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“The Americans” gets entangled in psychological spy games

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:51:00 +0000

I want to pay “The Americans” a compliment, but to do so, I have to start with an insult. I was really irritated and bored with the first half of last night’s episode — “Trust Me” — in which first Philip and then Elizabeth appeared to be captured by the FBI, who torture them, and Phil especially, in the hope they will confess their true identities. I was bored and irritated because it just so obviously could not be the FBI that had captured them. That’s a plot point we’re not going to see for a few seasons, at least, because it will mean the show is pretty much over. And besides, the Russians had just realized they had a mole in their outfit: Clearly they had captured Elizabeth and Philip, and were testing them to make sure they hadn’t flipped. (This is a particular spy-genre trick I’ve seen before, like in that bad-but-sort-of-fun to watch Colin Farrell–Al Pacino movie “The Recruit”; also, if the Russians meant it, they would have kept Philip and Elizabeth for more than an afternoon.) This is, in fact, what had happened, but when Elizabeth and Philip figured out it was the KGB doing the physical and psychological assaulting, “The Americans” got original and dark.

Matthew Rhys: “I still blink hard when the young PAs say, ‘We’re doing this period drama’”

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 01:00:00 +0000

The Cold War-era espionage thriller "The Americans," which is halfway through its first season on FX (and airs on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. ET), is not the first series to challenge the audience to identify with unsympathetic characters. But this early 1980s drama pushes American views a little harder, asking us to root for KGB sleeper cells living in suburban northern Virginia as Americans — and see CIA and FBI agents as the enemy. Welsh actor Matthew Rhys, who last appeared on U.S. television in ABC's family drama "Brothers & Sisters" as a gay lawyer (and whose TV brood included Rachel Griffiths, Calista Flockhart and Sally Field), returns to the small screen to play Philip Jennings, a Russian spy, who takes all of his roles very seriously, no matter which identity he's assumed. He is an effective strategist when it comes to collecting intelligence — and a scrappy thug when he needs to be. But equally interesting is the domestic drama within "The Americans": Philip is devoted to his wife, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) — despite the fact that theirs is an arranged, sham marriage — and an extremely protective father to their daughter and son, who know nothing of their parents' secret and past lives. And part of Philip wonders if it would just be better for the family to defect, to buy into the American way of life — which would, of course, mean betraying his country and abandoning his life's work.

FX orders another season of Cold War-era spy thriller “The Americans”

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:15:00 +0000

FX's Cold War-era spy thriller "The Americans," which premiered in January, has already been approved for a second season with 13 episodes. The show has been compared to the Showtime espionage hit "Homeland"; the Hollywood Reporter's Tim Goodman wrote in January that "It's too early to really judge 'Americans' against 'Homeland,' but if the latter is getting away from what hooked you in the first place, then you might find what you're missing on 'Americans'."

Indeed, "The Americans" debuted with high ratings, and although fewer people tuned in after the first few weeks, ratings company Nielsen has attributed the decline to increased viewership on DVRs.