The Americans: "Only You" review

Americanism and the Civil Rights Movement in The Americans’ “Only You.” It's time for another review of FX's Soviet-era Spy show, but first, I need to plant evidence in your apartment.

The Americans took a social justice history track last night.  It had already been on that path, but had not previously explicitly stated why Gregory was involved with the KGB, acting as a subversive against his own government.  In dueling statements from Agent Gaad and Gregory¹, we get the rationale for Gregory’s involvement with the KGB.

“His last known political activity was a march on Memphis City Hall with Martin Luther King in March of ’68.  We all know that the KGB tried² to infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement.  America’s oppressed minorities were already rising up, so why not get in on the action?”

Agent Gaad identifies the extent of FBI investigation on American citizens, especially those associated with the civil rights movement.  J. Edgar had a file on Martin Luther King, Jr., and association with MLK (He did not have a federal holiday in his name at this point.  That happened in 1983, first observed in 1986³) meant a willingness to find yourself on a list of potential subversive elements in the country.  This was still a time, thirteen years after the Fair Housing Act, which strengthened the 1964 Civil Rights act, when popular opinion of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement was still more evenly divided. That kind of open derision from the United States government belies the statement that Stan made to Curtis about both being Americans.  He had to reinforce his assertion by asking “right?!” a bit more forcefully than when he casually dropped it the first time, but the sense of duty and honor⁵ to your birthright country is ingrained deeper than Curtis’s adopted set of ideals, unlike Gregory.

Gregory must have never felt like a true and accepted American.  He was clearly born before the Civil Rights movement achieved any legislative success, and as he states (not the second quote referenced previously) that he always wanted to live for something, which is why he joined up with the KGB.  For Gregory, he turned to a government, to a larger political structure that promised equality for all⁴ and began advocating for it in a manner that subverted his own birthright government.  Elizabeth made a point to Granny Claudia and Phillip that Gregory had to abandon his government.  But, to Gregory, the United States was never his government.  When he said he wanted to live for something, he didn’t mean that as being a part of the KGB, but that he’s always felt like a refugee in his own country.  Agent Gaad’s is wrong to assume that the KGB tainted the Civil Rights movement, but in a stroke of luck, about Gregory, he’s not.  Gregory took the ideals of change too far, wanting to destroy the government, rather than pressure it to change.

“You know me, okay? I lived here; I fought here.”

To Gregory, the fighting is both against the US Government, as well as alongside the Civil Rights protesters.  His last ‘known’ political activity is the march on the Memphis City Hall, thirteen years prior to the conversation with Elizabeth.  Perhaps Gregory, upset with his perceived failure of the Civil Rights movement to gain traction, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. a mere six days following the march on Memphis, decided that the United States was never going to change, and began to pervert the message of Dr. King in his own mind, deciding that it was time to reconstruct American in the image of equality, the equality promised by Elizabeth and the KGB, an image that was more fiction than reality.

But, at the end for Gregory, it appears that bond of American citizenship, no matter what that meant for a black man in 1981, was still stronger than the notion of continuing the fight as an exile from the land he was trying to radically alter. He wouldn’t take to Moscow, and opted for suicide by police intervention as a way to protect the KGB cause, Phillip, Granny Claudia, and most importantly, Elizabeth.  The notion of suicide by police intervention was a great choice by the writers.  It gave the outward appearance of police oppression and racial profiling, with the underlying truth of the cowardice of Gregory’s character, as suicide, being a cowardly, selfish act, is paired with the oppressive police state that his character feels in the country of which he is a citizen.

Other quick points:

-Both the Americans and the Soviets now readily acknowledge the “Secret War.” Agent Gaad and Claudia have both referred to the “hot war” that exists inside the larger Cold War.  The problem with this is that, for this show, which has to exist sort of like Faraday’s description of time – for us to truly believe this is all happening, as it exists in our own historical timeline, nothing major can happen.  There was never a major war in Washington.  There weren’t any bloody Red Dawn style invasions or uprisings on US Soil.  So, each incident needs to be a blip, no larger than a moderate FBI Raid on a KGB operative safehouse, or a few agents, here or there, that will die.  Though, I suppose, given the relative ethnocentrism of our memories of history, and Americans’ short memories, there could be a great “Stan and his new, less horndoggy partner in Vladivostok” kind of episode arc where they engage the KGB and the Soviet Army in an “outgunned, disavowed, left for dead” kind of major encounter.  I’d actually pay 12 bucks to see that in a theater.  Let’s make this happen, people⁶!

-Stan seemed almost envious of Amador’s bachelor lifestyle when talking with Martha, and later Phillip, especially the notion of not having to keep secrets. However, he later sits on the bed, and in a state of almost exhaustion, just tells his wife that he’s not that great of a person (is he referring to murders, or his own dalliance with Nina?)

-Stan and Phillip buddy roadtrip episode.  Anyone not in on this?  Or maybe Stan/Phillip/Matthew/Henry camping trip episode.  I’m down.  The only better idea I’ve had for two characters to be featured is the Miles/Sawyer buddy cop dramedy spinoff from LOST, which eschews from all of the mythology, and looks more like the Chicago Code, but, you know, with Sawyer and Miles from season 6.

The comments section is waiting for your thoughts.

¹-R.I.P. Gregory, we hardly knew ye.  This was a great character, and I’m sad to see him gone from the show. There was so much more potential, though, in fairness, I am the guy who was bitching that Phillip and Elizabeth’s relationship was more volatile and immature than Olivia and President Grant on Scandal.

²-Factually inaccurate! This is actually a major far-right talking point.  A simple Google search reveals no reputable source stating that the KGB ever infiltrated the Civil Rights movement, or that the movement was predicated on the notion of destroying the United States.  The only hits that come up for a search of “KGB Civil Rights Movement” are from websites like “TheConservativeTreeHouse.com” or conspiracy theorist online message board commenters who refer to the “fact” that the Civil Rights Movement was anywhere from a movement co-opted by the KGB to a KGB funded operation designed at overthrowing the American government.  Either way, not true insomuch as this child of 1984 can tell.

³-That legislation took far longer to “sunrise” than even Obamacare!  And even then, there are people like John McCain who take political flak for opposing statewide support for the holiday.

⁴-We all know what that meant in Soviet Russia (insert Yakov Smirnov joke here).  Yeah, but still.

⁵-I can make callbacks to previous episode titles, too, you know.

⁶-Oh, right.  This did happen.  It was called “Live Free or Die Hard.”