The Americans

Sound on Sight’s list of the best episodes of the year so far continues with entries from Fortitude and Daredevil.

If “The Chain” was the perfect Fleetwood Mac song to accompany the closing montage of “Walter Taffet,” the shocker of a midseason episode which introduced, among other things, Gaad’s discovery of the bug in his office, “March 8, 1983” could’ve ended with “Little Lies.” Although there have been many impressive aspects in the third season of The Americans, one which I’ve harped on repeatedly in this space has been the thematic cohesion of its episodes. This season has been remarkably broad in scope, and Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg have consistently used the wide frame, in conjunction with a tight thematic focus, to contrast how characters in different locations react to similar scenarios (i.e. love, death, etc.). Appropriately enough for a show about spying and deception, the finale gives viewers a look at the effects which lies of different varieties and magnitudes have on the liars and those around them.

The Peabody Awards have grown to be a staple of media since their beginning in 1940, as the committee awards programs they see as excellent in quality. Beginning with only awards for radio, the group soon expanded to television, giving tv shows their due credit since 1948. While the actual awards ceremony has yet to occur, …

In its third season, The Americans has made its scope wider, moving beyond the emotional focus of the Jennings to take a broader view of those affected by the Cold War. After the spotlight on Phillip and Elizabeth revealing their secret to Paige in “Stingers,” last week’s “One Day In The Life Of Anton Baklanov” examined a variety of elements in the drama’s universe, to less claustrophobic but still tense effect. “I Am Abassin Zadran” finds an effective compromise between the two, developing disparate aspects of The Americans while still giving the episode a moving center, which, if not quite on the level of the Paige reveal, certainly leaves you with your heart in your throat. That core, obviously, is Martha, and while her arc has been far from ignored this season, there hasn’t been anything approaching the shocking wig removal with which the episode concludes.

Even when The Americans slows down, it never lets up the tension. This week’s episode, “One Day In The Life Of Anton Baklanov,” tempers the pace after the shocking reveal of last week’s “Stingers,” but the relationships between the characters remain no less taut. The claustrophobic focus of the last third of “Stingers” on the relationship between Paige and her parents is replaced by a broader look at lesser developed characters in the series’ universe, allowing the viewer more time with stories which seem equally worthy of being told.

While last week’s episode, “Divestment,” showcased the emotional violence caused by the characters of The Americans, this week’s Phillip K. Dick-referencing “Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?” focused on actual physical violence and its effects. It’s an idea that’s been explored throughly on the show (through the infamous suitcase scene, the tooth extraction, and many other aspects), but the most recent hour is particularly notable for the way in which it contrasts how various characters react to the murders (or forced suicides, which are more or less the same thing) for which they’re responsible. No major players in the series’ universe are lost, but the two killings are, in their own way, two of the more devastating moments on The Americans in recent memory.

Calling attention to the lies told in an episode of The Americans might feel like spotlighting the sex in an hour of Game of Thrones or the cringeworthiness of an installment of Girls, but this week’s “Divestment,” was particularly filled with mendacity. As with the violence (which I’ll get to in a bit), it’s not the amount of it, but the severity of the obfuscations of truth which impacts the viewer most severely. Accordingly, “Divestment” contains some of the most painful and exaggerated lies seen on the show in recent memory.

Television history is littered with the bodies of ill-advised spin-offs. Their corpses, copies of reviews and overnights crumpled in their clawed little hands, defile the memories of the successful shows that spawned them and serve as cautionary tales for every writer tempted to go to the same well twice. However, every once in a while, …

Something is rotten in the CIA, as Agents Gadd, Beeman, and Aderholt discover in “Walter Taffet,” this week’s installment of The Americans. Martha has been spying on her co-workers for a while now, as a favour to her husband “Clark,” and the episode finally sees her misdeed being acknowledged.

More and more, this season of The Americans feels like it’s centered around Paige. Although the myriad subplots weave together to paint a broad portrait of Cold War life, she’s become important enough to feel like as good a candidate as any for the show’s emotional core. Paige serves a dual function in the narrative: her embrace of Christianity is interesting in its own right and is also an ideal lens for the viewer to understand the complicated relationship between Elizabeth and Phillip. This week’s episode takes its title from Paige’s baptism, so “Born Again” naturally focuses on her, and she continues to be a perfect anchoring point for the show’s broader concerns.

Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell are ostensibly co-stars on The Americans, but, increasingly, the former’s character has become the more interesting one. While Elizabeth’s unceasing dedication to the USSR has become a bit one-dimensional (despite her taking Paige to church), Phillip’s conflict between his commitment and his growing embrace of American life makes him a more dynamic and complex personality. Her steeliness makes her a fascinating “straight man” to his less disciplined self, but it’s his lack of self-control that makes for the more human and fascinating conflict. This week’s episode, “Salang Pass,” amplifies the compelling nature of his character by testing the limits of the viewer’s sympathies through having him act abhorrently without completely severing our connection with him.

Although this week’s episode of The Americans, “Dimebag,” is more of a connector hour than a climactic thrill ride, it provides some fascinating development of plots which had only been implied until now. One of the show’s strongest elements is the way in which it deals with issues prone to sensationalism with an unusual subtlety, and it demonstrates that strength notably this week through its exploration of previously under explored arcs.

Of all the elements that make The Americans among the most fascinating shows on television (it took the top spot on my top 10 list for last year), the parallels between relationships, organizations, and individuals may be the show’s most compelling narrative component. Whether it’s between the Beemans and the Jennings, the KGB and the CIA, or, more broadly, life in the USSR and the US, the series excels at revealing truths through comparisons between foils. This week’s episode, “Open House,” focuses on marriage, and the results are as fascinating as always.

Last week’s premiere started off marvelously, in medias res at a breakneck pace but without feeling hyperbolic. In this week’s episode, “Baggage”, the speed of the narrative is greatly reduced, but the effect on the viewer is no less powerful. As creator Joe Weisberg understands, viewers need to spend time with characters and scenarios to care about them and this episode moves slower in the interest of introducing new elements to the show.

Throughout its two season run, one of the most remarkable things about The Americans has been the show’s understatement. Despite the somewhat far-fetched premise (Phillip and Elizabeth just happen to live next to Stan), the series has maintained an impressive level of self-restraint. Much of the show appears to be content to depict the overall tedium of its characters’ lives, using the time to develop their relationships with one another and set the stage for the climactic moments that never feel too delayed.

There are plenty of interesting new series to be on the lookout for, but many TV fans will be most excited about the return of some of television’s best offerings. Here are Chief TV Editor Kate Kulzick and Managing TV Editor Deepayan Sengupta’s picks for the most exciting (currently scheduled) midseason returns of 2015. Banshee …

2014 has been yet another fantastic year for television, one that continued the nichification of the medium, with highly specific and underrepresented voices breaking through in every genre. There was a comedy explosion, particularly on cable, with dozens of new series presenting confident first seasons and several returning shows reaching new heights. The dramas didn’t disappoint either, with visionary creators bringing new life to familiar settings and taking greater risks with their returning series, deepening their worlds. Throughout the year, directors and cinematographers brought lush visuals, composers pushed the auditory envelope, and an astonishing number of actors gave fantastic, memorable performances. More than a few shows delivered spectacle on a weekly basis, while others went small, deriving incredible power out of stillness and self-reflection. Some series swept the audience up, week in and week out, and others built subtly, only showing their hand in their season’s final episodes. There truly was too much great television this year for any one person to see it all (95 separate series were nominated by our contributors!), so limiting the discussion to 10 or even 20 series would be ridiculous. Instead, here is Sound on Sight’s list of the 30 best series of what has been another wonderful year for television.

2014 has been yet another fantastic year for television, one that continued the nichification of the medium, with highly specific and underrepresented voices breaking through in every genre. There was a comedy explosion, particularly on cable, with dozens of new series presenting confident first seasons and several returning shows reaching new heights. The dramas didn’t disappoint either, with visionary creators bringing new life to familiar settings and taking greater risks with their returning series, deepening their worlds. Throughout the year, directors and cinematographers brought lush visuals, composers pushed the auditory envelope, and an astonishing number of actors gave fantastic, memorable performances. More than a few shows delivered spectacle on a weekly basis, while others went small, deriving incredible power out of stillness and self-reflection. Some series swept the audience up, week in and week out, and others built subtly, only showing their hand in their season’s final episodes. There truly was too much great television this year for any one person to see it all (95 separate series were nominated by our contributors!), so limiting the discussion to 10 or even 20 series would be ridiculous. Instead, here is Sound on Sight’s list of the 30 best series of what has been another wonderful year for television.

2014 has been yet another fantastic year for television, one that continued the nichification of the medium, with highly specific and underrepresented voices breaking through in every genre. There was a comedy explosion, particularly on cable, with dozens of new series presenting confident first seasons and several returning shows reaching new heights. The dramas didn’t …

Part 2 of our listing of the best television episodes of the year to date looks at individuals outings of shows such as Bob’s Burgers and Fargo.

There couldn’t be a better song choice to open The Americans’s second season finale than Golden Earring’s “Twilight Zone”. Not only does it add atmosphere to the situation unfolding, but it speaks metaphorically to every running plot of the season, right down to the most important question it asks over and over: “Where am I to go now that I’ve come too far?” Every character has to face this question at some point during the events of “Echo” (and for characters like Emmett and Leann, even earlier) – and as “Twilight Zone” so succinctly points out, “soon you will know/when the bullet hits the bone.”

The characters of The Americans are always trying to protect something: information, identities, affairs… in a world full of secrets, it becomes very important to be able to keep things from coming to light. All season long, the various characters of The Americans have tried to protect their status quo, akin to keeping the lid on a boiling pot of water: eventually, things are bound to boil over and spill everywhere, saturating people and situations in the very things they’ve tried to avoid.

For all the fantastic work The Americans and its performers do with theme and character, The Americans most underrated asset is its ability to develop intricate, layered storytelling without completely losing its audience. It makes episodes like “Stealth” – which mostly exists in between the actions of the past and future – so much more rewarding to watch, an hour that rapidly begins pulling season-long story threads together in rapid fashion.