The Americans - Episode 2.01 - Comrades - Review

The Americans has finally returned after an hiatus that felt way too long. ''Comrades'' was a return to form for the excellent series, giving us some nice characterdrama while also setting up a mystery for this season. 

Very refreshing to see were the ''happy'' family aspects of this episode, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys) reconnecting both with eachother as with their kids Paige (Holly Taylor) and Henry (Keidrich Sellati). Which is something we haven't seen since the earlier season one episodes. Family played a big part in this episode and it looks like something that will continue throughout the season. Especially now that Elizabeth and Philip have begun noticing Paige checking up on them. 

The premiere also thrusts us right back into how harsh the spy world is through various examples, beginning with Philip's undercover mission with the Afghans. A mission that quickly went south when a man working in the kitchen sees Philip killing the Afghans. Philip ends up killing the kitchen worker, but he later reveals it eats at him. Something we already saw happening during season one. For now Philip will still put the mission before his personal feelings, but I feel it's becoming more of question how long can he endure this? 

Then there was a suitable 'what the f-ck?' scene involving sex, which in the spy world is equally messed up. I had to check twice if that was Elizabeth, yay for convincing wigs, and had to look again to see who was the mark in that scene. Then when Philip entered with another guy I was completely lost for a moment. How could his cover work when working with someone actually from airport security I wondered? Turns out it had a neat little twist, the second woman and man were actually Leanne (Natalie Gold) and Emmett Connors (Jeremy Davidson), another undercover family and two fellow Russian spies. 

Through both families we could for a moment experience both the insanity of being a spy and how these are still normal people like all of us. And also how much of that insanity is just another day at the office for both the Jennings' and the Connors'. But then it all lead to a shocking, horrific conclusion: the discovery of the bodies of Emmett, Leanne and their teenage daughter after Philip took over a mission for Emmett. Not enough praise can be given for the acting in this scene from both Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. For both Philip and Elizabeth it was a nightmare scenario, that their spylife could end up harming their innocent children. It also gives the show a mystery this season as to who was responsible?  

The episode wasn't all good however, Stan Beeman's (Noah Emmerich) storyline came up notably short. Probably because they couldn't cram more into the episode than they already have. His scenes with Nina (Annet Mahendru) felt a bit flat and so did his scenes with his wife Sandra (Susan Misner). But the worst thing they did was go back on Sanford Prince (Tim Hopper). Last season Sanford, who was Elizabeth's contact, promised to give Stan everything he knew in exchange for immunity. Now we learned that Stan gained nothing from Sanford and he was killed off shortly thereafter. It felt like they didn't know what to do with this storyline and just decided to sweep it under the rug. A shame, because there was a lot of potential there. 

All in all a good episode that served mostly as a set up for this season, while also reestablishing the status quo. And once more giving us a fascinating look at morality and doing the right thing, which is always in the eye of the beholder.

8/10

Pascal

Pascal's a Dutchman and has been a longtime commentator on SpoilerTV and started out as a writer for SpoilerTV last year. He is quite a TV addict and writes for a local, Dutch, newspaper. Next to that he's into soccer for his local team, a gamer and a fanatical swimmer. He writes previews and reviews for SpoilerTV for a variety of shows. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to contact him.