A thread for The Americans on FX

Clark and Martha does occasionally feel a bit like something that would strain credulity over the course of a half hour sitcom episode (doesn't she have a brassy next door neighbor to encourage her to kick that scrub to the curb?!), but I guess it's also a testament to the selective blinkers people often wear in relationships.

The thing I keep coming back to though is...I don't care how securely you clip that wig to your head, at some point over the course of multiple years of intense intimate encounters you're gonna at least snag your watch chain on that thing and yank it off.

I recently did a full rewatch, and it held up quite well. A few things that stood out:

The FBI has really terrible sketch artists

I was surprised how much they glammed up Elizabeth in the early episodes vs the rest of the show

The thing where Paige bombards them with an endless torrent of questions got old real quickly

Philip and Elizabeth sure loved to murder people

It would be awesome to hear someone do a version of The Aristocrats joke, but it's The Americans and just a retelling of the plot to the show

Philip and Elizabeth sure loved to murder people

Oh, they are MAD for the murdering. Just mad for it.

Okay, lol, just got to the episode where Martha mentions that she's been aware of Clark's 'toupee'.

The FBI has really terrible sketch artists

lololol so true

Glad there are others watching for first time or rewatching. But you guys are going too fast lol. I’m going to have to bow out of the thread for fear of spoilers.

Maybe it was said upthread (haven’t looked). Want to give a shout out to the Jennings kids. Well acted and well written roles - at least up to S1E9. They brought home the consequences to Philip and Elizabeth for separating. Not just a business decision.

The kids are right up there with the Soprano kids and Sally Draper. They're totally credible as kids. A.J. Soprano's great, but he's great because he's weird and neurotic and all the rest; Paige and Henry are normal and interesting at the same time.

Whenever Elizabeth says she's been doing laundry, or she has some laundry to do, it reminds me of Patrick Bateman returning videos in American Psycho.

Thought Holly Taylor was an excellent on this show, one of the best child actors I've seen in anything. Disappointed I haven't seen her in anything else since (I do see on Wikipedia she's been working, but nothing I've seen)

Yes, she is a v credible TV teen. Which is to say (admiringly) that she would never make it on a CW drama.

She was in a few episodes of Manifest, which my partner and I angrily hatewatched all 3 seasons of. She plays a bonkers religious lass. Its probably not sitting through that show to watch though.

More religion! Just finished the episode where Paige silently says grace at dinner, horrifying Elizabeth. That whole subplot still kills me. "God, no--our 14-year old daughter is messing around with drugs having sex flunking out of school turning into a Jesus freak."

There are posts about this I never read near the beginning of this thread, so this is the first time I caught the writing credit for Oliver North (S2, E9)! It's actually a really good episode...have to believe he was primarily a consultant for the Contra camp stuff.

Yeah, that credit jumped out at me, too. Very weird in the context of the show. Expecting to see an episode directed by Gary Hart at some point.

"Faction 237"--wonder where they got the number from?

Why does Larrick inspire such fear with Elizabeth and Philip Jennings? I know what he did, but they're dealing with nasty people left and right, and they never blink an eye.

(Or actually, he didn't even commit the murders--it's what they think he did.)

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?