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The Americans - S3 of the KGB spy drama - Keri Russell & Matthew Rhys - Wed on FX

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L

Linius

Member
Elizabeth's scenes with the old lady had something beautiful about them despite being brutal as can be. And Stand and Oleg teaming up is fun to watch. Stan must loving hanging out with KGB folks
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C

Cornballer

Member
- Andy Greenwald for Grantland: Crime and Punishment: ‘The Americans’ Soars in Its Brutal Third Season
I’ve loved The Americans desperately since the very beginning, but I don’t think this full commitment to suffering was on display in Seasons 1 and 2. Early on, showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields attempted to tell stand-alone spy stories (think “The Clock”) to avoid scaring away those averse to heavy serialization. And last year, the plot engine was primarily fueled by a single mystery and, in the stern visage of Lee Tergesen, a lone antagonist. This third season, by contrast, has been all over the place: to EST meetings and drab hotel suites with Stan, to creepy, new-wave hell with Philip and Kimmy, to squalid Russian prisons with Nina. Like butterfly wings on the other side of the world, the bloodshed in Afghanistan and South Africa has gushed unpleasantly into the frame. And behind it all is the steady backbeat of the season’s presumed A-story: the KGB assessment and recruitment of Paige Jennings, a 16-year-old who, in Christianity, has already found an ideology worth living for. There were a few weeks in the middle of the season when even I began to despair. Had Weisberg and Fields overstuffed their pelmeni? Stan’s dubious defector plot felt miles away from whatever Elizabeth was doing with her liberal Afrikaner, Hans. But last night’s brilliant “Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?” set me straight. The Americans, like the Cold War that inspired it, is intentionally diffuse. Progress can’t be tallied in any traditional way. To make sense of something so sweeping and so awful, one is forced to cling to that most fragile of concepts: faith.

That was certainly the only thing that kept Elizabeth’s face from fraying in the office last night, as she bared her soul to Betty without ever losing sight of the fact that soon enough she’d be stopping Betty’s heart. (Keri Russell, always strong, has been especially brilliant this season. She’s like a painter who continues to sacrifice brushes in pursuit of something more pure and more true.) Lois Smith, a titan at age 84, delivered an astonishing performance as Betty.1 Without ever moving from behind a creaking desk, she suffused the screen with the warmth of a life fully lived — and quickly followed it with a sharp chill of fear at the prospect of that life coming to an end. It was easy to see what Betty was to Elizabeth: a maternal figure, a fellow wife, a good soldier stuck on the wrong side of the firing line. But it’s more devastating to think of what Elizabeth was to Betty: a glimpse of what Gil saw on the other side of the world and would never talk about; a fatal, unexpected jolt of the pain she’d spent her life fearing and avoiding. Pill by pill, Betty aquiesced to the inevitable, but not without landing a few blows. It’s the vanity of the ideologue to believe that little deaths add up to something greater, that by sacrificing Betty, Elizabeth was somehow “making the world a better place.” Contra Betty, I don’t think Elizabeth is evil. I think she’s just a fool. The only thing death ever adds up to is death.

And if Elizabeth is a fool, well, then so is everybody, on The Americans of 1983 and wherever it is that we all are in 2015. If there’s been a theme to this remarkable season of television, it’s been compromise. Again and again, we’ve seen the little shortcuts and half-truths these characters have adopted to make what they need sync up with what they want: Stan and Oleg committing a double lutz of treason in order to free the woman they both love; Philip exploiting Kimmy to chase the intimacy he craves from his own daughter; Nina using another woman’s life as a crowbar in an attempt to escape her fate. There’s nothing clean about any of this, nothing particularly admirable. There’s a wide expanse between the war you want to win and the battles you’re forced to fight. Gabriel was talking about love, but his words from last night ring true here as well: Life isn’t planning for bolts of lightning. It’s planting, tilling, and tending. Your fingernails get dirty. Occasionally, so does your soul. The Americans goes to the root of what it means to be human in any era, in any line of work, and tugs. What it unearths isn’t very pretty. But that’s exactly why it needs to be seen.
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Corpsepyre

Corpsepyre

Banned
The pacing this season feels really off. Don't know if it's just me or if others are feeling it too. Nine episodes in, and it doesn't feel like anything of note has happened or resolved. Also, not a fan of dragging the whole Paige angle till the very end.
 
L

Linius

Member
I dunno, this show feels like Mad Men to me I guess. It doesn't need something major going on to be interesting. It just moves along and keeps impressing me every week.
 
Corpsepyre

Corpsepyre

Banned
Linius said:
I dunno, this show feels like Mad Men to me I guess. It doesn't need something major going on to be interesting. It just moves along and keeps impressing me every week.
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It's still a really good show. It's just that, compared to the previous seasons, the pacing is off for me, or feels that way atleast.
 
G

-griffy-

Banned
Corpsepyre said:
It's still a really good show. It's just that, compared to the previous seasons, the pacing is off for me, or feels that way atleast.
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Well the showrunners said they plotted out the season differently this year. Instead of breaking the story on an episode by episode basis, they actually plotted the story for the entire season and then split it into the different episodes, so it is in fact a different thing this year. It's probably more serialized, with less definite closure on an episode by episode basis as a result, so maybe that's what you're noticing.
 
S

spindoctor

Member
Dominican Power said:
What was Phil pissed at Gabriel towards the end of the episode? Is it still Paige? or was it because they had to kill that old lady?
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It's Paige. He's angry that Gabriel and Elizabeth have ignored him and decided to go ahead with the plan.

While this season has generally been good, I feel it's missing the tension of Stan ever getting close to catching these guys. They barely have any scenes together, let alone any kind of intertwined plot.

This in turn leads me to question the value in some of the side stories going on. The South African plot for example. Or Nina's ongoing story. That kind of feels forced just to keep the actor relevant. Although it does have the peripheral benefit of the entertaining Stan + Oleg scenes.
 
S

Spectral Glider

Member
spindoctor said:
While this season had generally been good, I feel it's missing the tension of Stan ever getting close to catching these guys. They barely have any scenes together, let alone any kind of intertwined plot.

This in turn leads me to question the value in some of the side stories going on. The South African plot for example. Or Nina's ongoing story. That kind of feels forced just to keep the actor relevant. Although it does have the peripheral benefit of the entertaining Stan + Oleg scenes.
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That's been my one major complaint about this show over the last two seasons. That they've kind of cut Stan's balls off. In the beginning it was like he was smart, intuitive, dedicated and somebody you could root for. And then they had him fucking around on his wife and then sniveling because she left him and now, he's kind of useless. Things may pick up with the defector and Oleg stuff, but the Oleg stuff is all about Nina again....ho hum. And I agree with you about Nina's story. It seems tacked on and frankly, I don't give a shit about her. To me, her story line was wrapped up last year. And they need a lot more Arkady instead of less.

But the stuff with Elizabeth and Philip and Paige has been really good this season and I enjoy the job Langella is doing. And Martha has been excellent too.
 
L

Linius

Member
I feel like the south Africa plot is just there to give Hans some more depth. Even though it wasn't intertwined with anything else going on it was at least entertaining.

The Nina story I can definitely do without.
 
Dominican Power

Dominican Power

Member
Spectral Glider said:
That's been my one major complaint about this show over the last two seasons. That they've kind of cut Stan's balls off. In the beginning it was like he was smart, intuitive, dedicated and somebody you could root for. And then they had him fucking around on his wife and then sniveling because she left him and now, he's kind of useless. Things may pick up with the defector and Oleg stuff, but the Oleg stuff is all about Nina again....ho hum. And I agree with you about Nina's story. It seems tacked on and frankly, I don't give a shit about her. To me, her story line was wrapped up last year. And they need a lot more Arkady instead of less.

But the stuff with Elizabeth and Philip and Paige has been really good this season and I enjoy the job Langella is doing. And Martha has been excellent too.
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Stan has always been messed up.
 
A

Alpende

Member
I liked the episode. The scenes with Elizabeth and the old lady were great, what a horrifying death. It's good to see it did have an impact on Elizabeth. Plus, Phillip getting pissed at Gabriel should be interesting in the next episodes.
 
X

xenist

Member
No. Paige is pretty much the best child character on TV right now and should remain on. Maybe all the other lazy bastards will use her as an example and end the reign of terrible TV kids.
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
xenist said:
No. Paige is pretty much the best child character on TV right now and should remain on. Maybe all the other lazy bastards will use her as an example and end the reign of terrible TV kids.
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haaanh? sally draper is a much more interesting character.

not that paige is bad, but all she's been so far is bible girl.
 
G

Geist-

Member
Discotheque said:
haaanh? sally draper is a much more interesting character.

not that paige is bad, but all she's been so far is bible girl.
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That's already changed after Elizabeth told Paige that they were 'civil rights activists'. I don't think religion has even been mentioned in the last few episodes.

Not sure about anyone else, but I've really been liking this season a lot. The Americans has always been morally grey, but they are really pushing the limits how grey you can be before it's black. Elizabeth with that old woman, wow...
 
M

Mercury Fred

Banned
robertsan21 said:
I like the show but they need to cut Paige story. I hate kids in tv shows they always fuck things up.
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What? No.

The Paige story is THE source of dramatic tension between the leads this season. What a ridiculous suggestion.

Why not get rid of Stan & Elizabeth and make it the Clark and Martha hour
(which honestly I would actually watch)
.
 
R

robertsan21

Member
Mercury Fred said:
What? No.

The Paige story is THE source of dramatic tension between the leads this season. What a ridiculous suggestion.

Why not get rid of Stan & Elizabeth and make it the Clark and Martha hour
(which honestly I would actually watch)
.
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I guess I just cant take her serious in this show. Stupid kid trying to be an activist. Her story is just boring and I dont like it. I will be pissed if they manage to turn her into a russian spy, hopefully nothing comes out of that story direction.
 
M

Mercury Fred

Banned
robertsan21 said:
I guess I just cant take her serious in this show. Stupid kid trying to be an activist. Her story is just boring and I dont like it. I will be pissed if they manage to turn her into a russian spy, hopefully nothing comes out of that story direction.
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You're in an extreme minority on this.
 
F

faridmon

Member
The problem with Page is that her depth in character is totally shallow. I mean first she was involved with the church because of her belief in greater god, and now, she has an interest for being an activist, despite the way she is looking at the matter totally contradict her peaceful mentality she had with the the church. The she is depicted in the show is very playful and totally void of any seriousness in regards to her opinion as a character.
 
G

-griffy-

Banned
faridmon said:
The problem with Page is that her depth in character is totally shallow. I mean first she was involved with the church because of her belief in greater god, and now, she has an interest for being an activist, despite the way she is looking at the matter totally contradict her peaceful mentality she had with the the church. The she is depicted in the show is very playful and totally void of any seriousness in regards to her opinion as a character.
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She started going to church because she met someone who she had common interests with who introduced her to the church, and realized there were more people there she enjoyed being around. She started going to protests because the church was organizing them. They were protests for peace, against the government's nuclear arms programs. Her activism is in the name of peace, I don't see how it's contradictory at all.

She is a regular teenager who is struggling with finding out who she is as a person and what she wants to do with her life, at times at odds with her parents who seem to be leading a strange and secretive life. And it's frankly hilarious that the way she goes against her parents' wishes and acts out is by becoming involved with religion.

You can't remove Paige's story from the show, because in many ways Paige's story is what the show is about. Not only "normal" American life vs. Soviet ideals, but this life of espionage and how it affects and contradicts being part of a family, and the real consequences it has for the characters. Paige being involved with religion and being recruited as an asset create the conflict in her parents that is really the entire point of the show.
 
X

xenist

Member
What happened in this episode will have interesting effects. Especially in the way Elizabeth sees Paige's future. "Do I really want to put Paige in this world?"
 
C

CoolOff

Member
Old lady had it right about feeling "in tune" working late at night away from all the hustling.

Obviously I don't feel close to my ex-husband when doing it, but still...
 
T

TripOpt55

Member
Finally got around to watching this episode. Elizabeth's scenes with the old lady were so good. I got a kick out of Stan and Oleg sharing a beer too. And what a great episode title!!!
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
The fact that they're not immediately saying it's been renewed for a final season is good news. Hopefully we get a nice, clean five seasons. And then a complete series set on Blu-ray... c'mon, let me buy this thing in HD on disc.
 
J

jerry113

Banned
IronRinn said:
Just saw this. Glad they're closing in on the minimum five seasons Landgraf has referenced in the past. Really, my hope is for them to at least bring the show to a planned conclusion.
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Kudos to FX for sticking with it. The higher-ups at the network must be fans. I want to see a proper conclusion!

I hope this show starts to gain more viewers. A heavily serialized show like this needs to be on netflix in order for new viewers to easily catch up and join the fun. Unfortunately, amazon video just isn't popular enough yet.
 
R

ReturnOfTheRAT

Member
Doublesith said:
Renewed for Season 4!
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YES!

jerry113 said:
Kudos to FX for sticking with it. The higher-ups at the network must be fans. I want to see a proper conclusion!

I hope this show starts to gain more viewers. A heavily serialized show like this needs to be on netflix in order for new viewers to easily catch up and join the fun. Unfortunately, amazon video just isn't popular enough yet.
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Sad, but true. Netflix is the streaming zeitgeist.
 
M

Mr. Saturn

Member
I just saw the renewal news, and I think its fantastic. This is has got to be one of the best and most original shows on tv right now, so it getting renewed for a fourth season is good news. Hopefully the writers will be able to finish the show on their terms.
 
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