--- title: 'The Americans' Season 4, Episode 4: A TV Game-Changer description: With Wednesday night's episode, 'The Americans' proved itself among TV's currently more daring dramas. canonical: https://time.com/4284230/the-americans-season-four-episode-four/ author: Daniel D'Addario article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-07T03:56:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T16:31:12.181Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: This Twist Proves That 'The Americans' Is a TV Game-Changer og:description: It's the sign of a show that's unafraid to make a decision og:url: https://time.com/4284230/the-americans-season-four-episode-four/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8071bce20a695819/69888e14428a9e44a8cd21dc/gettyimages-515730826.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: GettyImages-515730826 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Twist Proves That 'The Americans' Is a TV Game-Changer twitter:description: It's the sign of a show that's unafraid to make a decision twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8071bce20a695819/69888e14428a9e44a8cd21dc/gettyimages-515730826.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Twist Proves That _The Americans_ Is a TV Game-Changer > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Apr 7, 2016 3:56 AM UTC  Stars of FX's 'The Americans' Alison Wright (L) and Holly Taylor (C) discuss their pivotal roles in the show's fourth season premiering March 16th at AOL Studios In New York on March 15, 2016 in New York City. Stars of FX's 'The Americans' Alison Wright (L) and Holly Taylor (C) discuss their pivotal roles in the show's fourth season premiering March 16th at AOL Studios In New York on March 15, 2016 in New York City.Slaven Vlasic—2016 Slaven Vlasic  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Apr 7, 2016 3:56 AM UTC **_Caution: Spoilers ahead_** With Wednesday night’s episode, _The Americans_ proved itself among TV’s currently more daring dramas. Sure, it has already been a fantastic season so far, with Soviet spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings put through entirely new challenges as the repercussions of their daughter Paige’s snitching on them to her pastor continue to echo. But, by killing off ineffective spy-turned-wily prisoner Nina, _The Americans_ proved that — despite a historical reluctance to write off characters who don’t make sense in the narrative moment-to-moment — it was finally unafraid to terminate a plotline that wasn’t quite working. Or, perhaps, it proved that the plotline had been working better than viewers might have expected — towards a staggering conclusion. Nina’s struggles in Soviet prison ended with her death sentence, followed immediately by a bullet to the back of the head; as if to pointedly remove the sort of fan theories that blossom after any television character seems to die, we’re shown the blood pouring from her lifeless head, a bystander looking for her pulse and being satisfied it doesn’t exist, and her stiff body wrapped in a makeshift bodybag. She’s well and truly dead. So ends a subplot that had been, at least for this viewer, the least interesting portion of a show. Unfortunate Nina, at the series’ start a Soviet embassy employee who’s induced to spy for the U.S., was not quite skilled enough to pull off her eventual triple-agent act and was sentenced to prison in the USSR. Following her time in Soviet jail was enlightening, as far as a depiction of life in Soviet jail goes, but was also a true slog. Like the worst TV subplots, it presented little objective hope of change (even those not as knowledgeable about Soviet incarceration as the show’s creators can assume Nina was in a fairly hopeless position) and yet moved forward infinitesimally. Every little development could be read, against reason, as a sign for hope—both for Nina’s sake, and for the sake of a show whose real pulse was thousands of miles away. This sad plot development, though, augurs great things for _The Americans_, a show that thrives on reaction, not action. We’ve seen, more brutally than ever, the nature of the government functionaries Philip and Elizabeth have devoted their lives to abetting. One imagines this development will push forward Stan Beeman, the FBI agent who loves Nina and who doomed her. (He’s been stuck in a stasis of his own of late, but one that promises to burst, soon, into chaos.) But then, why guess? More than anything, this development proves that _The Americans_ is playing a different, and a more delightfully unpredictable, game than those other popular TV dramas that use death as a dull tease. _The Walking Dead_, among TV’s most successful shows at the moment, has lately made a fun game of character death, first by [bringing a character back](http://time.com/4123840/the-walking-dead-recap/) after what appeared to be a certainly fatal event, and then by ending the most recent season with an obviously fatal blow directed at a character whose identity is obscure. The latter development is so unpopular, it’s [yielded a petition](http://time.com/4283465/walking-dead-fans-petition-amc-cliffhanger/) against _Walking Dead_ network AMC, but that surely won’t bear fruit: Death is big business on TV right now, even when the question of who has been killed, and whether or not they’re actually dead, is utterly inconsequential. Just ask HBO, which has found a way to generate yet more chatter about its most successful show ever just by [teasing](http://time.com/4235474/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-dead/) what, _exactly_, is going on with Jon Snow. There’s no particular reason Jon Snow shouldn’t come back from an apparently fatal incident on _Thrones_; the show is set in a fantasyland. But the fact is that threatening death in order to juke viewer interest has become a silly cliché. The rigorous finality of _The Americans_‘s plot development feels refreshing. It’s the sign of a show that, like Philip and Elizabeth, has learned how to make a decision. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4284230/the-americans-season-four-episode-four/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4284230/the-americans-season-four-episode-four/"},"headline":"This Twist Proves That The Americans Is a TV Game-Changer","datePublished":"2016-04-07T03:56:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T16:31:12.181Z","description":"The show overcomes a historical reluctance to write off characters who don't make sense in the narrative moment-to-moment","url":"https://time.com/4284230/the-americans-season-four-episode-four/","keywords":["Television","the americans"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8071bce20a695819/69888e14428a9e44a8cd21dc/gettyimages-515730826.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel D'Addario","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8071bce20a695819/69888e14428a9e44a8cd21dc/gettyimages-515730826.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"GettyImages-515730826","caption":"<> at AOL Studios In New York on March 15, 2016 in New York City.","creditText":"Slaven Vlasic—2016 Slaven Vlasic","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4284230/the-americans-season-four-episode-four/","name":"This Twist Proves That The Americans Is a TV Game-Changer"}}]}] ```