A thread for The Americans on FX

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?

mostly being tongue in cheek when i say that, but at the same time it /would/ be nice to have a little escapist respite from the excruciating emotional brutality that dominated this season, like say, the chases in seasons 1 and 3.

AND YET, what i said about it last season is even more true this time around - that it's one of the only espionage fictions in any medium that's on par with the depth and political insight (hindsight in this case) of john le carre. the honourable woman is really the only other one i can think of that's as good.

The way Stan reacted to springing Paige and Matt was... odd. Almost hysterical laughter? Are we to assume that was the result of extreme sleep deprivation and general weirdness.

He did seem oddly giddy after spending day and night in an observation room watching a man die a, by all accounts, very gruesome death.

Which BTW I am very relieved they didnt show :/

the entire episode was strangely elliptical--wouldn't go so far as to say dreamlike but it did up ante on a show that is often heavy with tone and mood. stan's reaction plausibly an emotional release at finding two people making an intimate connection. given the monologues he'd just been listening to I can imagine seeing the kids that way gave him some hope.

Yeah thats most likely.

It was interesting that despite Williams dying mutterings about the perfect amercian couple, wish he'd been them, no one'd ever guess them being right under their noses, Stan also seemed completely not-suss of his neighbours.

But why would he be suspicious of them? They've never given him any reason to be. They've never asked him probing questions about his work and he's never caught them snooping in his briefcase or anything.

I felt that his glee over Paige and Matthew was because it would give him an extra connection to really the only humans he seems to have contact with outside work, as well as it being a completely normal thing in a week of horrors and weirdness for him. Again, it's a nice bit of irony that his Russian spy neighbours are providing him with the most ordinary suburban American experiences in his life.

what a very in-character americans finale. that last shot of the jennings house, from an angle that i'm sure we've never seen before, that reveals their house to be built completely differently to how i'd imagined it, added to the dreamlike quality ryan talks about. and of course the cliffhangers that aren't; most other shows would have let the curtain fall on gabriel telling them they should flee, or perhaps of them pondering it in the car, but here it's all but resolved before the episode ends (obviously not totally, just another added source of chronic tension).

and the actual cliffhanger being philip's son, someone it had been tempting on occasion to suspect was a fabrication, suddenly and with no warning there as a character with a huge arc ahead. and how perfect that he's a dissident (actively, philosophically anti-communist or merely disillusioned?)

there was definitely a moment when it seemed half the cast was about to decamp for russia. i doubt we've seen the last of oleg but i hope we haven't seen the last of arkady.

and AAAAHHHH at paige asking elizabeth to show her how to defend herself

henry = running joke at present, ticking timebomb for the future, right?

Oh for sure, I reckon. Its always the quiet ones, and all that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/nyregion/spy-house-a-decrepit-reminder-of-betrayal-sits-empty-in-new-jersey.html

xpost Yeah, don't forget it was the son in that other sleeper family that snapped and killed everyone.

came across some fanfic the other day about how henry's always on his computer because he's secretly hacking into the CIA

re that NYT article, it appears to claim a different sleeper cell family was the inspo for the show (this article's fam has 2 daughters, the other canadian ones was 2 sons).

o yah, i just thought this was a good thread for it.

No it is! I just think its curious that 2 diff russkie fams have been cited as the show's premise.

EMMY-NOMINATED Y'ALL

rhys, russell, the show itself, fields/weisberg for writing, martindale for her one annual claudia scene (lol)

finally (on all points)

Yeah, bout time!

Poor Martha.

Rewatching the first series on Netflix at the moment. Been so long since I watched it and it feels good to get back up to speed on the early stuff. Plus there are some nice ironies such as Elizabeth hotly vowing to Philip that they would never tell Paige. I wonder how much the showrunners had it all mapped out from the beginning.

I guess the show finally landed a bunch of Emmy nominations, for the first time.

Dude, it was only SIX posts above yours.

Ha!

i just finished season 2. The acting is really crucial to this show working. Even, say, John Carroll Lynch as the s2 'budget guy' spy.

i'm already anticipating the denouement of this series, but i can see how they also might reverse expectations re who is less committed (ie obviously established as Philip).

By the way, is anyone else who grew up during the show's timeframe finding world current events kind of nerve-wracking?

Ev'ry-thing old is new aaaaa-gain...

Except Morbs!

(I kid, history repeats, etc.)

i am New Morbs. Tanned, rested and ready.

so did the KGB training for P & E include acting classes? and how much travel-agent work do they do for their cover?

https://twitter.com/resnikoff/status/808383371739021312

I'm working my way through The Crown, and it just dawned on me: PHILIP and ELIZABETH

!!!!!!

#woah

This show is going to be packed with newfound currency when it returns, isn't it?

you ain't kidding.

And Veep!

when the fuck is this coming back

Just watched the first season of this over the course of a week, so am avoiding spoilers upthread. Loving this show. Great acting all around, but boy how great is Noah Emmerich? Love that guy so much.

It's been odd watching this while US and Russia are making such headlines today, almost up to the point where I feel more comfortable with the Cold War narrative as an escape than our post Cold War idiotic reality of today with Trump and Putin.

Moving on with this series asap. Can't wait for their daughter - who is great - to be completely infatuated with slacker neighbor dude next door, and more trouble for Liz and Philip on the way. Both of those great actors in this too, though Elizabeth really, really neglects the most basic duties of being a mom tbh. She's been very cold and uncaring towards her kids up till now (your daughter has her first crush, sit her the fuck down and console her and tell her to enjoy the ride ffs!).

enjoy, the other seasons are all better than s1, it just improves as it goes

when the fuck is this coming back

March 7!

Thanks Simon, that's heartening, already have been losing sleep watching this so cannae wait!