- Elizabeth and Phillip are at risk of getting caught when they fear their assignments may be a set-up. Stan is convinced he'll find Nina a way out.
- Moscow finds Colonel Rennhull's military secrets valuable enough to order accepting his offer at any risk. At the same time, the spies couple must pick up the cording from the bug in defense secretary Weinberg's home, the actual FBI set-up. They argue who should get the kids if the other is arrested, but even after their supervisor gets the resident to cancel the colonel's deal -too late- the trap snaps, albeit not lethal. Nina now unexpectedly gets a witness relocation offer from Beeman, too late, but it also goes wrong, while his wife files for divorce.—KGF Vissers
- Previously on 'The Americans': Gen. Zhukov Elizabeth and Phillip's boss back in Moscow was assassinated. A guy named Patterson at the CIA was said to have given the order. Claudia gave Elizabeth Patterson's name but Elizabeth didn't kill him. Instead, she let him go. Claudia claimed that she loved Zhukov, but Elizabeth doesn't believe it. Nina, a KGB worker, became a spy for the Americans when Agent Stan Beeman threatened to turn her in for some illegal selling of black market items. Nina confessed to her boss, Arkady, that she's been spying for the U.S. Meanwhile, Phillip and Elizabeth's marriage has been rocky. A contact with a gambling problem, Sanford, brought Elizabeth information about a colonel who has access to secrets and will share them for a price. Claudia has set up a meeting, acknowledge that there's risk it's a set up but it's worth it. Phillip has had Martha his contact in the FBI to bug Agent Gaad's office to find out if a set up is in the works. Phillip "married" Martha who thinks his name is Clark and he is an Internal Affairs agent overseeing the FBI. Elizabeth was there and wondered what might have been if she and Phillip had really been married. Sanford was arrested for failure to pay child support and Elizabeth is worried that he'll be broken and outed as a spy for the Russians.
'The Colonel': Stan is questioning Sanford, who doesn't understand why the FBI is involved. Stan tells him foreign countries often target people who are behind on child support and assures him he'll get it straightened out in an hour. Stan comes back and tells Gaad that Sanford is "holding back." Stan suggests that instead of doing anything in one hour, they should leave Sanford in the interview room until he starts "shouting at the glass that he wants to talk."
After sex, Martha and Phillip (who she calls Clark) lay in bed and she suggests they redecorate now that they're married. He says the place is perfect.
Elizabeth meets Claudia at a breakfast place. Elizabeth is worried about a set up. Claudia reveals that Sanford has been moved to federal custody. Elizabeth is more worried now, and Claudia understands. Claudia also tells Elizabeth that they picked up information about a big, hurried meeting Caspar Weinberger will be having with James Bakker from the bug that was place din Weinberger's study. We know the FBI now knows about the bug and is controlling what the Russians hear through it. Claudia tells Elizabeth she heard from The Center that Elizabeth and Phillip had requested she be replaced. This leads to another showdown-style chat between the two women, with Elizabeth telling Claudia she doesn't know people at all and Claudia retorting that she knows Elizabeth better than she knows herself and adding, "And you don't know me at all."
Elizabeth comes back to see Phillip in their travel office. She's worried the meeting with the colonel is a set up. Phillip tells her the Gaad bug is revealing nothing. Elizabeth warns Philip that if her meeting goes bad, he needs to get out of town with the kids. She's worried that as soon as Stan gets a look at her they'll know. Phillip says he should go meet the colonel. Elizabeth tells him he needs to get the tape from Weinberger's meeting with Bakker at the same time, but he says she can do it. Elizabeth tells Phillip she understands what he's trying to do, but that the kids would be better of with him. She says the colonel is her mission.
An FBI tech shows Stan and Gaad how the bug in Weinberger's office is working and how the receiver is in a car that gets parked nearby. Stan then looks closely at the sketches they have of what he doesn't know yet are Phillip and Elizabeth.
Arkady tells Nina he's spoken to Moscow and they've agreed not to sentence her to death because she came clear. He says they were skeptical of her offer to keep working and redeem herself. He told them, though, that he has a strong instinct about her. He thinks she could "be quite effective with the American." She says she "will do everything" she can. He tells her she will need to be careful, and that if she betrays them again there will be no leniency. He tells her to continue her relationship with Stan and she may be asked to plant something on him, but the ultimate goal is to turn him. She says she doesn't think he can be turned and Arkady replies that a man who did what Stan has done to her "is weaker and more vulnerable than he seems."
Gaad explains the Weinberger meeting mission to some agents. They're going to be waiting for the Directorate S illegal who comes to pick up the tape of the meeting.
Phillip gets to the house and Henry doesn't want to have dinner with Phillip and Paige. Phillip decides to stay at the house for dinner.
Stan tells Gaad he thinks the Weinberger mission is going to work. Stan says they'll need to do right by their source. Gaad says he'll have a conversation after the mission is done.
Back at the house, Phillip and Elizabeth sneak over to the kitchen and make their plans in case Phillip has to take the kids off to a state park up north. If she gets out of her meeting, she'll meet them. If not, Phillip has to take the kids to Canada. Phillip tries once more to convince Elizabeth that he should go to the meeting, but she insists they have to follow orders. He agrees not to fight her on it.
That night, Stan surprises his wife Sandra with a vacation to Jamaica, but she doesn't want to go. He says that the next day the case that's been consuming so much time will be over. He says he knows she's had to hear the same old thing so many times, but that some sun and ocean could help. She says she appreciates it, "but, no, it's not going to fix anything. Sorry."
Elizabeth sneaks into Henry's room while he's sleeping and kisses him softly on the forehead. We next see her listening to an old tape from her mother, telling her about her uncle's ailing health and about how she's seen pictures of Elizabeth (who she calls Nadezhda) and her family. She said that even though she'd never meet them, she considers them her family, too.
Claudia knocks on an apartment door and pretends to be a clumsy friend of his neighbor who needs to use the phone because she forgot to bring the neighbor's keys. It's Patterson's apartment she knocked on. He's suspicious and makes the phone call himself, eventually letting her in but slipping a gun into his waistline on his back. She comes in and starts chatting on the phone while Patterson watches her. He averts his eyes for a moment and she hits him with a taser, shocking him into submission before he has a moment reach for his gun. She injects him with something that will keep him immobile for 20 minutes, then slowly and matter-of-factly cuts his jugular with a small blade and tells him that's "10 minutes longer than you have left." As he bleeds out, she holds up a picture of Gen. Zhukov and tells him about how much of a friend he was.
Paige wakes Henry up to tell him she had a nightmare and is going to wake up Elizabeth. Henry tells her, "No, you're not allowed and you know that." Paige goes toward Elizabeth's room anyway and knocks. Hearing nothing, she opens the door and Elizabeth isn't there. Paige finds Elizabeth coming out of the laundry room, where she'd been listening to the tape. Paige doesn't believe she was doing laundry. Elizabeth says she was folding and tells Paige to go back up to bed.
Gaad sends his agents out toward Weinberger's house.
Arkady meets with Claudia in her car and he tells her she's being reassigned in a couple of days. Claudia then tells Arkady that every instinct she has is telling her this meeting with the colonel is a set up. She tells him to get Phillip and Elizabeth out of it. He wonders why she cares since they just stabbed her in the back. She says that as long as she has this job, she's responsible for her officers. She reminds him he's responsible for them, too. She urges him to call it off, but he says that if she's wrong, they'd be giving up their greatest potential success "since we got the atom bomb."
"That's what we always say just before our people die," Claudia says. Adding, "Then next thing we say is, 'It was so obvious'"
At the travel office, Elizabeth and Phillip share a quick moment and look at each other.
Stan meets with Nina and tells her he can't say much, but in a few hours there will be some "very, very happy people at the FBI" and they are going to approve her exfiltration. She's surprised by this development. They share a tender moment with Stan saying he promised he'd get her "to the other side of this."
Phillip has left the office and another worker hands Elizabeth a note that reads, "I did it the way I wanted. Don't forget the pick up. See you later, I hope."
Nina sits alone in her FBI-provided safe house and finally gets up to leave. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is preparing for the pick up. She stops to look at a picture of her family before leaving the office. Stan gets to the Weinberger location and Gaad tells him he was right about Sanford he started shouting at the glass and wants immunity and $500,000. Stan says they should make the deal.
Phillip is driving out to the meeting with the colonel.
Nina is reporting back to Arkady about Stan's comment that the FBI would be very happy. She thinks the colonel meeting is a set up. He picks up the phone.
FBI agents watch a woman walk past the car where the bug receiver is planted.
Meanwhile, Arkady is spray painting an "abort" signal on the sides of some Russian cars. He tells another worker he doesn't care what the FBI will think of their spray-painted cars, this is the only way to get the signal out on such short notice. We see Elizabeth, in disguise, on a bus.
Phillip drives right by one of the cars that had the abort signal on it. Claudia sees him reach what seems to be the meeting location.
Phillip walks up and meets with the colonel, sitting next to him on a bench in a park. Phillip tells the colonel that what he sent was "incredible." The colonel plays with the Latin origins in the word, saying the whole plan is "not credible," it's at least 50 years from being useful. The colonel goes on about how crazy the arms race could get. Claudia sees one of the cars with the abort signal on it and drives straight into the park and confronts Phillip and the colonel, declaring the whole thing is a set up. The colonel doesn't believe it and now suspects Phillip of having told someone. Claudia says they wouldn't have sent the signal unless they were sure. Phillip looks around and says there's nobody there, then Claudia realizes, "This isn't the set up." Phillip figures out Elizabeth is in trouble and starts running.
The car with the bug receiver sits alone while FBI agents watch from every angle.
Phillip is speeding and making dangerous passes on the streets to get there quickly.
Elizabeth is now walking toward the car and Gaad radios to his agents to wait until someone opens the car or gets in.
Just as Elizabeth is close to the car, Phillip drives up next to her and shouts at her to get in. Stan realizes it's "the couple" the FBI has been looking for and calls to all the agents to get them.
Agents move in from every angle and appear to have Phillip and Elizabeth boxed in, with two cars behind Phillip and Elizabeth's car and armed agents with guns drawn including Stan squarely in front of the car in front of them. Phillip throws the car in reverse and Stan starts shooting. Phillip splits the two cars that were forming the blockade. He gets by them and takes off, with Gaad shouting for all the cars to get on their tails.
A car chase ensues, with Gaad and Stan calling out directions and locations to be blocked by other FBI agents. Phillip, however, turns into a parking garage and loses the FBI pursuit. They steal another car, leaving behind the one the agents were chasing, and remove their disguises. They drive slowly and calmly through the streets while seeing more FBI agents with sirens blaring.
Elizabeth tells Phillip, "We should still take the kids to that hotel tonight. It'd be nice." Phillip says OK, but looks at Elizabeth and sees something's not right. She's been shot in the stomach.
Stan finds Nina at the safe house. She's taken a bath, she says, smiling, to start her "new life." Stan tells her it didn't work out. "It all fell apart," he says. She acts shocked and says she can't go back there. He apologizes and says he's going to take care of this for her, "just, not yet."
She comes to him and comforts him. She kisses him and tells him she knows he'll take care of it.
A doctor pulls the bullet from Elizabeth's stomach in a makeshift operating room, asking Phillip for help to stop the bleeding. Claudia watches, too. Afterward, Claudia tells Phillip he should go home to stay with the kids, but Phillip insists he's not leaving her.
We next see Phillip on the phone telling Stan that Elizabeth's great aunt took a fall and he and Elizabeth are headed up to help take care of her. Stan says he and Sandra will watch the kids.
In a season-ending montage, we see Martha get home and giddily put on her wedding ring (which she can't wear in public because "Clark" can't have people knowing he's married to a contact); Gaad shows Sanford the colonel's file and Sanford is talking; Nina is handing Arkady a file on Stan; and Phillip and Elizabeth's kids are at Stan's house.
Elizabeth wakes up and finds Phillip next to her. He holds her hand. She tells him in Russian, "Come home." He says nothing and holds her hand to his lips.
Paige has gone home to get her homework and she stops at the laundry room door, going in to see what it's all about. She snoops around and doesn't see much more than folded clothes, but there's more going on and she seems to know it.
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