The poison comes in a small Red Creek tobacco tin.
Highest Quality, the packaging promises.
It hides a vial of cloudy, piss-yellow liquid a virulent, sick-making pathogen.
Credit: Jessica Miglio/FX
Harboring a biological agent inside their All-American home?
That irony aint funny for these lethal secret agents.
Like their degrading work and secrets, the toxic contraband threatens to corrupt everyone and everything they touch.
They cant keep it, obviously, but they cant seem to get rid of it, either.
Were in trouble, arent we?
asks Elizabeth, sitting with Philip in a parked car, itchy to flee but nowhere to turn.
They draw close, their fraught marriage the only safe space they have.
This isnt me being all floridly metaphorical and stuff.
This is plot summary!
The year is 1983.
The HIV/AIDS crisis is in full effect and the Reagan administration is actively ignoring it and laughing at it.
Season 4 is a plague season of sickening psychic and spiritual burdens.
Everyones up a (red) creek, looking for paddles to help them navigate.
Some characters are more successful than others; each struggle affects and complicates the struggle of the other.
That yellow poison in Philips possession represents the character hes desperate to purge and his cowardice about changing.
Photophobia is a weird and loaded word that gets dropped by episode 4.
To borrow fromPoltergeist:Run to the light, Philip!
Run to the light!
Philip remains alienated from homeland and cause; hes a walking quagmire of paradox and pain.
His loyalty is to the people he loves a trait that has long troubled the comrade he loves most.
That might be changing.
Elizabeth has always managed to remain more faithfully committed to the Motherland and to Communist ideology than her husband.
Shes slightly jealous of Philips EST-assisted self-reflection and self-care, but shes curious about it, too.
Tensions that might have once provoked rifts between them now provide opportunities for them to grow closer.
Killing and sanctioned philandering aside,The Americansdepiction of marriage is as profound as ever.
Other developments augur more potential shift.
They meet at a Mary Kay meeting.
They bond going door-to-door, evangelizing the brand.
Its very funny but not mean and surprisingly fun for Elizabeth.
The thaw is on for Elizabeth.
Those now infected with the truth about Philip and Elizabeth find themselves afflicted.
In a nifty character moment, Paige lingers outside her classroom as the students pledge allegiance to the flag.
Because it would feel hypocritical as long as she remains so very confused?
Or does her loyalty now belong to her parents?
The cunning art of bending kids to your interests and will?
Some wondered if he might have murdered her after unpinning the wig on his Clark persona.
Their new understanding deepens a rapport that Philip values he wants to protect her (from himself!)
Its probably the most honest relationship Ive ever had, she says.
Her denial is clear and sad but shes not wrong, either.
As I watch these episodes again with you, Ill be watching for her.
At the risk of going far afield and reading things wrong, let me offer an example.
In an early episode, Philip searches Pastor Tims office.
Social and economic reforms follow that help women, children, and other exploited classes.
His work seemingly finished, Nehemiah leaves Jerusalem … and then corruption flourishes anew.
He has to go back again and set things right.
The labor of making a great society of keeping it great is constant struggle.
But it needs to be protected immunized by stewards of highest quality conscience and character.
(Full disclosure: I am a Haring ignoramus.)
To be clear, I dont thinkThe Americansis stumping for Jesus.
I think these references are consistent with the shows progressive sympathies and sly critique of so-called Christian nation identity.
The Americansuses EPCOT in provocative fashion in season 4.
Its also something Philip and Elizabeth dont want to do.
EPCOT is an opportunity or rather a temptation to escape uncomfortable, inconvenient realities.
Should they stay or should they go?
What does it mean to be a good soldier in a scenario like this?
What would Nehemiah do?
The challenge brings them to a pivot point in their mission and their individual arcs.
Happy endings might be impossible for these toxic biological agents.
Choose wisely, comrades.
The future is counting on you.
