FX’s ‘The Americans’ episode 6 review: Is Philip and Elizabeth’s cover blown?
When we first started watching “The Americans” we thought that the series would take it’s time before bringing forward an episode where Philip or Elizabeth were caught, but the masterminds behind the show have pulled out all the big guns this season and even though we are only at episode 6 of the first season, we have already seen Philip and Elizabeth found out – or have they been?
This week’s episode of “The Americans” one of the women that Philip was working over was said to have turned on him and Philip was picked up and tortured for information about the KGB. When the “negotiations” were going no where fast, they picked up Elizabeth and threatened to send their children back to Russia. Just as they were about to torture Elizabeth, Philip tells their captors that no matter what they do, they will die before they talk, that they were trained for these kinds of situations and are prepared to die. Claudia shows up and tells them that this was all an exercise so that they could know for sure that they were not the moles and that they could trust them – they are not in any real danger. Elizabeth loses her mind when she is told that they weren’t trusted and as soon as she is untied she beats Claudia, telling her to show her face to who ever in Russia approved this.
After they escape, Philip becomes paranoid that Elizabeth told the KGB that he considered defecting and is convinced that this is why they did this to them, but Elizabeth says that the only thing she’s ever said about Philip is that he likes it in American too much. Philip said that he was just doing what he was told to do which was fit in and that he never should have trusted her. When they get back home, Philip asks Elizabeth for a piece of her jewelry to give to the target he’s working over to “apologize” for missing their date – whatever marriage they had is clearly over at this point and with Philip out with another woman she decides to meet with Gregory. She asks him to watch over her, Philip and her children, telling him that there’s a mole in the KGB and she needs to know if she’s being watched.
With Philip and Elizabeth missing, their kids are stranded at the mall and decide to hitchhike to get home. They get into a care with a man, who takes them on a detour to drink and “feed the ducks” at a pond. He offers Paige a beer and gives Henry the bread to go off and feed the ducks leaving the man alone with Paige. When Paige and Henry realize that they might be in trouble and try to leave, the man won’t let them. Henry sees the man has a knife on him and, so he hits the man in the head with a beer bottle and the kids run off, deciding not to tell their parents what happened.
Nina has learned that the KGB knows there is a mole in the network and begs Stan to stop using her and help her, but he’s pushing her just a little bit further promising that when the time is right he will help her – so clearly this is going to lead no where good for Nina. When Stan convinces Nina to smuggle a camera into work and take pictures of classified files, she reluctantly does, but Stan has plans to implicate her boss as the mole and take the heat off of her – which he successfully does.
Were you upset to see that Elizabeth turned on Philip or is it what you expected from her character? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think.
Photo: FX