Elizabeth Jennings gets her groove back tonight, and it’s great to see. “The Walk In” is another great hour of The Americans, which evidently doesn’t plan on making lackluster television.
We begin with a flashback to 1966: Elizabeth and Leah sitting in a park, talking about motherhood. We’ll return to these flashbacks a few times throughout the episode, and each one is more impactful, showing us exactly why Emmet and Leah’s deaths hit Elizabeth so hard. This is the first time this season we’ve seen her on a mission, and while it might not be a matter of life or death, it gives Keri Russell a chance to shine.
Phillip and Elizabeth follow up on Fred’s intel from last week’s episode, something involving propellor blades I don’t think we’re meant to fully understand. What is unmistakable, though, is the menace exuded by Russell, as she threatens a mill worker with nothing more than a crowbar and body language. At the end of the encounter, she doesn’t harm him; she simply takes a picture of his son from his wallet. As Dennis Reynolds knows, it’s all about the implication.
On the other end of the Elizabeth Jennings spectrum, away from “menacing,” is “maternal.” She dons yet another wig to visit Emmet and Leah’s surviving child, Jared, while posing as a representative of the Child Advocacy Group. When Jared’s caretaker tells her that he has a great voice, Elizabeth responds, wistfully, “I didn’t know that.” She’s not acting here. Jared is a boy who she feels very close to, having had his mother as a friend for almost twenty years. Jared is close to her even if they’ve never met. When he breaks down, she comforts him, but she doesn’t go so far as to give him the letter that Leah wrote, which detailed her and Emmet’s true lives. A hard woman is Elizabeth Jennings – when she needs to be.
Elsewhere, Stan Beeman catches Bruce Dameran, the titular walk-in. Bruce is on top of a laundromat with a sniper rifle, ready to take potshots at international leaders of the World Bank. Stan figured this out in just a few minutes of talking to Bruce’s boss, because Stan is a great detective. I love that about this show. Stan isn’t the strutting peacock that, say, Hank Schrader could be, and Noah Emmerich’s deep voice, weathered skin, and hangdog eyes are a perfect fit. Emmerich is doing career-defining work here, and his seemingly inevitable confrontation with Phillip and Elizabeth is one of the things I’m most looking forward to in the coming years.
A Few Thoughts
– Annet Mahendru continues to impress. I don’t know how much she’s actually playing Stan, and judging by the smile at the corner of her lips when she remembers him saying “I love you,” neither does she
– I love the shot of Elizabeth and Leah washing blood off their hands. We don’t know what they did, and we don’t have to
– Paige tries some spycraft of her own. I’m not crazy about the Aunt Helen subplot, but Holly Taylor is talented enough to keep it interesting, and keep Paige from being the new Dana Brody
– Margo Martindale alert: Claudia returns next week!
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