Emmy Episodes: The Americans

It’s always my policy to watch every Emmy-nominated episode each year, which leads me to sample a handful of shows that I don’t tune in to on a regular basis. For the third year in a row, I’m making a special effort to spotlight each of those installments to offer my perspective on shows that I don’t review each week.

The Americans: Season 6, Episode 9 “Jennings, Elizabeth” (B)

Well, that was a close call. I’ve seen only selected episodes of this show throughout its six-season run, but I suspect that Philip hasn’t come that close to being picked up by the authorities before. The way that he suddenly started running after nervously looking around the park suggested that he thought it was over, and I expected him to run right into Stan, which would have been awesome. Of course, that’s unlikely to happen since Stan did share his suspicions about his neighbors with Dennis, who promptly dismissed it as an absurd notion. Watching Stan search through the records for the Jennings family members confirms that he’s not going to be able to shake this feeling, and I should clarify something I mistakenly concluded from the previous episode, which is that it was Elizabeth never smoking but having countless butts outside her house that tipped Stan off, not her constant smoking in front of him, which never happened. Elizabeth calmly executed a pretty bold broad-daylight shooting, gave Claudia a last warning, and then got chewed out by her own daughter for refusing to be honest with her when confronted directly about what she did to Jackson. Something tells me that Paige will now be questioning her allegiance to the cause, and when her parents get caught, she may not be on their side. Philip’s foreboding coded phone call is exactly what’s supposed to happen right before a series finale, and let’s hope that the final extended hour provides a fitting and enthralling conclusion to this show.