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

P

-Pyromaniac-

Member
Cornballer said:
EDIT: "I thought random people couldn't stop staring at me because I'm so handsome."
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lol loved that line

Anyway just finished watching it after work. Great episode. This show continues to be entertaining as absolute fuck. Still can't grasp for the life of me why everyone and their moms aren't watching it.

It sounds like the pastor wants paige to get info for him so he can snitch lol....

Sectorseven said:
Did Martha ever use that gun?
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no
 
H

Hobbun

Member
Great episode. And that promo for the season, wow. Don't see how this can go more seasons beyond this one. Buckle in.
 
Ristifer

Ristifer

Member
Fields and Weisberg have already said they're starting to put ideas together for a fifth season. So, who knows?
 
A

Alpende

Member
AngmarsKing701 said:
Good episode. I thought for sure the guy in the hat was watching that scientist. Alison Wright doing some solid work.
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I figured he was a Russian agent. I thought he looked like that South African guy from season 3 but it probably wasn't him. It seems like he exchanged looks with Elizabeth and Philip.


Overall I liked the episode. That new Russian agent / scientist was pretty cool and I hope he shows up for more episodes.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Hans did appear the second time they went to talk to the scientist, iirc. He was in disguise and tipped off Elizabeth about the FBI tail.
 
S

Saty

Member
No easing into the new season. In the thick of it right off the bat.

Remind me, who did Phillip say he was working for when he confessed to Martha?
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Saty said:
Remind me, who did Phillip say he was working for when he confessed to Martha?
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I'm not sure we heard that conversation, right? I thought her last scene in the penultimate episode of S3 was the wig removal followed by her shocked look. Now in S4, they just picked up a bit later without explaining how he framed it.
 
J

jerry113

Banned
Liz doesn't know about Phill's group therapy sessions right?

She wouldn't be happy about it. Phill's risking his cover more and more.
 
N

Niraj

I shot people I like more for less.
Cornballer said:
I'm not sure we heard that conversation, right? I thought her last scene in the penultimate episode of S3 was the wig removal followed by her shocked look. Now in S4, they just picked up a bit later without explaining how he framed it.
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That's how I remember it as well.
 
R

RatskyWatsky

Hunky Nostradamus
Cornballer said:
I'm not sure we heard that conversation, right? I thought her last scene in the penultimate episode of S3 was the wig removal followed by her shocked look. Now in S4, they just picked up a bit later without explaining how he framed it.
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Ah, I had forgotten about that. Interesting.
 
D

Disgraced

Member
Yeah, that was awesome. The est scene with the vanilla swirl flashbacks was tense. Funny thing is, it didn't even need those. Everything was on Rhys' face. I like how he's not being honest with Liz, not only because in the back of his mind he's worried she'll snitch on him, but because that's exactly what you when you're depressed—you shut your closest friends out.

There's so many facets! So many ulterior motives! So many lies! Imagine a diagram for all the lies in this show. And shit's about to hit the fan.
 
H

HoJu

Member
I'm on the 3rd season and holy hell do i not give one shit about the fbi or the giant fbi man or the russian fbi or the spy shit they do.

Everything with Russel and Rhys and their family drama is part of the Golden Age of Television though.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Saty said:
Is there a word on ratings?
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Low and more or less even with last season in the daily numbers. I haven't seen the L+3 yet. FX is more interested in the timeshifted numbers like the L+7, etc.. The Americans will get the one or two more seasons that it needs to finish up.
 
C

Catdaddy

Member
Has to be one of the most consistently good series I’ve ever seen. One of the only shows that I’ll watch without any outside distractions (talking, looking at my phone/tablet). Hate they have so few episodes but is probably what keeps the series strong.

Helps to I grew up during that era, was around Paige’s age, so I get a kick out of how they nail the look of the 80s.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- ‘The Americans’ Reaches Season 4; Why More People Are Not Watching And Why FX Does Not Care
“I always loved the idea of taking a spy show and turning it on its head. Everything you have seen in this genre before is a very popcorn-y, action-adventure kind-of thing, at least on TV. This show is something different,” said Eric Schrier, FX’s president of original programming, who explained that the nature of the series made it inherently niche. “All of the things that make the show dark and great also go against what makes the genre fun and exciting. I think there is a level of the audience that wants that element of the show and ‘The Americans’ is not for them. They do not want a hard drama.”
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The period element of the show may be responsible for turning away some potential fans. Data from Nielsen reveals that viewers watching “The Americans” skew much older. Of the nearly 2.4 million viewers who tuned in to Season 3 on average, over 1.3 million of them were over 50 years old; fewer than 250,000 viewers between the ages of 18 and 34 were watching. In fact, no season of “The Americans” has ever averaged over a million viewers 18 to 34 years old. Season 1 came the closest with 795,000. Younger viewers, it seems, are just not all that interested in the Cold War.

What millennials do want is their shows to be available where and when they want them. That presents a problem for FX. The network’s back-end distribution rights are anything but streamlined. Some shows end up on Netflix and Hulu, while others, like “The Americans,” land on Amazon. Amazon reaches far fewer viewers than Netflix — Nielsen has estimated that Netflix is in more than twice as many households as its competitor — which means a far smaller pool of fans who can catch up on previous seasons and join the live broadcast.
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“We are in the portfolio business,” said Schrier. “I don’t want every show to be like every other show. I think ‘The Americans’ is extremely valuable to our brand. That people think it is the best show on television is very valuable to us as a brand. It may not have the highest ratings, but it has benefits to us in other ways.”

In some ways, FX is thinking more like a streaming service, or a premium cable network, like HBO, that operates on the assumption that consumers trust their content judgment, that their viewership does not live or die on one show. During the Television Critics Association press tour in August, Landgraf made it clear that FX is making its brand the priority.

“A contention that people watch shows, not networks, I think, does have some validity, but as technology evolves and people consume television through different modes of delivery than channels, brands will become increasingly important as mediating filters for the overwhelmed viewing public,” he argued. “Brands make consumers’ lives easier. They are signposts that point to their favorite choices.”

It’s a risky strategy for an ad-supported network, but that train of thought also explains why FX has stayed so loyal to “The Americans,” sticking with the show for four seasons amid low ratings. Schrier explained that when discussing renewal, FX looks at three core factors: whether the critics love a show, whether the audience loves a show and whether they love a show. He says only two of the boxes need to be checked for the network to keep a show alive.

“Do I expect the viewership to rise? No, I don’t. I expect the show to do about what it did last year,” said Schrier. “I’m fine with that.”
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More via the link.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- NY Times: Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields Discuss ‘The Americans,’ Ronald Reagan and Pastor Tim
Why did you choose the 1980s as your setting, as opposed some other decade during the Cold War?

WEISBERG It was really all because of Ronald Reagan. The way the Cold War heated up during that time, and the way he was so direct and clear about how he wanted to destroy the Soviet Union. He said it. So that made it easier, in a way, to relate to and sympathize with characters who were fighting for the Soviet Union and had to battle against that. It’s also a very vibrant, exciting time, and one we remembered.

And one that’s easier to recreate than, say, a 1950s streetscape.

FIELDS Ironically, this period may be harder to produce than the ’50s, in a strange way. The farther back you go in time, the more specific you can get with certain props, particularly cars. Cars have been a constant challenge for the production. If you’re doing something set in the 1920s, there are people who have classic cars from the 1920s and they take care of them like they’re babies. You can rent them and they all run because everyone who has a 1920s car loves it — that’s why it’s still around. But when you try to get cars from the ’70s and ’80s, most of them are clunkers. You’re on the set and you say “Action,” and they stall.
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P

-Pyromaniac-

Member
lol awkward convo. Elizabeth doesn't seem like the type but she probably doesn't realize the extent of phillip's mental breakdown these days.
 
N

Niraj

I shot people I like more for less.
Ashby said:
Where did that recording of Paige and the Pastor's phone conversation come from?
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I think we just learned last episode that they had bugged his office (Elizabeth was listening to tapes), don't think they had indicated that in the past (somebody correct me if I'm wrong)
 
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