The Americans on FX

With a great finish, which I expect, this should go down as one of the best first seasons ever. So few shows have had great full first seasons. (Take Breaking Bad, which had a great seven-episode first season.)

 

Breaking Bad's first season was only seven episodes due to the writer's strike.

 

I love the fact that I have no clue what's going to happen with Nina. "Dies to get Stan Beeman to put on his serious face" was by far the obvious choice, and they subverted that brilliantly.

I could see her dying at her bosses hands. I could see them using her as a double agent (if they aren't already) to feed misinformation and probe out Beeman. I could see her getting her exfiltration. Heck, I could see her dying at U.S. hands.

 

This season started with Stan controlling Nina. That ship has sailed.

I love how all this violence escalation has been caused by a perception of what the other side is doing. All the violence has been caused by misconceptions.

 

I wonder if we will start seeing flashbacks on Stan.

 

I'd love to see an episode like that, to further deepen his character. Maybe a snapshot of the happy family, another when he's under deep cover in the Ozarks and undergoes a change, another still when he returns home and tries to settle back into family life or is considering the assignment in Washington -- all of which helps us to understand this cold, merciless fucker who has a chance (if handled correctly) to be a great show's greatest character.

 

I think that will be the backbone of Season 2.

 

Yeah. The big Stan Ozarks reveal is coming, but they'll save it for while.

 

I saw the name in the opening credits, and said, no, it can't be. Had to laugh when I recognized him.

 

Well, that pretty much summed up U.S.-Soviet relations, which reached its nadir when misconceptions about Operation Able Archer almost triggered a nuclear war.

 

Richard Thomas, Richard Kline... can't wait for Gary Burghoff, Ted Lange or Pam Dawber to show up as a guest star.

 

Most shows struggle with the penultimate episodes of seasons. The two that stand out to me as exceptions, The Wire and Breaking Bad (though I'm only through three seasons, my understanding is that's a trend), do so for the same reason: They use the penultimate episode the way most shows use a season finale, then use the finale to build toward the next season. That's the smart way to do things, but it also makes the finales seem a little tepid, which is understandably frowned upon when a show hasn't built the good will and good faith of its audience the way The Wire and Breaking Bad do.

So this episode was mostly exposition, and it was somewhat flawed exposition. I hadn't forgotten about the clock, but it would have been a wise move to make that espionage from that office an actual part of the show after the tap was placed. Even simply a quick reference in one extra episode would have went a long way toward making that side of the plot land.

They did a better job of presenting Nina's drift toward being a double-agent, which to me was the key to the episode. The Russian-language scenes aren't as well executed as the English-language scenes throughout this show, which undoubtedly comes from not having native speakers in the primary roles. But the scene with Nina's oath was really well-acted.

The Clark and Martha saga is spiraling into absurdity, but it's the best kind of absurdity. Clark's very presence on screen makes me laugh, and Alison Wright plays a very difficult character perfectly. In lesser hands, it would be easy to hate Martha for her gullibleness. Some of the things Clark's asked of her, including the marriage, are absurd, but Wright plays Martha as a desperate woman so thrilled to have a man who seems trustworthy that she's willing to ignore any indication he's not. Balancing Clark off Amador, a truly trustworthy man who was honest about his playboy lifestyle, really sets up this relationship well. It's a shame Amador isn't around anymore because he provided a lot for the show.

Holly Taylor remains an awful actress, and Paige's scenes mostly aren't interesting, but Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys played off her awkwardness well.

There are so many directions the finale can go in. I still say that if they stick the landing, this should go down as one of the better first seasons in recent TV history.