The Americans Season 2 Review

The Americans (2013-)
Season 2 (2014)

Created by: Joseph Weisberg
Starring: Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Noah Emmerich
Rating: TV-14
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The Americans TV Series

Plot:
Two Soviet spies, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Phillip (Matthew Rhys), pose as a married couple with kids in Washington D.C. during the Cold War.

Verdict:
I like the first season just a little bit better. This is still a good season, but the underlying family drama seemed forced throughout the season, and the payoff of the final episode didn't help resolve the contrived feeling. When I finally started to accept that the daughter's snooping around isn't contrived, it turns out it's the introduction to what could be a major plot in season three. This also had a bit of a major villain, who was completely undeveloped. These are minor criticism in a very good season. What this show does well, it still manages flawlessly. The espionage and double dealing is still a lot of fun.
Watch it.

Season 2 Recap
 
Episode 1 - Comrades
It's an action packed opener with Phillip undercover gunning down two arms buyers.
The daughter Paige is snooping. I guess the show is moving from relationship drama to snooping kids. Phillip and Elizabeth catch her and wonder if this is the first time Paige snooped. Stan gets a bootleg movie from evidence for Nina. Stan seems like a top cop. Did his time undercover skew his perspective or is he just looking for love? Nina is his girlfriend who he thinks is his spy in the Russian embassy, but she has actually double crossed him.

A KGB contact wants Phillip to use his son to as a ruse for a pickup from Fred, but Phillip isn't happy about it despite complying.
When Phillip goes to meet the contact again, the contact and his family have been murdered.  It's drama to make us think the Jennings and the kids are in danger, but we know they aren't. This murder is a plot point for the entire season, and plays a big role in the season finale.

Episode 2 - Cardinal
Phillip's contact Martha wants to leave counter intelligence for a higher paying job. Phillip appeals to her ego and tells her she's doing important things so she decides to stay. If she left it would ruin all of his work.
Phillip breaks into a house and it's Fred's. The guy he did the hand off with in episode one. Phillip gets electrocuted with a booby trap and is tied up. Phillip talks himself out of getting murdered while at gun point.
Elizabeth is called to help a young spy freaking out with a Congress man that overdosed.
Elizabeth is paranoid, expecting the FBI to come after them  since the death of their co-agents.
She voices her worries to Phillip, worried that the kids could be in danger.

Episode 3 - The Walk In
Phillip and Elizabeth are concerned about the kids safety still. When Paige shirks her babysitting duty, it looks like trouble.
Stan Beeman's marriage isn't fairing well.
Phillip and Elizabeth sneak into a manufacturing facility under false identities. Elizabeth can be ruthless, but it's part of the job.
Paige is visiting the address of an aunt her mother claimed to stay with while injured. Paige takes the bus, meets a friend, and arrives at the house. How and why is the house unlocked? Wait, how does the woman even know it's her.  Why does the old woman think she is Shelly? It's all a cover, talk about going deep.
The fake aunt calls Phillip and tells him what occurred. Phillip has a chat with Paige about lying.

Episode 4 - A Little Night Music
I get the Paige drama but it just seems insignificant to the KGB plot. I liked the family drama between Phillip and Elizabeth in season one much better than family drama with their kid. Though while it is always the small things that could unravel, Phillip and Elizabeth will never be in any real danger. They are the show. They can't die.
What a dick movie. Oleg pulls strings to get a higher security clearance to read Nina's files. It's hard to like a silver spoon privileged character and the show is setting up Oleg as a character to hate.
Stan admits to Phillip his affair. Phillip is surprised of the admission.
Clark pulling the old I'll get mad so you'll dump me routine on Martha.

Is there anything worse than a kidnapping gone wrong? Phillip and Elizabeth are trapped in the street with one of the assailants, the scientist escaped, and they have no car. Dang!

Episode 5 - The Deal
A tense opener as the Jennings and their attacker are on the street avoiding cops and even having to talk to a squad car.
Who is listening in to Martha's calls? That could get bad for Phillip. That same person calls the Jennings's house phishing for information.
Elizabeth runs interference with Martha who's threatening to expose Clark as her husband. Elizabeth talks her down, but discovers Martha's sexual relationship with 'Clark' is much different from her relationship with Phillip.
I never imagined I'd get to hear the sounds of someone dropping a load in a television show, but that's what this episode brought to the table.

Is Nina playing Oleg by revealing so much information to Stan? Surely not as it could cost her, but it seems that way unless she's just mad and going too far.

Phillip makes the exchange. His new prisoner begs and pleas, running a mind trip before the drop off.

Stan tracks Oleg to the docks, deducing from Nina's information that Oleg will be part of the extraction. Oleg lured Stan in for a bit of blackmail. He knows Nina is working for Stan and will expose it if his demands are not met.

Episode 6 - Behind the Red Door
Claudia and the Jennings are teaming up to take down Larrick, who is involved in the murder of the other KGB spy couple in episode one, the Connors. They're disappointed to learn that Larrick wasn't the culprit.

Beeman goes to Gaad for help on the Nina situation, but Gaad doesn't want to help since he's facing a Congressional hearing due to Beeman. He cautions Beeman may be in over his head. This is true as Oleg is blackmailing Beeman by using Nina. Beeman wants to exfiltrate Nina, but she needs to take a polygraph test. She gets mad questioning his trust and their relationship. That will work short term, but not long term.

Elizabeth tries to impart a few lessons to the young KGB agent from episode two about severing all ties. You can't let anything trace back to you.

Elizabeth wants Clark one night instead of Phillip. It leads to confusion and a fight when she gets just that. Does she want to spice up their marriage or is she just curious about this other side to Phillip?

Claudia drops a bombshell that she fell for someone and revealed her identity. She can't confirm, but she's afraid shes the reason the Connors died.

Episode 7 - Arpanet
Oleg preps Nina to beat the polygraph. Nina passes the polygraph and runs back to Oleg. She hated him, and the show portrayed him as someone to hate. It just seems silly to flip like that, even if they did share a bond over beating the polygraph. Their previous scene had her hating him.
Is this the end of Nina and Beeman? She seemed to like him, but he polygraph could have been the undoing.

Phillip is gathering intelligence on Arpanet, getting details by posing as a journalist. He's going to plant a bug, and it's a tense scene as his partner loses his cool and almost loses the pass code to the computer lab. Phillip ends up having to kill an engineer that happens to wander back into the lab as he's planting the bug.
The partner talks about what fun it was, but Phillip reminds him he lost his cool and nearly cost them the mission. That and someone had to due just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Paige is still in youth group and quit the volleyball team. She invites her parents to come, but they're spies and don't have time to spend with their children. With the Paige story line getting old, Henry uses his telescope to find a video game system and then breaks into a house to play it.

Episode 8 - New Car
I love the F-body Camaros so this episode was awesome, featuring a show room full of them and Phillip buying one.

Phillip is making the best of the life he has. He has a job, and while he does the job he finds enjoyment when he can. Elizabeth can't reconcile that. She says she lives this life only because she has to but she isn't here to enjoy it. This life is easier, but it's not better. Phillip just can't comprehend that.

Stan has been and continues to be despondent at home. He's in a daze, preoccupied by everything going on at and around work, his girlfriend who he is trying to extradite, and Oleg who is blackmailing him.
Nina and Oleg have turned a high ranking FBI agent.

Lucia goes after Larrick but it doesn't go well. Elizabeth is faced with killing her fellow spy Lucia or Larrick. As Elizabeth has said, she's devoted to the job and Larrick is the job. He can get them intel. It's a tough, but necessary choice.

Henry finally gets caught for breaking into homes to play video games.

Propeller plans Phillip stole were a plant, deliberately designed to cause damage. A Russian submarine sank because of it, killing one hundred-sixty people.

Episode 9 - Martial Eagle
The Jennings infiltrate a base where Americans are training Nicaraguans. Phillip ends up killing three men. He's already troubled by unnecessary deaths, so this doesn't help.

Phillip and Elizabeth attend church with Paige. They're extremely uncomfortable. They also learn that Paige donated all of her savings to the church. Elizabeth calls it a stupid decision, wondering how the church forced Paige to do it. Paige criticizes her parents for not helping anyone. Phillip flies off the handle due to the work stress of murdering a bunch of people.

Elizabeth's plan to reform Paige is to make her do things she doesn't want to do like cleaning the house. She's so lucky to live her privileged life according to Elizabeth, and I'm sure this plan will turn out great.

Phillip breaks into the church. He tells the minister to leave his daughter alone. He's struggling with being a bad guy so the show has him break into a church and threaten a preacher. Yeah!
Agent Gaad is getting the boot for Vlad's murder. Beeman admits he feels responsible, and Gaad emphatically replies that he is. It's completely Beeman's fault.

Beeman is closing in on one of Phillip's contact as he investigate stealth technology. Beeman's wife confronts Stan about the affair. Not his, but hers.

Episode 10 - Yousaf
Phillip is still trying to improve his relationship with Paige after his outburst.

Gaad isn't out. After threatening Arkady, the Russians dropped the matter and Gaad was reinstated.

Beeman's investigation has led him to consider a link with the murder of the Connors in episode one.
Gaad finds a secret compartment in a briefcase found in the Connors's hotel room and deduces that they are counter intelligence.

Paige wants to go to church summer camp. Is the show going to write her off and have her become a missionary?
Phillip is open to Paige's summer plans because another type of rebellion could be worse. Elizabeth is not and wants her to get a job. They have always been neglectful parents. I don't get why they care so much. Oh no, Paige is faking her mom's signature. Wait, Elizabeth had to piece together the note to figure it out? Not a very good spy.
Paige makes a fair point. Henry breaks into a house and gets no punishment. Paige wants to be a better person and becomes the family janitor. Do Communists hate Christians? Is there some pretext I'm missing?

Going for top tier editing. A seduction and a murder both in the name of espionage. Elizabeth kills a top ranked Pakistani official who has top secrete information, while Phillip has a contact seduce the second in command to secure the top secret information.

Larrick is back and killed the KGB dispatcher. That's who the guy on the phone calling Elizabeth was.

Episode 11 - Stealth
The Russians are working on stealth technology, but don't have all the pieces. Phillip's mission is to figure out how American planes avoid radar.

A good spy doesn't make a good parent. if Elizabeth would talk to he daughter it would go a long way, but instead she states. "You can't go because I'm your mother." It's a non reason. Elizabeth later realizes Paige is like her. Paige wants to make a difference, she's just looking in the wrong areas.

The FBI knows the Connors were KGB. Beeman paid their son a visit. Luckily Elizabeth never gave revealed the truth about the boy's parents, otherwise the Jennings may be locked up right now.

 The KGB contact for the Jennings met with the Connor's kid, Jared. What's going on?

Their KGB contact is radio silent because Larrick tracked her from the KGB dispatcher in episode 10. The Jennings go to her home and find a message to rescue the Jared.

Episode 12 - Operation Chronicle
Paige is getting nosy and listening in on phone calls between her parents. While Phillip and Elizabeth scramble to check on Jared and find their handler. They don't realize Larrick has killed her.

After buying Nina a car, Stan finds her in the safe house bruised from Arkady and his thugs. Arkady is setting Stan up for the computer code. You can't help but feel bad for Stan. His life is crumbling, but treason is a serious crime.

Elizabeth admits to Jared that she worked with his parents. She puts him on a train out of state, but Larrick is tracking them.

Episode 13 - Echo
Phillip gives their contact special shoes to pick up the stealth paint from the floor. The contact gets the shoes to drop off, but he was shot on escape. The Jennings pick up shoes, and leave their contact.

Paige is in Pennsylvania on a youth group retreat protecting nuclear weapons. She gets arrested. Elizabeth is happy about Paige's passion to do something good. She hopes to redirect it. I wondered if this was going to be a family spy team. The Jennings don't want that, but it turns out the KGB do.

The Jennings are on the run with the kids after learning that Larrick is rogue. They suspect he is behind the KGB murders.

Stan goes all the way for Nina. He uses a camera to capture photos of the Echo code. It was a great touch, seeing him sweaty and knowing something was up. It turns out he had a camera.
This show does a good job if making us feel bad for Americans that are turned into spies. The heroes of the show are KGB. Just a few years ago we were crazy about the Cold War. Stan refuses to give up the information and Nina is deported. Stan has now lost everything, which could make him even more dangerous.

Larrick captures Phillip, before getting the drop on Elizabeth and Jared. The show pulls a fast one, having Jared as an agent in love with Kate, the KGB handler. Kate told him the truth about his family. Jared killed his own family in an argument.
In a shootout with Larrick, Jared and he both die while the Jennings are okay.

Claudia is back and reveals that Jared was a pilot program to infiltrate the CIA. Second generation spies are the only way to pass the security checks. The KGB wants Paige next. I wondered if she was the long game this season. Her desire to make a difference seemed to push Elizabeth to recruit her, especially after the Pennsylvania trip.  Phillip is against recruiting her, but Elizabeth is for it.This is the payoff for Paige's snooping story line this season. I didn't like this story line much, it should work better than it did. Just as I accept it, this makes it feel like a cheap surprise, especially on the heels of the Jared reveal which seems like a ret-con to help this story work.
I liked this episode, it combined, action, espionage, and big reveals, but the reveals were unfulfilling.