I finally sat down to watch The Americans last night, a show that has gotten some rave reviews from all circles after the airing of the pilot this past Wednesday. Unfortunately for me, I’ll rarely have a review of it posted in the few hours after it airs – I go to bed far too early to watch it live, or even do the TiVo catch up. But, having finally found an hour or two to sit down and power through the oddly timed 69 minute pilot episode (spread out over an hour and thirty seven minutes of broadcast space), I am hooked. As I referenced, I was hoping for weird familial relations, lots of 1980s references, and geopolitical breadcrumbs, and the pilot delivered. There’s so much 80s and Americana intricately weaved in to a show about family and paranoia, but it never felt like I was being clubbed over the head with the setting or mood. There’s certainly plenty to talk about, but first, I need to go investigate my gardener for being a Sandinista, because I have a funny feeling.
The focal point of the show is “Liz” and “Philip” – Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. They are two Russian spies living the proverbial American dream here in the United States, subverting the U.S. government in early 1980. They have two children, yet spend a great deal of time on espionage. An important part of their introduction is that there is never any doubt that they are Russian spies. It always bugs me when a show about a secretive so-and-so is advertised for three months on TV which gives away the general plot, and then the pilot episode begins with a fifteen minute long, pre-credits look that tries to hide who the characters are. We already know what the show is about. It’s called “Under Center” and it’s about a gay Quarterback. Stop showing him out at strip clubs like he’s not waiting for the burly, handsome bouncer in the tight t-shirt to go home with him. Also, please watch my upcoming television show, “Under Center” starring Josh Hartnett on LOGO.
In and of itself, the first episode feels like a really good jumping off point. FX is great at having shows that set the table for the entire season in an extended season premiere. Sons ofAnarchy and Justified both lay the foundation for the season in one 60 or 90 minute premiere, and then stick to that premise for the entire season. For The Americans, we needed to know how Phil and Liz became Phil and Liz – we saw flashbacks to the mid 60s, when they were recruited and thrown in together. Phil left a woman behind, almost literally when he tore her picture in two and tossed it in the trashcan, and Liz left behind a lot of really cool emotional baggage when her trainer sodomized her. How far you’ve come, Felicity.
We also needed to know things like:
The kids do not know their parents are spies. In fact, the kids are natural born American citizens. Phil and Liz arrived in the US together, and had children here. Phil is the more loving parent, and more committed to the idea of the family regardless of the mission. Liz, however, is more interested in the mission itself, and sees the children as another layer in her cover story. She seems all too ready to correct her children when they spout American values or propaganda, wants to make them socialists, and doesn’t say goodbye to her daughter when Phil makes a very fatherly comment about how quickly their daughter is growing up. Their gender roles are very film negative of 1980s American gender roles, but that’s the point – they are the anti-Americans.
Phil loves, or wants to love Liz. He wants something to replace that Katy Perry look-a-like he threw away in the trashcan before meeting his now wife and partner. He wants the family. Liz seems to want to serve the motherland, and Phil is her cover, just like the kids. Phil more than once brings up the idea of defecting and taking the Americans’ money to provide intelligence on Soviet espionage happening in the US. She never even considers it. Though, by the end of the first episode, when Phil snaps and kills the hostage, Liz is clearly moved by it. When they are driving back from dumping the body, the scene should play like two remorseful, scared people who just killed a man. They don’t speak, but they aren’t speaking because they are upset or damaged. Phil is coming down from his anger, and Liz is ramping up in her sexual attraction to him. They don’t make it home before heading to the back seat. Or, was it the bench seat in the front? Either way, SEX!
The setting is the early 80s in Arlington, VA. Reagan is in office, and the Russians are getting used to his strong national defense posturing. They reference Reagan’s military budget, and the ramping up of the United States’ military-industrial complex (sorry, Ike!) They even mention that Reagan is against a nuclear nonproliferation treaty. The Soviets know they are reeling, and that the US is putting the pedal to the floor, trying to outspend them and point more guns in their direction.
The deputy Secretary of Defense had a great line at the end of their briefing in Langley at FBI headquarters: “Truth and Justice is on our side. We will prevail.” The Soviets believe this as well, but this was more in the way of reminding us that we are rooting for the bad guys in this show. This is exactly the type of storytelling I’ve been interested in for some time: a story told from the wrong perspective 1 – rooting for the enemy. In reality, Americans should want Liz and Phil to be found out by FBI Agent Stan. Instead, we want good storytelling, and so we are forced to root for Phil and Liz. The Deputy SecDef’s line came off as hopelessly naïve, as the Cold War was far from over at that point. We are being conditioned to see the ridiculousness of the Americans, while rooting for Phil and Liz.
The last bit that I’m hoping will play a major role is the paranoia featured in the episode. Liz and Phil spend the majority of the episode assuming they’ve been made, and it is “confirmed” to them when FBI Counterintelligence agent Stan moves in across the street (why would he tell them if he’s investigating them? Hiding in plain sight?) Stan goes through some paranoia as well. He sees the car that was used in the abduction of their defector, and his hackles are raised. His wife (who is vaguely reminiscent of Keri Russell from a physical standpoint) teases him about his growing paranoia, reminding him he’s no longer under cover.
Stan is going to be an interesting character to watch. As an FBI agent with an undercover background, he is Phil’s foil. He went undercover with a white supremacist group, which raises an interesting question: in the United States, we allow for the freedom to assemble, and the freedom to hate so long as the hate doesn’t manifest itself in physical acts. We don’t know the extent of the actions of the group Stan was investigating, but I felt relieved to know that he had infiltrated them, and had brought them down with multiple convictions. Was this the correct feeling? America protects all kinds of speech, hateful or not, and that is the stark difference to the totalitarian Soviet Union. But the notion at once made me feel happy that the government had stopped a hateful group, but also made me remember that the government is spying on and infiltrating its own citizens. All of a sudden, I’m paranoid about a TV show set in the past. SO META!
Each time Phil floated the idea of defecting, Liz not only didn’t consider it with any probing questions; she dismissed it out of hand, questioning his loyalty to the motherland. Later, after her fears are allayed, it’s revealed that she’d expressed concern to her handler that his loyalty was in question. She had had a creeping paranoia that her “husband” was going to defect and become an American. She scotched the idea with the handler, but it had existed, and it hopefully isn’t completely gone, as I hope this show becomes something
Some of the great 80s/Americana breadcrumbs:
- The family goes out for Ice Cream at a roadside ice cream stand. I couldn’t make out the name of it because I have to watch in crappy standard-def on a Series 3 non HD TiVo, but Freeze was definitely involved. I will go ahead and make the bold proclamation that this was a Tastee Freez reference, especially given the John Cougar Mellencamp song “Jack and Diane.” Chuck Klosterman wouldbe proud.
- Phil’s loaner is a 2nd Generation Camaro Z28 – American Muscle! The only way they could’ve gone bigger is if he’d been driving a Firebird with the big Phoenix on the hood, like Sandler in Billy Madison.
- Phil wandering through the mall (Liz was uninterested in the mall. Shocking, considering her desire to make her children Socialists) looking oddly bewildered by all the options for consumers. He and his daughter have a brief moment in the shoe department, when she holds up a pair of jelly flip flops (the stupid pvc plastic shoes that were popular in the 80s,) and he holds up a pair of cowboy boots, which doubled as American frontier and a reference to the Urban Cowboy craze of the early 80s.
- The Space Race – Soyuz vs. Gemini, and the Russians failure to get to the moon. Liz seems bemused that her son is so excited to see Thomas Stafford, American astronaut and hero, who was the American half of a joint US-Soviet venture in which the US Astronauts and Soviet Cosmonauts rendezvoused in space. He should be more excited to meet Alexei Leonov, Soviet hero.
- Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” – the scene where Phil and Liz take the body to be dumped was a direct reference to the pilot episode of Miami Vice, when Crockett and Tubbs, after agreeing to work together, drive in silence as “In the Air Tonight” plays, just missing their chance to capture Calderone.
- My wife made a fantastic point about the name of the show: The Americans. It is, at once, a dual reference to Liz and Phil, but it is also a reference to the enemy. Liz and Phil refer to their neighbors/"countrymen" as "The Americans" like it's some type of epithet.
1 I always thought it’d be great if LOST was a show about intruders, but we were assuming that “The Others” were the intruders, when in actuality, the Oceanic 815 survivors were intruding on the island. That would’ve required one of the seasons to be heavily centered on the Others’ compound. Instead, it was about fate and a smoke monster.
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