“Operation Chronicle” is not a bad episode of The Americans; in fact, I don’t think there’s ever been a bad episode of The Americans. It’s not even a slow episode, really – a hell of a lot happens. But something about it feels incomplete, inconclusive, to the point that it literally fades to black while a character is speaking. To me, “Operation Chronicle” felt like part one of two-part season finale, which is a legitimate, albeit frustrating, tactic that a lot of shows seem to be employing. (Arrow, for instance, had what felt like a three-part finale.)
Surprisingly shuffled to the B or C-plot was Paige’s distrust of her parents. She grills Elizabeth about why she needs to go into the office so late, she listens in on a phone call between her parents, and even tells her pastor that she doesn’t believe a single word that comes out of their mouths. I applaud The Americans for making Paige’s subplot actually interesting; whenever a TV character finds religion, they usually become annoying or it’s used for comic relief. Religion is a low-hanging fruit, and it’s nice to see it used to help a character find herself, instead of just annoy all her friends, then laugh track, then next week on The Big Bang Theory or some shit.
There’s a good reason for Paige getting sidelined though, and that reason is that the main plots are so damn good. First, Elizabeth has to exfiltrate Jared, as per their orders from last week. She picks him up and takes him to a train station so he can begin his new life, or whatever facsimile of a life he’ll be living. Elizabeth admits that wherever he’s going, it probably won’t be in America. She has company, though – Larrick is following them, tracking them via a transponder he put in Jared’s backpack. Larrick moves implacably, silently, with the same nightmarish pace Robert Mitchum used to chase the children down the riverbank in Night of the Hunter. By the end of “Operation Chronicle,” he’s caught up to Jared’s final destination, and he knows he left with a woman in a truck. We the viewers know that he’s staying with Aunt Helen, and it’s only a matter of time before Larrick catches up.
Now to The Ballad of Stan Beeman. He returns to the safe house where Nina is ensconced, only to see her bruised with a gun to her head. Arkady Ivanovich is there, and lays out a deal for Stan: Get us Echo, and Nina goes free. So Stan gets to work doing just that. Poor guy is so far gone he can’t even see that he’s being played. As I suspected as soon as the scene concluded, the whole thing was set up by Nina. She knew Stan would never voluntarily give her Echo, so she put on a little show (and to be fair, the danger is still real; if Stan doesn’t deliver Echo, Nina will be sent to Moscow for a sham trial and summary execution.) Turning Echo over to Arkady would be a turning point for Stan, and I don’t think even he would be able to justify his actions. It’s straight-up treason, regardless of how he feels about Nina. On the one hand, he’s smart enough that he might have a more elaborate ruse in mind; on the other, he’s blinded by Nina to the point that he gets talked into buying a $3,400 car in no time flat.
Elizabeth is worried about being exfiltrated herself. “You know it’s coming,” she tells Philip. Really, though, she’s worried about her kids, and not in some mama bear Gemma Teller way. More scared than worried, honestly. Elizabeth Jennings is one of the best female characters on TV right now. She’ll do anything to protect her kids, even kids that aren’t hers. Can’t wait to see what happens when she sees Larrick again.
A Few Thoughts
– Martha knows that Clark wears a wig. The way his face fell when she told him leads me to believe that she’s not long for this world
– The FBI really needs a tighter ship. Both Martha and Stan mention that people just leave important, sometimes classified documents “on top of the mail robot.” Or maybe they just need better robots, like all offices do
– “I stole something for you” – Stan Beeman
– Lovely scene between Oleg Igorevich and Nina where he gives her money to fund her escape, all while never breaking character so as no to alert the recording devices in the room
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