A thread for The Americans on FX

Also WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO MARTHA??

― IHeartMedia, the giant broadcaster formerly known as Clear Channel, (stevie), Friday, March 27, 2015 10:12 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she can't turn clark/philip in unless she's willing to go to jail herself - even allowing for this being fiction, very few deals she could cut would completely eliminate the prospect of prison time - and i don't see her having that level of dedication to any jingoistic notion of doing what's "right"

she could always try to clip him, as they've definitely set up enough chekhov's-gun stuff for it to be logical, and would probably die in the process. i would also buy it if that stuff turned out to be misdirection en route to an even bleaker fate, which i think is the most probable outcome

yeah, def think the chekhov-gun thing is misdirection, thought's had me tense for two episodes now

i don't see a way that martha survives the series (unless she brings them down completely) and that makes me sad.

i think philip's getting closer and closer to snapping
i could see the show ending with philip vs elizabeth

we've got at least two more seasons yet i would guess? Did the creators put a sell-by date on this thing already?

IIRC, weisberg and fields said in an interview that they thought 5 seasons were doable, and FX seems willing to support it that long despite this season's significant rating drop

5 seems like just the right amount imo

significant ratings drop? that's a shame.

i hope it doesn't get cancelled before it finishes, if you get me. i want to know how this ends.

5 seasons is almost always the right amount

I'd fallen 7 episodes behind, but I just caught up with everything over the last two days. The slow killing of the old lady made me incredibly sad.

i found it more traumatic than chopping that woman up or the dental surgery or etc etc

renewed for season 4!

Not surprising but still great news.

It might be because it's tough to take everything in about last episode, but my main takeaway was that the use of croaky Henry is absolutely awesome. Has he sounded so weird all season? Him doing the Eddie Murphy rutine right when things were most unbearably tense was so amazing, I chuckled for minutes afterwards. I probably really needed something to chuckle about... What an episode, what a season, what a show!

Phillip's face was priceless, like at a period of such high tension stress his son starts doing monologues from Delirious. It is scenes like this that elevate this show way above everything else right now.

Paige's list of theories (Witness Protection, drug dealers, aliens) was fantastic.

Hats off to casting etc. - both kids are great. Holly Taylor did a fine job with that.

yeah, this show is totally next level

Paige's list of theories (Witness Protection, drug dealers, aliens) was fantastic.

my partner was like, "I would watch all of those shows. Except for the one where she's adopted."

caught up with the last two and am reeling from the old lady scene. i cannot imagine any other show choosing to do that and doing it so naturally at this stage in a season that's been all slow build. you feel so many conflicting things: the horror of realising what will happen, the comfort of seeing elizabeth allow the "merciful" route (that allows her to have her confession of sorts too)...further to what stevie said about the moral murk, i think this show is absolutely incredible in its insistence that there are no such things as "good" or "bad" guys and everything you've been told about that binary is wrong; but its even firmer insistence that there is morality within that, within the characters.

that scene almost overshadowed the paige stuff ie the entire point that the entire premise has been working towards and which was ultimately handled in a very quintessentially americans way - unhysterical, low-key, no consequences yet except simmering silences.

oleg and stan's plan is so stupid. i'm amazed stan was right about zinaida.

very interesting to compare and contrast martha and paige's reactions...

3 minutes into this episode, nerves already fried to shit. dear god, this show!

not really getting this "no such things as 'good' or 'bad' guys" feeling. it seems pretty clear-cut to me that Philip and Elizabeth are being portrayed as the bad guys. and there is no point afaict where the CIA/FBI/US in general are being depicted as bad guys

also, I wasn't sure about the Paige reveal. it seemed a trifle rushed to me.

still loving this show

philip and elizabeth are both obviously bad people and very sympathetic protagonists who the audience fundamentally roots for

plenty of cia/fbi people have been depicted as anything from amoral murderers to vindictive trigger-happy idiots

one of the recurring tropes i especially love is where a character dupes someone by being emotionally honest with them, which nina did again last night (i...think?)

yeah that is great, I have absolutely no idea what Nina is really going to do; it's like the more honest she is the less believable she becomes. And I don't blame her because she has basically no agency over her own life. I think she might be the only good person on the show!

philip and elizabeth are both obviously bad people and very sympathetic protagonists who the audience fundamentally roots for

I'm not rooting for them, I can't wait for them to get their comeuppance

plenty of cia/fbi people have been depicted as anything from amoral murderers to vindictive trigger-happy idiots

examples? not being snarky, genuinely interested as I can't think of any

larick, the black ops killer from season 2 played by lee tergesen (aka tobias beecher from OZ)

while he's in many ways a soldier the same way philip and elizabeth are, he appears to take quite a bit of joy in many of his killings

Let us not forget the totally innocent Russian dude Stan murdered.

vlad! oh man...the way that the mouthful of burger just falls limply out of his mouth after he gets clipped is burned into my brain forever

That camp that Philip and Elizabeth attacked in season two was training right wing guerillas to fight in South America. That's pretty shitty as well. The guys they are trying to get to via that young girl are arming the mujahedeens in Afghanistan, right? Which, I'm not going to argue that the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan wasn't heinous, but the way CIA got involved wasn't particularly bright either.

this one was particularly devastating

prestige TV conditioning had me expecting penultimate episode major character deaths that never came (I think the creators understand that expectation and sort of wired it into every scene with martha), but the relatively subtle big moments of this one were more powerful than any of the things I was expecting would have been.

the latest wig moment (avoiding specifics for those not caught up) was wrenching

the slow burn has to give way to an explosion for the finale tho, if only bc of how thin things have been stretched

this season is prob the closest to john le carre's specific vibe the show has come and I mean that as the highest praise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsHqxime_Bo

martha is the saddest character on television; they're just disassembling her completely. i don't know if i'm going to be able to handle it if they kill her. it could be the turning point where i start actively rooting for the FBI to catch these fuckers.

that wig moment was surely also death warrant

seriously. sitting on the couch after that going omg. felt so bad for martha when she called her parents. but if they kill her - which seems inevitable - wont the fbi investigate and find out about her "marriage" to "clark"?!? last season i thought this was the weakest sub-plot in the show, now it's crucial and could be the beginning of the end, maybe?

that wig moment was surely also death warrant

― hot doug stamper (||||||||), Friday, April 17, 2015 6:45 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's such a cliffhanger - like this show doesn't really *do* cliffhangers, i prefer to savour it when i know i can fully enjoy it rather than rushing to keep up every week - but when it wants to it can do them so devastatingly. elizabeth and philip have revealed their true selves twice this season - once, because the old woman needed to die anyway; the other time, out of love and respect for paige. all logic points towards the former applying to martha, and i can't think of any possible long game philip might be playing here, but i have a feeling it won't be...

also RETURN OF CLAUDIA YASSSSS

you can thank her sitcom for getting axed just in time for her to make an appearance.

the version i dl'd of this episode ended with philip taking off his clark wig - was that the end of the episode or did something else happen? THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD. Also, caught the ad for the finale while in the US this weekend, a little spoilerrific but img stuff is going to go down.

That was the end. And yes, SO GOOD.

Thanks Johnny!

Yeah how do you make a silent sequence of a guy taking a silly wig off so tense?

but if they kill her - which seems inevitable - wont the fbi investigate and find out about her "marriage" to "clark"?!?

Yeah, but so what? They won't be able to find out who "Clark" actually is.

I always find Pastor Tim's appearances a bit confusing, as he looks a fair bit like Phillip in disguise.

There's so much plot to be resolved in the finale - Kimmy, Nina/Stan/Oleg, Clark/Martha, etc. - that I have no idea how or even if they'll cram it into 45 minutes.

Excited for the finale. Finding the story lines with Paige and Martha this season really emotionally gripping.

xp wouldn't be surprised if FX gave them extra running time for this episode - as a network they have a recent history of allowing like one or two notably long episodes per season (fargo, the bridge, louie and the Americans have all indulged this liberty)

...or not! FX schedule online doesn't indicate a longer-than-usual length. so in that case I share that concern.

i don't really expect them to try to wrap up all the storylines, this is the kind of show that likes its subplots to gestate for a long time