A thread for The Americans on FX

Putting the pieces together again in my head, after finally reading a few reviews, Elizabeth in the first season butts heads with Claudia for lying to her. This season ends with her freaking out again when she is lied to again, to the breaking point. But this season also features Paige confronting Elizabeth for lying - she calls her a whore! - and saying she could never forgive her mom for lying to her. Another breaking point, like mother like daughter. So I can imagine Paige putting things together herself. Who am I? I am Paige. Who are my parents? I don't know, they are liars. If I leave now, I remain myself and can make my own life, like they told Henry to do. But If I go with them, I start living a lie, too, with people that lied to me.

That's a good takeaway imo.

I'm sure someone else has noted this, but was just thinking - now Philip has been parted from his son and daughter, as well as his russian son.

And best and only friend.

Just finished off Series 6 and...yeah, wow. Wish I'd got to discuss it here in real time.

- "Paige is the main character of the Americans" maybe an overstatement but that scene on the platform is the climax of the whole six seasons. The earlier scene outside her dorm where she says she's only afraid of being alone also destroyed me. Stan showdown in the garage also crucial but in the end he was just their neighbour.

- I didn't really consider until reading Emily Nussbaum's review how precisely Phillip's "confession" was calculated to manipulate Stan into letting them go. Given everything we've seen over the years I have to believe that Phillip really was gutted to be blowing up their friendship. The most convincing way to lie is to tell the truth, I guess.

- The series spends so much time avoiding showy twists and beats (hi Series 5!) that when it does pull something obvious it can get away with it and I respect it even more. Not even my beloved Halt & Catch Fire could have made me well up to a scene set to fkn With Or Without You

- I'm glad we spent so much time with diplomat/artist couple. Not for the "dying woman shows Elizabeth how to really see" stuff but because it was a touching, sad portrayal of a couple that also stuck together through rough times (and baseball).

- Things that seemed inevitable but didn't happen: Paige didn't screw up - none of her mistakes had anything to do with the Jennings getting burned. Elizabeth didn't have to choose between her country and her family - in the end she chose one version of patriotism over another.

- Oleg :( :( :( :( Probably the closest the series gets to a "good" main character (who isn't a kid).

Well this was a great show. Couple of thoughts:

Gutted by Oleg who agree is probably the only truly morally decent person of the bunch of them (maybe Henry). I imagine that he will get traded for at some point (I mean the information gets to Moscow in the end) but shot of him in the cell and his family wrecked is very hard.

Still not sure I buy that Stan would let them go... it seems a little against character esp. since unlike Paige he does actually know the monstrous things that they've have done. That said the only other option for that scene is probably they kill Stan (or are killed by him) so I guess dramatically I prefer his releasing them.

Overall great show though.

We ought to pay tribute to the real-life Elizabeth on this thread (even though I imagine she's much less interesting than Elizabeth if you were ever to meet her).

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/16/16-mariia-butina.w710.h473.jpg

And for the most part, real Illegals never really murdered anyone, much less crushed them into suitcases and choked them with paintbrushes and whatever.

The only thing I didn't really like about this whole series was the body count. After a while it got a little silly. I looked it up and the Jennings were responsible for around 36 murders, more or less divided evenly. That's crazy.

Yeah, there were very few occasions where a killing was born of the need to extract themselves from a perilous situation. Most of them were "eh, this is the only way to make sure there are no loose ends." Sloppy, imo.

But it's TV-MA, so I guess they felt the need to earn the rating every way possible.

I just thought, even from episode one, that these are super spies and there is literally nothing more conspicuous they can do than murder people. The worst may have been the random dude on the airport shuttle iirc.

Ha that does raise a thought I did have a few times - wouldnt someone see all these dead people and go "hey what the?" I mean they did at the *end*, after they'd all escaped...

And for the most part, real Illegals never really murdered anyone, much less crushed them into suitcases and choked them with paintbrushes and whatever.

...........................as far as we know DUN DUN DUUUUN

Remind me why Elizabeth had to kill the painter woman? I thought the Russians wanted to keep her alive for as long as possible because of her husband's job.

Wasn't that a mercy killing, a rare instance of compassion on Elizabeth's part? I can't remember.

I think she also wanted to be done with that assignment

painter woman (with husband) had already botched a suicide/euthanasia attempt, no?

Yeah, they fucked it up so Elizabeth had to finish it.

yes, it's the only decent killing elizabeth did the entire series; and oddly the only one that seemed to bother her

no, there was that old lady, the secretary, that worked at that factory or whatever. She didn't like killing her either.

This ended three months ago, so this is a very timely post.

I’ve always wondered why virtually everyone likes the final episode more than I do, and I think I finally figured it out. It has to do with the way Stan uncovers Philip and Elizabeth’s identities. There's no great eureka moment--he starts to suspect them, pokes around their house a little, and then confronts them in a garage.

I was thinking about how that contrasts with all the great eureka movie moments I love. (Lots of spoilers ahead, although they’re all pretty famous.) In Rosemary’s Baby, it’s Mia Farrow spilling the Scrabble tiles on the floor and anagramming Roman Castevet’s name. In Zodiac (whether you think Graysmith is right or not), it’s Lee Allen’s birth certificate. Godfather II: when Michael overhears Fredo mention Johnny Ola. Or another TV show, Breaking Bad; I thought it was fantastic the way Hank found the inscription in the Walt Whitman book. Even something as mainstream as Broadcast News, when Holly Hunter figures out that William Hurt manufactured the tear.

There was just no way The Americans was going to give me that moment--it was a show that very carefully avoided plotted contrivance. That’s one of the main things people loved about it, and I’m sure I appreciated that too, for the most part. But I've been conditioned to wait for such moments and take a lot of pleasure in them, and I wanted that moment here. They actually had it, if they had chosen to use it: the sketch of Elizabeth that Stan looks at after-the-fact. That would have been the most obvious thing in the world to do, to have Stan confront that sketch two episodes earlier, and I’m pretty sure I would have loved it anyway. But such a moment just wasn’t going to be part of The Americans.

See whereas I would have been way mad if they'd used expected plot contrivances or deus ex machinas or AHA moments!

same, i loved that there was no big climactic moment.

Like it wasn't just one thing but several things at once that made it clear to Stan who his neigbours were: Elizabeth and then Phillip disappearing at Thanksgiving, the trip coinciding with the mess in Chicago, Henry telling him how often his parents disappeared on him, the cigarettes in the yard, and all the details about the sleeper agents he had collected over the years. And only Stan could have figured it out because he knew them so well.

It came full circle nicely too, I think, with the first episode (I think it was?) where he stalked their garage for a bit, being a bit sus of them when he first met them!

Started season 1 this week. Skipped over the thread right now, but it's fun to read along as it unfolds.

Update: I'm now in the middle of S4 - Stan Beeman looks so much like Jandek that I'm now assuming that Jandek is an FBI agent with a secret career as a outsider musician.

Haha, wow, I *never* made that connection but you've planted it right into my head now and I can't unsee it!

I still have to watch the last season, which is rather daft, as it's one of my favourite show.

and it's considerably better than the next-to-last season

Watch it LBI! The rare show that truly nails its ending.

Damn I wish I could experience this show anew a second time, what a blast.

Challop: i liked it more than breaking bad.

It is better. it's all about the slow burn. Breaking Bad starts in high gear

Not a challop - I also prefer it to BB, which was always a little too male-centric for me.

Breaking Bad: "Science, b*tch!". The giant magnet episode was the worst.

https://www.urbasm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Batman-Shark-Repellent.jpg

The Americans is much more comparable with Mad Men, although again that's male-centric.

BTW, this is easily in my top five of nuTV - up there with Mad Men, The Expanse, The Sopranos, Romanzo Criminale.

It’s absolutely better than Breaking Bad.

I still have to watch the last season, which is rather daft, as it's one of my favourite show.

― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre),

and it's considerably better than the next-to-last season

― Simon H.

I'm struggling to remember if this show ever mentioned Chernobyl at all.

The final series - and the last episode in particular - is wonderful and anyone who's slogged through S5 should watch it.

I'm def going to watch it soon, Roz!

I ditched my Netflix account a couple of years ago, and got The Americans through t0rr3nts. If you've trouble getting a hold of them, let me know Willem.

I'm struggling to remember if this show ever mentioned Chernobyl at all.

Hmm, not sure if Claudia makes passing reference? We jump from 1984 to 1987 between S5 and S6 so it's never a contemporary event.

I think I figured out who they killed for her identity:
https://s.put.re/vpg4RS1v.png

I watched S1 this past week and am trying to decide whether to carry on. The characters are reasonably interesting, and the shifting Stan-Nina power dynamic was well done, but the plotting seems rote. Minor crisis/minor resolution x2, midseason slightly-larger crisis, not-really-a-resolution, build to finale, big setpiece and out. Bingeing pulls the curtain back on the writer's room, for this and so many other narrative/dramatic series. TV is so much better when I have to wait a week between episodes (Twin Peaks, Better Call Saul).

Do carry on. A lot of the minor wrongs of s1 disappear in 2-4. 5 is plodding for no discernable reason, and then 6 is a superb cap off.

Can only second what JF said: the show really steps up the pace and gets better from season 2 on.

I concur w/ JF's summary as well. s2 essentially takes the form of a murder mystery, and a surprisingly effective one.

Same here; it's well worth your investment.

ok, I'll give it another season

s1 is very good, s2 takes off into excellence
― Sounds like a forks display name (forksclovetofu), Monday, January 19, 2015 6:56 PM (five years ago)

nth'd. show snowballs from s2 onwards.