Meet your neighbors. The Jennings. Phillip and Elizabeth. They’re your average American family, with two kids, running a travel agency. What could be more normal?
Of course the Jennings aren’t entirely what they seem. They’re
undercover Russian spies who have integrated themselves entirely into a typical,
boring suburban American life of the 1980's. The real interesting thing here though is that
they’re the protagonists of The Americans. We’re meant to root for them in spite of
the fact that you might imagine them as the “bad guys” and they’re destined to
fail (History, go figure!). We root because the spy stuff the show pulls off is
pretty exciting, because if the Jennings ever get caught their kids would be
taken away (and likely devastated), and because they have a lot in common with
us.
For all the cool intrigue inherent to the premise of The Americans, the show works as well as
it does not because of the spy capers (although it can pull them off with
aplomb) but because of the personal relationships the series examines. Much
like The Sopranos was a domestic
drama with mob action on the side, The
Americans is a show that’s about the domestic and mundane more often than
it is about international cat-and-mouse games. This might make it sound boring,
but it’s not. You get to have your spy caper cake and eat it, but you also get
some of the best exploration of marriage happening on television (among many
other very nifty thematic aims).
The character work on The
Americans, more than anything else it gets right (and gets a lot of things
right) is what makes it so fascinating to watch. This is particularly true of
the relationship between Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell and
Matthew Rhys), but it’s also true of a number of other equally interesting and
complicated supporting characters. The series has done a fine job of building a
supporting bench filled with characters that are compellingly written and
acted. Noah Emmerich’s performance as FBI agent Stan Beeman, who’s hot on the
Jenning’s trail and living next door to them, is every bit as interesting to
watch as our spies next door. In the last stretch of episodes, Emmerich gives
in some career best work, blowing the lid off the quiet rage hiding under Stan.
This rage is frightening to see unleashed, unexpected and
unsettling, and it demonstrates another thing the show does well: unstated
states of mind. The series is one of great subtly and ambiguity. This fits well
with one of the show’s biggest themes: trust. The Jennings are married only in appearance
but it’s a marriage of convenience, created as a cover for their spycraft. They
only met when they first got married, and there’s little love between them,
especially from the direction of Elizabeth. Phillip cares about her but
receives minimal reciprocation. Elizabeth has so thoroughly dedicated herself
to the cause that she has trouble seeing or understanding anything else. She’s
pragmatic in her relationship with Phillip but a tad overly passionate when it
comes to work. Conversely Phillip is pragmatic when it comes to work but overly
emotional when it comes to his family (He spends the pilot considering flipping).
Phillip is also much better with the kids; Elizabeth finds herself having
trouble relating.
They spend the season contemplating perhaps making an actual
go of their marriage (Perhaps best captured in their later separation which is
filled with lovely soulful longing and unstated desires). They’ve been
pretending to be married for so long that they’re within spitting distancing of
establishing the necessary connection of the real thing. But the two have spent
so much time doubting and mistrusting one another, keeping secrets and treading
lightly, that they’re not sure what’s real in their relationship and what’s an
act. This is further complicated by the fact that both have former lovers that
neither is quite over.
And this is to say nothing of the spy narrative that’s also
a major part of the series’ appeal. There
are plenty of low tech spy adventures filled with some crackling pre-millennial
tension throughout the season. The spy stories are typically tied rather nicely
together into the domestic storylines of the episode. A good example of this is
“Trust Me” (which also coincidentally restates the show’s big theme). In it
Elizabeth and Phillip are separately abducted, leaving their kids, Paige and
Henry stranded at a shopping mall. The stakes for the scenario are that they
might die or get hurt in the line of duty and that their kids might get hurt as
well (which is quite possible as they choose to hitchhike and are picked up by
a big old creeper – Don’t worry! They make it out safe). The balancing act
between the tension of home life and, um, work life is part of what gives the
show much of its tension and drive (This is a quite nicely stated in the final
shot of the season which features Paige just shy of discovering the truth about
her parents).
But the spy stories are also the thing that sticks with me
the least. Fun in the moment as they may be (I mean: that car chase in the
finale is freaking awesome). But the specifics sort of get lost in the fabric.
Bugs get planted. Elizabeth and Phillip pop on some cool disguises (with some ridiculous
wigs) and fool people into believing they’re someone else (which provides one
of the season’s best subplots where Phillip’s alternate identity as “Clark”
gets him into a serious relationship with a woman, Martha, working for the FBI –
they eventually get married of all things). Stan does some counterintelligence
work to figure out what the Russians are up to, and the aims of the Americans
and Russians so often nicely parallel or dovetail. But honestly all you need to
understand is that there’s a covert secret war taking place between the
Russians and the Amercians. This is a Cold War, people! And the show is really
one of cold wars, rarely hot ones. There’s a cold, distant quality to the
series, and it’s got a surprisingly slow pace for a show about undercover
spies. But then again, The Americans
isn’t a show concerned with politics, or even war. It’s interested in the
personal. People tend to do things in the name of self-interest or to please
people not for any cause (They might espouse that it’s for the cause but that’s
usually just self-deception and an easy excuse).
But it’s okay that we don’t spend as much time watching
people play cat and mouse. They’re already doing it constantly in their own
life. This isn’t just the case for the Jennings, but for the Beemans as well.
Stan and his wife Sandra (Susan Misner)’s marriage is on the rocks, and his increased focus on
work only expands the gap between them. This is made all the more problematic
as Stan falls for Nina (Annet Mahendru), the Russian woman working at the Russian embassy that
he’s turned. When they consummate their feelings and begin an affair, Stan’s marriage
all but falls apart.
The issues of trust work twofold; this is the Cold War (with
spies!) so no one is quite sure who they can trust, but in the situations where
they should have the most trust of all, they’re waters are even less certain.
Everyone is deceiving everyone else. The show doesn’t make all that many
blatantly explicit parallels between the Cold War and the personal conflicts at
hand, but the Cold War acts as a good general metaphor for these messy
relationship problems.
The Americans has
turned this intimacy to its advantage. It’s never certain when someone will
force the conversation towards confronting the issues in their relationship.
And by pushing these confrontations further and further off, making them bubble
up every so often but never resolving them, the show has created tension out of
moments that aren’t all that intense in of themselves. This emotional reserve
has made the show all the more engaging and all the more devastating. (The show has
wrung devastation out of the deaths of rather minor characters, such as Amador
and Gregory, in a way you wouldn't have anticipated). The shows rhythm make for a style of storytelling where this is
completely unexpected while entirely plausible, and it mines tons of emotional
resonance even when it doesn’t entirely seem possible. This is a credit to a
combination of the writing and the acting which can elevate even some of the
more contrived or shoehorned elements.
The Americans personal
approach to spy capers has made for one of this season’s best television shows,
and you should check it out.
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