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FX’s THE AMERICANS has its first-season finale tonight, May 1 at 10 PM, but the series was already renewed for a second season by the time its second episode aired. The story begins in the early Eighties, at the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, played respectively by Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell, have been married almost fifteen years, have two kids and seem to be a thoroughly conventional suburban couple. They are in fact KGB spies for what was then theSoviet Union.Elizabeth is a true believer; Philip is having doubts. More urgently, although the marriage was arranged by their KGB handlers, Philip and Elizabeth are actually starting to fall in love with one another.

For most people, working on a hit television series is the most exciting and challenging job they’ll ever have. Joe Weisberg, creator and one of the executive producers on THE AMERICANS, says this is the case, but he was in fact a CIA agent from 1990-1994. He says the inspiration for the show came from the real-life incident a few years ago, when a group of Russian sleeper agents were uncovered living apparently ordinary lives, though it made more sense to set the story when the Cold War was at its height. Continue reading Exclusive Interview: THE AMERICANS creator Joe Weisberg on Season 1

“You’re the one they want. The one they understand,” Elizabeth Jennings, or rather Nadezhda, a K.G.B. double-double agent under deep cover, tells her husband, Philip, in the season finale of “The Americans.” Elizabeth, played by Keri Russell, is explaining why she should take the more dangerous of two missions—the one they think is a setup—and Phillip should be ready to put their two kids in a car and make a break for Ottawa if it all goes wrong. It does, in ways no one involved foresees; the episode, like the series itself, is about delusions—romantic, political, bureaucratic, tactical, marital, fashion (the year is 1981). And parental: Can Elizabeth really think that her children “understand” a father whom they believe is a travel agent but is actually a spy and assassin who’s just staged a sham wedding with a deluded F.B.I. secretary at which their mother pretended to be his sister? Can the K.G.B. really think that Al Haig might attempt a military coup after John Hinckley shoots Ronald Reagan—a major plot element in an early episode? Maybe they can.

It’s often said, admiringly, that “The Americans” is a show about marriage that is dressed up as a spy drama. One of its premises is that marriage itself is a matter of dressing up and performing, and that those enactments, particularly when children are watching, can be its most genuine part. Paige, the Jennings’s thirteen-year-old daughter, and Henry, her younger brother, watch their parents like spies. They are the hard pegs in a marriage constructed by the K.G.B. as cover for their parents, whose decision, early in the season, to figure out whether they have fallen in love with each other leads to problems on the job and a separation. (“Hitting the pause button,” as Philip describes it, when they give the children the news over a basket of fried chicken.) It’s familiarly sad. Continue reading THE SECRET OF “THE AMERICANS”

Wednesday’s season finale of The Americans left viewers on the edge of their seat as Elizabeth (Keri Russell), not Phillip (Matthew Rhys), walked into a trap set up by the FBI that would’ve resulted in a striking blow to the KGB.

Believing the meeting with a possible intelligence asset is actually an FBI setup, Phillip decides to take on that mission himself, leaving Elizabeth to simply pick up a recording and then get the kids out of town. But it’s Elizabeth’s seemingly simple mission that’s actually the setup. Nina (Annet Mahendru) is able to deduce a coup is coming after Stan (Noah Emmerich) guarantees her extradition, but, because it’s the ’80s and there are no cell phones, the KGB is unable to warn their agents, resorting to more archaic methods to send the abort message. But when Phillip realizes the abort is meant for Elizabeth, he goes straight into the FBI’s trap to save her — and although they are able to escape, Elizabeth gets shot in the process.

Obviously, Elizabeth will survive into Season 2 — they’re not firing Keri Russell, ‘natch — but other characters’ fates are left up in the air, including Claudia (Margo Martindale) who was told she’d be reassigned, but risked her own life to save Phillip and Elizabeth after getting the abort signal. To get the scoop on Season 2, TVGuide.com turned to executive producers Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields. Continue reading The Americans Finale Postmortem: Who Survived Season 1?