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The Americans - S4 of the KGB spy drama - Keri Russell & Matthew Rhys - Wed on FX

Grizzlyjin

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Cornballer said:
Someone posted these on reddit this week. Old, but amusing:
S1 gag reel
S2 gag reel


EDIT: Bonus:

1pFeat8.gif
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The E3 gif the world needed.

I'm warming up to Pastor Tim. Past seasons I kinda despised him with very little cause. He just seemed a tab bit too intrusive and a little creepy, but it seems like the dude is on the level.
 
I

icespide

Banned
Grizzlyjin said:
The E3 gif the world needed.

I'm warming up to Pastor Tim. Past seasons I kinda despised him with very little cause. He just seemed a tab bit too intrusive and a little creepy, but it seems like the dude is on the level.
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Matthew has definitely topped Pastor Tim on creepiness this season. kid is just odd
 
N

NexusGamer

Member
Dominican Power said:
Elizabeth could of easily disarmed that guy without killing him.
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Exactly. That's my biggest problem with it. Whatever her state of mind, she surely could control herself? If this was random (paige wasn't there) I doubt she would just randomly start leaving a body trail because she is upset one evening. It's very against the spy training... completely unnecessary risk.

If they really wanted to push that scene through, at least make it more like an accident, like she was going to disarm him but he falls awkwardly on the knife etc.

But nope, straight for the neck.
 
Ristifer

Ristifer

Member
I think that's the whole point, though. It was a mistake. Something she really shouldn't have done. Elizabeth has been slipping as of late.
 
F

Fantastical

Death Prophet
brawly said:
Decided to get it on the fun. S01E11 atm. So far so good.
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NexusGamer said:
Exactly. That's my biggest problem with it. Whatever her state of mind, she surely could control herself? If this was random (paige wasn't there) I doubt she would just randomly start leaving a body trail because she is upset one evening. It's very against the spy training... completely unnecessary risk.

If they really wanted to push that scene through, at least make it more like an accident, like she was going to disarm him but he falls awkwardly on the knife etc.

But nope, straight for the neck.
Click to expand...
But if it was an accident it wouldn't have the impact. Paige watched her mother kill a man without much of a sweat. The writers did that so now Paige is starting to think they kill people.
 
G

-griffy-

Banned
My mom sent me a text this morning that said "The Americans had their baby," and I understood exactly what that completely generic statement meant. Congratulations to the Jennings.

Side note, they've done a really good job hiding Keri's pregancy this season, as I haven't once thought "Oh, they obviously chose that shot/costume to hide her belly."
 
C

Cornballer

Member
A few pieces of recent news:

- Gothamist: The Studio Home Of 'The Americans' May Be Doomed By Gowanus Canal Cleanup (doesn't sound like this will impact shooting The Americans, just future projects)
- EW: The Americans costars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys welcome first child together
- Slate: Reagan, The Americans, and the Cold War (paywalled as Slate+ content)
Joining the CIA wasn’t “exactly the done thing in our liberal family,” says Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief of The Slate Group.

At a May 23 live event in Washington, D.C., Jacob spoke with his brother, Joe Weisberg, a former CIA officer now known as creator of The Americans, the hit FX series. Though the brothers both came of age during the Ronald Reagan era, their careers and politics took them in opposite directions. In their discussion, Jacob asks Joe about his travels in the former Soviet Union, his decision to leave the CIA, and his work in television. And Joe asks Jacob how the experience of writing a Reagan biography changed his view of the president’s legacy.
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R

RatskyWatsky

Hunky Nostradamus
-griffy- said:
My mom sent me a text this morning that said "The Americans had their baby," and I understood exactly what that completely generic statement meant.
Click to expand...

lol cute

Side note, they've done a really good job hiding Keri's pregancy this season, as I haven't once thought "Oh, they obviously chose that shot/costume to hide her belly."
Click to expand...

I would never have known that she was pregnant just from watching the show. They've done an extremely good job of hiding it.
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
I feel like I've noticed she's been wearing a lot of bulkier coats, with her hands in her pockets in poses that naturally extend the coats forward.

Cornballer said:
- Gothamist: The Studio Home Of 'The Americans' May Be Doomed By Gowanus Canal Cleanup
Click to expand...
This sounds sketchy. They need to figure out who owns those vacant buildings that they skipped over as potentially using for staging ground for the cleanup instead of seizing the studio. Or, who's pushing for using the studio and hoping to buy the property/lease afterwards.
 
B

Bluth54

Member
NexusGamer said:
Exactly. That's my biggest problem with it. Whatever her state of mind, she surely could control herself? If this was random (paige wasn't there) I doubt she would just randomly start leaving a body trail because she is upset one evening. It's very against the spy training... completely unnecessary risk.

If they really wanted to push that scene through, at least make it more like an accident, like she was going to disarm him but he falls awkwardly on the knife etc.

But nope, straight for the neck.
Click to expand...

I think if she was by herself she may not have killed that guy but she was preventing her daughter from being raped. Even a well trained spy like her probably wouldn't be thinking rationally in that sort of situation and her training kicked in to take them down as quickly and efficiently as possible. No matter how well trained she is she's still a human.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
I guess it helps that Keri Russell is a very nimble lady, but it's still shocking that she was pregnant through the season. Those 80's long coats and mom sweaters did their work.
 
I

IronRinn

Member
It seems like she didn't put on much weight, either, which probably went a long way in helping them hide her pregnancy. Or perhaps, unlike most women, all of Keri Russell's weight went to her face veins.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Lengthy Vox article from VanDerWerff on the overuse of death in TV shows that holds up Nina's demise as a positive example:

- TV is killing off so many characters that death is losing its punch (note that this spoils just about every tv death from this year and beyond)

The part about Nina:
So after all that, why would TV writers even try to pull off a TV death? Two from recent months may point toward why writers keep hitting what Grillo-Marxuach sardonically calls "the death button."

Take one character whose death came up over and over again in my conversations: The Americans' Nina.

"[It] was about as perfect as they come," Lost's Lindelof told me. "Brilliant performance, direction, and writing, as shocking as it was inevitable. More so, it reminded us of the stakes for our heroes and played fair, if not brutal. Cold or not, every war has casualties, and this one haunted me."

The character, who had been sent from the Soviet embassy in Washington to a Siberian gulag after spying for the Americans in the show's first two seasons, found herself with a chance at freedom, thanks to the influence of the rich and powerful father of her lover, Oleg.

Yet Nina couldn't seem to stop putting herself in dangerous situations. She befriended a scientist named Anton, who had escaped to the US but was forcibly returned to the USSR, and helped him smuggle a message to his son, which ultimately sealed her fate and doomed her efforts to secure her release from prison.

In the fourth episode of the fourth season, after a short fantasy sequence that teased Nina's release, the character was deemed guilty of treason in a swift, jarring sequence that apexed with her being shot in the back of the head. Then the camera pulled back as her blood oozed onto the floor, and a cleanup crew arrived to ensure no sign of her remained. Life, dark and full of dead ends, went on.

"[Death] was the only place she could end up, but it was still surprising to me," recalls Jane the Virgin's Snyder Urman.

What's remarkable about Nina's death — and The Americans' treatment of death in general — is the way it suggests that death is almost a relief, a release from a life in which she had rarely controlled her own destiny. Her choice to help Anton contact his American son became her first act in ages that wasn't motivated by either her American or Soviet handlers. It was something she did because she knew it needed to be done, and because it was the right thing to do.

The result was that Nina's death marked not only the end of her life but also a moral victory of sorts. She died with a clear conscience, with a sense that she had repaid whatever debt she owed the universe, in some tiny form.

It also preserved the series' historical verisimilitude. Says Weisberg: "We've got this thing about the KGB and trying to keep them real in terms of that historical time period."

His co-showrunner, Joel Fields, adds: "In Nina's case, there was this very moving character transformation, but it came at a price. And it certainly was clear after all she had done, they weren't going to let her return to the United States."

The second Nina was sent to prison, there was little doubt as to how her story would end up. The fact that she was able to find some measure of inner peace before it happened made her death almost hopeful. But that makes sense. On a show that suggests life is an unending struggle, death isn't an antidote. It's a method of escape.
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More via the link.
 
Grizzlyjin

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Cornballer said:
Lengthy Vox article from VanDerWerff on the overuse of death in TV shows that holds up Nina's demise as a positive example:

- TV is killing off so many characters that death is losing its punch (note that this spoils just about every tv death from this year and beyond)

The part about Nina:More via the link.
Click to expand...

Wow, what an article. I feel like every writers' room needs to be reading this. I watched more TV show deaths that made me roll my eyes than ones that actually made me feel something this season. If the scene is cheap and we don't care about the character, it just feels cheap and makes me more frustrated. It's something that has to be planned out ahead of time. You cant give someone tons of character development and then kill them in the same episode, which is a problem that The Walking Dead has. It ignores characters for long stretches and then suddenly they're important aga-oh wait, they're dead.

I need to stop watching so many bad shows because it's starting to train me to expect these cheap pulpy twists. Even this season on The Americans I was so worried that Martha's plane was going to blow up, something that is more befitting of a show like Homeland. Looking back, that would make zero sense. If they wanted her dead there are easier and more discrete ways of doing it...but so many programs go for the cheap shock factor and fill in the gaps later than I was expecting it. I'm always glad that this show never rushes itself or goes for moments like that. Every episode doesn't need to end on an earth shattering twist.
 
S

Splash Wave

Member
In regard to Elizabeth (foolishly) killing the mugger, it never stood out to me as a problem. I just assumed she was on edge because of the situation with Young-hee. We've also never had to see her defend her children directly, which may also explain it.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Jimmy Stav said:
In regard to Elizabeth (foolishly) killing the mugger, it never stood out to me as a problem. I just assumed she was on edge because of the situation with Young-hee. We've also never had to see her defend her children directly, which may also explain it.
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That was how I read it - someone threatened one of her kids with a knife, so I wasn't very surprised that she went that far given her capabilities.

EDIT: Also, remember that Phillip stabbed a guy with a BBQ fork in the pilot for threatening Paige.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- Variety: From ‘American Crime’ to ‘The Americans’: Teen Takeover of TV’s Prestige Drama
Teenage supporting characters are also increasingly being given material that directly affects the outcome of the leads, as opposed to operating in a disconnected B storyline.

“That’s always been one of my favorite parts about playing this role. It’s such a common storyline to see the teenage girl who’s obsessed with a guy or in a relationship,” says Holly Taylor, whose character Paige Jennings on FX’s “The Americans” has spent the bulk of this season making amends to her KGB spy parents for a major breach of trust. “I mean, not everybody’s parents are spies. But there are teenage girls out there who maybe don’t get the attention they need at home and have to find it elsewhere like she does with [religion]. She’s a real kid and she focuses on so many things other than drama in school or relationships.”
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