A thread for The Americans on FX

Also that last scene. Fucking hell.

God knows where Paige goes from here.

She is also the similarly silent Kathy Geiss on 30 Rock

OMG how did I not pick that up.

Yeah I wondered if Don will kill himself after this, also. I found it a little hard to believe he'd leave his post like he did but i guess the circumstances were extreme and his rationality out the window as a result.

It reminds me that this is why they grill the living shit out of you and your family if you're ever going for a high level govt job. If you have any situation that might make you crack under pressure (secretly gay, drug prob, family members with secrets etc) they wont hire you.

As an aside, the other thing that bugs me about the Patty/Young Hee thing, is now that "Patty" is supposedly dead, what happens if Young Hee or Don run into Elizabeth in a shop somewhere. Didnt that happen to her once when they first met? Come to think of it, how come that doesnt happen just generally speaking. Are these magic wigs?

Didnt that happen to her once when they first met?

I'm pretty sure that was planned.

But yeah, even in cities larger than Washington DC, you're bound to run into people you know. Philip is generally more disguisey, on top of already just being a plain ol' white guy, but Elizabeth would be recognizable—especially with as thin a disguise as "Patty" was.

that's the most unbelievable thing about the show

It hadnt bothered me til this point and for the reason JF says: her disguise for patty is just her as a blonde.

Switching up the topics, I heard on this week's podcast that they consult with a guy who collects a lot of actual spy gear and he actually lets the show borrow some of it when needed. For instance, the wire recorder that Philip places in Kimmy's dad's leather bag is an actual KGB artifact and not just a prop.

wait i totally thought that was claudia as well

the dinner party scene and every reaction was so well done, this show makes such good use of pauses in conversation. not just the obvious raised eyebrows from tim at russian spies introducing him to an fbi agent but stan's barely disguised "wait you're...leftist radicals into direct action" disapproval

and yes! the last scene! you sort of know what beats the show intends to it but it never does it in the obvious way.

this week's young-hee phone call was even more devastating than last week's as well

Is this show actually based on anything real? Like, are there examples of undercover Russian spies living amongst Americans in this way during the 80s, etc? It wouldn't affect my enjoyment of it, I'm just curious to know how much of it is sourced in fact.

http://www.ibtimes.com/americans-true-story-who-were-real-life-spies-inspired-fx-show-1798070

there's dozens of explainers like this, just happened to be my first Google hit. Short answer is yes.

Thanks, that article seems to suggest this is a more modern phenomenon though. They've basically taken something that's happening now and transplanted it back to the 80s.

The other thing is the real deal never killed people, they were more just eyes and ears, but I suppose that makes for way too boring TV.

the dinner party scene and every reaction was so well done, this show makes such good use of pauses in conversation. not just the obvious raised eyebrows from tim at russian spies introducing him to an fbi agent but stan's barely disguised "wait you're...leftist radicals into direct action" disapproval.

OTM and this is a really delightful plot twist that I hope they run with.

Well goddamn

Not watched ep12 so apologies if this was already posted but did anyone else recognise 30 rock's Kathy Geiss as Gabriel's wife in ep11?

yeah this was covered upthread

the way the ep just ends with Paige's bewildered, fed up "great." was awesome.
Is Phillip off to his doom meeting William now the Feds have William worked out!?

Aderhold is way smarter than he's ever been given credit for on the show. I think most anyone would've taken all the facts about the old lady at the robot shop dying at face value after adding them all up, but he went from hunch about the robot to finding the recorder in one episode. And the FBI in general went from vague tip from Oleg to finding William in the space of one evening. It's insane how efficient they suddenly became.

yeah tbh that stretched the bounds of believable for me, but hey its a TV show not a documentary.

Yr right about Aderhold tho. Compared to Stan (ffs the guy LIVES NEXT DOOR TO THE RUSKIES AND HAS NO IDEA) he's a spy god.

Some miscasting with Oleg's ma, she looks no more than 4 years older than him.

The contrast between Aderhold's superspy competence and his strong physical and auditory resemblance to Cleveland Brown (of Family Guy and The Cleveland Show) has been cracking me up lately.

And yeah, this episode's ending was pretty much perfect, starting with Paige's "You killed a guy in front of me - I think I deserve to know everything!" and ending with "Great."

yeah, that was hysterical and all too true to me... "so you ARE murder spies, just AWESOME, thanks a lot MOM"

does Paige WANT to join the family business?

Cannot believe this season ends next week

I want it to end, because I think this show's perfected the 13-episode season, but I also don't because it won't come back until next winter/spring and that's too far away.

paige's "great", delivered so perfectly, was one of the best final lines of any tv episodes ever, right

poor william

According to the director, they shot Paige saying "great" more than 20 times just to get it perfect. They succeeded.

I was distracted by the casting of Dylan Baker at first but William has slowly grown into possibly their most tragic character

Henry's awakening seems imminent? My next-season theory speculates Paige "enters the family business" and Henry gets turned by his buddy Stan. There was a moment last season or the one before where Stan looked questioningly thru the window at the house next door but otherwise he doesn't seem to suspect anything about his naughty neighbors. Figure that can't last forever.

Aderhold will scoop him.

Huh.

I appreciate your less-spoilery initial reactions, P <3

lol, yet you still check the bumped thread before you've watched the episode.

I always forget what day its on! Its only 2Pm thursday here.

somewhat anticlimactic ending somehow!

man some of the cast are wringing mega mileage out of their chosen tics. stan quite literally with the cheek twitch, oleg with the eye squint/o face/tongue lick combo, paige with the lip thing and the helpless frown.

yeah I was expecting more from this episode! like what happened to Don?

it was still good

I love that Paige is wanting to turn into Elizabeth Jr. and both Elizabeth and Philip, but especially Philip, are like "cut this shit out right now!"

are they ever going to give the son anything to do except watch TV and play computer games?

He seems sullen now because Paige has stolen his only friend.

Matthew looks like a chunkier Mark Arm, there, I said it

I don't think it was anticlimactic at all. For a show that specialises in constantly rising clammy dread this was a real ratcheting up of tension.

Philip totally bottled it at the end though, he should have taken advantage of Stan's state of mind and opened a beer with him. He'd have spilled about the dead prisoner within minutes.

I thought the very end was great, in a subtle way. If Elizabeth instead of Philip had gone over to get Paige, she would have encouraged the match with Matthew as a way of getting information, and then Paige would be Marthaing Matthew. Which Philip knows and doesn't want.

I thought it was great too! William's monologue was heartwrenching.

It's the first time we've actually seen Phillip's Russian son, right?

Yeah, he was only seen in a photo before iirc.

this was a p good ending and i'm interested to see where the philip's son storyline goes, among other things. philip's tone and expressions in the last few minutes are so goddamn affecting and intense

i will say that as great as the show is and as masterfully as it's evolved into an engine of internalized dread, i wouldn't mind a few action scenes next season, yanno?