‘The Americans’ recap: What to do with Pastor Tim? Spies disagree

Teenager Paige Jennings (Holly Taylor) bears a terrible burden in knowing that Mom and Dad are only travel agents on the side. Their main career, of course, is spying for the Soviet Union.

Paige promised her parents, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys), that she’ll keep quiet. Yet with the stakes so high, the spies follow a trust-but-verify strategy on “Pastor Tim,” Episode 41 of “The Americans” on FX.

Since Paige relies on her church for solace and guidance, Elizabeth and Philip planted a listening device in the office of Pastor Tim (Kelly AuCoin) to make sure no secrets are spilled.

To Elizabeth’s horror, she plays a tape recording and discovers Paige is a blabbermouth.

“She told him! Everything,” Elizabeth exclaims to Philip. “If we move fast, maybe we’re OK.” By that she implies, the preacher must go.

Given that Tim writes his sermons in a cabin with a space heater, perhaps it could malfunction and “accidentally” burn him to death?

“You wanna kill the one person in the world that she trusts?” Philip asks incredulously.

“It’s better than losing us,” Elizabeth argues.

As for Paige, she confesses to Mom in a moment of guilt.

“I told him, Pastor Tim,” Paige tearfully admits. “I’m so sorry. I just didn’t know what to do!”

“This is the one thing, the one thing that you couldn’t do,” Elizabeth yells at Paige. “You were supposed to put this family first. That is what you are supposed to do!”

Will Tim refrain from contacting the feds, like Paige claims he will? Don’t bet on it.

“We’re in trouble,” Elizabeth tells Philip.

“I know,” he sadly replies.

In other action, Philip boards a nearly empty shuttle at JFK Airport to hand off a small bioweapon for the KGB to study in Russia. But when the Czech pilot (Lars Gerhard) tasked with transporting this deadly liquid starts to panic, a security officer (Izzy Ruiz) takes notice.

“When I see a distressed pilot, I gotta talk to him,” the officer tells Philip. “It’s my job.”

Realizing what he must do, Philip strangles the officer and hides his corpse in the back row. But when the skittish pilot exits the bus, he intentionally leaves the package behind. Accordingly, Philip retains possession.

“So it’s safe in my house?” Philip warily asks William (Dylan Baker), a traitorous scientist who developed the bioweapon.

Such lethal substances are typically stored in hermetically sealed biocontainment labs, William explains. At the Jennings abode, however, the fragile vial sits in an ice chest.

In Moscow, meanwhile, ex-KGB agent Nina Sergeevna Krilova (Annet Mahendru) still atones for sharing state secrets with her onetime lover Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) of FBI counterintelligence.

Nina is no longer confined to a prison cell. But she’s closely watched while assisting Anton Baklanov (Michael Aronov), a scientist forced to design stealth technology after being kidnapped in Washington and repatriated to Russia.

As a kindness to Anton, Nina contacts her husband Boris (Gene Ravvin), whom she hasn’t seen in years, and asks him to carry a letter. The note assures Anton’s son that his father is alive.

“Are you allowed to take things in and out of this place?” Boris asks Nina.

“It’s OK,” she says, “But it’s better not to point it out.”

Unfortunately, Soviet officials confiscate the letter.

“It was mine,” not Anton’s, Nina readily admits to her harsh overseer Vasili Nikolaevich (Peter Von Berg).

“We’ll see what the prosecutor thinks about that,” Vasili declares. “Why did you do this? You were almost free.”

“I’m not who I was,” Nina says. Apparently this former double agent has grown a conscience.

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