Nina Sergeevna Krilova was a main character on the FX series The Americans. As a former KGB officer working at the Rezidentura, she had complicated relationships with FBI agent Stan Beeman and her colleague Oleg Burov. Charged with treason for giving the FBI information, she was sent back to the Soviet Union and was convicted. Up until her death, she was working with scientist Anton Baklanov in a Soviet research facility.
Biography
Background
Nina was born in Vladivostok, Soviet Union, in the mid-1950s. As a young girl in the Soviet Union, she was a member of the "Young Pioneers." There, they gave the children Lenin pins, and Nina recalled being exceptionally proud of hers. Nina married a man named Boris and later aborted his child. Although he begged her not to leave, she joined the KGB and moved abroad to America for her first posting in Washington, D.C. Boris later told her it was a good thing that she left because his "world was too small" for her.
Season One
| In February 1981, Nina is caught shipping stereos with cash hidden inside to the USSR for sale on the black market by FBI agent Stan Beeman. Stan threatens to report her to her bosses, which would result in a decade in a Soviet labor camp, and then blackmails her into providing information on activities in the Rezidentura. ("The Clock") Nina informs Stan that the KGB lost a Directorate S operative the same night Timoshev disappeared. ("Gregory") Nina isn't able to find out if the KGB is behind the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. ("In Control")
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| Stan pressures Nina to identify a Russian agent (Adam Dorwin) resulting in her seducing the Rezident, Vasili Nikolaevich. After providing the information to Stan, the KGB realizes there's a mole in their organization. ("COMINT") Nina learns from Vasili of the mole, she demands exfilration from Stan. However, Stan devises a plan in which Nina frames Vasili as the mole, resulting in his arrest and Nina's safety. As Vasili was shipped back to the Soviet Union for treason, Arkady Zotov replaced him as the Rezidentura's new Rezident. ("Trust Me") |
| In April 1981, with Stan becoming consumed by his work and growing estranged from his wife Sandra Beeman, he called Nina after drinking at a bar. Nina, seeing his vulnerability initiated sex with him and afterwards, promised to not use it against him. ("Duty and Honor") After Agent Gaad suspects that Stan is sleeping with Nina, he provides Stan with a safe house to meet her at. Nina meets Stan at the apartment where he apologizes for having sex with her earlier. Nina doesn't care, kisses him and says she'll do everything for him. ("Mutually Assured Destruction") |
| After Stan's partner Agent Amador disappears, Stan meets Nina and roughly demands that she find out what's happened to him. However, Nina cannot find out, resulting in Stan defying orders and kidnapping Nina's colleague and friend, Vladimir Kosygin, in retribution. When Amador is found dead, Stan shoots Vlad. ("Safe House") The next day, Nina demands to know who killed Vlad. Stan lies that he doesn't know but Nina suspects him. ("Only You") Nina is promoted to be Arkady's assistant. Stan visits Nina and lies that he's hasn't been able to obtain any information about who killed Vlad. He suggests they break off their affair, but he loses his resolve and has sex with her instead. ("Covert War")
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| Arkady gives Nina access to Directorate S operations which requires she take a loyalty oath which tests her conscience. Nina packs Vlad's possessions into a box and learns he had a crush on her. At their safe house, Stan meets Nina. She asks if he killed Vlad and when he doesn't answer her directly, her suspicion grows deeper. Nina confesses her treason to Arkady and offers to spy on Stan. ("The Oath")
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| Arkady tells Nina she will not face execution if she returns to stand trial in Russia. However, Moscow has agreed to accept her offer to spy on Stan. Meeting Stan at the safe house, Stan tells her to wait there until he returns and that her exfiltration has been approved. Seeing Stan's happiness, Nina is tempted but realizes the FBI may be about to capture Philip and Elizabeth Jennings. She reports her suspicions to Arkady who sends an abort signal to the meeting Philip is having with Colonel Rennhull. This results in Philip saving Elizabeth from being captured by the FBI. Stan arrives at the apartment and tells Nina that the exfiltration is off. She fakes shock and while kissing him, says she believes he'll take care of her. She then prepares a file on Stan for Arkady. ("The Colonel")
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Season Two
Regularly reporting on Stan to the KGB, Nina continued her operation with him, still pretending to be on his side. When Stan asked her if there were any new developments at the Rezidentura, she mentioned a new arrival named Oleg Burov. Whenever Oleg was around her, she would act passively and tried focusing on her work. ("Comrades")
When a walk-in named Bruce Dameran arrived at the Rezidentura to provide the Soviets with information, Nina told Stan all about him, making it seem like she was still loyal to him. ("Cardinal") After Stan took down Dameran in his crazy assassination attempt, he was praised at the FBI and ultimately owed that credit to Nina. Later, while they were in bed, he professed his love for her. While writing her reports later in her office, it was ambiguous as to whether or not she still had feelings for Stan. ("The Walk In")
While working at the Rezidentura, Nina noticed that Oleg seemed interested in her operations. When he used his family's connections to get a higher security clearance, he found out about her operation with Stan. Arkady warned her to be careful around Oleg since they suspected he had ulterior motives. ("A Little Night Music")
When scientist Anton Baklanov goes missing, Nina told Stan that Oleg was possibly involved. Back at the Rezidentura, Oleg wondered why Nina was involved with Stan in the first place. After Stan tailed Oleg to the Baltimore port, Oleg surprised him by saying he knew Nina was working for the FBI. Since Stan did not know Nina was actually playing him, he agreed to be blackmailed by Oleg to keep him from exposing Nina's treason. ("The Deal")
Worried Nina's safety would be jeopardized, Stan told his boss Frank Gaad that she needed to be exfiltrated out of her volatile situation. The only way the FBI could know her loyalty was if she took a polygraph test. When Stan delivered that news to her, she was angry and accused him of not trusting her. ("Behind the Red Door")
Afraid she would be found guilty, Nina quickly informed Arkady that Stan wanted her to take a polygraph. Oleg, being in charge of Directorate X, helped her practice fooling a polygraph, and they shockingly bonded in the process. While taking the actual exam, she used Oleg's techniques and passed it, making both herself and Stan happy and relieved. Later, she spent the night with Oleg in a fancy hotel suite and told him Stan meant nothing to her. ("ARPANET")
Nina began to fall for Oleg. After Stan delivered surveillance reports to Oleg, Arkady congratulated Nina and Oleg on successfully getting information from Stan. Arkady then warned her to be cautious with her newfound relationship with Oleg ("New Car"). Nina and Oleg got closer by spending more time together. She told him about her simple life before arriving in America, despising how tangled her life had become in the spy business ("Yousaf").
When the Centre wanted the Echo program, Nina would be used to as a pawn for Stan to deliver it to the KGB. In private, Arkady told Oleg that if the mission failed, Nina would be sent back to Moscow to stand trial for her earlier act of treason. Oleg told her that if she did not think Stan would betray his country for her, she needed to run. Realizing she was truly in danger, she told Stan that Arkady knew that she had provided classified information to him ("Stealth").
After purchasing a car for Nina to relocate, Stan walked into their safehouse to find Arkady, two Soviet henchmen and a beaten-up Nina on the floor. Arkady told Stan to deliver the Echo program to him and Nina would be free or Nina would be sent back to Moscow for a trial. As they waited for Stan to retrieve Echo, Oleg handed Nina an envelope full of cash, implying she should escape while she still could ("Operation Chronicle").
Even though Stan managed to obtain Echo, he ultimately chose loyalty to America instead of Nina. The dead drop he left for the KGB, which ostensibly contained Echo, is later revealed to simply be a note for Nina, which says "Tell Nina I'm sorry."
On one quiet morning at the Rezidentura, Nina prepared to leave the Soviet Embassy. Before exiting the building, she glanced back at Arkady and Oleg as a sign of goodbye. Once in a car, she noticed Stan in his car nearby and gazed at him too. She was then shipped back to the Soviet Union for an unknown fate ("Echo").
Season Three
Lefortovo Prison
Back in the Soviet Union, Nina was found guilty of espionage and treason and convicted to a longterm prison sentence ("EST Men"). As a few months passed by, Nina had adjusted to her isolated living arrangement until a prisoner named Evi Sneijder, a Belgian woman, became her cellmate. Although Evi tried talking to her, Nina ignored her. Her fate did not seem promising until Oleg's father, Igor Burov, paid her a visit. In an interrogation room, he told her that Oleg wanted him to save her. She then admitted to having genuine feelings for Oleg ("Baggage").
Proposition and Betrayal
Called into the interrogation room again, a KGB officer told Nina how Evi was imprisoned, saying she left a dead drop for someone, but she claimed to be innocent. He told Nina she would receive a lighter sentence if she got Evi to confess what actually happened. Back in their cell, she began to open up to Evi, revealing her history with the KGB and the FBI in America. Late one night, Nina faked having a nightmare, causing Evi to comfort her ("Dimebag").
Eventually, Nina gained Evi's trust and got her to confess that she knew she was making a dead drop. As a result, Nina was rewarded with a proper meal and showed no sympathy when guards escorted a screaming Evi out of their prison cell ("Born Again").
Soviet Laboratory
Nina's sentence was reduced to 10 years due to her successful Evi operation, but she was not thrilled. However, due to her ability to get inside people's heads, the KGB officer had a new assignment for her. It involved investigating whether scientist Anton Baklanov was genuinely lagging in his work or trying to undermine the USSR. If successful, she would be granted her freedom. She relocated to the science laboratory where Anton resided. She perceived her latest assignment would be more difficult when Anton acted coldly towards her ("Divestment").
After a few weeks, Anton warmed up to Nina. When they wanted privacy from the other Russians in the room, they spoke to each other in English. Anton told her he needed specific samples or designs of American technology in order to design models for the Soviets. Nina said that Directorate S officers carefully obtain information and that it could take a while to access and deliver it ("Stingers").
Determined to gain her freedom, Nina snooped around Anton's bedroom in the facility. She noticed a tear in his mattress and reached inside to grab a stack of letters written to his son. While reading the heartfelt messages, she became touched by Anton's story. Later, while dining together in the cafeteria, they both discussed their complicated lives. Nina admitted that she spied on him and would not tell anyone about his letters ("One Day in the Life of Anton Baklanov").
Weeks later, Anton receives photos of an American stealth bomber in order to replicate the designs for the Soviets. Afterwards, in his room, Nina confessed that she was sent to the lab to spy on him. She then confided in him, saying how exhausting it was for her to keep buying back her life after her mistakes. He gave her the advice to resist giving their Soviet authorities power ("March 8, 1983").
Season Four
Nina develops a genuinely close friendship with Anton Baklanov and they become each others confidants in the stressful environment of the research facility. She secretly hatches a plan to smuggle a note to Anton's son to tell him that Anton is alive and has not abandoned him. She reunites with her ex-husband, Boris, to whom she is still legally married. Boris agrees to smuggle the note out of the facility, but the note is intercepted before it can be sent out of the country. Nina is caught and reimprisoned on death row despite Oleg and Stan's attempts to exchange her with another prisoner ("Pastor Tim"). While imprisoned, Nina has a dream in which she is honorably released from prison and obtains two plane tickets for Anton and herself to return to the U.S. As she walks out of the facility with Anton into brilliant sunshine and a hopeful future, she is woken by a prison guard in her cell and told that she is being transferred. She is marched into a basement and informed that her appeal has been denied and that she will be executed shortly. Immediately after the sentence is read, Nina is shot in the back of the head. After her execution, Nina's body is bundled into a burlap sack for disposal. ("Chloramphenicol")
Trivia
- She never meets Philip or Elizabeth Jennings.
- Though she has been separated from her husband, Boris, for a long time, she is still legally married to him and they seem to have an affectionate relationship. He implies that he was a beneficiary of her stereo smuggling scheme that originally landed her in trouble.
- It is not known if Krilova is her married or maiden name, as she is still legally married.
Gallery
