'The Americans' and the Effects of Fear and Ideology
I finally got around to watching the FX series The Americans. All six seasons. Far too quickly. It was that good.
Like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, The Americans brings the complexity of a novel to the television medium. And also like those other two shows, this one depicts protagonists who engage in truly terrible activities, and it seeks to understand why they do those terrible things. One notable distinction, however, is that this particular character-driven drama bases itself in recent history. (It’s also even more R-rated.)
Set late in the Cold War, The Americans follows a pair of Soviet spies who have been posing as an American couple for over fifteen years. They have two fully American children who know nothing about their double lives (more than double, actually), and in the pilot, an FBI counterintelligence agent moves in next door, coincidentally.
Even though the series includes plenty of 1980s international politics, it never feels like a political show. I never once got the sense that the writers were projecting their own personal views about the Cold War through the characters’ dialogue. The characters themselves all have strong opinions that make sense for who they are—of course the Soviet spies hate Ronald Reagan—but the show doesn’t take gratuitous jabs at anyone or anything to score cheap political points.
Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union is portrayed as angelic. Characters from both countries cross lines that should never be crossed, often because they fear the other side is doing something even worse, and the show acknowledges atrocities such as the Soviet gulag system. But no characters are portrayed as purely evil either. The show takes the time to humanize Americans and Soviets alike.
Rather than passing judgment, the show explores how fear and ideology can drive people toward behavior that they’d otherwise consider inexcusable.
Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) were indoctrinated and recruited at young ages before they had a chance to question their beliefs too rigorously. By the time the series starts, Philip seems to like living in America, putting the strength of his loyalty into question. Elizabeth, however, is a committed true believer who will do whatever is necessary to serve the cause. Especially in later seasons, she can be downright chilling in her certainty.
The show raises interesting questions. Among them: How far can an ideologue be pushed before they start to doubt the cause they’ve devoted their entire life to?
The Jennings kids, Paige and Henry (Holly Taylor and Keidrich Sellati), are pivotal to making the series work. They not only raise the stakes but also blur the lines between countries. One of the recurring dilemmas is what to do if Elizabeth and Philip ever need to return to Russia for good—do they leave their children behind or bring them to a foreign land where they don’t speak the language and know nothing about the culture? Plus, Paige is old enough to start noticing something’s not quite right with her parents, which creates additional tension.
And then there’s the FBI agent next door, Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich). He and Philip strike up a genuine friendship throughout the series, and yet we know that Philip’s other life is a betrayal of everything Stan stands for, prompting the questions of when and how this will blow up.
I won’t give away any specifics, but I was impressed with how well the show stuck the landing in the series finale. It wisely avoided tying up every last loose end, which would have felt cheap for a series founded on ambiguity. It managed to feel like a clear ending while still leaving me wanting more. A truly phenomenal conclusion to a series I should have watched years ago.
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