4x09 The Day After

[7.8/10] Seven months later, things are good and normal. Philip is teaching Paige how to drive (in a scene that gave me Bob’s Burgers flashbacks). Elizabeth has made a genuine friend. Stan is a little grumpy still, but back to playing racquetball with Philip. After receiving the much needed time off, the perpetual vacation, everything is good in the Jennings world, right? Right?

Boom.

“The Day After” does well to make the prospect of nuclear war the thing that pops the bubble of comfort and security that everyone’s been enjoying lately. The Jennings have been through a lot. They deserved a break. And from a practical standpoint, they needed one if they were going to keep doing good work for the Centre. But the T.V. movie about nuclear annihilation reminds everyone what is at stake here, and disquiets everyone from privileged KGB operatives to fifteen year old girls doing their math homework.

There’s a pall hanging over the episode. It captures the fear of nuclear war that there may be no tomorrow, a sense that speaks to many in the present with similar concerns about the prospect of climate change. The imagery of different characters sitting around the T.V., watching this special and recoiling in quite horror works to not only give us a brief status update on everyone (Oleg and Tatiana are together, apparently), but to unite the disparate corners of the show for one brief moment.

The Jennings, the Beemans, Yung-Hee’s family, the employees of the Rezidentura, are all enraptured by this event. They’re on different sides, working at cross purposes, or unknowingly aiding one another, but they’re all, in an odd way, in this together. They’re all afraid of what would happen if this cold war turns hot, of what it would cost everybody if it happened.

It’s why Philip countenances William’s suggestion that they not tell the Centre about the latest biological agent the Ameircan lab is working on. William says that he doesn't trust the Centre, and there’s good reason why. There’s a tension between wanting to do your job and protect the world, and also not trusting two governments who’ve been vicariously at one another’s throats for decades to know when to strike and when to forbear. The world seems good for now, but putting the wrong weapons into the wrong hands could expose that terrible risk rumbling beneath the surface.

As with everything in The Americans, the geopolitical is also personal. From the outside, it seems like Paige is doing fine, but Philip seems to wonder if there’s a similar undercurrent of worry, of something painful waiting to emerge. Paige has done will in her wrangling of Pastor Tim and Alice, to the point that she recognizes what makes them see the Jennings as normal, and struggles to have the energy to do her homework with all of the church group activities she’s participating in. From the outside, there’s signs of the usual teenage disdain, but things seem fine.

Pastor Tim, on the other hand, suggests to Philip that there’s something wrong, that Paige seems sad. There’s a sense of self-recognition to it. I’m admittedly out on a bit of a limb here, but it’s not crazy to think of Philip seeing his own struggles reflected in miniature with his daughter. While her responsibility with the pastor and his wife are a lot different than Philip’s, he can understand how someone can do their job, not complain, but still be slowly coming apart at the seams and utterly worn down by it.

So he gives her a boost. In a bit nicely set up by the cold open, he lets her drive the camaro around the block. And sure enough, it seems like a suitable and mood-changing reward for all the emotional labor and responsibility she’s had to maintain since this secret became hers too. Honestly, I would watch a quasi-sitcom that’s just about Philip and Elizabeth being parents, without all the spy stuff, because the layered struggle of how to teach your kids responsibility while also teaching them how to be happy is as compelling as any of the suspenseful espionage that goes on here.

In a weird way, the same goes for Elizabeth’s portion of the episode, which is one of The Americans saddest little vignettes. There’s an exciting spy story to be told there, about a secret agent infiltrating the life of a potential asset, about a search through a target’s home for blackmail fodder, and for a tricky, disturbing honey pot operation to manufacture blackmail when none exists. It is, as usual, the Jennings at their best, being able to work people and situations to their advantage.

But what’s interesting about it is that, for the first time, Elizabeth doesn't seem to want to go forward with the mission. She has, as Agent Gaad warned in the last episode, allowed herself to get attached to Young-Hee and her family. We haven’t seen Elizabeth make many true friends beyond Philip -- something the show touched on in season 2. There seems to be a genuine connection between her and Young-Hee as immigrant women who share tough upbringings and the challenges of raising a family in a different country. Over the past year, they’ve forged a legitimate friendship, a friendship that Elizabeth has to throw away if she wants to do her job to try to prevent the nuclear war that looms large in the back of everyone’s minds.

That’s the tripartite tragedy of Elizabeth’s whole rohypnol-fueled false affair setup. It’s tragic for Elizabeth because, as she admits to Philip, she will miss one of the few true friends she’s ever had, a friend she’ll lose because of the mission. It’s tragic for Paul, whose worst secret was a dirty VHS tape, and who tried to repel Elizabeth’s advances. And most of all it’s tragic for Young-Hee, whose marriage will be tested if not destroyed by this, who will lose the same solace-filled friendship that Elizabeth is, and who did absolutely nothing to deserve any of it.

Because of that ominous prospect of global annihilation, Elizabeth ahs to suffer a personal annihilation, where she not only hurts an innocent friend who trusted her, but has to lose that friendship herself. Things seem fine for the Jennings at the start of “The Day After”, the bit of normalcy and peace they’ve reached after their extended break. But when the world is seemingly on the brink, and you’re on the front line of the cold war, that peace is always illusory and temporary, until something pops up to remind you how fragile and painful holding it in place can be.