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The problem with finally opening up and being honest is discovering all the past betrayals of someone you trusted. This episode of The Americans has apparently sent KGB handler Gabriel on his way, but his final line to Philip is simultaneously a refreshing moment of candor and a knife in the heart. Now he tells him?

This episode also opened up potential for a theory that would have colossal ramifications for the show — and could indicate how two disparate story lines may eventually converge. But we’ve got to save that for the end of the recap.

We open in the safe house where Paige has just been invited to meet with Gabriel, her mother and father’s longtime handler, who is soon to depart and retire. “I can’t tell you, Paige, how much I’ve been looking forward to this day,” the old man tells her.

Her questions are simple. They’re treating her like an adult, but the things she wonders are childlike: “Are you a spy?”

“Yes,” Gabriel says. Smiles all around. It must be a pleasure to finally just say it out loud.

“I know it’s been a difficult time, Paige, finding out your parents have withheld things from you,” Gabriel says. “To you they’re just your parents. They probably drive you crazy, because they have driven me crazy from time to time. But to us, they’re honestly heroes. They’ve saved a lot of lives.” Continue reading The Americans recap: ‘The Committee on Human Rights’

Gabriel can hardly believe what Elizabeth has learned about the U.S. government’s secret agriculture program. It’s not about blighting Soviet crops but about breeding a pest-resistant stalk of wheat.

“Stobert just wants to end world hunger? Like Miss America?” Gabriel asks her.

He knows this news must have hit Philip hard, since he killed a lab technician thinking the program was aimed at creating famines. Nonetheless, Gabriel sees a bright side: “If they’ve come up with some kind of ‘super wheat,’ think what getting our hands on it would mean to us. No more shortages. No more buying grain from the west. We could make it right.”

The mission will continue. Elizabeth will continue nurturing her relationship with Stobert, which is growing into a robust, healthy thing itself, while Philip will remain with Deirdre Kemp, a witheringly dull weed of a relationship.

Elizabeth sighs. “You’re spread thin,” Gabriel acknowledges. Continue reading The Americans recap: ‘Crossbreed’

The pace picks up a little bit in this episode as we finally come to understand the nature of the agriculture program Philip and Elizabeth are investigating and suspicions about Stan’s new girlfriend are vocalized by our antiheroes.

We begin with Philip undercover (and under the covers) with his boring Kansas contact, Deirdre, who ends their lovemaking by offering to show him her spreadsheet computer program Lotus 123 – which gives this episode its title.

During the chore of sex, Philip’s mind wanders to his childhood home and memories of his father bringing home three grim root vegetables for them to eat.

Elsewhere, Elizabeth is spending time with Evgheniya, the wife of defector and Russian farming expert Alexei Morozov, who reveals that she has finally gotten a job and will now be teaching Russian to government specialists who study Soviet agriculture.

Back at the FBI, Stan Beeman and his trusty sidekick Agent Aderholt tell their boss that the effort to recruit Soviet businessmen as spies is not bearing fruit.

“None of these guys are hungry,” Stan says. Continue reading The Americans recap: ‘Lotus 1-2-3’

In this installment of The Americans, Philip struggles with how to engage an especially dull target. That’s sort of how I felt about this whole episode.

After three stellar opening shows, the fourth one of this season just feels like it’s running in place. We open in Gabriel’s house, where they’re going over potential contacts with AgriCorps, the company that they uncovered in the previous episode as the outfit purchasing genetically engineered grain-devouring pests.

The suspicion is that this company is working with the American government to destroy Russia’s crops and create an artificial famine – something Soviets would have known a lot about.

The two marks are in Kansas, which means Philip and Elizabeth will be traveling to ensnare these two marks. Given that they’re already playing dual roles as Tuan’s parents, getting close to the Morozov family, and their regularly scheduled identities as Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, they feel they’re a little overburdened. Continue reading The Americans recap: ‘What’s the Matter With Kansas?’

We’re bowling with the Morozov family, and Alexei is griping about Russia again.

Philip and Elizabeth are barely holding their tongues. “Again with this,” Elizabeth whispers.

“The systems destroys anyone who tries to make change,” Alexei says, and his wife decides she isn’t holding back anymore. “You’re the one who destroys,” she snarls at him in Russian.

“They would have shot me,” he tells her.

“You should have told us that before dragging us to this miserable place like your luggage.”

After the fight, Alexei tries to explain his hardline attitude to Russia to his two nice American friends. “We had different time growing up. When I was 14, they dragged my father out of apartment. No explaining.” He tells them of traveling for days to go visit him, only to be told: no visitors.

“He died 15 years later,” Alexei says. “That is the Soviet Union I know.”
Continue reading ‘The Americans’ recap: ‘The Midges’

Some of the bigger moments of this installment of The Americans were played off as no big thing. But we know better, right, comrade?

Chief among them, the revelation of Stan’s new mystery woman, a friend from the gym who has become very important to him in an extremely short period of time. Not much happens except an introduction, but she’s played by The Walking Dead’s Laurie Holden, which is the main reason we know she will be looming large in this season’s narrative.

The episode begins with Philip and Elizabeth at a loss for words as they hand over a slice of their fallen bio-weapons spy William and break the bad news to Gabriel that their protégé Hans became infected by the virus.

Rather than let him drag on, Elizabeth put a bullet in his brain.

“Everything all right?” Gabriel asks, noting their somber expressions.

Philip can barely get the words out. Continue reading ‘The Americans’ recap: ‘Pests’

As the fifth season of The Americans gets underway, EW pulls back the (iron) curtain on the FX series’ writers’ room. To read the complete roundtable on The Americans, along with clues to season 5 and a list of pop culture essentials covering U.S.-Russian relations, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday, or buy it here now and subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only on EW.

Between American politicians lying about their contacts with Russian envoys, overseas enemies tampering with the U.S. presidential election, and disturbing rumors about “golden showers,” it’s as if the entire country has time-traveled back to the early 1980s. While the Trump administration’s relationship to the Kremlin may not exactly resemble Reagan’s, recent headlines undeniably echo the frosty past.

But for FX’s The Americans, this déjà vu is uncharted territory. Airing its 1984-set fifth season amid real-life stories about Russia’s hand in U.S. politics, the critically acclaimed drama about married Soviet spies living in suburban America has found itself no longer just a thoughtful examination of a bygone era but also a bizarre reflection of the world today.

In February, EW stepped inside the series’ writers’ offices in Brooklyn, New York, where vibrant key art from past seasons, Cold War propaganda posters used on the show, and several (sadly erased) whiteboards cover the walls. Showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields gathered their writers’ room comrades Peter Ackerman, Joshua Brand, Stephen Schiff, and Tracey Scott Wilson for a roundtable interview to delve deep into how they’ve tackled the series’ sudden relevance — and why The Americans‘ themes have always resonated. Continue reading The Americans writers’ room debates Russia’s new relevancy: ‘It’s an unwelcome surprise’