A thread for The Americans on FX

i like shows that come close to the basic (not that i like this word but) depth of the worst movies on my netflix queue? it basically amounts to the wire and various recent shows on nickelodeon

i never gave much of a chance to mad men but it's always struck me as mostly-empty meandering

i like shows that walk with purpose and direction and swiftness, hard as they are to create obv

that's nuts. the first season of mad men was completely tightly wound. a few seasons in, it kinds of settled a bit.

the later seasons of Mad Men are more fun than the early ones, honestly. the little experiments like season 5's multiple timeline episode, etc.

tbh the only current show I really value is Justified so I like overplotty ridiculousness, ymmv yada yada

I guess I'm going to have to start watching nickelodeon.

you'd be surprised

I get finding Mad Men dull at first, but from near the end of S1 on (parts of S4 excepted), it hums along with quite a bit of purpose.

(vauge spoilers) At the end of the first season, someone walks into someone elses office, and explains the main plot of the season. That other person answers with 'who cares?' When even the people in the show think the plot is unimportant, I can see why other people would think it is meandering. The show has an accumulative quality, though, which is why it just keeps getting better.(/spoiler)

that _was_ the plot of the season!

i like where they're going with this.

they're breaking with history, yes? when reagan was shot at, they said that james brady died. not sure i heard anything afterward to contradict that (e.g. if it was a bad news report, temporarily hidden by the government, etc.).

homeland is pretty b+w.

― s.clover, Thursday, February 28, 2013 1:33 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

?? Really? Even with the drone attack and the fact that a lot of what I get out of the carrie/brody thing is that they are drawn to each other because they've both been damaged and effectively used up ad ppl by the govt

when reagan was shot at, they said that james brady died.

This is in keeping w/ the initial reports, which later of course turned out to be false. Pretty sure the correction appears later in the episode itself.

Killer ep tonight. 6 for 6.

Just watched all of these in a row over the weekend, not bad but I'm wondering how long they can keep up the game of cat and mouse with the FBI neighbor before they either run out of ideas or have to team up in some way? Also would like to see some flashbacks since they're supposed to have been in the US for years at this point.

Yeah, it's 1981 in the show's "present" and they supposedly came over in maybe 1963 or something, so THE ENTIRE SEVENTIES is a blank canvas.

team up? why wouldn't they just ice the dude

Elizabeth would. Not sure about Philip.

xp was thinking about if they were able to turn him or vice-versa, but yeah he'd probably more likely just get one in the dome

if they were able to turn him

That guy just killed an innocent Russian, one he was pretty sure all along was innocent, just for revenge. So I'm pretty sure he'd die before he turned.

The season finale contained some of the most tense television I've seen in some while. Can't wait for this show to come back.

Games Without Frontiers!

Is it coming back? I hope so, but haven't been able to figure out what sort of reception it's getting in the US.

Yeah, it's been renewed for a second season. I watched the last five episodes these last few days. A great debut season, all in all.

Yeah i loved this.

http://cdn1.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/Annet-Mahendru-in-The-Americans-Comint.jpg

ok, my heart belongs to annet mahendru

also, margo martindale playing ms. pac man = A+

watched 1st 4 episodes of this. gradually dawned on me that it probably wasn't going to get any better than "OK." all the "character" stuff (e.g. keri russell's interactions with her kids) is so undigested, like place-holding dialogue they forgot to rewrite. show tries really hard (esp w/ heavy-duty 80s soundtrack choices) and it's kind of endearing for that but the combo of tiresome sobriety of tone + ridiculousness of premise is never really dealt with. each episode had so many missed chances for more interesting plotting.

keri russell is probably the most beautiful woman in the world but i still gave up.

Apart from the first and last episodes I felt like they really didn't include much lol80s music. At least not in a cloying hit-you-over-the-head-with-it way.

(I'm v unobservant though so idk maybe it passed me by..)

the music choices on this are interesting -- in terms of how they are of the period, but some of them (e.g. Echo & the Bunnymen's Pictures on the Wall, the Cure song) are not at all what would soundtrack this type of show at the time.

http://www.avclub.com/article/the-pat-benatar-record-wouldnt-load-an-americans-m-200571

9 episodes into season 1 and enjoying it a lot. I'm a real sucker for Cold War espionage stuff. It's predictable at times, and the protagonists with a double life thing may be a bit old hat by now. But it's extremely watchable and moreish, and the leads are both very good. I'm impressed by how they've almost entirely resisted the urge to do any 'LOL 80s' stuff, leg warmers and Phil Collins aside.

Hearing very good things from folk who've seen early S2 episodes.

I kinda wavered on this show during the first few episodes but by the end of season it managed to come together in an interesting way and now I'm really stoked for season 2

i guess i didn't post on here before but I think this is one of the best shows on tv even if it is badly flawed in a lot of ways.

i really love that, at heart, it's just a show about how difficult it is to maintain an unconventional relationship when you have a family. great acting for most of the cast, leads especially.

yeah this is great. looking forward to season 2.

I certainly prefer it to Homeland. Less ponderous, less pretension to being much more than a decent thriller, less Clare Danes.

Oh, so so so much better than Homeland. More visually interesting, less stupid plot-wise, more interesting thematically.

Also: Tusk and Games Without Frontiers!

I was afriad this was going to suck. But it's actually quite good.

Glad this is back

Solid opener, if not spectacular. Suffered slightly from me watching it sandwiched between two episodes of True Detective.

Anyhow the buzz is it goes from good to great this season, so I'm certainly still onboard.

Just finished watching it. I'm somewhat confused on what exactly happened at the amusement park and how it led to what happened at the hotel, but that's probably just on me. Solid return otherwise.

It confused me a little too - I'm guessing it will be explained more later on.

I don't think Elizabeth and Phillip know who killed their friends?

The "next time on the Americans" clip after the episode ended alluded that figuring out who killed them will be a plot line moving forward, with Claudia figuring into it.

http://images.zap2it.com/assets/p9978323_b_h3_ab/the-millers.jpg

So the American mom on this CBS show is a Russian agent on FX. Hm.

I just think it's cool that's there's no conflict there. She's a plausible link between the two shows. Oh wait, the FX show takes place 30 years ago.

after what she saw, I'm surprised she came downstairs to breakfast this morning!

I believe they feared that Larrick had uncovered the details of their personal lives. Like it's one thing to have someone gunning for them personally and another to believe that some maniac knows about their kids and where they live.

That's right, he figured that all that out via the call center.

Two funniest lines to date:

Paige: "Are you trying to turn me into a travel agent"

Elizabeth (I mentioned this one earlier--it's so funny): "I said, 'Wait till your father gets home.'"

"Munchkins," the episode where Gaad is murdered and Pastor Tim disappears, is one of the best in the entire run, I think.

I don't find the Elizabeth-Young Hee relationship very credible, though. Twice, Elizabeth makes it clear to Philip and Gabriel that she had developed a deep bond with Young Hee, and doesn't want to see her hurt. In all their interactions, though, when Elizabeth was responding to every joke of Young Hee's with that phony laugh, that deep bond wasn't even close to being evident. (Not to mention that the portrayal of Young Hee is...a little broad.)

This time around, I'm starting to think--a question I posed somewhere above--the Jennings are far more evil than either Tony Soprano or Walter White. They really ruin (or take) the lives of some innocent people.

I don't think they're more evil, they are committed to a cause that is much bigger than them. The ending for them is sad but also redemptive

Tony Soprano is gross, he ruins so many lives. And Walter White also 'just wants to protect his family' but becomes incredibly soulless and evil.

they are committed to a cause that is much bigger than them

But Lois Smith has their number (the older woman at the repair shop Elizabeth kills): "That's what evil people tell themselves when they do evil things."

I love that they titled an episode "Amber Waves" after Boogie Nights.

clem, as a Canuck, it occurs to me that you may be not be familiar with 'America the Beautiful.

Thanks! I actually was half-kidding, assuming it must have come from somewhere else (haven't noticed a big Boogie Nights feeling anywhere else in The Americans). But I didn't know it was "American the Beautiful."

"America"...

"Do you want to hear about Lotus 1-2-3?"

Probably the most relatable moment for me in the whole show

About halfway through S5. One thing I love (and how it plays out from here): the enigma of Renee. One thing that grates on me (already mentioned): Elizabeth's phony laugh when working someone. Whether Young Hee, the wife of the agriculture dissident, or the guy from Topeka, it's the same every time and far more transparent than any of these people seem to realize.

Don't read this if you're not onto the last season.

Something that doesn't make sense to me: the idea that the travel agency could go under. Everything about the Jennings, including the travel agency, was fabricated from home. Couldn't they just get "the Centre" to wire them (or physically transport) whatever funds are necessary to keep it afloat?

This was something I wondered too. Is the idea supposed to be that they built the business from scratch with zero help from the USSR?

I think at some point Philip says something about the travel agency having been set up as a front.

In a way, though, it's irrelevant: the travel agency is central to their cover, so if the KGB wants to keep them viable, they'd finance its survival.

Finished this morning.

Some things I called attention to earlier in the thread didn't bother me as much this time. I said I wanted an a-ha moment; in a way, you do get one when Gregory's associate says "and she smoked like a chimney." (If you like a-ha moments; I do, many don't.) The confrontation in the garage did not seem as prolonged as on previous viewings, and Philip did not seem as grovely. Unforgettable line: "I don't know how to say this, but Renee might be one of us."

And the final shots of Paige at the depot are art.

And the final shots of Paige at the depot are art.

Genuinely my favourite final episode of the current era

I still feel like Phillip saying that about Renee was a last bit of manipulative malevolence on his part. I dont know if he knew or not - but I feel like he wanted Stan to suffer/forever be unsure or something?

Intriguing, but for me, it was done in good faith. Philip was always unsure about that--he asked Elizabeth, asked Gabriel, never got an answer. I think his friendship with Stan and regard for him was genuine.

You never do find out about Renee, but the last shot of her--looking over at the FBI searching the Jennings home, seemingly a little too interested--makes me think she was indeed "one of them."

https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/301/611/b9a6412424d49ebbeaa9c33a63280a5a48-04-renee-the-americans.rsocial.w1200.jpg

Watching the Adam Curtis documentary on the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the ruination brought by shock capitalism, added a grim coda to the fates of Martha, Philip and Elizabeth. In my head, Philip managed got convince Elizabeth to use their spy/travel agent skills to slip through the porous border to somewhere less hellish. (I know, I know—it’s debatable whether they deserve that mercy, but still...)

finally finished the Americans. what a show. i loved Oleg coming back in season 6 but i felt the show lost a bit when Martha, Nina, Pastor Tim, Gaad, Gabriel and the rezidentura went away. almost like the show's worldview was collapsing inward to Philip and Elizabeth. the endings for the kids resonated really well but i wasn't convinced that Holly would choose to follow Elizabeth after the lies etc.

the art in season 6 was very moving. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/arts/television/the-americans-fx-final-season.html

this was also very good: https://www.vulture.com/2018/05/the-americans-series-finale-oral-history.html

Oleg, Nina, Pastor Tim, and Gaad were four of my favourites.

Really late on this, but we finally finished the series last well. I really enjoyed it, thought the ending was really great for the tone of the show.

I really had laugh, though, when Elizabeth went to Illinois (during the one subplot that I could have totally lived without) and we got to marvel at all of those mountains in the central Illinois distance.

I tried watching the first season a while back but the DVD that I got from the library turned out to be pretty damaged and at some point it just wouldn't play anymore, but I forget exactly how far I got. The last episode I remember is where they get the drop on some other agent trying to kill them and they all get stopped by a cop so then they pretend the agent is drunk and he sings some Kenny Rogers -- is that episode 7?

Also, it's been probably two years since my first watch, should I just restart from the beginning?