Warning: This article contains spoilers from Wednesday night’s season finale of “The Americans.”
The third-season finale of FX’s ’80s-era spy drama “The Americans” ended with a bang, as teenage daughter Paige Jennings (Holly Taylor) disobeyed her parents and spilled their closely-kept secret — that they are Russian — to her pastor.
She stopped short of saying that Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) are spies for the motherland, but the episode ends mid-conversation, leaving us to wonder just how compromised the Jennings have become.
We’ve got a probable nine long months before the drama returns for Season 4 — where will their story go from here? Let’s brainstorm some possible scenarios.
The Jennings take out Pastor Tim
We’ve seen the spousal spies are ruthless when it comes to protecting the KGB and themselves. Philip and Elizabeth are already distrustful of Pastor Tim (Kelly AuCoin) because of his religious beliefs and his close relationship with their daughter. We don’t doubt they’d take out a man of the cloth to guarantee his silence — but would their daughter ever forgive them if they did?
Philip and Elizabeth tell Henry
Since Paige is conflicted about leading a life of lies, perhaps her parents will tell her younger brother, Henry (Keidrich Sellati), the truth about their identities. Paige could be momentarily satisfied with the family all in on the secret, buying Philip and Elizabeth time to plot their next move.
Philip goes rogue
We’ve seen the demands of the job are starting to take a serious emotional toll on Philip, who has started attending est meetings in secret to deal with his increasing feelings of disassociation. Could he finally disown the KGB lifestyle and plot an exit strategy? Perhaps he cuts a deal with his buddy Stan (Noah Emmerich) — now authorized by the FBI to operate off the books — to help him escape the life.
Paige gets out
When Elizabeth and Paige go visit Elizabeth’s dying mother in West Germany, Paige is distraught at the fact that her grandmother let her daughter join the KGB, knowing she would never see her again.
Paige: “I don’t get how she could let you leave like that, basically say goodbye forever. Would you let me do that?”
Elizabeth: “You would never have to do anything like that. OK?”
Maybe the scene proves to be foreshadowing. Unable to deal with leading an untruthful life, Paige goes on her church’s mission trip to Kenya and never returns.
Stan cracks the case
Now that’s he’s out from under the thumb of FBI bureaucracy, Stan is finally free to pursue his own agenda in targeting the KGB. Since the Bureau refused to trade his beloved Nina (Annet Mahendru) for the spy Zinaida (Svetlana Efremova), the FBI director tells him “you’ll find another way.” Stan decides to play to Oleg’s (Costa Ronin) desire to get Nina released by getting him to reveal information about the illegals program, finally leading Stan to uncover his neighbors’ true identities and setting up the series’ end game.