FX’s drama,
The Americans, just completed its
stellar second season. The first season, which I reviewed here,
starred Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell as Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings, a pair
of KGB deep cover agents. The married couple run a Washington D.C. travel
agency by day and covert operations by night. They also raise their two
children, Paige and Henry, in a banal Virginia suburb. This season further sharpened
the show’s focus on marriage, family, and the moral ambiguity of spy craft.
These efforts produced one of the very best shows on television.
At the end of last season, Phillip and
Elizabeth committed themselves to turning their arranged marriage into a real
one. In the world of espionage, this new devotion for each other proved
emotionally dangerous and damaging. Elizabeth sought to understand how Phillip
behaved in his undercover work. She asked Phillip to act as “Clark,” one of
Phillip’s aliases during an ill-advised sexual encounter. Elizabeth had already
awkwardly pumped information about “Clark” from Martha, an FBI secretary and
“Clark’s” wife (they secretly married to further Phillip’s cover). In the
bedroom, Phillip donned his “Clark” wig and roughly handled Elizabeth. His
behavior backfired and instead of bringing the couple closer together, evoked
the trauma of Elizabeth’s rape during her KGB training. Following Elizabeth’s
wounding at the end of season 1, Phillip’s attempts to carry more of the
operational burden of their missions proved similarly problematic. The
increasing body count took its toll on Phillip. He killed an Afghani restaurant
worker who had merely shown up for work, a computer scientist who had forgotten
his wallet, and a sanitation worker who worked the wrong route. The growing
emotional toll boiled over in a frightening scene where Phillip seemed likely
to kill the minister of Paige’s church. His crime? Introducing her to Jesus.
Phillip and Elizabeth grew to love each other, but that affection brought emotional
turmoil.
The Americans also continued to explore the
central tension in the Jennings marriage: Elizabeth’s true belief versus
Phillip’s pragmatism. In dealing with Moscow Centre, Elizabeth never questions
the communist cause. Phillip, however, doubts both the Center’s tactics and its
motives. These differing approaches also manifested themselves in Paige’s
burgeoning faith—providing fertile ground for the season and the remaining
series. Paige’s embrace of religion horrifies her communist parents. Phillip
adopts a more practical approach. The night after Paige says Grace at the
table, Phillip tells Elizabeth that they need to eat dinner later. Paige’s physical
cravings will overwhelm her spiritual hunger. Elizabeth chides him for being
overly reasonable and worries about raising a daughter who believes in
everything that her parents have sworn to oppose. Phillip, however, still
believes in the cause. He bitterly and hilariously comments that he wanted to
punch Paige in the face after she espoused the virtues of nonviolent
resistance. The tension between the pragmatism and idealism manifests itself in
the season finale when Elizabeth warms to the idea of recruiting Paige into the
KGB. She sees Paige’s participation (really just riding a bus and holding a
sign) in a protest over nuclear weapons as a burgeoning belief that she and the
KGB can exploit. Phillip expresses horror at the prospect, noting that Paige,
already questioning her parents, would never forgive them.
Phillip and
Elizabeth had just seen that outcome played out with the other main arc of the
season: the murder of Emmett and Leanne, another married pair of KGB deep cover
agents. Phillip discovered Emmett, Leanne, and their daughter, dead in their
hotel room. Jared, Emmett and Leanne’s son, seemingly survived the incident
while swimming at the hotel pool. Their shocking deaths served as a reminder of
the danger of their mission. The revelation at the end of the season that Jared
had murdered his parents only further highlighted the risks of their lifestyle.
The KGB had approached Emmett and Leanne about recruiting Jared into the KGB.
They refused, but the KGB recruited him anyway—setting the stage for the deadly
confrontation. Phillip and Elizabeth initially viewed Jared as a reason to
resist any efforts to recruit Paige. The shock of the truth had led Jared to
murder his parents. Using Emmett and Leanne as a mirror, Phillip wants nothing
to do with the KGB approaching Paige. Elizabeth, despite the risks, sees an
opportunity to give Paige purpose.
The
character of Andrew Larrick provided another opportunity to explore the moral
ambiguity of espionage. Emmett and Leanne and then Phillip and Elizabeth
blackmailed Larrick, a gay Navy SEAL, into turning against the United States. Larrick
proved an able antagonist for Phillip and Elizabeth. The strength of Larrick
lay in the ability of the show also to cast him as a protagonist. Blackmailed
because of his sexuality, Larrick betrayed his country and did everything his
KGB handlers asked of him. He handed the KGB evidence of the US’s training of the
Contras and only decided to hunt down Phillip and Elizabeth after they killed
his compatriots. Along the way he killed Gregory, the Soviet phone messenger,
and Kate, the Jennings’s KGB handler. In the end, Larrick prepared to take
responsibility for his actions by turning himself in, rather than killing the
Jenningses. Turning Larrick into a potential protagonist represents the
strength of the show and its embrace of the moral minefield of the spy game.
Characters
on The Americans who believe in
something greater than themselves have a better chance of navigating the moral
morass of spying. This theme manifested itself in the story of Stan, the FBI
agent and the Jennings’ neighbor, and Nina, a KGB agent at Soviet Embassy. Since Nina confessed to betraying her country,
Arkady, the chief KGB agent, and new arrival, Oleg, had begun the process of turning
Stan into an asset. They used his affair with Nina to exploit his crumbling
marriage and life. Yet Stan remained devoted to, as he put it in an interview
with Henry “catching the bad guys.” When Arkady and Nina pushed Stan to commit
treason, he had to choose between his two loves: Nina and America. Ultimately
Stan chose his job and country over Nina. Unfortunately for Nina, she had no
greater belief for support. From the beginning of the series, Nina remained
devoted to her own survival. First, she smuggled electronics equipment to the
USSR for a quick buck, then sold out the Motherland and then Stan, all in the
name of self preservation. Stan last saw her being driven out of the Soviet
Embassy, presumably on her back to Moscow to stand trial for treason. Without
any belief to fall back on, Nina had exhausted her options.
Some other brief observations:
In the season finale, Stan notices
in his dream that Martha, secretly married to Phillip, is stealing files off of
the mail robot (an unsung hero of the show). So he’s aware of Martha’s
questionable loyalties, but only on a subconscious level.
I
especially enjoyed how Agent Gaad, Stan’s boss, orchestrated his return
following Stan’s execution of Vlad in season 1. The two scenes between Gaad and
Arkady were standouts in a season full of them.
Overall
this was a great season of a great TV show.
