'The Americans' Season 4: EPs Dish On THAT Shocking Death, Why Did It Happen So Fast? [VIDEO]
The second Nina stepped foot back on Russian soil, her fate was sealed.
Oleg Burov (Costa Ronin) entreaties to his father were too late. Had he more time, perhaps Igor Burov could have called in a few favors. As it stands, however, dear old dad's promises came to late for Oleg's former lover; Nina (Annet Mahendru) a met her end alone, in a dank tunnel with a cold pistol to her head.
It's the first time the FX series killed of a main character since season 1, and showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields were on hand to discuss the shocking turn of events.
"This was something we were working toward over many seasons. For us, this was something we had been plotting since season 2," Fields informed Entertainment Weekly. "The question was how long would it take to play out. It hewed pretty closely to our plan but we expected to play out sooner."
The plan hinged on Nina's return to Russia. Once back in the motherland, the agent had little hope of returning to the United States. Although writers originally expected the death to take place in season 3, fans were given an extra few episodes with one of the series' most empathetic characters. As for the sudden execution, the EPs pulled the trigger quickly due more to historical accuracy than shock and awe.
"It was planned in a very specific way so the person who was going to be killed doesn't know they were going to be killed, and it was done that way for humanitarian reasons - they didn't want the person to suffer, to be spending all this time in a cell pondering their own pending execution," Weisberg explained. "They wanted it to be as much of a surprise as possible."
Hmmm, perhaps the Soviet Union should have invested more time in screen writing and less in communism. They certainly would have had social media abuzz on a weekly basis.
Find out what's next for The Americans Wednesdays on FX. Click the video below to see a preview for the series' next episode.
