The Americans ‘Safe House’ Review: Safe houses are where bad things happen

After taking last week off, The Americans is back with only a few hiccups. Thankfully, it dials down some of the Philip and Elizabeth drama in favor of focusing quite a bit on the other characters; the marriage issues are still there, but in this episode, they’re operating more in the background, which is just fine with me. The episode actually does a little bit of fake-out: it begins at a slow pace, with no mention at all of any kind of a mission. It’s just Elizabeth and Phil at the dinner table having the “we’re separating but we still love you” talk with their kids. The conversation hits all the usual pre-divorce notes, but is still incredibly sad, because the more stereotypical the kids’ reaction, the more believable it is – this is exactly how sad, confused, and upset real kids would be, and it really drives home the point that no matter how fake Philip and Elizabeth’s marriage is or how businesslike they choose to be about it, their kids are real and will see the real consequences of everything their parents do. (And then will have to see their parents awkwardly interact at the neighbors’ parties! Hooray!)

However, just when it seems that this episode is going to be a slow-boiling placeholder that explores the effects of the Jenningses’ separation on Paige and Henry…holy shit! As if it’s not enough that Stan’s boss wants an unofficial hit on Arkady (the new head of the Rezidentura), Agent Amador confronts Phil disguised as Clark as he’s leaving Martha’s apartment. It’s unclear whether Amador suspects Phil/Clark of doing something shady in relation to those files Martha stole or whether he’s just jealous in an ex-lover way, but in the end it doesn’t matter, because the situation quickly turns into a mess when he tries to make Phil come downtown with him. Phil doesn’t take too kindly to this and attacks Amador, who then pulls a switchblade, which gets turned around on him. Phil makes Amador stab himself and shoves him into the trunk of his car, after which he takes him to some kind of a warehouse and ties him up to await an uncertain fate.

I was pretty sure poor Amador was a goner after we started seeing actual backstory for him, which so far has been sparse to the point of nonexistent. Ironically, most of Amador’s flashbacks end up being about Stan – sure, we learn a little more about Agent Amador being in ‘Nam and why he likes to chase women so much, but mostly we see the bond he and Stan had as partners and why Stan is so legitimately worried and enraged when Amador is kidnapped. Noah Emmerich, who normally plays Stan as one of the calmest and most restrained guys on television, gets to let loose a little here, as Stan spirals into a panic, even going so far as to accuse Nina of knowing who took his partner, after which he realizes that Nina herself is in danger if Amador is interrogated. It’s quite chilling to watch Stan go nuts, especially since he never explicitly flies off the handle; he just gets more and more intense, until finally he’s in on the plot to grab Arkady but ends up kidnapping another Soviet Embassy employee when Arkady isn’t where he’s supposed to be. This guy – Vladimir, who has had a couple lines with Nina in previous episodes – gets tied up in the FBI’s safe apartment and Stan gets a nice creepy speech about hunting with dogs and how wounded birds don’t move so they can fool the hunter into thinking they’re dead. Unfortunately, this scene, which should have been the climax in the Stan storyline, didn’t really work, because although Emmerich did the best he could, the whole speech rang somewhat false due to the clunky dialogue. (I appreciate how hard it must be to come up with an appropriately threatening speech that isn’t just the usual “I’m threatening you with a weird story and I’m really serious, so pay attention” type of dialogue, but “I’ve got you in my soft mouth” might be the least threatening and most bizarre line I’ve ever heard.)

While Stan is grilling Vladimir, Elizabeth and Philip are working together to interrogate Amador. These scenes are handled wonderfully; we see them working well as a team without really directly mentioning their marriage or sidelining the action for another cyclical talk about what they each want from the relationship. They simply do their jobs, don’t snipe at each other, and Phil asks about the kids. They both seem too wearied by Amador’s condition to worry about anything else. He has a gut wound and is bleeding profusely but slowly; his agony brings out the human side in both Elizabeth and Philip, and they eventually agree to give him morphine and let him die in peace after he tells them what the FBI is up to with Arkady – except it’s already too late.

The episode’s sober finale, when Stan shoots Vladimir in the most stone-cold way possible, doesn’t just depict how quickly situations can spiral out of a person’s control; it’s also about how quickly the larger chain of events can be affected. Just like Phil and Elizabeth at first viewed their decision to separate as purely personal, now they’re seeing what that decision means to Paige and Henry. Phil’s crazy situation, in which he had to either knife or be knifed, ends in a death he didn’t intend, which will ensure Stan’s undying wrath. And as for Stan himself, he’s probably just created a heaping pile of shit with his unauthorized kidnapping and murdering of someone who was never a target in the first place. The illusions of safety and stability that the characters have all built up for themselves are crashing down, and with only four episodes left to the season, things will likely get even crazier next week.

• Elizabeth’s opinion on Phil’s motel: “That sounds depressing.”
• Martha’s in love with Clark! It must have been the turtlenecks that won her over
• What do you think, will Stan end up going rogue? You’d think the FBI wouldn’t condone the execution of a Soviet Embassy employee after all the talk about not escalating the Cold War, but then again, Stan’s boss was going to kidnap Arkady