OT: The Americans - series finale

Submitted by BeatOSU52 on

Well this is it folks.  After 6 seasons, the whole shabang ends tonight at 10pm on FX.  Episode runs a bit longer, an hour and a half, when including commercials.

 

Some good articles I thought I'd share regarding the end of an all-time great:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/arts/television/the-americans-end-se…

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/5/29/17392150/the-americans-fx-final-s…

https://quartzy.qz.com/1291583/the-americans-series-finale-goodbye-to-o…

 

 

No matter how it ends, I'm sure going to miss this show.  Truly one of the greats.

BeatOSU52

May 30th, 2018 at 9:33 PM ^

Kind of wonder if it’s going to be like some people predict where the final scene is her “taking the Jennings place”



Curious what happens with Oleg ... he’s up there as one of my favorite tv characters of all time . Incredibly well-developed character and very good actor .

I Bleed Maize N Blue

May 31st, 2018 at 12:03 AM ^

Stan's hunches were really paying off tonight. He tracked them down, had them at gunpoint ... and they talked him into letting them go. I be like dang.

And then Paige ditched them at a train station. Didn't see that coming. But going back to the safehouse seems like a bad move. And not in disguise, either. WTF?!

I kinda expected the Jennings to get gunned down by KGB hardliners upon their return. But I guess not.

WestQuad

May 31st, 2018 at 12:22 AM ^

The melancholy bittersweet ending (they got away) was very appropriate and yet really disappointing.   I wanted some Jason Bourne level shit.  Phillip should have karate chopped Stan and Elizabeth should have shot Stan's partner after karate chopping him.  

I wanted karate chops.

I Bleed Maize N Blue

May 31st, 2018 at 1:40 AM ^

I think Stan is going to hit the bottle hard. He had a hunch that his best friend was a Russian illegal, and it turned out to be true. He lets them go, and Philip says in parting that he thinks Renée is one, too, but he doesn't know for sure. Stan's life is FUBAR.

TheLastStraw

May 31st, 2018 at 10:17 AM ^

I felt like the resolution was a little too everyone lives happily ever after.



Look, I know Oleg is going to jail for the rest of his life and Elizabeth and Phillip leave their children behind... but everyone lived.

  • The rogue KGB should have killed off Elizabeth and Phillip.
  • I know the garage scene was epic for a television show, but after realizing his best friends were spies and that his trust had been betrayed, he decides to let them go? 

Also, given how much the show kept us updated on the politics of the era throughout, it was actually remarkable how they didn't resolve anything regarding the treaty negotiation or the rogue faction within the KGB. 

 

chatster

May 31st, 2018 at 11:17 PM ^

There’s Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, filmed from behind, staring at the Moscow skyline that they never might have envisioned when they were plucked from their homeland in 1966 and sent to the United States.  (For a moment, I thought that the soundtrack there might have included the 1961 song “Midnight in Moscow” by Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen, but in hindsight that would’ve been too upbeat.)
 
They’re back where they STARTed, but now as Mischa and Nadezhda. They’re ruminating about what might’ve been for each of them had they never left.  Would Nadezhda have been working in a factory?  Would they have met each other on a bus?  Will their new START without their children give them a “happy” life in a country that they don’t know?  Will Mischa ever encounter Martha on a Moscow street? Will they be protected by Arkady, or will the KGB target them for assassination or imprisonment? How “happy” will THEIR future be?
 
There’s Stan Beeman whom we’d seen at the START of the series, broken down by his years working undercover in a white supremacist group and feeling strains in his marriage after having moved to a new neighborhood, suspecting that his new neighbors might be Russian spies, finally learning that his suspicions had been right from the START.  But now he’s facing a new START without his best friend, with new suspicions about the woman he loves, Renee, and possibly with new responsibilities for caring for Henry, the young man who idolizes him.  How “happy” will HIS future be?
 
There’s Paige Jennings on the run, having ditched her disguise from the train ride to Canada, sitting in the unoccupied “safe apartment”, downing a shot of vodka and possibly thinking of her next move in the new START of her life, without having her parents around. What will she do? Where will she go?  How “happy” will HER future be?
 
There’s Henry Jennings, having discovered from Stan the truth about his parents and learning that he never may see them again. What will he do?  Where will he go?  How “happy” will HIS future be?
 
There’s Oleg Igorevich Burov, the well-educated son of a high-ranking Soviet official whom we’d first met at the START of Season Two in the “Comrades” episode, sitting on the floor in a padded cell.  He’d gone through almost as many personal changes as Philip had throughout the series, but he’d seemed to have been relatively content with the START of his new family life in Russia until he was dragged back to the United States to help prevent the disruption of negotiations for the START treaty.  Is he destined for years in an American prison?  Could he rely on Stan to help him now? How "happy" will HIS future be?