The series is set during the Cold War and follows Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, two Soviet KGB intelligence officers posing as an American married couple living in Falls Church, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C., with their American-born children Paige and Henry.
Oleg (Costa Ronin) watches it with Tatiana (Vera Cherny), and recounts how a nuclear false alarm incident almost led to similar events.
Realizing she will need to seduce Don (Rob Yang) in order to find more, Elizabeth decides to move forward, even knowing that this could ruin her friendship with Young Hee.
In April 2016, FX confirmed that the ninth episode of the season would be titled "The Day After", and that it would be written by co-producer Tracey Scott Wilson, and directed by Daniel Sackheim.
The site's consensus states: "'The Day After' uses the titular 1983 TV movie as the backdrop for a reflective episode that finds The Americans catching its breath before charging headlong into the end of the season.
Club gave the episode a "B+" grade and wrote, "The morality of The Americans is rarely black-and-white, but the specter of mutually assured destruction has a way of rendering complicated issues into absolutes.
"[7] Anthony Breznican of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "A big chunk of this episode is dedicated to highlights from the 1983 ABC telemovie The Day After, which explores the aftermath of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
But even more powerful was its depiction of the real golden age of television — when more than 100 million people would sit down at the same time on a Sunday night to watch a really scary and depressing TV movie.
"[9] Genevieve Koski of Vulture gave the episode a perfect 5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "Philip and Paige aren't the only Jenningses feeling the effects of The Day After.
"[11] Matt Brennan of Slant Magazine wrote, "For a series in which the 'evil empire,' the Strategic Defense Initiative, The Today Show, and David Copperfield come to the characters via vacuum tubes and radio waves, 'The Day After' is also, fittingly enough, a tribute to the power of television: the foremost medium through which we enjoy, or endure, the experience of being alone together.