Warning: This article contains spoilers.
The second season finale of “The Americans” ended with several shockers — including revealing that the murderer of KGB officers Emmett (Jeremy Davidson) and Leanne (Natalie Gold) was their son, Jared (Owen Campbell) — who turned on his parents after they found out he had been secretly recruited by the Center.
Claudia (Margo Martindale) tells Phillip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) that the KGB is planning to go after their daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) next, setting up a new conflict between the spy couple — he is vehemently against it, she is more open to the idea of devoting her civic-minded daughter to the cause. Wednesday’s finale also saw FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) balk at handing over the Echo computer program to the Soviets in exchange for the safety of his Russian mistress, Nina (Annet Mahendru) — setting her up to be sent back to Moscow, put on trial for treason and likely killed.
Is this really the end of Nina? Could Stan still find a way to save his girl? The Post chatted with Emmerich to dissect the shocking season finale.
What did you think of the conclusion to Stan and Nina’s storyline?
My first response to reading it was at first shock and then ‘Well, this can’t really be happening.’ There’s got to be something that Stan has up his sleeve.
I wasn’t surprised in the sense that I didn’t think Stan would betray his country on such a deep level for Nina’s sake. I do think at heart he’s a patriot whose job comes first whatever the cost may be personally.
I was expecting him to come up with some other way to save her.
That’s what I’m hoping. I’m probably futilely holding onto that possibility because I still believe that, ‘how could he let her go?’ I was hoping there would be a magic turnaround at the end. It obviously didn’t happen in the finale but could well happen in Season 3.
What would you like to see for Stan next season?
I’d like to see him outsmart everybody and do his job and save Nina’s life and at least blunt the efforts of the Soviets in the country. Obviously if he catches Philip and Elizabeth we have a major problem with the show continuing. So that’s one of the tricky balances. You want Stan to be competent and intelligent and effective in his job, but obviously he can’t be too effective or the show ends.
What did you think of that plot twist that the KGB wants to recruit Paige?
I thought it was really exciting. It opens up all kinds of possibilities and interesting circumstances, certainly for Keri and Matthew’s world. I wasn’t anticipating it, but in hindsight it seemed like of course they’re going to turn to the children, it makes so much sense.
‘During this season, US-Russia relations were back in the news — how does that affect a show about the Cold War?
It just feels like it makes our historical story somewhat more resonant or relevant to people that weren’t alive for that dynamic. I mean obviously this is a disaster and it’s a problem and there’s nothing to be celebrated, but at least it does inform, it does contemporize that polarity. The other side of that coin is it could be much worse for our show because the Russians are sort of the heroes of the show. So as we exacerbate that again, it could really cut both ways.