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The first time I saw The Americans was the start of 2013, when I had the opportunity to watch the first two episodes of the show prior to their release. At the time, I had no particular biases towards FX drama programming — I did like much of the comedies, but their dramas? I watched a lot of Nip/Tuck but that was pretty stupid (which I knew at the time, to be honest), but I never saw Justified, Sons of Anarchy, The Shield, etc.
So I was essentially a blank slate for the most part, although there was a little buzz on the show. I found the first episode enthralling and excellent, and the second one highly emotional and intense. I looked back at what I wrote way back then, and my only negative at the time I have 100% turned around on. That was that I found the idea of an FBI agent in counterintelligence to be a bit silly, yet now I see that it built to the worst heartbreak of all.
I mentioned then, and it bears repeating, that this show had a level of acting talent unmatched by anything I can think of seeing on any other drama. The leads, Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell as complicated ‘married’ secret spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, were consistently and unfairly good. The nature of the show meant that they had to constantly act as different identities, layering everything on top of itself, playing roles differently for their family, each other, and even themselves alone in a room. It is patently absurd that neither has won an Emmy yet.
The secondary characters were great, some that stayed until the end, others that met unpleasant ends. Noah Emmerich as Stan Beeman, the competent FBI neighbor who ends up becoming Philip’s best friend, was always so good — reminds me of how great I thought he was back as the actor as best friend in The Truman Show. Alison Wright as the sad, unfortunate Martha was one of those characters I could not fathom that they wouldn’t kill off. Yet they didn’t.
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It’s fun to call shows ‘lucky’ when child actors end up being talented enough to handle complicated material. It happened with Kiernan Shipka on Mad Men and it happened here with Holly Taylor as the older Jennings daughter Paige. The scene where her parents finally told her the truth gives me shivers as I just think about it, years later. Although she did have the benefit of being surrounded by phenomenal acting talent.
The only one to win an Emmy acting award was Margo Martindale as the Jennings’ handler Claudia, and I certainly wouldn’t argue with that decision. She was such a complicated, mysterious figure that only became clear in the penultimate episode of the entire series. Her counterpart Gabriel, played by Frank Langella, was also such a great presence.
On the Russian side, I feel like that the actors rarely get their due, but they were all so good. Just because they spoke in Russian subtitles means nothing — it felt truly immersive, a world that wasn’t trying to pretend that it was accented English as something else. I loved the characters of the KGB Rezident Arkady (Lev Gorn), the man who wanted to prevent war; the woman stuck in the middle of everything, Nina (Annet Mahendru); and of course, the magnificent work of Costa Ronin as Oleg, the man who sacrificed everything to save his country.
One of the things I realized from the start of the show is that its way of making you ‘root for the bad guys’ wasn’t simply by having them as main characters, but showing immediate complexity. They start to fall in love after years of a fake marriage in the first season, a marriage of duty becoming a marriage of something real. Although we knew how it would all end in the world with the fall of the USSR, what would that mean for these two spies? We couldn’t know.
Although there were a few monsters here and there over the course of the show, most people were just humans. I never bought into the character arc in Breaking Bad because there were too many jumps of logic for me to take it seriously. But here everything was salted from the start, a world where the spy game kills you slowly from the inside out.
The Jennings marriage went through ups and downs as might be expected, although it was complicated by the fact that they were involved in sleeping with other people and often killing them. Yet how could you not be moved when they spoke their Russian true names as they got married under the auspices of the exiled Russian Orthodox cleric?
The show built up the heartbreak from the start, pushing you to wonder who was going to permanently hurt whom first, Philip or Elizabeth. In the end, they ended up alone but together. They shared a heartbreak and loss, a sacrifice they had to make to survive and for their children to survive.
But why did Elizabeth turn back on so many years of hardline action and training? Over the course of the sixth and final season, we see how things seem to push her towards her own crisis of faith and identity. Philip already went over that hump, and was instead trying to prevent his own family from falling apart as he was brought back in the hated game against his best intentions.
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Elizabeth slowly began to question many of her hardline thoughts, but it was the little way that she was betrayed that clinched it all. Claudia and her people had been lying for years, manipulating reports to make things look a certain way. Changing all of the hard, difficult work of Elizabeth to suit their needs.
One thing the show was always unafraid of was its capability to kill of characters, but unlike some shows, it always seemed a logical aftermath of the circumstances. Tension started first simply because of the dangerous spy work being attempted, but soon things began to slowly get entangled with relationships and feelings.
Paige’s arc of paranoia to discovery to contempt to patriotic fervor set up things perfectly again for her final decision. Among her parents, she mentioned not being able to leave Henry behind, the one always left behind. So Paige abandoned her parents on the train, in a moment of musical perfection — the pause left between the words in U2’s ‘With or Without You’.
The show has always had such an elegant touch with its soundtrack, from the very first episode using ‘Tusk’ by Fleetwood Mac. The music always aligned with the time period — even that final song, released in 1987, as the Jennings’ worked at cross purposes while the USSR crumbled. We all know how Russia ended up after that, power snatched up by oligarchs, and then one oligarch in particular. Is that something that Elizabeth or Philip would have wanted to see?
As for Henry, he was always the ‘other’ child, hidden in his room, playing his video games, having his own life apart from everyone else in his family. Becoming a surrogate son to Stan, who might as well be his own son in the final moments of the episode. Because the heartbreak building up through every season culminated in the final montage.
Elizabeth mixing up her artistic emotional connection that she cannot explain with the children she does not understand. Paige abandoned and abandoning, getting drunk with an unknown future and unmoored from her past. Stan comforting Henry, doing what Paige asked him to do in the epic, completely perfect garage scene. Oleg alone and miserable in his cell. And the mysterious Renne, who may be a Russian spy or may be who she seems to be.
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The show wants us to feel like Stan in that moment — untethered and unsure. He lost his best friend and his faith in himself to some extent. Paige reminding Stan of Henry connects him back to something solid, something real. So in the end, it’s no real surprise Stan lets them go.
Here we saw a story that was always about a marriage, a metaphor for conflicting ideologies and the way raising a family seems like life and death in a world of Communism versus Capitalism. Reflecting on a time where monsters existed in the propaganda but rarely in real life. I have only respect for the way the show didn’t end with everything blowing up in an easy, cathartic bonfire nor did it let everyone off the hook.
There have been shows with great endings (what comes to mind are Futurama — both times, The Sopranos, The Leftovers, Lost, Angel, and of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation), and many with disappointing or ‘just fine’ ones (too many to list). The Americans easily falls among the list of great endings, yet it also had such a strong average quality throughout, that elevates it above many of the ones I just listed.
In a way, I’ll always wonder what happened next to these characters, but I also know that I don’t really need to know at all. The Americans is one of the best shows ever aired on television, and I will miss everything about it, the tension, the misery, the action, and the humanity.
What did you think of The Americans? Tell us in the comments below!
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