A thread for The Americans on FX

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!

Update: I'm at s03e03 now. You weren't kidding: second season was even better! Season finale was exquisite.

The way they slowly but surely move Paige forward into the story is chilling, so well written. Watching her 'grow up' in the series and being dealt a very clever, probably very heavy card this way (I am at the point where she's heavily in the church, and P and E learn she's chosen to be kgb groomed like Jared) is fantastic. What I admire about the series is they aren't pushing it too much: the pace is perfect. Man I love this show.

Every single s04 episode felt like I needed to update this thread with something you all know already. But just saw e07 and e08 back to back (Martha gone missing ensuing a hunt, and the seven month gap in the episode after, all for a blink of an eye at peace except poor Paige because the writers will not let everyone be at peace at the same time ever not just for one second) and omg dagehdnsjfjidusmsdke

This is truly the best show ever.

kinda is. very much looking forward to the new season.

Just saw s04e11. Only two more to go. Only two... It kills me,

'Pastor Tim' freaked me the fuck out first time I saw him, but by now I'm convinced he's a paedophile. He's a demon. Or at lest a vile weed. So many ppl who got offed in this series and this fuck is still alive? It cannot last another two episodes, surely.

Already dreading this to be over...

that's funny that you think that about pastor tim--i thought he was a pedophile at first, but it seems like he's just a wholly decent person. Obviously, in this show, things change, but I would be surprised if Pastor Tim is anything other than a decent guy who Paige has to betray over and over again.

"a vile weed" actual lol

Heh :)

Voodoo, no you are probably right. It's what this show does so brilliantly though: I completely went with Liz' disgust at church as an institution and pastor Tim representing that in all his annoying kindness. I was as suspicious as she was. But he probably is a p decent person. The trust issues Liz 'n Philip have really get in the viewers minds as well, at least in my mind.

One other thing: I ~cannot~ believe the poor viewings this show has been getting. Looking at the number of viewers (via wiki) how on god's green earth is it possible for this show to barely manage 1 million viewers by season 4? I mean I know by season 4 you probably won't acquire a lot of new viewers, but not even averaging 1 million? For a show this prolific, in a country w/ 320 million people? Or am I interpreting the numbers all wrong? How can it even be financially ok to continue this show with these tiny viewer numbers? It dazzles the mind.

I don't think I ever thought Pastor Tim was a paedophile but I definitely leaned towards him being a Soviet spy for a while (especially after Paige was recruited into his church by a girl who conveniently popped up on that bus ride and then was never seen again). Tim's church actually being a liberal, protest-friendly one was an ingenious twist.

I read that the FX CEO is just really proud of it as art and committed to letting it play out in full. It's a travesty that no one watches it while eg overblown hypebeasts like Westworld seem to magically dominate the pop culture cycle out of nowhere. And of course the lumbering shambles that is The Walking Dead still pulling in more viewers even after it's declined off a cliff.