A thread for The Americans on FX

I feel like Stan genuinely has that home/work separation and the idea someone he's been palling around with in the neighborhood is a spy is a foreign idea. He probably sleeps like a rock and has never noticed his neighbors leaving in the middle of the night, or they're smart enough to always go the other direction so he doesn't hear a car pass by

the fact that I still have no fucking idea what's going on with the Laurie Holden character is wonderful

we want so hard for her to be _something_ or a more substantial red herring
I'm assuming she's just Stan's girlfriend until further notice

what if she's somehow related to the mail robot warehouse people. what if she is... a mail robot

I got the sense that Paige is less sure of everything now that she's nearing being turned loose as an agent herself. She was obviously trying to convince both her mother and herself that she is dedicated to the cause, but Holly Taylor does a great job of finding the nuance of where she's at mentally and acting it out just enough to be caught on camera.

I just keep looking at Paige, Philip, and Elizabeth now and wonder which of them is going to die

Honestly, I think there's no way Elizabeth makes it out alive. She's always been the most committed, the driving force of the show's purpose. She's gotta die.

I think she ends up in exile, Paige decides to stay in the US, and Philip is the one with a tragic end

she's going to end up choosing Philip but also having her cover blown and is going to get disavowed by the Soviets and on the run from the US

imo whatever happens, it happens to Philip and Elizabeth. 'til death, etc.

good take

(xposts) I'd like that--kind of an open-ended, running-on-empty ending.

I think the perp sketch moment is going to be a pretty big plot beat and they've left it for the next episode. I was certainly anticipating it.

wasn't the sick lady sketching Elizabeth at the end? gonna be wild when it looks just like the FBI's sketch

I don't think FBI agents like Stan do "eureka!" moments

iirc, what they do is look at a bulletin board and then drop their coffee cup in shock

a friend of mine is just starting the series now and I'm excited to rewatch early episodes with them

Oh maybe they can be on the run, stop at a diner for onion rings, and then Journey comes on the jukebox...

Just looked up how many episodes are left: three.

Episode 8: "The Summit" (seems self-explanatory)
Episode 9: "Jennings, Elizabeth"(uncovered? killed?)
Episode 19: "START"(= Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty...seems like a positive ending, but who knows--maybe used highly ironically)

the treaty talks are the whole reason Elizabeth has this high stakes mission, though! history kind of shows her entire venture is doomed

Right--for Elizabeth, any thaw in the Cold War is bad. I guess I meant more in a general sense...for Philip, for Stan, for Paige (even if she might think otherwise--it'll save her her mother's life), for the U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! (I've always hoped the show wouldn't devolve into American jingoism, and it hasn't, unless you took Stan's impromptu Thanksgiving speech as coming from the show's creators.)

I'm trying to predict an ending where I haven't a clue.

unless you took Stan's impromptu Thanksgiving speech as coming from the show's creators.

I didn't take it that way at all. It was there to kind of reaffirm Stan's commitment to his job.

I'm hoping for a Basterds-style shakeup and Elizabeth takes Reagan out in a blaze of glory.

that’s ultimately the play, they played a little loose and more violent with history but the show respects the large arc of politics

While I'm sad there are only two episodes left after tonight, I'm extremely happy that every bit of it is endgame now. No more side stories or missions. All bubbling tension, all the time.

Elizabeth is on board ;_;

Didn't think tonight was anything special. It was nice that Elizabeth let the kid go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am6Nh46WpUI

I'm glad someone excerpted this for youtube. If not *the* best, it's one of the best uses of music intercut into a tv narrative I've ever seen.

Been avoiding (and still in practice avoiding) this thread because we've just started the season, but boy are the first two episodes strong. A+ music cues, too, right down to Mel McDaniel's "Louisiana Saturday Night," which is awesome, because I'd just been introduced to his "Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On," which is also A+ (country-cheese division). And this show at this point seems designed for Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads as much as it was perfect for "Tusk" in the first episode.

I liked all the Stan stuff tonight--wanted the whole episode to focus on him. Next week looks great. I've got to say, though: does Paige's latest about-face jibe with past year? Not for me.

Renee's going to turn out to be the greatest MacGuffin ever, no more complicated than Kramer wanting to be a banker on Seinfeld. She's just someone who always wanted to work for the FBI.

Paige has always hated being lied to. She's asked her mother about this several times and every time Elizabeth has lied to her. Also, she's what... 20 or 21 now? Everything she's learned has still been fable in practicality. Now she's seen some shit (blood and brain matter all over Elizabeth's face), scared to death in her apartment by her dad, so I think she's looking for a way out and this is it.

I'm glad the Elizabeth/Claudia scene was as subtle as it was. Any other show would've dramatized it more than that.

Which is why I found her true-believer conversion a stretch--she suddenly seemed to stop questioning whether she was being lied to--until you guys convinced me it made sense. I can go with one or the other, but not both. I just feel like they've let that character drift away.

Bringing Pastor Tim back made sense. I'd forgotten that he and his wife know everything.

As The Americans comes to a close, I'm also almost finished season 4 of Breaking Bad. The parallel between Stan closing in on Elizabeth/Philip and Hank doing the same with Walter/Gustav is perfect.

I am prepared for dark endings for a lot of these characters but if Oleg ends up in prison that seems pretty cruel.

When Phillip called Elizabeth and said everything was "topsy turvy at work" was that like a safeword phrase given her immediate "fuck, get the go bag and leave" reaction?

I cant see how this is all gonna tie up in one more ep!

yeah Paige's credulity feels like a badly written adolescent/young adult character tbh.

dude playing stan on fire in this episode w/that little half-smile of unspoken thoughts when he's listening to other people talk

Yeah I found the Paige scene a little uncharacteristically OTT. In general I do feel this season's felt a little rushed, and I have whiplash from the pacing gap from s5, but I'm confident the finale will stick the landing

xxxp topsy-turvy = time to go.

Are they ditching their kids?

Did you see the "next week on..." segment pre-closing credits?

Didn’t realize that Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are dating, and have been since 2013

They have a babby too

The finale needs to be about 3 hours, surely?

Just an hour like all the rest, unfortunately. I agree this season feels rushed.

I'm kinda hoping next week's episode is an interview with middle-aged Paige and Henry talking about how one day their parents just disappeared and no one ever saw them again.

I don't think it feels rushed necessarily. I don't know if I could have survived more of the slow drop tension of s05.

Oh shit there's only one left?

This season has been tight as hell but in retrospect there's a hell of a lot of wasted time and spinning wheels in S5. Hard to see what the point of, say, Philip's son was.

Yeah I was fully expecting Philip's son to come back this season but I guess not. All the stuff last season about the Morozovs, Tuan and grain now feels like a giant misstep.

I guess they'd argue a lot of that was meant to be character/worldbuilding? The grain guy showed how cold/murdery they were for eg. I agree on Phillips son tho - why bring all that up and then drop it again?

But then again, thats real life - things come and go at seeming random. Sometimes, we *dont* get closure. Maybe thats what the writers are aiming for.

an interview with middle-aged Paige and Henry talking about how one day their parents just disappeared and no one ever saw them again.

Haha I'd be ok with this, thats inspired. I hope we dont have a cliched shoot-out/key person dead/tense standoff at an airport swapping spies with the Reds scene. I'd hate that.

(I just watched such a scene in the film "Red Sparrow", which btw what a shitty film that was).

Philip and Elizabeth passing as anything in this show is more plausible than Jennifer Lawrence as a ballerina

Hahahaha otm. I was cringing at those dance scenes.

I agree on Phillips son tho - why bring all that up and then drop it again?

I agree in the sense that it was weird he got so much screentime, plus that suspenseful build when he was first introduced, but yeah I do like the idea that this is just an aspect of Philip's life that he never gets to connect with, and it's sort of haunting.

Having finally gotten to the point where I've watched most of the most acclaimed TV shows of the past decade, you can do the same with all of them near the finish line: look back at certain subplots and detours and wonder what the point was. The writers try certain things, some fall by the wayside, and they simply never go back.

To me, the big one here is still Renee. If that's left as is, that'll be a real head-scratcher. She'll be...a woman he met at the gym.