The Americans: Season Six (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

One of the best shows on TV is back for its final season tomorrow at 10 PM.

 

[joshEH]

Thoughts on who doesn't survive the season? My gut says that Philip won't make it out alive, or if he does he'll have to go back to Russia or go on the run. I can see Elizabeth being forced to flip after Philip is gone in order to assure safety and citizenship for Paige and Henry.

Not that I have anything to back that up with.

(Stan will end up moving in with the Mail Robot and living happily ever after?)

There are just so many ways they could go with the ending, it’s tough to predict. Although, I don’t think they would do something obvious in regards to 2016, and have Elizabeth standing on stage with Trump during the Republican National Convention. But maybe one or both of them could be in Pennsylvania working the phones to get him elected on Russia's orders.

 

[Josh Dial]

I would honestly like an episode featuring the mail robot. Like the episode follows the robot around on its rounds and we catch snippets of conversations and bits of interactions.

 

[TravisR]

Thoughts on who doesn't survive the season? My gut says that Philip won't make it out alive, or if he does he'll have to go back to Russia or go on the run. I can see Elizabeth being forced to flip after Philip is gone in order to assure safety and citizenship for Paige and Henry.

I'm guessing that Stan will die and the Jennings will actually maintain their cover.

As for a move to the future, I don't think we'll see beyond 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The irony will be that Paige will have had her life turned upside down to train as a spy for a country that no longer exists.

 

[Josh Dial]

Extremely strong season premiere. Great soundtrack (maybe the best since the series premiere). A masterclass on how to do a time jump and "fill in" the missing time.

Phillip line dancing in front of the American flag--I didn't know I needed that scene until I saw it!

 

[ScottH]

For a show that has been falling out of my favor the last couple seasons, that was an excellent premiere.

 

[joshEH]

NO MAIL ROBOT! WHY! Were they watching the Soviet equivalent of A Different World?

...Aaaaand there's the Mac. Been waiting.

Paige is in deeper, but still fucks up in a way that allows Elizabeth to fuck a fucker up. Never, ever fuck with Elizabeth's kids. It won't end well for you.

Or her husband. Or her mission. Or her lasagna. Or her.

 

[ScottH]

Elizabeth has become extremely ruthless and careless. I don't see it ending well for her.

 

[MarkMel]

The series ended on Wed. I thought there'd be some discussion about it here but, nada.

Was a pretty good ending, some twists. I won't spoiler here for those that haven't watched yet (but I would like to hear everyone's impressions, next week maybe we can spoiler.)

 

[TravisR]

Much like the show, the ending was sad, fitting and believable. Without saying too much, the showdown was great.

Happy to see Mail Robot one more time too.

 

[Greg.K]

It didn't end the way I expected, exactly, but it was fitting and yes the long-awaited confrontation was well done.

 

[DaveF]

This season was on the TiVo, recorded and taunting us for months. The past month I've had time to watch. I finished the season / series last night with the final three episodes.

The final season wasn't as strong as past seasons, and the first three episodes the show was wandering, not sure where it was going (which was confirmed on the podcast). But in episode four it clicked and moved forward.

The finale was satisfying. From some headlines I'd seen, I was expecting people to die, such as Paige killing Stan or Elizabeth to kill Phillip. What we got was not that. It was the outcome of the relationship-oriented show that had developed over its run. It was strange and unexpected and moving.

 

[DaveF]

As I wrote to friends on Facebook:

We finished “The Americans” last night: how better to celebrate the 4th than to watch a show about Soviet spies in 1980’s America?

The Americans is a brilliant, imperfect, and moving six-season experience. It’s the one show where I watched characters dig a hole in silence for 12 minutes, and was riveted. The series is a contemplation on marriage by unusual means. It was regularly dark and horrifying. It is a pinnacle of modern storytelling.

 

[DaveF]

“BEEP BOOP
I, Mail Robot: An Ode to The Americans’ Most Unlikely Hero
Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields explain how a rectangular nuisance won our hearts and minds—and stole The Americans right out from under those Russian spies.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywoo...ries-finale-joe-weisberg-joel-fields-cia-fbi/

 

[DaveF]

“Showunners Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg never left me bored. Their genius was that, even though Elizabeth and Philip Jennings were doing terrible things (poor Martha), you rooted for them. But at the same time, you rooted for FBI agent Stan Beeman in his hunt to uncover the Soviet "illegals." ”
https://www.cnet.com/news/the-americans-finale/


“Were you craving a bit more bloodshed from the finale of FX’s “The Americans”? Some tooth-pulling ultraviolence, or maybe another corpse crunched into a briefcase, on the long road to Moscow? If so, you were clearly watching the wrong show. Rather than provide the viewer with bright-red catharsis, “The Americans” went out, after six seasons, in gorgeous shades of asphalt gray and snow white—a dry-eyed tearjerker to the last, leaving behind a chord of moral unease.”
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/c...s-finale-was-elegant-potent-and-unforgettable


“Six seasons of sharing a beer at the end of the day, that’s how. Thanksgiving together; conversations during Stan’s divorce; watching one another’s children grow up. “The Americans” has always been a show about intimacy, not simply as a human need but as a dangerous vulnerability, the crack that lets the light in.”
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/c...s-finale-was-elegant-potent-and-unforgettable


“When we first meet Elizabeth Jennings — the highly trained Russian spy hiding under the cover of a perfect American family with her husband, Philip (Matthew Rhys) — she is unlike herself. At a loud bar, over a cocktail, she works a government agent several notches below her cunning and spiky beauty. She wears a leather bustier and a flirty, salacious demeanor, her chestnut tresses hidden under a full platinum blonde bob. This first scene has the sort of slinky sexiness and allure I’ve come to expect of an espionage drama. As The Americans continued, soon to finish with its currently airing sixth season, it has leaned as far away as possible from the glossy pleasures you’d expect from its first scene into something wholly harder to shake. As Emily Nussbaum wrote in The New Yorker, “Dread is its specialty and also its curse; it’s what makes The Americans at once a must-watch and a hard sell.””
http://www.vulture.com/amp/2018/05/keri-russell-the-americans-performance.html

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Very late to the party on this one, but since I missed the first few seasons, I just waited for the complete series to come on DVD and go through it then. The PQ was excellent, but why no blu-ray? Oh well, the discs sure were crammed into a tight package.

Overall, it was a fairly engrossing series, and I thought they did a great job with the ending. Elizabeth killed about 12 people in just the first four episodes of the final season, so I was expecting some serious payback for that. And, essentially that's what she got... by having to leave her children behind. Perhaps a fate worse than death for her. And, whether they obviously stated it or not, those two kids, ironically, are the real Americans.

The first three seasons were a bit frustrating to me. It was obvious they were stalling any real progression and though violent and sexy and brutal at time, the showrunners kept defaulting back to square one, or the original situation with all the characters. After seeing the evolution of such great series as Breaking Bad, I just wanted things to shake up more quickly and see the situations evolve.

Season Four was easily the best of the entire series. The showrunners finally took some giant steps, shook things up, and explored some more interesting things. Joshua Brand wrote the best episodes. I believe he was a writer on Northern Exposure. My favorite episode of the entire series was the 'bottle' episode where Elizabeth is confronted by Lois Smith at the Mail Robot repair facility, and they have a one-on-one which we know can only end one way. Beautifully acted.

I liked how they made Elizabeth the more ruthless one and Matthew Rhys acted the hell out of his reluctant warrior, who finally just lost heart in the matter. But there was just a little bit too much ruthlessness from Elizabeth in the final season. Good grief she murdered a lot of innocent people.

They stuck the landing on the finale. How long were we waiting for Stan to have that confrontation knowing who they were? I love how they left him with doubt about Renee watching her sleeping. He can never not be paranoid. It was sad that Oleg got caught and will be imprisoned. But we all know Gorbachev won in the end, so you can imagine some exchange getting him freed to return home at some point. There was no way Paige was going with her mother after their confrontation, so it was more surprising she went along as far as the train before slipping off.

All in all, an enjoyable show and I'm glad I didn't have to wait a week between each episode. But I could not binge more than an episode a day. The ending moved me, and I'm glad to have Rhys back in Perry Mason. A Welsh dude playing another... American.

 

[TravisR]

They stuck the landing on the finale. How long were we waiting for Stan to have that confrontation knowing who they were? I love how they left him with doubt about Renee watching her sleeping. He can never not be paranoid.

I feel that Philip was truly trying to be honest with Stan when he told him but I think it could be argued that it would have been better to say nothing because he destroyed his personal life by telling him.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Overall, it was a fairly engrossing series, and I thought they did a great job with the ending. Elizabeth killed about 12 people in just the first four episodes of the final season, so I was expecting some serious payback for that. And, essentially that's what she got... by having to leave her children behind. Perhaps a fate worse than death for her. And, whether they obviously stated it or not, those two kids, ironically, are the real Americans.

As much as I loved this series, I always thought that Elizabeth didn't pay nearly high enough of a price for her brutality. I was fine with the dynamic of her ruthlessness contrasted to Phillip's weariness in the face of all that they had done, and enjoyed that aspect of the relationship quite a bit.

I'd like to believe that the scales are ultimately balanced in life. Unfortunately, reality quickly and constantly disabuses me of that notion; so I tend to look for that quality in fictional entertainment. Great series, but Elizabeth shouldn't have made it out alive.

- Walter.