The Americans S6 E8: The Summit

After six seasons of being a Sovietbot, Elizabeth Jennings begins to crack. She is betrayed at home and at work. First Philip admits that he spied on her on behalf of Oleg and the USSR moderates. The couple has been through betrayals before but this is the worst because it undermines not only a marriage but undermines Elizabeth’s life’s work. He tells her he wants her to think for herself, not just doing what the Center tells her, and be a human being. She balks but this plants a seed, and it plays across Keri Russell’s face for the entire hour.

Then Claudia admits that Elizabeth’s motherland has been lying to her. The Centre wants to kill and then frame Nesterenko, a moderate Soviet influence, so the hardliners can depose Gorbachev. Elizabeth knows this man is not a traitor and refuses to kill him, unwilling to set in motion something that, in the show, would have changed world history.

The old Elizabeth would have killed Jackson, her young informant at the State Department, after he discovers the bug she planted. Instead, she hesitates and lets him live in an act of mercy. (There was a mini-theme in this show about the person you don’t notice who notices more than you think. Jackson seems like a patsy but finds the bug. Stavos has known for years that something was going on in the back room of the travel agency, but never called the police.)

In a brutal act of mercy, Elizabeth euthanizes Erica. It’s a dark, sick joke that the artist chokes on her paint brush, throwing up bile like green paint, but there is some kindness in the way the disguised nurse kisses the sick woman on the forehead. It’s also a sacrifice since it ends Elizabeth’s chance at bugging Erica’s husband.

What does Elizabeth see in the painting she inherits? It’s a woman in pain and doubt (and she reminds me of Oleg’s mother). I think she sees that Erica is gone but will pass on something that will last forever. What will Elizabeth pass on? We know her work will be for nothing in a few years. She hesitates, but in the end burns the painting, taking no chances (what a gorgeous image of smoke drifting over the smoky face).

It's a very Americans-type irony that Elizabeth would rebel against the Soviet Union just a little too late, after Stan is finally onto her. After last week’s hushed suspicion, they pulled back a little this week, but there was time for Stan to pull on an old thread—Gregory—visiting one of the man’s friends at a Roy Rogers. I’m assuming this was the mysterious Roy Rogers in Franconia from a few seasons back? The man tells her Gregory’s girlfriend had hair like a Vidal Sassoon ad and smoked like a chimney.

With two episodes left, there are a few threads left dangling. One, Stan is very close to finally understanding who his neighbors are. Two, Elizabeth is going to meet with Oleg and place herself in danger. Three, Philip is going to meet with Father Andrei and place himself in danger. Four, is Renee actually a spy or illegal or what? She’s finally landed that desk job at the FBI. I’m still not sure how this will all end.