‘The Americans’ episode 4 review: What happens when Ronald Reagan is shot?
Last week on “The Americans” Elizabeth and Philip’s relationship came to a head when Elisabeth decided to end her long term “affair” with Gregory. She told him that she would no longer be able to continue seeing him because her fake marriage to Philip had started to become real and her love connection with Philip was turning into something amazing. Gregory didn’t want to lose Elizabeth, so he played the only card he had – tell Philip about their affair in hopes that he would allow it to continue since he suspected that Philip wasn’t really in love with his wife anyway. As it turned out Gregory was completely wrong about Philip’s deep feelings for his wife and was crushed by her sneaking around. Elizabeth told Philip that while sparks didn’t immediately fly for her and Philip that in the past few weeks things had been changing very quickly for them and she wanted to explore their relationship.
This week on “The Americans” Elizabeth and Philip decide to try and see what is really their between them – is it love or is it something else? They take the afternoon off work and sneak away to a hotel room while the kids are at school for a romantic rendezvous and the chemistry that was missing in their relationship is finally ignited. Unfortunately while they are off work, the US President Ronald Reagan gets shot and the FBI is desperately trying to link the shooting to the KGB.
Claudia meets up with Elizabeth and tells her that “Operation Christopher” may be going into effect and that although the KGB probably wasn’t involved in the attempt on Reagan’s life, that they have to be prepared for the US government to try and pin it on the Russians. Elizabeth gathers supplies for the operation and tells Philip that she’s going to contact Gregory for his help – Philip is not happy that Gregory will be involved. Philip and Elizabeth learn that Reagan is going to pull through and they relay the information back to Russia.
On the FBI side of things, Stan Beeman is trying to get in contact with his Russian informant Nina, but because of what is happening she is having a difficult time getting away from her job to meet him. When she finally does manage to get away her boss sends someone to follow her, but Stan realizes that she’s been compromised and doesn’t meet up with her. When he does finally get to talk to her, she tells him that the KGB isn’t responsible for what happened to Reagan, but they are worried that the US is going to pin this on them. They are also worried now that the military is said to be taking control of America and that’s making the Russians very nervous.
After listening to a garbled message from their surveillance recording Elizabeth is convinced that the US military is going to attack Russia and that they have to tell the government, but Philip wants to get further proof since the message they listened to wasn’t clear and doesn’t want to start a war over a “maybe”. They later learn from Stan that the US government knows that the KGB wasn’t involved in the assassination attempt on Reagan and that it was a lunatic named Hinckley that acted alone. They send the information back to Russia and avoid causing another war.
What did you think of this week’s episode of “The Americans”? Leave us a comment and tell us where you want to see Elizabeth and Philip’s story line go.
Photo: FX