‘The Americans’ recap: Bioweapon exposure is no vacation for spies

A brush with death causes hardcore KGB officer Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) to reconsider her priorities. And an act of kindness costs a former low-level KGB agent her life in “Chloramphenicol,” Episode 404 of “The Americans” on FX.

Chloramphenicol is a medicine that combats bacterial diseases. This includes glanders, which was turned into a bioweapon by William (Dylan Baker), a Defense Department scientist clandestinely working for the Soviet Union.

Gabriel (Frank Langella), the veteran KGB handler for Elizabeth and her spy husband Philip (Matthew Rhys), was exposed to glanders while preparing to smuggle a vial of the deadly pathogen to Russia.

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Elizabeth and Philip were exposed when they found Gabriel bleeding and gasping for air. Then Philip intentionally exposed William so he’d be forced to treat everyone.

“If we believed in God, I’d say ‘pray,’” William suggests as Gabriel quivers in pain. “He oughta be in a hospital hooked up to an IV. We all should.”

Because Elizabeth and Philip must remain quarantined for at least 36 hours, they can’t visit Epcot Center that weekend with daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) and son Henry (Keidrich Sellati).

Canceling the trip also lengthens the lifespans of Pastor Tim (Kelly AuCoin) and his blabbermouth wife Alice (Suzy Jane Hunt), who became glaring liabilities when they learned that Paige’s parents are spies.

Despite Philip’s misgivings, the KGB had planned to kill Tim and Alice while the Jennings family vacationed in Florida. By making the deaths appear accidental, Paige wouldn’t have known for sure that foul play was involved.

As for Elizabeth, she starts to vomit and run a fever, indicating a serious infection or merely an adverse reaction to the antibiotic. If she doesn’t survive, she tells Philip, raise their kids as law-abiding American citizens instead of grooming them for espionage.

“It’s what you want,” Elizabeth tearfully says, “what you’ve always wanted!”

When her fever breaks and she’s out of danger, Elizabeth is more concerned with protecting her children than fighting for the motherland.

“You were right” about sparing Tim and Alice, Elizabeth tells Philip. “We can’t kill them. Paige, she’d never get over it.”

So instead of murdering the pastor and his wife, Elizabeth wants to reason with these social activists and “make it harder for them to do anything that would hurt Paige.”

Meanwhile, traitorous FBI secretary Martha Hanson (Alison Wright) frantically tries to contact her secret husband “Clark” (actually Philip), unaware that he’s in quarantine. Martha accepted a dinner date with FBI Agent Dennis Aderholt (Brandon J. Dirden) and now she’s in a panic.

Does Dennis have a crush on Martha? Or does he believe she planted a KGB listening device in the FBI office? It’s the latter.

And while Dennis and Martha dine at a romantic restaurant, FBI Agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) searches her apartment for evidence of treason.

Martha tries to explain her suspicious behavior by claiming she’s having an affair with a married man. Dennis doesn’t seem convinced.

Finally, former KGB operative Nina Sergeevna Krilova (Annet Mahendru) sits in a Moscow cell anxiously awaiting the result of her appeal.

Nina’s “crime” was attempting to notify the son of Anton Baklanov (Michael Aronov), an abducted scientist forced to develop stealth technology, that his father is alive.

“Your appeal has been denied,” an unsympathetic prosecutor (Lev Kotlyar) informs Nina. “The sentence of death will remain unchanged. It will be carried out shortly.”

By shortly, he means immediately as a guard fires a single bullet into Nina’s brain.

When her lifeless body is carried away in a shroud, all that remains is a pool of blood on the cold linoleum floor.