The Americans S6 E5: The Great Patriotic War

All in all, that was one of the ugliest episodes of The Americans ever. Let’s take stock. Elizabeth brutally murders Gennadi and Sofia, leaving their son to find their bodies. Philip spars with Paige, with a self-defense lesson becoming something uncomfortably close to assault. Then, crossing the final Rubicon, Philip sleeps with Kimmy, whom he’s known since she was about 15.

Eww eww eww eww eww eww eww eww eww.

Philip was turning even more fully to the darkness in this episode, only redeeming himself at the last minute. He wants to protect his daughter. After Paige gets into a bar fight and (justifiably) punches out those two creeps, Elizabeth and Philip are appalled that she’s having sex and nearly blowing her cover with her too-expert violence. The hypocrisy is strong in this scene, with the Jennings parents berating their daughter for going the honeypot route when they’ve done so many times themselves. Still, those Soviet sexcapades have taken their toll on Philip and Elizabeth, so they undoubtedly want to spare their daughter.  

It was thrilling to see Paige defend herself at the bar and even more thrilling when she cut off her mother’s latest lecture. Two seasons ago, she would have cowered. Back at her apartment, the lesson Philip taught her took a terrible turn, with the choke hold becoming truly frightening.

Elizabeth pulls Philip back into one last mission and he’s miserable about it. Still, he does his duty for his country and sleeps with Kimmy to manipulate her into going to Greece, and then Bulgaria, only to get kidnapped on a phony drug charge so her father will spill the beans on why a member of the CIA Soviet Division was meeting with the USSR summit delegate. Thank God Philip changed his mind and told Kimmy goodbye and not to go to any communist countries.

The murder of Gennadi and Sofia was brutal and was another Rubicon crossed, this time by Elizabeth. She knew it, too, hesitating to kill her fellow countrymen. These two were counterparts of the Jennings family, and I wonder if the show created their characters as a warning of what could happen to our two spies. There was also an echo of the dead Soviet family in season two.

In a lighter moment, we get to see drunk Claudia! After coating their stomachs with olive oil (sorry, I’d rather just go lighter on the booze than do that), the Russian girls do shots of vodka and gab about their sexual experiences. It was a nice counterbalance to Claudia’s earlier speech about losing her family during the Great Patriotic War. This is a woman who has seen such terrible things that she will never waiver in her commitment to the cause. There was another light moment with Philip and Elizabeth sharing tenderness in the bedroom but the sad look on her face before they started fooling around made me think this will be the last such moment between them.

I was glad to see Tatiana again but it was depressing that she hasn’t gotten a promotion in five years. Oleg is right that she should be running the Rezidentura. She always seemed like a mastermind to me. With her in conflict with Oleg, it’s going to end very badly for him.

It’s going to end very badly for a lot of people. Stan may be off the USSR beat now that his last links to it are dead but the murder of Gennadi and Sofia will undoubtedly get him riled up. Philip’s warning to Kimmy about staying in Greece may spur her to tip her father off. And the mere fact that Philip backed out of that mission, not wanting to destroy the life of a girl who surely reminds him of his own daughter, may be the final break between him and his wife.