‘The Americans,’ the Reagan Shooting, and Who is Really ‘In Control?’

In the latest episode of “The Americans,” entitled “In Control,” no one proves to be entirely in control when President Ronald Reagan is shot, not the least of which was then Secretary of State Al Haig, who claimed nevertheless that he was.

For the record Reagan was shot by a young man named John Hinkley, who for some twisted reason thought that this act would impress the actress Jodi Foster, with whom he thought he was in love. Ms. Foster, for the record, pronounced herself singularly unimpressed. Ironically for Hinkley’s hopes, Foster recently came out as gay.

Some spoilers may follow.

Of course all of this was not known in the immediate hours after Hinkley tried to do an Oswald. Stan, the counter espionage FBI agent, is ordered to find out if the Soviets had anything to do with it. Philip and Elizabeth, two deep cover KGB agents, not being sure if their organization did the deed or not, has to discover whether Haig is launching a coup and is about the order a strike against the Soviet Union. Their control is so serious that Elizabeth is ordered to dig up weapons and bombs to start a one woman campaign of terror if the balloon goes up. There is a chilling scene outside of the Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger’s house where Philip and Elizabeth start lining up sniper shots.

At a crucial point, Philip refuses, over Elizabeth’s objections, to forward to Moscow intelligence that suggests that Haig has the nuclear football, which might indicate a nuclear war is coming. Philip deduces correctly that the paranoids in the Kremlin might decide to escalate and, as everyone who has seen or read period dramas about World War III know, that leads to the missiles flying and the end of the world.

At another crucial point Stan, who suspects his next door neighbors of being spies, lets loose in their presence that Hinkley was a lone nut. He must guess that they would forward this information to Moscow, thus lowering tensions.

Elizabeth, the hard core communist zealot, has come to an epiphany that maybe her husband’s view of the Americans as somewhat less than implacable foes of the Soviet people may have some merit. They have committed treason by withholding the intelligence about Haig. But they will keep that their little secret.