A thread for The Americans on FX

When Paige was suddenly on the platform I broke into surprised gobs of tears, so yeah it worked for me.

Show ended satisfyingly for me. No cliched shoot outs, deaths, or trade offs at an airstrip. Stories left unfinished, because thats life right?

Poor Oleg :(

and Olegs dad! He always made me so sad.

and Oleg's mom. l

I still wish we'd gotten a whole spinoff series about Oleg investigating grocery fraud in Moscow.

I'm no U2 fan anymore but yeah that song worked very well (and anyway that's one of the few u2 songs I still really like, partly because it sounds like a bowie track)

This is one of the few shows that occasionally used musical cues very literally without being super cheesy, imo

I was fine with the U2 until it was clear they'd re-edited so the chorus would keep getting burped up whenever the scene needed it.

but this was brilliant. i can't believe nobody died. so many loose ends because this was a show about insoluble loose ends. if it had been tied up and explained it would have been a disappointment. but i'm not ashamed to say several much more immature and unsubtle finale episodes exist in my imagination.

Finally caught up with the last two episodes of this. What a fittingly sad way to end the show - I love how they pulled it off without killing anyone, a la Justified - but something doesn't quite sit well with me. I think the previous season actually messed up a bit, and this season's fast forward was a hand-wave way to compensate for last season's wheel spinning and quickly advance some character and plot developments, like Paige getting fully on board and Philip quitting and so on. But I didn't quite buy Elizabeth's pretty rapid transformation from heartless Russian Terminator to someone who would kill a KGB agent in broad daylight. And the stakes were a little wobbly. They made it out of the USA, so good for them (I guess?). But what would stop them from calling their kids, or sending them letters, or even meeting them in some neutral place? Not to mention that we as viewers know (unlike the Jennings) that the USSR won't be around much longer, and the lockdown will be lifted. I mean, they can't safely go back to the US, but there are plenty of other places they can go and be, some of them not winter all the time. It's unclear if Paige is even wanted by the FBI, or why she would be. I don't know, maybe that just adds to the tragedy of the whole thing.

Anyway, minor quibbles, lots to love, not least the loose ends.

I also have to say, the look on their faces when they see Paige, who figured out that maybe it really is as simple as just walking away. Or maybe it's not.

My quibble is the ease with which Stan decided to let them go, a few minutes after pointing a gun at them and ordering them to lie on the floor. I don't buy that his friendship with them – with Philip, especially – would override his duty to the FBI.

i keep wondering whether paige or henry ever saw them again

i could stand a seventh season tbh

One other amazing thing about the way it ended is that up until the last few minutes there were still so many ways it could have gone. Stan dead, Stan shooting them, Stan shooting some of them, Stan shooting Philip and Elizabeth shooting Stan, the Russians shooting Philip and Elizabeth, the border patrol shooting them, and so on. But they found a way out (that obviously wasn't ultimately a way out). This is something neat I just read:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/arts/television/keri-russell-matthew-rhys-the-americans.html

Was it technically difficult, filming that on the train?

RUSSELL The actual shooting that day was tricky. Obviously we were working with a real train, and it takes a million people to start the train, to get the train moving, then to get all those people in the shot. We were shooting on a Sunday. We had so many extras. We had to have extra crew because of that. So there were a lot of factors that were a little distracting, and made it not so easy. You kind of had to just show up and do your best in a couple of takes.

RHYS I felt enormous pressure. The train was moving away, and we only had one shot of it linking us and Paige. So I do tend to get a little pressured in those moments about getting it right. It’s kind of the worst thing, because then you overthink something. When you know you can have a second take and you can keep rolling, you’re far more relaxed and you can try it a couple of different ways. When they go, “Sorry, we’re only going to get one shot,” you go, “But it’s such an enormous moment!”

The look on Elizabeth's face when Philip says they need to leave Henry behind. . . amazing acting. I'm so impressed with Russell's work in this.

really this show ended enormously well, just as good as I needed it too

It's unclear if Paige is even wanted by the FBI, or why she would be.

adult daughter of Russian spies goes missing as soon as her parents' true identity is discovered. pretty sure she would be subject to a manhunt and, if found, intense interrogation.

The only person who knows about Paige is Stan, and he's too compromised to ever let on. There's no way she doesn't track her parents down after the Iron Curtain falls, but she's in for a rough few years before that, I'd guess. Especially given Stan is, presumably, telling Henry at least some of the truth about his parents at the end.

I mean, they're wanted for espionage, murder, who knows. Paige is associated with them but as far as we know they have nothing on her. The only difference between her and Henry is Henry knows nothing. Not that he wouldn't be interrogated as much as Paige would be.

The fact that the finale leaves so many things open to ponder like this is maybe my favorite thing about it. Way too many series fixated on closing out every single plot element.

I've thought back to that moment at the train platform several times in the last week. So incredibly heart-wrenching, and it really brought home the fact that P&E had to let go of every part of the lives they built in America, even their daughter. Throughout the series it was so hard for me to see Russia as their home, and at that moment it was clear that nothing of the last couple decades was truly theirs.

I did half-expect for them to see a McDonald's in the distance in Moscow at the end.

Yeah, one of the reasons why that scene is so powerful is that it never occurred to P&E that Paige wouldn't be coming with them. With Henry, it never occurred to Elizabeth that they wouldn't go and pick him up, and Philip persuaded her that it was for the best if they left him behind. But with Paige it was just assumed, because she was one of them, that she would be coming. That goes for the viewer too.

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.