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The Americans Review: “Divestment” (Season 3, Episode 8)

The Americans yields the spotlight to the supporting cast, as Nina is given a chance at freedom, and Martha gives Clark the third degree.

Matthew Rhys and Alison Wright in The Americans

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The M.O. of The Americans is to reflect broader moral and political conflicts in the individual character ones. Communism, as an ideal, is all about working toward a greater good, while Capitalism expects baser individual instincts to win out. For that reason, I respect Vasili for trying to play the good comrade around Nina, blaming himself as much as her for his exile. But his admission that he can never forgive her suggests to me that his personal desire for revenge will eventually overpower his moral fiber.

Nina, the inveterate survivor, once cared for how her lies hurt her former lovers, but any future empathy for her prey vanished the moment she finked on Evi. Having been through so much these last few months, her cramped new lodgings at the science facility look like a penthouse by comparison, but her latest, and hopefully last mark in need of manipulating might be her most difficult. Baklanov may have been running around on his wife back in America, but his hatred of his captors burns hotter than any passion he might feel towards Nina. “Your beauty makes things easy for you,” Vasili told her earlier. There’s some truth to the statement, but Nina, for better and worse, didn’t get where she is on looks alone. She’s going to have to outsmart Baklanov first, before she can get into his head.

Meanwhile, having pulled double duty in front of and behind the camera last week, Stan makes himself scarce in “Divestment,” leaving the rest of the F.B.I. office to stew in the mess that the exposed bug has left. A closed room interview is about the most natural excuse for an info-dump The Americans could ask for, so I’m glad they used one to expose Agent Aderholt as an actual human being. Sure, his background reads like a golden boy’s tale of rising above your means, but the existence of an ex-Mrs. Aderholt suggests a single-mindedness to the man that was needed to get ahead. Despite being the one who found the bug to begin with, Aderholt gets the third degree from Taffet. It’s the sort of thing other people in the office could afford to be resentful about, but Aderholt can’t, even if you can see him bristle at Taffet’s line of questioning.

Really, though, “Divestment” is all about one person: Martha, Martha, Martha. And oh, what a night for Alison Wright it is. Much as her bathroom break last week skillfully blended crumbling composure with quick-thinking, it’s when Martha confronts Clark at the end of the hour that we get to see the full breakdown. “I met a man named Walter Taffet yesterday,” she says, like the start of a dangerous riddle Philip has inadvertently walked into. “Who are you,” she comes right out and asks, scanning the face of “Clark” for some kind of reaction. Philip may be good on his feet (K.G.B. training involves years of improv, no doubt), but Martha’s got her hand on the string that will unravel Clark entirely: one wrong word, and she’ll pull.

“We are what’s real, that’s what matters,” says Philip, landing on a firm thesis statement from which he can try to find better purchase. Clark, the F.B.I. Internal Affairs Agent, is dead. But Clark, the man who fell in love with, and married Martha still exists in some capacity. As we saw with Kimberly, Philip’s fake identities are being influenced by his real one, and so I believe there’s truth to his statements when he tells Martha what a good and virtuous woman she is. Considering the muck and hell he’s been through these last few weeks, a normal, loving fake wife like Martha looks like the Virgin Mary. Philip’s scramble to save his soul would no doubt require that Martha remains, if not oblivious, then innocuous to the K.G.B.’s efforts. Otherwise…

On The Americans, a lie is a transaction between the seller and the believer. It’s not Philip who can make Clark real: only Martha can. Wright is charged with reacting more than speaking in the back half of the scene, but dammit if she doesn’t just break your heart with what’s going on behind those water-stained eyes. Doing anything but immediately calling the police on Clark might seem like weakness (though his line about “protecting” her has the hint of a threat), but I can’t blame Martha for choosing a lie, and a man she loves over a truth that would destroy her. For now, she can forgive Clark for his deception, but the only way she’ll ever break from his spell is if she can work up the courage to forgive herself first.

  • Stray Thoughts

-Gaad vs. Mail Robot ends with a decisive victory for the latter. Mail Robot may have lots of informational insecurities, but Gaad is taking the reveal of the bug rather poorly.

-Granted, I can’t really blame him, because Walter Taffet sure is a diiiiiiiiiick. The barely contained rage in his body language during the interviews suggests he’s not looking to make friends. The snotty manner in which he puts on a hat confirms it.

-Arkady is about to feel the blowback for defying Oleg’s father (the Minister of Rails who met with Nina back in “Baggage”). He and Oleg may joke about the matter, but a guy doesn’t call you on the Big Red Phone unless he’s willing to go nuclear.

-Elizabeth asks a favor of Gabriel: get Mischa out of harm’s way in Afghanistan. He says he’ll look into it, but from Gabriel’s point of view, nothing will spur Philip into infiltrating the Afghan group at all costs quite like knowing his son is on the front lines.

-In addition to the concrete gash in Nina’s old cell, and Mail Robot, something tells me Martha’s Ladysmith is going to be in the “Inanimate Object Elite” of Season 3.