The Americans: Full Series Retrospective

the following is an in-depth story analysis if you haven't seen the americans you may want to before watching this video top level scientists work on a program to save this country from nuclear weapons and they don't have security can you explain that they feel safe here not for much longer born too late to explore the earth born too soon to explore the stars or the really messed up parts of the ocean but i was born just in time for the golden age of television hbo's most notable dramas may have been a bit before my time i'm not sure what a three-year-old slip maker would've thought of oz but these shows were just an incredible taste of things to come wetting our appetites for the sudden deluge of quality and innovation that would be upon us i'm on the record saying the golden age of television began with the seasons running during the 2007 writers guild of america strike and roughly ended with the series finale of hannibal but that's more about the amount of great shows all running concurrently i'm not saying there weren't top tier shows running before and after instead i'm admitting that those heady days were an embarrassment of riches so many great shows so little time and dependable workhorses had the sad fate of often getting lost in the shuffle i've made no secret of my contempt for the dexter and game of thrones finales but what can i offer as a rebuttal what shows have run for half a dozen years and still had a barn burner of a series finale breaking bad is my obvious pick but as i dug around the internet i saw the name of another finale bandied about start the final episode of the americans not only is it a six year long series with a finale held up as a masterpiece the show itself is held up as one of the greatest things to ever air on the small screen so is the americans really an unsung masterpiece that flew under the radar like some sort of stealth bomber in the closing days of the gilded age of tv time to trust but verify let's watch the americans [Music] [Applause] the americans is a cold war spy drama set in reagan era united states the series follows the exploits of two kgb spies in the illegals program philip and elizabeth jennings the two met in moscow during training got paired off like awkward lab partners and were then shipped off to the cozy suburbs outside dc to get fake married and become fake parents to their two real kids kids who have no knowledge of their parents secret lives it's the perfect cover with a nuclear family as a smokescreen the jennings parents can act with impunity behind enemy lines when the center needs they can tail blackmail steal and seduce commit character assassination or just flat out assassinate the first season sees the jennings parents attempting to undermine president reagan's star wars program for the uninitiated the star wars program was basically the 80s equivalent of israel's modern day missile defense iron dome except american taxpayers were expected to pay for it oh wait i forgot we paid for both anyway long story short star wars the defense system never worked which immediately throws you for a loop when you're a new viewer watching the americans is the show like in glorious bastards where the leads are capable of completely rewriting history is the show like boardwalk empire where the leads are injected right into history and history sort of morphs around to accommodate them or is the show like mad men where history remains exactly the same but we learned these characters secretly played a part in it i guess that's my main criticism of the first season of the americans the writers throw you into the deep end and leave you to figure out which way is up case in point is keeping track of the characters who is here for our one-off capers of the week and who is going to factor into the larger arcs of the series the show's first resident hero falls victim to a frame job early in season one but he turns up again an entire season later i thought that dude was dead we meet annelise a woman philip is hooking up with whom he dupes into working for him in the second episode of the show we won't see her again for another 21 episodes but when she comes back she is the catalyst of an entire storyline then there's characters like irina philip's ex who reveals she secretly had philip's child after philip left russia she and philip have sex and affair which sparks a major rift between he and elizabeth so surely arena will be an important character going forward except she isn't irena never comes back the benefit is that this structure creates an intricate and tangled web of allegiances and possible casualties just be aware that unless you've gotten uncanny ability to put names to faces you might feel like you need to make one of those giant conspiracy boards to keep track of it all it's not the kind of show you watch drunk i am i killed someone you did what you had to do for what i mean what was the point for some exes and i was on a virtual highway i don't even know what that means another way the show throws you in the deep end the exact dynamics between the jennings parents is wishy-washy from square one while the trials and tribulations they face on the romantic familial and undercover fronts are all engaging in their own right the through line of their relationship in the first season is a bit hard to grasp this began as a fake spy relationship just like the series chuck so the immediate question is has this relationship become real and this season is about their love hitting the rocks or has it all been a lie and this season is about exploring their true feelings for each other it seems to shift between the two from episode to episode i want a good bedrock so that i feel it when the show decides to shake the foundations i don't want to think both characters are in a romantic farce where one misunderstanding leads to the next until you just wish they'd kiss already that being said the payoff at the end of the season is strong and it's a baseline the show we'll work with going forward we also have a lot of fun with the dynamics between the two elizabeth is the true believer and philip is the cynic who mistrusts his own government he seems to like america but is it just an appreciation he picked up because his kids are able to lead happier childhoods than him and can he be trusted to support the cause or is he going native so to speak you loved it here and you started loving it more and more now look what finally happened i fit in like i'm supposed to rather than playing this the typical way the americans inverts it you'd think when the ussr betrays their trust philip would shout see i'm right and elizabeth would blindly defend her home country instead we get to explore elizabeth's emotions as the scales fall from her eyes while at the same time matthew reese can sell with an expert understated performance that yeah this is the kind of [ __ ] he's just come to expect from the ussr not to mention the chemistry between the two is absolute dynamite i know i'm not the only one who thinks that the two leads popped out a kid together in 2016. i'm glad i was able to call it this time my friend showed me a web series called video game high school a while back and i was like yeah it's kind of goofy fun but i just don't buy the romance between the two leads and he said well yeah they actually got married in real life i'm sorry i'm so sorry the cases of the week are low-key but still quite a bit of fun fun being a relative term i'm the kind of sicko who was enthralled by the emotional turmoil of a bug planting plan that involves poisoning an innocent housekeeper's son maybe engaging is a better word but don't worry it's very simple do as i say he gets better one two no no you give it to him now give it to him now long time viewers will know better call saul as my favorite series and this show makes equal hay with the meticulous nature of the caper if you're the kind of person who gets a fun little tickle in your brain whenever a crime thriller explores the scrupulous detail of pulling off a crime you'll be right at home watching the americans it's an absolute feast of that kind of material granted the visual direction is much more workmanlike especially in the first couple seasons it's certainly not a bad looking show but the americans rarely indulges in the sort of visual flair as better call saul does on the other hand i can't remember the last time saul goodman and kim wexler played hot potato with a rival lawyer's trigger bomb so that they would unwittingly blow themselves up incredible as much as the show delivers on the heist caper and scheme front there are one or two episodes that don't quite hit the mark almost everyone i've spoken to was confused by the first few minutes of the pilot because again the writers drop you in the deep end later there's a hairbrained scheme to frame a guy for rape by drugging him but first staging a mugging after already having the woman seduce him drugless anyways and the details are kept from the audience for the duration of the episode ocean's 11 style fair enough there was an element of ocean's 11 where you're like is this part of a plan or are they actually in huge trouble but with this episode we don't even know the basic details of the plan so i'm just assuming philip has the situation completely under control the whole time which he does and then there's the episode where philip and elizabeth are exposed by the us government and interrogated yeah they got found out in episode six sure this is all some sort of loyalty test i will reiterate these are exceptions mostly the show nails things even when historical circumstances would seemingly deflate the tension there's an early episode where they enter a panicky frenzy after reagan gets shot is this one of us is this a coup despite knowing from us history that it was just some random nutter the episode is still a tense watch elizabeth almost blows her own face off with a booby trap in her sniper rifle drop box and while i dragged the faking your cover being blown plot a second ago the story runs parallel to the jennings being unable to pick their kids up from school as a result of the scheme which leads to the kids hitching a ride home with a very creepy individual so even when the americans has a rare miss on the spy storyline it usually parlays it into a thrilling subplot on the family front we're no better than wild dogs the least thrilling element of the spycraft is definitely the sexual one the americans will explore a more nuanced challenging and downright uncomfortable look into the sexual exploitation of vulnerable or perverted people as the series progresses but in the first season it's by the numbers of james bond fair horny men will always pick elizabeth out of a crowd as their sexual target so she can exploit them it doesn't seem to depend all that much on their social interactions only how smoking hot she is it feels like it was written by me in high school before i got my dick wet well she's just pretty so she can do whatever and anybody will want to [ __ ] her instantly and give up government secrets to her that makes sense the show will start to explore the nuances of romantic exploitation starting next season but for the first 13 episodes being hot is an i win button even in the world of trained espionage agents although one positive note when it comes to sex fx wasn't allowed to air anything full frontal but they certainly had the mo it's fine from behind sex position heavy shows like game of thrones are all [ __ ] and boobs but the americans knew what it could get away with and steered into the skid no pun intended this may be the most ass heavy show in the universe [Music] we get the gender flip of the seduction dynamics with philip and frumpy fbi secretary martha phillip poses as an internal fbi investigator to pump martha for information literally initially interviewing martha as part of his supposed job before seducing her and ultimately eloping with her while the men who elizabeth exploits are all inevitably bdsm obsessed pervs poor martha is just a lonely girl in a lonely job who thinks she's finally found a good man her very own superman ironically reflected in philip's chosen pseudonym clark wait a second clark and martha why did you say that name oh never gets old philip is in a more morally ambiguous situation the things philip is willing to open up about to martha and to elizabeth lying to both of them in his own way are messy and complicated it's the sickest betty and veronica relationship ever put on television and will continue to be one of the strongest story lines throughout the series [Music] on the less compelling side we have stan beeman fbi agent and neighbor to the jennings family married man stan starts having a fling with bombshell nina sergna a russian kgb agent he has dirt on this storyline in the first season at least bores me to be fair i've been watching people have affairs in the 20s and the 40s and the 50s and now that i'm here in the 80s it all feels run-of-the-mill more than run-of-the-mill it's contrived the writers want to mine emotional drama from an fbi agent banging his kgb informant but they don't know how to write the origin of the relationship realistically it feels forced the better choice would probably have been to play things like mad men when we first meet stan and the pilot just show him already knees deep in the affair with his informant let the audience fill in the history the writers instead explore the origin of it and it's hard to buy it also plays into a larger problem the first season has which is that stan comes across as kind of an [ __ ] if the show we're going for a nelson van aldeny the investigators are also evil theme that might work but they aren't instead the character of stan is just a walking contradiction according to the show he's a former undercover guy who never shook the horrors he saw while investigating white supremacists he's supposedly paranoid of everyone he meets but also falls head over heels for nina obvious master temptress he's scarred by the horrors undercover work put him through but reacts with absolute horror when he learns nina put out to get information how did you get him to talk he sucked his [ __ ] just like you told me to i never said that i never said that nina jesus then to cap it all off he remorselessly kills some soviet embassy intern in an act of senseless vengeance later in the season stan in his whole department will eventually be taken to task for this the following season but really it's pretty despicable and it's weird because stan's not the character the show wants you to think stan is noah emerick turns in a great performance as the neighbor you always dream of having he's an oversharer but a fast friend fiercely sympathetic while being emotionally checked out himself he's one of the best parts of the show and sort of becomes the moral foundation of the series going forward he'll work within the law when possible but step outside it to risk his own career or life when he needs to anything to do the right thing not according to his country but according to his own moral code which is why it's so weird that in season one stan is such a scumbag i will personally send you his balls to wear around your neck at your next mayday parade the climax of season one is a thrill ride elizabeth and philip have to run two missions in tandem one will go on an easy peasy lemon squeezy dead drop pickup while the other has to go on a risky mission to meet a potential u.s military defector there's a lot of relationship drama mined from the two arguing over which of the two will take the risky mission only amplified by dramatic irony when the audience learns that the dead drop mission is a giant death trap and not easy peasy lemon squeezy at all it'll be easy peasy lemon squeezy no it won't it will be difficult difficult lemon difficult the situation is so dire that the russian embassy resorts to spray painting the mission of board code on every single employee's car then driving them all around dc and praying to mother russia the agents will see it it's a desperate final play as everyone's backs are to the wall and ends in a wild shootout and car chase that feels like some classic spy thriller material it's so awesome but a word of warning to new viewers enjoy it while it lasts the americans develops a taste for understated anti-climactic finales and never goes for this sort of action-heavy payoff again as emotionally impactful as future finales are the jennings family learned their lesson after this and keep themselves insulated from do or die situations as much as possible going forward the journey may have been a bit directionless from time to time but the americans ultimately lines up all the dominoes for a fantastic follow-up season stan and his wife finally have a falling out over his lies philip and elizabeth reconnect nina becomes a double agent for the soviets and the jennings daughter page starts to look into the strange personal lives of her parents this is all capped off with a montage set to peter gabriel's games without frontiers just one song in the stellar playlist of more eclectic 80s hits that composes the soundtrack i appreciate the more out there music choices that the americans will occasionally indulge in so many 80s period pieces roll with a now that's what i call music from the 80s bundle of standards but the americans fleshes out the time period with a mix of hits deep cuts and stuff that aged strangely it feels more authentic and transports you to the time period without being too distracting maybe a pleb to your take but that's all i got of the music sorry it's not more in depth i know i'm not anthony fantano i thank god for that fact every day so that's it for season one with their most dangerous mission yet under their belt the jennings are in the mood for a nice little vacation but they can't insulate themselves from everything as we learn when we meet back up with them in season two [Music] the through line of season one was supposedly uncovering and sabotaging the star wars missile defense program but as we learned in the finale it was all a wild goose chase the american government knew how to make star wars work about as well as ryan johnson by definitively setting up a season end game during the premiere the american season 2 immediately thrives due to having a strong sense of direction and impending narrative payoff collaborating with another married couple in the illegals program the connors the two families pull off a simple mission then spend the weekend at an amusement park with their kids as the trip winds down the jennings and the conner's son jared discover the rest of the conners brutally murdered in their hotel room who did this why did they do it and how did they find out who this family really was season two of the americans invites you if you dare to solve their murders [Music] that doesn't hook you enough the capers of the week all tied together with more purpose too the soviets want to recreate the american stealth bomber program so they need the holy trinity of the 80s aeronautical world the radar-proof paint the echo computer program and scientist anton baklanov the father the son and the holy spirit oh yeah and they need to bug the arpanet so i guess that's like the pope the abduction and deportation of anton baklanov is probably the nastiest scheme we've sent philip on since the clock back in season one you're a monster you're not a man whatever you once were whoever you were they trained it out of you then on top of that we have both philip and elizabeth pimping out someone who trusts them in the name of their mission on the whole the seduction dynamics of season two are much more nuanced than the first instead of being an i win button we've got elizabeth pulling off some emotional exploitation while keeping it in her pants philip's ally analysis disgusted when she realizes what he's turned her into meanwhile elizabeth's ally lucia is pretty cool with that she's like damn let's keep the love train rolling but since apparently the 80s were just one giant nightmare for everybody her next assignment is a killer lover womp womp so again the sexual dynamics of the series took a big step in the right direction going into season two points deducted though for the sheer volume of scenes where someone has a traumatizing mission then some sort of tender snuggling session afterwards yes human affection is life-affirming i got it and scene cut just cut whenever well was the episode running a few minutes short so they just threw in some b-roll of carrie and matthew making out on set and when it comes to lovebirds we gotta talk about stan and nina since nina has admitted her betrayal to the resident tura and is now working as a turncoat she's tasked with getting stan the man to turn over stealth information to the russians nina hatches a scheme with the cocky new science and technology officer oleg gorovich burov feminist oleg is the non-comedic version of dan egan from veep he's handsome and smarmy and constantly hatching schemes with absolute confidence schemes that all inevitably end in failure but never shake his confidence that he can pull off one next season oleg will pretend to discover nina's already confessed betrayal then threaten to send her to the gulag unless stan can give him something worthwhile oleg and nina start hooking up and much their horror they realize they're gonna have to do some forced method acting if this plan doesn't pay off nina really is getting shipped off to the gulag i was pretty down on the dynamic between stan and nina in season one because it all felt a little forced and out of character for both of them but season two goes beyond just assuming viewers buy into their love the writers actually put in some decent leg work to retroactively justify the feelings between the pair an effort i genuinely appreciated they want to answer the questions like why would stan think this is real why would he trust her what makes him so compelled to gravitate toward nina in particular i mean in the grand scheme of things considering his background as an undercover agent and the baggage that comes with you know beyond just the obvious she has an absurdly pretty face we also even get a minor emotional retcon of stan's wanton murder from last season last year they twisted the knife by revealing oh that guy you murdered out a blind vengeance he was actually a total sweetheart he never did a thing to hurt america he was a kid out of his depth and he was going to be a doctor he was one day away from retirement they got the full on abby anderson treatment then in season two they make up for it with a funny little scene where stan's boss agent gad gets guilt-tripped by the resident tura for being complicit in the victim's death and gad basically tells us kgb accused her to go [ __ ] the dog would have washed out in a year didn't have the stomach for the trade he wanted to be a doctor you should have been a doctor all in all the second season of the americans is a party on the small screen and everyone's invited there's only one plot line that's a tad mishandled daughter paige continues her suspicions of her parents personal lives and for the first half the season is solid stuff the jennings have to call in another agent to pinch hit as their distant relative and then they engineer an awkward catching your parents in the act moment in an effort to deter paige from snooping around the house at least i think that's what they were doing hope your cover story travel agent jobs have plenty of family therapy on the health insurance package then paige takes the advice of bully mcguire and gets religion knowing where the show is going next season this is effective groundwork in season three philip and elizabeth will be tasked with recruiting paige into the illegals program making her a spy just like them they'll have to attempt to parlay her quest for meaning through christ into a quest for meaning through glorious mother russia utilizing the liberal costs her church champions as a bridge but like i said this is groundwork material not dominate the runtime material and for much of the middle of season 2 paige's conversion to christianity and her parents handling of it does dominate the runtime the americans is a show that's as much about the struggles of marriage and raising children as it is about spycraft but come on for season 2 the familial drama is heightened but of little consequence in the grand scheme of things it has a habit of falling into the people shouting his drama trap you respect jesus but not us and since elizabeth will run point on recruiting page in season three phillips hot-headedness this season ultimately just gets swept under the rug but what about that oh so enticing murder mystery that frames the season now that is an absolute gold mine philip and elizabeth have to wrestle with the paranoia of their own family being in danger only accentuated by the survival of the conor's traumatized son jared there's an effective red herring in the form of a sad sack american stealth program member who knew the connors but never has the eye of suspicion cast on him after their death so astute audience members will likely finger him as the culprit but no then there's the obvious red herring lyric lyric is a ruthlessly efficient navy seal who the connors were blackmailing by exploiting his homosexuality he's the deadliest threat the jennings have faced yet professional code breaker expert combatant and he's gay which makes him like a ground type to elizabeth's previously unstoppable electric love the jennings enter into a plot line with him that's reminiscent of the trinity killer season of dexter aka how long can we leave this devious killer alive and mine information from him before he finds out who we are and murders our family hello elizabeth jennings the town they lived in cars they drove the fact that they were married i was two or three meetings from finding their home address a mission that results in unexpected civilian casualties leads larry to seek revenge and in the span of a few episodes he starts to extrajudicially dismantle the kgb's illegals operation in dc with the ultimate intention of capturing the jennings family alive it's edgy or seat stuff and serves as a giant shot of adrenaline during the season's final few hours that being said a part of me wishes this was more of a season-long thing watching lyrics slowly pull the threat of the kgb sweater until all that's left is the jennings parents utterly exposed is thrilling material instead it's all sort of crammed into a season-ending two-parter but boy oh boy is that two-parter awesome [Music] but like i said when it comes to the murder of the connors lyric is only a red herring the killer is revealed as jared the conor's own son after falling in love with their handler a dynamic that is creepy enough in its own right given his age he turned the gun on his kgb parents and his unaware sister when they attempted to steer him away from their line of work it all happened so fast that the true horror of his motivation and actions doesn't really sink in until you ruminate on it yeah it's some creepy creepy [ __ ] and jared's actor brings it home as his personality eerily shifts away from the shattered youth we've come to know him as as if that horror weren't enough for the jennings they are informed shortly after that since jared you know didn't work out on account of the whole murdering his family thing paige is the next contestant that's for us to decide paige is your daughter but she's not just yours she belongs to the cause philip tries to exert control tries to protect his children but the political and power dynamics are all too clear what the center wants the center gets and elizabeth isn't nearly as opposed to this plan as philip is paige will become a soviet asset or murder her whole family trying buckle up philip you're about to have a painful season three [Music] the americans does not hide for a single second that season three is intended to horrify philip at the prospect of forcing his daughter into his line of work he's got to fold the corpse of his informant annelise into a suitcase by shattering her bones then elizabeth catches a shattered tooth during an altercation with the fbi so he's gotta pull the chip pieces out of her infected gums with some pliers out in the garage the only injury equally skin crawlingly painfully down to earth i've ever seen on television is the infected buck shot in lester's hand from the first season of fargo we've gone beyond the incredibles level i don't want the kids in my line of work because they'll be in danger we're really showing just how nasty and not so glamorous this life is i don't want her putting people into a suitcase and i don't want her ending up in a suit don't kiss her i would never put her in this position what do you think will happen the show also accentuates the more uncomfortable aspects of the sexual manipulations the jennings parents engage in we've always had the callous exploitation of poor fbi secretary martha but now we've got a second uncomfortable philip seduction as he is tasked with enticing the underage daughter of a cia director who was the same age as paige there's a deeply disturbing episode capper where philip watches his underage target kimmy dance to yaz's only you the album he just bought his own daughter for her birthday thank god this show aired on fx a network willing to explore the horrific nature of being saddled with such a task in the name of your country this was a netflix original they'd probably try and pitch it to you as just another cool benefit of being a spy on the stan oleg front true to form oleg's plot to get stan beamon to sell out his country for nina ended in failure welcome to the gulag if you survive you earn your freedom oleg goes to kick a bullet and stan's head in a crime of passion but stan passes the speech check and lives to see another day stan later approaches oleg with a hairbrained scheme of his own to unmask a russian defector as a double agent then get the fbi to trade her in exchange for nina's freedom sounds like a hell of a plan stan i'm sure this won't end in complete disaster the first few episodes of the season are masterpieces of tension the direction has never been stronger the confrontation between stan and oleg is pretty visually striking and stan's slow walk away as he anticipates a gunshot to the back still put me on the edge of my seat even though i knew in the back of my mind stan would live to amaze another day screw you oleg you want to shoot me shoot me in the back there's a nail-biting episode where philip and elizabeth realize they're being tailed and have to engineer a way to ditch the combined manpower of the fbi and the cia the score incorporates this pulsing heartbeat feel that continues to drum on even after elizabeth pulls off her final getaway then you've got the aforementioned human suitcase origami and oren scravello dental segment the latter of which left my face contorted in a wince for almost a minute esteman baggage and open house are a hat-trick three standout episodes to get the audience hooked for the season to come after the tailing and mr breznev's wild ride the americans decides to pump the brakes on the action the rest of the season trades on paranoia which is what the cold war was really all about charlie brown stan bets his professional career on a dangerous gamble that their soviet defector is too good to be true and the series finally makes hey with the suspicious distrustful personality stan was set up within the pilot and when the bug philip got martha to plant his discovered her entire world begins to unravel the danger she's in is only amplified when the internal investigator that gets called in is not her husband which leaves her wondering who the hell did i marry i met a man named walter taffet yesterday who's he well he's you and to cap it all off nina has offered a series of missions within the prison to socially manipulate other inmates into giving up intel in exchange for her freedom we've got martha suspicious of her husband stand suspicious of his source philip suspicious of his handler page suspicious of her parents the fbi suspicious of everyone within their own office tie all this paranoia up in a nice little ribbon with direction at an all-time high some clutch soundtrack picks and the cast and writers really settling into these characters grooves it's no wonder season 3 is held up as the year the americans really hit its stride i'm not going to entirely disagree when the show is capitalizing on the paranoia backstabbing and second guessing it's a joy to watch there's also a lot of times you wonder when the americans is just gonna get to the fireworks factory especially when the show spends major chunks of run time on est seminars the socio-political soviet ongoings overseas or a whole bottle episode devoted to an old lady blathering on about her life before she gets killed by elizabeth for being in the wrong place at the wrong time so i tied an onion to my belt which was the style at the time now to take the fairy caused a nickel maybe i was just overhyped for this episode since do male robots dream of electric sheep was touted as a series highlight and even earned the series its first emmy nom for outstanding writing but i was unimpressed an innocent person is in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up a casualty of the jennings this is ground we've covered before i would argue covered more effectively and much much quicker the americans is spinning a bunch of storyline plates and they all start to wobble as season 3 progresses priming the audience for everything to come crashing to the ground in spectacular dramatic fashion it's philip's relationship with underage kimmy going to come to a pervy head will stan's antics compromise the careers and lives of himself and his co-workers will nina pull off her stay of execution will the eye of suspicion drive martha to turn in her husband or simply crack under the pressure herself well sadly you're gonna have to wait until season four for all those storylines to reach their grand horrifying payoffs season three is all set up no payoff which is sometimes a slow-burning deliberate choice and sometimes just frustrating when are they gonna get to the fireworks factory [Laughter] in my sleep i have nightmares about living in a world where the americans was canceled after season three and i wake in a cold sweat all these plotlines left up in the air would been lost a [ __ ] time i mean i guess stan's tit-for-tat prisoner exchange plot actually does come to fruition only for it to be kicked upstairs so a more valuable asset than nina can be extracted instead but that still leaves nina on the bubble it's a resolution that's oddly satisfying in how profoundly dissatisfying it is it's a day of big disappointments for all of us the one and only plot line that truly comes to a head is paige how do you fix a problem like paige the jennings are getting squeezed on both sides to reveal the truth to her the center is demanding she be recruited meanwhile paige's mounting suspicions demand answers master manipulator that she is you'd figure elizabeth would do a slightly better job priming her daughter for the revelation but this is not her best work in the art of social engineering maybe that's the point the jennings parents can play anybody except for their own daughter keeping in line with the understated nature of the season paige doesn't learn her parents secrets in a do or die scenario where she gets tangled up with enemy spies and her life is on the line schlocky fun as that may have been that's not the tone the series wants to go for instead one night she comes home puts her foot down about all the weirdness going on then philip and elizabeth just cave and tell her obviously they don't tell her everything they don't come right out and say hey we both iced more people than freddy krueger and about half of them were bystanders instead they spin the narrative that they're civil rights activists invoking the soviet union's involvement in the anti-apartheid movement and obvious vested interest in u.s nuclear disarmament and apartheid for one and slow down the nuclear arms race stop terrorism and world hunger this is a fun direction for the show to head in they aren't actually coming clean to their daughter they're just spinning an entirely new web of lies to recruit her i just wish the jennings and the show were more committed to the bit the agents have the capacity to conjure up fake relatives and friends an ability they will exploit next season to convince someone their goals and actions are moral they don't use it on page i mean you'd imagine they'd be staging fake missions and [ __ ] letting paige overhear it sorry your father is out tonight he had to save a bunch of children from an orphanage ronald reagan set on fire then paige goes oh my god maybe i was wrong maybe my parents cause is a righteous one instead they continue to act super clandestine and untrustworthy around paige which naturally collapses her trust in them and leads to our cliffhanger paige calls up her good friend and religious mentor pastor tim and spills the beans they're russians how are the jennings going to get out of this mess without losing their daughter's trust for good and what will happen in all the other plot lines that didn't get resolved at all tune in next season to find out [Music] it takes about 48 hours for elizabeth to figure out that page on master to pastor tim thanks in part to tapping all her daughter's conversations but also because a frazzled paige confesses so now there's this one giant loose end that the jennings can't get rid of in the typical fashion lest they lose paige's trust forever the center hatches a goofy scheme to send the jennings family to epcot goofy scheme little accidental joke there for ya well the family is away another agent will take out pastor tim and his wife and make it look like an accident and then jennings parents are like what are you [ __ ] stupid you think paige isn't gonna put two and two together but that's a risk the center is willing to take even though losing page means this whole risky idea to recruit her goes up in smoke yet another mission that fails and ends in wanton casualties to cover up the attempt it's been a running theme throughout the series but really comes to the forefront this season the jennings are willing or rather commanded to risk their own lives and the lives of their informants in pursuit of goals that either fail or are ultimately of zero use to the cause they go to all that effort to steal submarine propellers in season two only for the engineers back home to miss obvious design flaws and sync the subs with soldiers on board they risk martha's life and end the old ladies to bug the male robot in season 3 only for the resident turo to off-handedly comment that nobody ever says anything of importance near the male robot and now the effort to recruit paige is at risk of getting mothballed as a consequence of the center demanding they rush it the damning track record of the center that makes you never want to trust their judgment again is made all the more horrifying by the central spy plot of the season william a lone undercover agent who's been behind enemy lines even longer than the jennings has worked his way through the ranks at a biological research center over the last 25 years he's now tasked with stealing samples of the scariest pathogens he can get his hands on glanders think covet 19 with a 50 mortality rate and lassa fever essentially weaponized ebola william and philip both share a disillusionment with their handlers and now that one wrong move with a vial could unleash a premature biological terror attack with them as patient zero the stakes have never been higher if there's any mission that needs to be aborted it's this one tens of thousands of people start oozing pus all over the streets of dc so it's safe in my house what do you want me to say the americans really hits its stride in season four the compelling narrative through line from season two is merged with the more emotionally compelling weighty character explorations from season three but i didn't have the same experience i had with season three where i'm waiting for things to pay off that never do you better believe both chekhov's plague vials are getting cracked open by somebody before the credits roll how close did you get to him we touched him he was coughing there was blood it must have fallen but in the grand scheme of the american season four biological warfare is small potatoes everybody's chickens come home to roost this year as events set in motion a long time ago finally reached their conclusion we lost annalise in season three along with a handful of series arc players but the only main character so far to bite the bullet was stan's old partner chris amador and amador wasn't the most compelling character he liked to hump women and he loved affairs it was like all he talked about damn stan you should have an affair sometime i love affairs i love having regular sex and i have it all the time but affairs are even better i want to get married like you one day stan just so i can have an affair then we get to season 4 and characters we've known for years start dropping like flies the main cast turns into when everything must go sale even characters who don't wind up meeting the grim reaper wind up targets of the deportation fairy the first to have their number come up as nina after a futile effort to get a letter to anton baklanov's son her sentence of death is reinstated damn they really did mean shortly nina's life behind the eight ball finally comes to a bleak end it's exactly as depressing as they want it to be which is a lot why this wasn't just part of the season three finale i don't know next we have the main event of the season the unmasking of martha as the mole within the fbi and martha's discovery that philip is a kgb officer i mean words escape me it's all so beautiful stan's validated suspicions philip's desperate bid to exfiltrate her elizabeth's resentment of philip's genuine feelings gad's utter horror at what went on under his watch this is an end time scenario and every performance sells it martha why'd they draw her misunderstanding didn't know we knew her but no performance sells it more than allison wright as martha being coached by philip to throw the feds off her trail she puts on a hell of a show but the pressure still gets to be more than she can bear in a sad sort of panic she runs away with no real plan or possibility of escape the kgb and the fbi scramble to be the first to grab her with the jennings ultimately tracking her down first they coordinate her exfiltration and philip breaks the bad news that he's not coming with her so sweet innocent martha gets shanghaied to the soviet union poor trusting martha whose only crime was wanting to be loved well that in treason but you know what i mean i'll be alone [Music] just the way it was before i met you sorry i think i got something in my eye listen i know award shows are all [ __ ] but it's criminal that alison wright didn't get an emmy nomination for her work in season four it's such a captivating storyline and she's the linchpin and after she shipped off the total party kill continues oleg tips off the fbi about the biological weapons plot then flees the country gad is forced to retire then is accidentally killed in an ill-conceived recruiting effort and arcadey is forced to retire then png'd having one of your officers marry his secretary which is the lowest thing i have seen in my entire life and now this you're being expelled from the country and as promised someone catches loss of fever our unfortunate recipient is the bitter biological warfare spy william not only does he break the vial to avoid capture and interrogation as the feds surround him but it's also the one thing he can do for the world that will make the last 25 years of his life matter loss of fever is the shiny new toy the soviet union wants to play with william knows it'll be safer on his corpse in a biohazard graveyard than in the hands of his misguided masters so william takes the hard way out describing in excruciating detail how his vital organs will liquefy and stream out of his anus as the infection takes hold seconds after putting that vial mental image in our heads agent aderholt takes the opportunity to play good cop in my favorite moment of the series would you like a coke [Laughter] william's deathbed reflections in the season finale are captivating he smiles as he recalls the auspicious beginnings but laments that he opted out of having a fake wife when they started fighting he's envious of philip which is he hadn't let her go wishes she'd been there for all those years just to have something it's not like you can go out to the bar and find somebody new not when you can't even trust a friend with the secrets you're carrying it's a scary insight into the loneliness of this world only accentuated by the tragic fate of martha hansen earlier in the run i'd say there were a lot of times i got what the americans was going for but season four was the first time i truly connected with the emotions swirling around the series it's also not coincidentally the first time i felt like the americans was more than just a really good show this is some must watch television the absence of closeness makes you dry inside but still committed was the only thing we had left all those deaths and characters written off the series but the one unlikely character who survives until the end is good old pastor tim rolling the dice on being able to keep him quiet the jennings give page her first mission buddy up to pastor tim so he keeps his big mouth shut ironically late in the season when their handler says sorry everything got so [ __ ] up this year how about a seven month break from the spycraft the only person who doesn't get a break is paige she still has to keep working past her tim and his wife i also appreciate that the show doesn't send pastor tim to meet his maker either by the jennings hand or a contrived coincidence a lot of other shows can't resist cheaply killing off an unwanted secret holder immediately after milking a quick cliffhanger out of them yes i'm playing the doakes clip again and no i will never let this go if i had to choose a negative for this season is that oleg is just kind of there he really doesn't get up too much just visits his parents dates a new girl then gives stan the bioweapons tip at the end after plenty of conniving and scheming in the previous two seasons it's a shame to see him on the back burner especially since we see quite a lot of him on the back burner so that's it on season four actually damn i almost forgot about the young he plot elizabeth makes a friend forges a genuine connection with her all while we wait for the other shoe to drop and elizabeth to be forced to do something terrible to her which boy does she more fuel for the thematic fire of feigned relationships in lieu of real ones the pain of ruining the life of an innocent asset you consider a good person and the ultimate crushing loneliness after the job is done a crushing loneliness that paige will soon become accustomed to when philip catches her making on stan beam and sun and puts a stop to it as the credits roll dad you have no idea no idea [Music] the premiere of season five sees lots of fever back on the table sooner than expected not respecting william's dying wishes the jennings are tasked with digging up his sealed steel coffin and hacking a slice of salami off william's infected corpse this leaves the already disillusioned philip wondering even further are we the baddies but when they learn of a possible conspiracy by the us government to introduce pests into the soviet wheat supply and starve people the jennings get back in the saddle and go on a quest with zero moral ambiguity it's time to dismantle the experiment and feed the world and if anybody has to be killed along the way they're just bad guys who have it coming this gung-ho attitude is encouraged by their latest undercover ally tuwan who plays the part of adopted son and is a tanky piece of [ __ ] hates his homeland where he comes from don't know how you people let a guy like that get out he should have put a bullet in his head a long time ago philip and elizabeth each get a mark within the wheat conspiracy while tuan works a fellow kid at his high school philip is distraught to learn that the americans are actually making bug-resistant wheat to feed the world as opposed to making bugs that will starve the world whoops looks like you killed an innocent person again you should have asked please meanwhile oleg investigates corruption within the soviet union's food supply chain and stan attempts to recruit some local assets and that's really all i feel i need to cover on the plot lines of this season there is something more important we need to talk about first the show's writers joel fields and joe weisberg openly admitted in interviews that season 5 of the americans was going for something different with its pacing they jokingly referred to the show as going from slow burn to not even burning just warm embers and holy mother of god am i inclined to agree season 3 was already an experiment in deliberate pacing but if both seasons are experiments and slow burns season 3 is like a baking soda volcano while season 5 is the manhattan project it is interminable this is coming from a man with plenty of experience with slow-moving shows i've seen lots of seasons of television that test my patience but ultimately come together in some sort of spectacular and rewarding fashion that makes the journey seem worthwhile i'm also a die-hard fan of the slow simmering better call saul and my favorite season is probably the fourth one you know the most boring one the one where jimmy works in a cell phone store and mike spends the whole year digging a hole in the ground better call saul has tons of sequences solely designed to show you boring and monotonous aspects of their careers and lives it executes this with stylistic editing and a score that conveys the emotions they want to inspire meanwhile when the american season 5 wants to show you how lengthy and arduous digging up a coffin is they do so by making you watch people dig a hole for five minutes not that the rest of the plot going forward is much more engaging than people digging a big hole i tend to be a sort of autistic savant when it comes to remembering what happened in each hour of a tv show just by looking at the episode title but even fresh off my watch of the series i'm stumped on half of these i imagine that's because for much of the season mostly the same things are happening each episode training page super bugs elizabeth marcus charming phillips mark is not tuwan's gonna bully the kid stan tries to recruit someone we want a blackmail oleg oleg investigates a grocer why are they investigating me training page super wheat charming mark phillips sucks bully the kid stan goes recruiting i don't want you to blackmail oleg olig investigates a grozer why are they investigating me paige is training more let's talk about weed elizabeth mark phillip mark i got some boys to bully the kid with poop you better not blackmail oleg the grosser i investigated led to a different grocer i can investigate why is the kgb investigating me is stan's girlfriend kgb i don't know investigated grosser kgb investigates me is stan's girlfriend kgb i don't know let's talk about wheat some more then we'll train paige some more we decided not to blackmail oleg oh wait we we want a blackmail oleg again gab would want us to blackmail oleg in his memory which is why i like is under investigation but i already knew that but i'm gonna have another scene where oleg pretends he didn't know that and asked somebody why he's under investigation again tai chi with weed man weed girl bad is stan's girlfriend kgb i don't know you figure it out this goes on for the span of a full 13 episode season two hours longer than the extended lord of the rings trilogy the first season of the americans could have probably fit all this material into the span of three episodes i feel kind of bad even ungrateful for being so down on it the performances are grounded the writing is natural and this tedious slow pace was the intention of the show runners it was their intention and they successfully pulled it off i mean hey good for them but just because they succeeded at making the thing they wanted to make doesn't mean making it was a good idea nicocado avocado successfully makes mukbang videos but it doesn't mean i want to [ __ ] watch them i'm not too worried about hurting any of the creators feelings though since this season was absolutely showered with critical praise but why what am i missing for the first time in one of these retrospectives i decided to look around at other reviews and see what people were getting out of it that i wasn't mostly people seem to latch on to one or two standout scenes and gush about those each episode for what it's worth yeah i've been very hard in the season but it's not all bad the jennings finally let paige peek behind the curtain of what they do they introduce her to kindly handler gabriel before he returns to russia they give her some combat training to put her mind at ease they take a third option to get rid of pastor tim via arranging a dream job abroad for him and then let her know about their efforts to feed their people and the unsung so-called heroics of their work also known as the stuff they should have been doing when the russian revelation iron was still hot and when the show does something totally weird it makes for great moments there's the weird dark room est voice over which really plants the seeds of philip's morphing world view gabriel's wordless realization that it's time to retire backdrop by the lincoln memorial is touching there's a full shotgun russian orthodox ceremony as philip and elizabeth decide to get legitimately married by their real names there's an extended sequence where they interrogate a possible nazi collaborator in hiding that oozes tension tuwan goes off script and is like yeah i convinced the high school kid to fake a suicide but if he screws up and dies for real who gives a [ __ ] there's the one minute long scene of oleg's family awkwardly eating dinner where nobody talks which actually made me laugh out loud like what is this there's this whole thing where over the course of half the season philip's son sneaks his way into america only to be turned back by gabriel when he arrives in dc that was a pretty daring choice for how to resolve that plotline he returns home without philip ever knowing they were in the same zip code it's sad and satisfyingly disappointing which i know is a contradiction it would have been easier to appreciate this resolution if we weren't already starved for drama by this point in the season but i come for him you understand i do these are neat moments but they're just moments there's not enough emotional thrust in them to carry an entire season for me there isn't even enough there to carry the respective episodes in the third to last episode the jennings get roped into killing yet another innocent person and they basically sit in the car after and go are you done cause i'm i'm gonna be honest i'm kind of done let's call it quits let's go back to russia so the two on mission comes to an end he tries to chew them out for their petty bourgeoisie concerns elizabeth notices a bit of herself in the hardline young twerp and says he'll need to find a partner if he's ever going to have a hope of evening himself out and making it in this line of work you need someone dwan a partner to do this with to get through it with yeah too on maybe you should stop worrying about our petty bourgeoisie concerns and start worrying about getting some [ __ ] philip crushes henry's dreams of going to a prestigious boarding school and the jennings make plans to steal away to russia with their unwitting children goodbye dc goodbye claudia goodbye missions goodbye kimmy goodbye to on goodbye wheat hippie goodbye house goodbye car goodbye racquetball with stan goodbye schroedinger's secret agent it's an effective and emotional end montage to wrap up the season although setting it to goodbye yellowbrick road is borderline cheating i'd get emotional to any finale set to goodbye yellow brick road they could have played it during the aquateen hunger force finale and my eyes would have welled up then philip overhears kimmy's dad got promoted the head of the soviet division so they have to stay oh okay so nothing of consequence happened all season great it's a day of big disappointments for all of us i had a moment of clarity near the tail end of the season it had been a tiring day at work the gym was crowded the drive home was lengthy i sat on the couch and thought to myself i better watch another episode of the americans so i can finish my video and then i thought to myself would i bother finishing the fifth season of the americans if i hadn't promised to make a retrospective video on it and the answer is no i did not enjoy this season of television i did not enjoy the wheat honey trap plot that kept going even after they acquired the mcguffin i can't imagine there's a soul alive who enjoyed the grocery supply chain mystery with oleg it's a grocery supply chain it's exactly as exciting as it sounds and i certainly didn't need the perfunctory happy ending for martha where she gets to adopt a child in russia just have her in that one shot in the grocery store as oleg leaves that's all we needed that was perfect anyways i think i've expressed my dissatisfaction for the fifth season long enough for everyone to realize i'm just a smooth brain critic who doesn't get it let's hop over to the sixth and final season and see what all the fuss is about [Music] sometimes after a disappointing season tv shows have to put in a lot of leg work to get me back on board but that is not really the case with the americans i have plenty of goodwill banked and the final season only runs a tight 10 episodes as opposed to the usual 13. when the biggest issue i've had with the series has been the occasionally languid pacing this is a promising change also promising that we get into the action right away we've done another time skip so paige is in college stan married renee the maybe possibly could be spy woman phillip is out of the game and working full-time as a travel agent and elizabeth is getting awfully run down by having to do this without him paige is also a part of the team now assisting in stakeouts and recon but still with training wheels on don't tell her we kill people and don't tell her we screw people he was troubled he killed himself mom tried to stop him why did he kill himself elizabeth i'm sure there was a reason also got a chuckle out of me that after four seasons of always questioning her parents actions and being a religious goody two-shoes all it took was a couple years of college to turn her into an avowed communist spy there's a joke in there somewhere also helping kick things off in an engaging manner instead of bouncing around about what the season's main narrative will be the central conceit of the final showdown is spelled out to the audience by arcadie within the first 15 minutes some big peace summit is going down in dc and people within the center want to sabotage it and unseat gorbachev oleg are you a bad enough dude to travel to the us without diplomatic immunity and stop the coup meanwhile elizabeth is roped into the anti-gorbachev conspiracy and must get her hands on nuclear dead hand technology so the arms race can continue her blind loyalty to the cause means she doesn't care about the means and knows not to ask about the ends but little does she know that oleg's first point of contact will be her own husband that retired old softie we want you to find out what your wife is doing and tell us and if you have to stop it let's [ __ ] go oleg's off the bench paige is in the game phillips gotta work his own wife and elizabeth is off the leash and going full-on russian terminator no not that one i've got my popcorn bucket cell phones off take your seats and we'll spend a thrilling 10 hours at the fireworks factory philip and elizabeth's marriage has been strained before but it's really hitting the rocks now elizabeth has redoubled her dedication to her mission in philip's absence and it plays out almost like an analog of a spouse who's a workaholic it's also neatly displayed in the cyanide necklace she's issued during the season premiere elizabeth this job is literally going to kill you come to think of it even the conclusion of the sabotage that summit story fits that workaholic narrative elizabeth stands up to her handler after getting wise to the plot and claudia fires back like a typical bad boss how could you do this to us we were going to do great things and you're ruining it with zero acknowledgement of all the [ __ ] they put you through that drove you to quit in the first place the work you put in the sacrifices you made our time with paige it was all for nothing elizabeth speaking of bad bosses let's check in with philip the saddest man on television seriously i think the only time i've seen him smile is when he's out country line dancing i'll fill up with an empty nest no missions to run and a spouse who's always out and about philip doubled down on his travel agency business and the expansion is obviously hemorrhaging money this has disturbingly transformed philip into a combination of michael scott and willie lohmann in some scenes that are blackly comedic but also downright painful to witness he's a broken man i talked about what an exclusive deal we were offering value all right value value one further driving the wedge between him and his wife paige has taken over the family business of spycraft it's a family business that essentially destroyed his soul though so he is not pleased with that turn of events at all nor is he happy with effectively becoming the third wheel whenever paige drops by the whole family is on a need to know basis now and philip and henry both don't need to know they just have to get used to conversations awkwardly ending as soon as they're with an earshot so while paige has further indoctrinated day by day henry has finally left the jennings mad house for the first time in his life to attend boarding school when he comes back he has more perspective on how weird the dynamics are it's nothing show stealing but i really enjoyed the way henry was used this season much like walt jr he sort of became a plot device as the series went on an innocent child only seen over the breakfast table whose inevitable discovery of the truth hangs over the main characters like the sword of damocles in the final season henry has evolved into his own person in an organic way and i appreciate that the show never slapped in some sort of social hurdles drug use or beat up the bully sea stories in a lazy bid to try and flesh him out and given his budding friendship with stan born of stan's difficulty connecting with his own family rooted all the way back in season one it only makes sense that henry would be the one to accidentally give stan the last puzzle piece he needed to put together that philip and elizabeth are illegals it's a quietly tense and fascinating scene elizabeth vanishes on thanksgiving supposedly for work then philip falls right after her the pair's performances are great stan starts off just trying to make conversation but you can see the moment the switch flips in his mind and he goes oh [ __ ] and henry is so comfortable with stan and so aghast at his parents awkward behavior that he doesn't even notice when the conversation turns on a dime from small talk to interrogation must be pretty important always is this kind of thing happen a lot it's another example of the understated and down to earth nature of this trench coat style spy thriller stan doesn't stumble on damning evidence by accident in the final scene before the credits so we can have a big cliffhanger the revelation occurs during casual conversation in a seemingly mundane scene which gels with stan's characterization eventually all the lies that jennings spin just aren't going to add up so while philip comes back on board with elizabeth for one last mission paige jumps off board after learning elizabeth puts out to get information and oleg who only wanted to help the world gets pinched for espionage stan starts to work his theory and takes us into the finale phillip and elizabeth jennings are not russian spies i know it sounds crazy dennis right off the bat the russian priest who married philip and elizabeth in season five gets made during a meeting with phillip the party is over philip jennings there's a dead guy in the pool and that dead guy is you philip is able to evade capture but now it's only a matter of time he calls elizabeth and gives her the bug out code the first big decision of the finale is if they can risk snatching up henry or not he's all the way at boarding school and his phone could be tapped already depending on what info the priest gave up smartly this isn't just a question of difficulty philip also makes the compelling argument that much like himself henry fits in here painful as it is for a parent to admit he states that the innocent henry will be better off without all of them i don't understand how's he gonna live who's gonna pay for his college is he gonna be able to get a job this is hard for all of us we all love henry okay yeah do you well the fbi continues to interrogate the priest one of their agents goes rogue with a theory of his own suspecting that jennings parents would stop for page on their way out of town stan alex to confront them alone i appreciate that this isn't the typical anti-villain drama trope where the close friend or family within law enforcement attempts to head off the agency to preserve their own career stan already came forward with his suspicions and the bureau refused to pursue them this is just stan doubling down on his bet and winning and sofia that was you who is that we don't know who that is [ __ ] liar i saw it on your face despite occurring with half the episode still to go the parking garage confrontation is the climax of the spy storyline the standout sequence of the episode and the signature scene of the series phillips starts by denying everything then is forced to admit that stan is right but philip's been retired for some time he appeals to stan's friendship he desperately explains that with oleg behind bars the jennings are the only ones left to prevent the ousting gorbachev plot and he makes a statement that echoes both journeys throughout the series about asking whether the people issuing your orders are doing the right thing it's a lengthy conversation but it also flies by since you're dreading things coming to a violent end and hanging on every word it's also a clever choice to have many of philip's emotional appeals fall on deaf ears or even backfire and then we ended up as friends friends you made my life a joke stan's equally heartbroken and vengeful unable to make up his mind on whether he should feel pathetic or righteously vindicated and noah emrick really gets to sink his teeth into this juicy showdown at the end of the day it isn't power of friendship or invoking his children or some cheesy arc words thrown back at stan in fact it's kind of hard to tell which element of philip's begging for his life was the one that got him off the hook with tension sky high and pulses still pounding the jennings saunds henry pop on their disguises enjoy one last american meal at mcdonald's and hop a train for canada aside from a brief scene where the fbi finally identifies the jennings and a crushing just called to say hello for the last time phone call to henry the rest of the finale is almost entirely wordless that previous montage was set to brothers in arms by dire straits then comes the climax of the familial drama as the jennings family successfully make it across the border only to notice paige has chosen to stay behind as she passes their windows philip and elizabeth watch powerless as she disappears from their lives forever stan breaks the news to henry and paige camps out at claudia the handler's now abandoned apartment necking vodka left behind during claudia's hasty retreat not knowing what sort of music she'll have to face for her involvement in her parents treason this is all set to u2's with or without you it's the most tragic thing set to bono music since spider-man turn off the dark for the final musical touch the somber journey of the jennings parents back to moscow by plane train and is set to tchaikovsky's none but the lonely heart with all the threads of the americans more or less tied up the long journey home is more about just wallowing in the sadness of it all the jennings family has been utterly broken with philip and elizabeth love hot off their biggest rift yet and little do they know that in less than four years the ussr will collapse the kgb will be disbanded and the cause they've been fighting for has already been lost well done good job but sorry old boy everything you risked your life in limb for changed would you like a coke so that's the americans it's a very well thought out and very serious show with nuanced performances and a final season that more than lives up to the hype it's not a show for everyone until some sort of trimmed down the hobby desk fan edit comes out for season five i'm hesitant to recommend the series willy-nilly to just anybody but if it sounds like it suits your particular tastes you might just have the same realization stan beeman did in the final season what if the real spies were the friends we made along the way [Music]

Channel: Slip Maker

Views: 119,980

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Id: zkwIwdUbOik

Length: 63min 0sec (3780 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 29 2022