A thread for The Americans on FX

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.

god, the resolution to the young-hee plotline was miserable and sad even by this show's bleak standards. just taking a hammer to one of the few incidences of uncomplicated happiness we've been shown.

Which point in 1983 are we at now? Thinking that Abel Archer has to be the season finale.

Another thing that's gone curiously unmentioned up until now is AIDS. There are a lot of other diseases in this season, and both Philip and Elizabeth have banged a lot of people over a long period of time.

Wasn't Abel Archer mentioned by the two Russians in bed in the last episode?

Oh no hang on I'm thinking of something else

Kind of glaze over during the Oleg scenes this season tbh. Feel like most of the reason behind that ridiculously long orgasm was just to give him something to do for a bit.

They were talking about that other near-brush with armageddon.

The 80s were a perilous decade.

The whole reveal to Martha to Martha getting on a plane to Russia was supposedly just a month, and then there was a 7 month advance, so I'd say we're in late summer 1983 at this point. Abel Archer happened in November.

Wait...

"The Day After is an American television film that first aired on November 20, 1983"

Able Archer happened on November 2nd, so we're past it.

it def doesn't look like it's the end of the year though. I think they may have messed that up a bit.

Be really interesting if they brought up AIDS, tbh. Especially with all the sleeping around, talk of bio weapons and the timing and stuff.

it def doesn't look like it's the end of the year though. I think they may have messed that up a bit.

Perhaps all the Martha stuff happened later in the year than it seemed like it was happening. Everyone was wearing coats and stuff, but perhaps they were well into spring by that point. Late spring + 7 months might get us to November.

Had to google able archer. Had no idea what that was. Maybe it was a bigger thing in the US, or me being 12 means I didnt pay attention at the time?

I did too, tbh.

Me, too, and I'm an American in his mid-40s.

in the latest episode after oleg and that woman from the rezidentura (whose name escapes me) are done having sex he tells her about a soviet commander who saw signals of what appeared to be missile launches (and weren't) and ignores them - able archer was real but perhaps this was their way of addressing it through a somewhat similar fictional occurrence?

No, that was a real thing that happened, too. The Cold War was pretty fucking nuts.

Yeah that was a real thing. It wasnt known about at the time but it is now. Stanislav Petrov was the fuckin hero who disobeyed his training to not send off nukes cos he knew that the US wouldnt send only 5 over (I think was the deal). Very scary!

goddamn.

in any event, I think this is definitely the best season - it combines the extreme emotional intensity of season 3 but with a story structure that's more like the streamlined plot of 2. I think 3 had a lot of short-story plots that were good individually but didn't add up to as cohesive a whole as this season (or season 2)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24280831

Kind of glaze over during the Oleg scenes this season tbh. Feel like most of the reason behind that ridiculously long orgasm was just to give him something to do for a bit.

Presumably they're building up to Stan turning him?

Last episode was super bleak.

It's sadly comical that Gaad would basically rather kill himself than listen to a Russian talk.

Um. Was that a spoiler? That ep only just aired and I havent seen it yet :(

I guess? Sorry about that. There's never really been a spoiler embargo in this thread iirc, though. :(

hasn't aired on the west coast yet

Apologies to all!

I typically avoid threads updated on the day a show airs if I haven't seen the latest ep, but I guess not everyone follows that path.

I unconsciously click every bookmark like a lifeless madman tbh

I'm not nornally that fussy but a character death's a bigun! Ah well :)

Discussion of an episode is fair game as soon as it's aired. If you want to avoid spoilers, don't click on the thread until you've caught up.

The scene with Philip, Elizabeth and Paige in the kitchen (before Paige starts shouting about having to move) really reminded me of The Good Wife for some reason - Keri Russell had this disdainful expression that was very Juliana Margulies-esque. Also, when Philip asked her if they really could have killed Pastor Tim I laughed out loud.

my point was the ep airs later for us. it's all cool nm

The scene with Philip, Elizabeth and Paige in the kitchen

Yeah, Elizabeth was basically taunting her...whatcha want to say? you wanna take this outside? c'mon, tough girl!

the tennis ball tho

That Gaad scene really came out of nowhere and I wonder where it's going. I briefly wondered if it was Martha-related but I'm not sure they'd sent three dudes for that.

saad 4 gaad. he didn't kill himself though? that scene was definitely out of nowhere.

wonder if paige has a gameplan in taking the beeman son to church beyond a possible crush on him. they're lucky holly taylor turned out to be a great actress, some of her face work in that episode was as subtle and effective as anything the leads have done.

the young-hee answering machine message killed me :(

and it's like, this isn't anywhere near rock bottom (no staving it off, even with the last scene)

I'd misread JFs post as Gaad killing himself too, so I guess it was less spoiled than I thought lol.

That event seemed so cruelly pointless! But I guess thats real life.

I'll have to watch the scene again, but I thought Gaad, in his haste to escape the three Russians, ran into the glass door.

If he was put through it, well that's different.

He did, but not on purpose. Well not with the intent of dying, I wouldnt have thought.

I did wonder tho - why DID he run from them? He didnt want to give up anything he knew?

Yeah, it was just like "ooh, I'm going to run...where?...glass door!...well, that didn't work out so well."

I thought about it later, though, that he might be a little shy about confrontation with Russians because Elizabeth beat him bloody.

God, I'd forgot all about that.

They def didnt push him though - the "oh shit" was written all over their faces and then later on Arkady makes mention of a mission that failed badly.

(I wonder what it was, though. What did they want from Gaad? I guess that'll become clear later?)

idk that the scene where a guy tried to make a break from the three guys who broke into his apt needs a bunch more unpacking ? it seemed p natural to me
lex v otm re paige as an actor, too

i assumed they were going to try to turn the potentially disgruntled ex-fbi agent but who knows. doesn't seem like the most effective way of doing that. the goons "oh shit" faces rivalled elizabeth's "how can she think we killed pastor tim, we would never have left alice alive" moment for black comedy

he didn't kill himself though?

my partner reckoned he suicided by window, rather than get caught up in whatever those clumsy russians wanted, but I don't know.

Paige is *amazing. In every scene, the actress just seems to radiate the totality of her isolation, stress and misery.

yeah, there's no way he intentionally killed himself.