The Americans

If watching a TV show is like being in a relationship, The Americans is the closest thing to a domestic partnership that modern TV drama has ever given us. ... The actors simply do whatever their characters would do in that situation, and the camera watches them. Not a single shot calls attention to itself. ... But you can’t exactly claim that things were left unsaid, because you read this couple’s faces like words on a page.

Season six, then, feels like it’s finally homing in on the series’ great theme, which is to say it’s about communication, about the gaps that open up when we don’t tell each other what’s necessary and instead stick to what’s self-serving.

The stakes are high, and the rewards are plenty. It’s why The Americans has been and remains one of the best programs on television: It challenges viewers for all the right reasons. It pushes back on expectations to make you dwell on many fleeting moments that build who you are overall.

They were, all three [episodes] of them, exceptional--clear examples of one of television's greatest dramas still very much on top of its game.

Russell is exceptional in these early episodes as Elizabeth tries to juggle so many jobs that she’s swigging coffee and popping pills to keep herself awake, all while holding onto an incredibly dark secret. But even though their stories aren’t yet as dynamic as that, Rhys, Taylor, and others continue to be emotionally compelling pieces of this grounded (though sometimes a little overly complicated, especially in early episodes) final season.

As always, excellent.

In the final season of The Americans the Jenningses--the KGB spy couple dedicated to unremitting war against the U.S.--are at war with one another, and a bitter, masterfully dramatized war it is. ... It comes as no surprise that one of the greatest drama series in television history should come to its end as powerful as ever.

I watched the first three episodes in a state of panicked admiration, fearful of the consequences yet eager to see how it all resolves. [19 Mar-1 Apr 2018, p.13]

The context of the show has shifted from a trip down memory lane to a fraught part of our contemporary saga. All this new relevance gives The Americans extra bite--but, to be clear, the show was already quite good on its own.

It’s layered, rich stuff, in keeping with the series’ strengths, but Fields and Weisberg’s intentional callbacks to events of early seasons adds even more complexity.

There should not be a seventh year; the fifth occasionally lacked the forward momentum to power through all 13 episodes. The fact that the Jennings’ story is ending gives this season much of its dramatic heft and importance, as characters who haven’t seen each other in ages come together again, and as each choice in each personal and political maze carries more finality.

Fans of the show’s intrigue will immediately notice an uptick in tension and momentum from last season that feels like a comeback. And fans of the complex love story between the show’s married pretenders, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, will pick up on a new layer of iciness that may never thaw.

Frankly, a little boredom sets in at times. ... How The Americans resolves their fates will be key to whether this series is remembered as a superbly rendered morality tale or a distinct disappointment after setting its bar so high. Season 6 so far is rife with both possibilities.

There’s a feeling in the first three episodes of final-act hyperbole that left me a bit dizzy. After a slow-paced fifth season, the final year begins with a parade of bloody deaths. ... But The Americans gets more patient when it examines the widening cracks in the Jennings marriage.

Every one of the three episodes made available for review hums along at a swift pace, dropping revelations right and left--no political pun intended.

The drama picks back up with a strong trio of opening episodes. ... The actors simply do whatever their characters would do in that situation, and the camera watches them. Not a single shot calls attention to itself (even a surprising angle on Philip looking down through the open sunroof of his car has a tossed-off feeling), and the editing is unobtrusive, carrying us from point to point.