A thread for The Americans on FX

But for serious, if next week is her last episode, I may throw my shoe at the tv.

She seems a bit shady about this spare pilot she conveniently had on stand-by for Martha's extraction, have they decided that Martha is a liability and are planning to make her disappear? If they told Phil she was in Moscow he would be none the wiser.

My wife posited that it was all just coded/confusing misdirection, and that the entire time they were just getting a plane to get the dead rat to Russia. Because I can't believe Martha is going to Russia. My first thought until this week was that Elizabeth would kill her, but now I suspect it's likely Philip/Clark will put her out of her misery. But God knows he's carrying so much weight already. Character is withering like a president in office.

I was really hoping Martha could find a way out. Maybe she will?

Getting a rat in a jar onto a plane is surely slightly easier than transporting a woman who is WANTED BY THE FBI.

i still haven't seen the one from last night but just caught up on everything else and jesus christ im running out of fucking superlatives for this show

at the same time it's grown so excruciating that i haven't been able to do week-to-week watching. and it can only possibly get more so from here on in. utter brilliance, though.

The ending of this latest episode was weirdly muted and sombre. That scene where Paige gets home from the mini golf, walks up the stairs, and recites what happened to them with the dead eyed monotone.

I'm wondering what the reason was to suddenly skip 7 months?

My guess is that this was the original endpoint they had in mind for s3 but they shook things up just to catch people off guard.

It worked! Fantastic episode.

Oh it also occurs to be its because they'd been given a break. I forgot about that.

The pre-credits sequence with Martha was so heavy.

I love how they twisted it to make the viewer and Gabriel both realize it was Elizabeth's stress and state of mind that necessitated them taking a break. When she blew up all over Paige, I've never hated watching a person on this show more.

God yeah that was so fucking cruel. The difference in personality and approach between her and Phillip grows starker by the day. She's a straight up For the Motehrland automaton, basically. Just when you think she's struggling with feelings, she goes and does something like the AA chick (Lisa?).

Speaking of that scene, I didnt quite catch how she suddenly ended up paying her a visit. Maybe I missed something.

Next weeks ep is titled "The Day After", am hoping thats a nice side ref to the cold war/nuke threat/mood of the time/movie.

Speaking of that scene, I didnt quite catch how she suddenly ended up paying her a visit. Maybe I missed something

She said something at the safe house while visiting Gabriel (when they told Gabriel about Philip going to est) about getting a call from Lisa. That murder seemed so angry, like "HOW DARE YOU FUCKING JEOPARDIZE MY MISSION?!?!!" instead of "Dammit, now I have to kill you because I'm a cold blooded spy."

Matthew Rhys directed this week's episode, btw. He knows these characters inside out. It would probably be too much to ask of him to direct all the time, being one of the show's leads, but he super nailed it.

Fairly convinced now that this show will end with one of them killing the other one.

Yeah I noted he was director, and it was a well paced ep! Lots of meaningful glares and tension. Er, and yelling and killing.

The complete rancidity of Philip and Elizabeth's relationship, which was very apparent in season one and has been buried under unity of purpose ever since, really came out again in this one.

Maybe the seven month skip was drawing a line on the Martha section and setting us up for the Paige section. This nice, normal teenage girl pretty much trapped by her parents for... how long exactly?

The Martha scene was brutal. At least we as viewers know she can maybe come back in seven years or so (what DID happen to people in that situation?) but the assumed finality of it made if nearly unwatchable.

What were the ongoing operations that Gabriel alluded to near the end? The Korean one, plus there was certainly the suggestion that Philip was still working Kimberley but there was another one I've forgotten as well.

"She's a straight up For the Motehrland automaton, basically. Just when you think she's struggling with feelings, she goes and does something like the AA chick (Lisa?)"

Yeah but that scene wasn't cold calculation, it was her cracking under the pressure and Gabriel knew that. TBH I think that scene might have had more impact if they hadn't completely ignored that storyline for the previous seven episodes, it took me a while to work out what that operation was even about.

For the last couple of episodes the implication has been that Philip would have gone with Martha if it hadn't been for his children, so I'm interested to see how his relationship with Paige evolves from now on.

maybe come back in seven years or so

Not without a pardon for treason.

Even if Philip eventually turns?

That is probably a good pointer of where next season is going.

I like the way Liz has been extra harsh on Paige and put all the responsibility of blabbing to the god botherers on her, be fucked if I am going to waste my time watching a tv series about a happy, functional family.

love the copperfield thing -- i remember what a big "television event" that was for me growing up

What a great episode. That wasn't the end of the season was it? Just felt that way?

Did anyone post this great recap?

http://www.vulture.com/2016/05/americans-season-four-the-best-its-ever-been.html#

The scenes with Gabriel and Claudia talking about Philip and Elizabeth, it made me wonder if Philip's morality is evolution or a recruitment failure on the center's part. That is to say, is he a robot short circuiting, or did they accidentally develop the wrong agent? Gabriel and Claudia are all "what's the big deal?" Is it because they've forgotten? Compartmentalized? Or just trained cold psychopaths? And is Elizabeth a trained cold psychopath or is she potentially subject to the same evolution as Philip, which is what Gabriel sees starting and wants to stop from happening? Gabriel is always talking about the war, but the show is also constantly invoking the war in Afghanistan, which does not exactly instill feelings of patriotism and support in the Russian characters, from what the show has depicted. As Claudia points out, the world has changed, it's less black and white, maybe, and it's harder for their agents to navigate in that world. That's the implicit theme of the show, too, and the genius of its domestic setting. All the different strains of right/wrong, of sacrifice and selfishness, of loyalty to country and loyalty to blood, and how stressful it must be to separate them.

That wasn't the end of the season was it? Just felt that way?

Five to go.

"[Our music supervisor] sent us an email eight months or a year ago saying David Bowie’s a really big fan of the show. So you can definitely use one of his songs. That would be awesome. We were ‘Oh! This is so great! We’re finally going to use it.’ And then two days later we got the news he had passed away. And, sadly, it turned into a tribute." — Joel Fields, discussing the use of Under Pressure for The Americans

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/discovered-our-parents-were-russian-spies-tim-alex-foley?CMP=share_btn_tw

But the FBI had not made a mistake, and the truth was so outlandish, it defied comprehension. Not only were their parents indeed Russian spies, they were Russians. The man and woman the boys knew as Mom and Dad really were their parents, but their names were not Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley. Those were Canadians who had died long ago, as children; their identities had been stolen and adopted by the boys’ parents.

Their real names were Andrei Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova. They were both born in the Soviet Union, had undergone training in the KGB and been dispatched abroad as part of a Soviet programme of deep-cover secret agents, known in Russia as the “illegals”. After a slow-burning career building up an ordinary North American background, the pair were now active agents for the SVR, the foreign spy agency of modern Russia and a successor to the KGB. They, along with eight other agents, had been betrayed by a Russian spy who had defected to the Americans.

Interesting to imagine an alternate version of this series set in the mid-to-late 90s.

I had to work today, so it gave me time to listen to almost every episode of Slate's Americans podcast with the showrunners. (afaict, it's only been in existence for seasons 3 and 4)

Some episodes don't stick to actually discussing the corresponding series episode with which they're tied, but many of them do and it's especially good when they have actors in to speak (Rhys talks about the episode he directed this week).

It suits the narrative of things like that Vulture article to say that the show is now "the best it's ever been." In fact, as those of us who've been with it from the start have been saying all along, it's always been this good.

I've watched it from the beginning and I think it's got better. The first season was clumsy in parts.

I enjoyed the first season but never felt motivated to watch the others. Did it get less cheesy and spelled out?

Less cheery? Yes.

https://twitter.com/xPoonkey/status/727655655197138944?lang=en-gb

Is it possible they CGI'ed her face? I gather they do that a lot in games these days anyways.

every season of this show has gotten darker and more paranoid and fucked up than the previous one

I don't think my parents let me watch The Day After when it aired (in fact, I'm pretty sure they didn't, because I bet I'd have a stark memory of it if they had), and I don't think I've ever watched it in the years since. It was interesting seeing all these characters, all of whom have seen some irl shit, be mortified by it.

So much inner conflict with Elizabeth right now. Have no idea how this will develop in the future, but for someone who's always been job first/individual human person second, she doesn't really know how to deal with her own mind right now.

Teaser for next week! Mrs. Pastor Tim, you tricky so-and-so!!!

Ah so the show title DOES relate to the movie! I was hoping so. Best get to watching it asap, not sure if we have it down yet.

Oh I saw TDA. They MADE us watch it at SCHOOL. I was ...14 or 15? Yeah that was pretty scarring. I spent a lot of the 80s thinking we were all doomed and going to be blown to bits.

the day after fucked me up pretty badly.

As great as this week's episode was, a full hour of Philip, Elizabeth, and Stan sitting in a living room trying to explain the world to their collective offspring after watching THE DAY AFTER probably would have been even better.

(I never saw it, because we didn't have a TV in 1983.)

I remember when The Day After came out. I was ... 8? 9?I think we eventually watched it in school, too, but I can't remember if I watched it at home. Not sure how much of an impression it made, since I was watching so much sic-fi, horror etc anyway. Anyway, this show has some great montages.

a full hour of Philip, Elizabeth, and Stan sitting in a living room trying to explain the world to their collective offspring after watching THE DAY AFTER

For a moment there I thought thats what did happen and I was disappointed that it didnt! Yet to see the ep (too much on the next few days to get time)

So, what was the song playing when Elizabeth was rifling thru Don's study? It sounded a bit like this mortal coil tho I know it wasnt.

I feel so bad for him, that whole plot upset me. And confused me, why did she do that? If it was to blackmail him, why would she say she was gonna miss Soon Yee? Assuming that blackmail would be so he kept it quiet? I really didnt get that bit.

Wasn't that Yaz?

She needs to get to the fourth floor, so she needed to blackmail him. She's going to miss her friend because she knows she won't be able to see her anymore now that she's blackmailing her husband. Using pronouns since I forget everyone's name...

Don's the person who has access to "Level 4" or whatever, but I'm not sure how fake-fucking him is going to spill over into her getting his access/credentials yet.

So, what was the song playing when Elizabeth was rifling thru Don's study?

Yaz/Yazoo - "Winter Kills"

second time they've gone to the Yaz well

The producers don't spend a lot of time talking about the music on the Slate podcast, but they did mention they'd planned to use Yaz earlier than they did. But because they have a hard and fast rule about not using tv/music/movie before it would have realistically appeared in the 80s, they had to wait until the show had moved into 1982.

Noah Emmerich's been on the podcast both times he directed an episode (in S3 and S4) and he spends a great deal of time talking about the music by comparison. This season, they were granted permission to use Under Pressure just two days before Bowie's death because they'd already established with Bowie's people a while back that he was a fan of the show and they'd be welcome to use his music at any time. The opportunity finally presented itself, but he never got to see the episode.

Also, the episode last season which ended with that montage set to "The Chain" was originally going to be some Stones song that had a completely different feel ("Hand of Fate" iirc). I can't imagine it with anything besides "The Chain" now.

One other thing...they talked to John Landgraf on this week's ep, and he said the 5th season is already guaranteed and they're actually in talks between FX and the show about whether or not it's feasible story-wise to stretch it out to a 6th season. If it will dilute the overall story, they won't. If it will give the show more time to explore the story deeper, they will.

I wish he would've been this patient with Terriers, but I understand why he couldn't...by the end of Terriers, only a few hundred thousand people were tuning in each week.

I'm not sure how fake-fucking him is going to spill over into her getting his access/credentials yet.

i just went for a walk in prospect park and was amused to see Philip and William the disease guy wandering right where i had been earlier.