effectively amounted to a bottle episode of sorts, with much of the running time being spent with those three. This was as intense as it was emotional, and it gave the three performers - Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell and Dylan Baker - the opportunity to put in a great shift. And that they did.
Russell, along with Holly Taylor (whose performances I’ve scarcely mentioned in my reviews this season, given how much else there has been to cover in-depth, but she is almost always superb as Paige deals with the dilemma with her parents. It’s rare that young actors are so competent, and giving them considerably more material can often be problematic, but Taylor has proven time and time again that The Americans made an excellent decision to bring her into the story much more), set the standard in one of, if not the, highlight of the episode as Elizabeth shared a teary - and potentially final - phone call with Paige, in which Paige blamed herself for her parents having to ‘work’. This relationship has been cultivated so well, particularly since Paige learnt the truth. The final scene between the pair in the bowling alley showcased the other side of things: The connection is much the same, but the expression of it switches completely.
And then we’ve got the scenes inside the safehouse, which were magnificent. Despite Phillip’s early quip at William for supposedly finding the whole scenario funny (to which Baker beautifully delivered a retort), it was the Jennings couple that weren’t really taking their danger seriously at times. Rather than, like William, be concerned about the fact that they could die, Elizabeth expressed more of a concern about the fact that Henry may not have studied for his biology test. William quickly put her priorities in that scene right.But that didn’t last long, and once Elizabeth started getting worse, the focus shifted from biology tests to what would happen if she died from this. That question is something that the end of season one/beginning of season two virtually brushed over when she was shot, so I was very glad to see it visited in some sort of depth here. Through all the danger they’ve been in, particularly with Larrick, it’s usually been a case of ‘what will happen if we both die?’ or ‘are the kids in danger?’ as opposed to contemplating how one of them will raise the kids if the other dies.
It’s a worthwhile question to ask. This is obviously very dangerous work, and they need to have some kind of reassurance that things can work if one of them were to perish - not that it’ll ever happen in the show’s run, barring some sort of unforeseen and major shakeup. Phillip’s knowledge that were anything to happen to his wife, he could raise the kids as Americans, given that it’s “what [Phillip] always wanted”, is a fascinating look at Elizabeth's true priorities. She may seem all about the mission, but deep down, she's more like Phillip than she'd like anyone to think. Again, some superb acting from both Rhys and Russell here.
In the end, it wasn’t to be, and Elizabeth’s illness was in fact just a bad reaction to the antibiotics. But it wasn’t about the end result, as so often is the case with The Americans. It was about the journey. And what an emotional rollercoaster it was.
As she went through her brush with death, Elizabeth dreamt of her mother in a similar situation when she was a girl, and by the end, she had reconsidered her stance on killing the pastor and his wife; instead believing the best course of action to be attempting to work him. “You would be living in a burning house,” Gabriel tells the couple. A burning house, with tanks of lighter fluid stored away in the basement, soon to be reached by the fire. The only thing going up in smoke would be their lives.
Notes:
- I saw the odd comment last week (some on the site, some elsewhere) suggesting that the Center may have poisoned Gabriel to prevent Phillip and Elizabeth leaving. But not only is that counterproductive (if they go to Epcot and Tim and Alice are murdered, they get to stay; if the pair don’t get killed then the Jenningses continue to have that desire) but that container with the glanders looked pretty awful, so it’s very likely that is what poisoned him, not the Center.
- Agent Aderholt kept his promise to Stan and took Martha out to dinner, while Stan searched every inch of her apartment for clues. That sequence was set to Dorothy Moore’s Misty Blue, and it was glorious. Also, Alison Wright cannot stop being amazing, can she? Her phone call to Clark’s answering machine was another real highlight of the hour.
- Really, the person worst off in the whole Nina situation (aside from Nina herself, for obvious reasons) is Oleg. First his brother, now the woman he perhaps loves.
- I watched this episode twice, and even on the second time, the vomiting scene caught me off guard. That is pretty much the only thing on TV that I don’t like seeing. Damn it, The Americans.
- Dylan Baker’s delivery of virtually every line, not just the aforementioned “I think it’s hilarious," is truly perfect. He adds some humour to a show that generally avoids it, though season four has had a lot more genuinely amusing moments than in the past.
- Only ten days have passed since the end of season three’s finale.
- One thing I noticed on the rewatch was that during the scene between Phillip and William as the latter wonders about the kids, between the change in speaker, a car alarm goes off outside, as if to suggest that the situation with Paige, in particular, is causing alarm bells to go off within the Jenningses. Very subtle, very clever.
What did you all think of Chloramphenicol?
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