The ending of The Americans felt right. This show has
always focused as much, if not more, on the emotional violence in marriages and
families, not just violence in the spy trade. The show was true to itself to
the end, with its tragedy coming not in a hail of bullets, but in the family
being torn apart. The Jennings family makes it out alive but they are not
whole.
Henry probably
got the saddest ending of all. It may have been the correct decision to leave
him in America, since he has the strongest connection to his country and the
most going for him, but he loses his parents and sister. Stan will take care of
him but he also has to explain the incomprehensible: his family were Russian
spies. If it dawns on him, he’ll have to live with the fact that his
conversation with Stan, about how his parents were never home, was one factor
that tipped off the FBI.
Scratch that:
Paige may have the saddest ending. She takes control of her life and leaves her
parents behind on the train to stay in America, but what future does she have? Her
parents are gone and the infrastructure that would have given her a cover
identity is gone, too. Stan doesn’t tell anybody about the garage confrontation
and the authorities may or may not buy her excuse that she knew nothing about
her parents’ double lives. So Paige goes to the safe house, waiting for orders
from a mentor who is long gone. What a perfect final image: drinking a shot of
vodka alone.
I think about
the final words of season two, after the Jennings parents find out the Centre
wants them to recruit Paige. “It would destroy her,” Philip says. Elizabeth
asks, “To be like us?” Those words were unsettling then and they’re unsettling
now.
Elizabeth and
Philip stay together but are without the children, one they recruited and one
they tried to protect. Even for those trained to be emotionless, this is a
source of deep pain, written all over their faces. They had to watch as their
daughter stayed behind and couldn’t do anything about it. I liked the touch of
Phillip going to Elizabeth’s side on the train, risking blowing their cover so
they could be together as a source of comfort. After everything, their marriage
survives, but the irony is their real wedding last season may have been their
undoing, as it led Father Andrei to tip off Aderholt.
Mischa and
Nadezhda are finally back in the embrace of Mother Russia but they’re strangers
to the country. Their return builds on themes the show was working on all
along: They wear the disguises of Americans but have now truly become American,
and may not recognize the country they haven’t seen in 20 years. “We’ll get
used to it,” Elizabeth says in Russian. But we know what’s coming in the Cold
War. The Berlin Wall will fall, countries will leave the Eastern Bloc and the
USSR will in a few years cease to exist. McDonalds (nice touch having them stop
there) will soon be in Moscow, as Elizabeth dreaded. They do succeed in taking
the coded message about the attempted Gorbachev coup back home, but this
undermines most of their previous work, and they take nothing with them from
their decades in America, not even their children.
I liked the
final shot of the two of them by the road in Russia. In the distance, the
cityscape looked like it was missing something, like looking on Washington, DC,
in the distance without the Capitol or Washington Monument.
What might
life have been like if they’d stayed in the Soviet Union? Elizabeth thinks she
might have worked in a factory, and maybe she’d have met Philip on the bus. Elizabeth’s
dream shows another path: smoking in bed with Gregory and saying, “I didn’t
want a kid anyway.”
After
everything collapses and Stan finally knows—really knows—that his friends of
years are spies, he lets them leave unharmed. “You made my life a joke,” the
FBI agent says, knowing his reputation will be in question since he lived
across the street from spies for years. Philip says he’s done with the spy life
and tells Stan, “You were my only friend in my whole shitty life.” He’s working
Stan so he can get out alive, but we know it’s true. The two really were
friends, and the pain in that garage is palpable. Worse, letting the Jennings
family off betrays Stan’s decades or work for his country. Then again, maybe
Stan sees a kindred soul in Philip, who in choosing Russia over the KGB, served
his country. That scene was cathartic and electric.
Philip tips
off Stan that his wife may be a spy. Philip may have meant this as a kindness
but it’s really cruelty. Now the FBI agent has to live with another potential
betrayal. Is Renee a spy? After two seasons, we don’t give a definitive answer,
but that’s beside the point. The point is that Stan will always have doubts.
The way he hesitated before Renee pulled him in for a hug means he believes
Philip about his wife, which will eventually eat away at their marriage. It’s another
tragic ending, and the writers stuck the landing with it.
Stan rhetorically
asks the Jennings family if they know how many people Soviet agents have killed
in the last year. Let’s add up the human toll of the murdered or messed up people
in the six years of this show:
Nina, becoming
a pawn first of the Americans and then of the Soviets, executed in a gulag.
Martha, conned into marrying a spy and betraying her country, exiled to the
USSR. Oleg, one of the few characters who did concrete good, spending life in
prison. Amador, brutally murdered by Philip and Elizabeth in a safe house.
Annelise, strangled and folded into a suitcase like laundry. Young-Hee and Don,
their marriage destroyed by Elizabeth for no usable information. William,
giving his life to his country to end up with liquified insides from a deadly
pathogen. Betty, forced in the machine shop to overdose on heart medication and
die slowly. Lisa, her throat slit by a bottle of booze after trying to extort
Elizabeth. The guy in the driveway, whom Elizabeth dropped a car on. Gene, the
FBI’s IT guy, hanged by Philip to cover up the Mail Robot bugging. Marilyn,
beheaded posthumously in a parking garage. Gregory, walking into a hail of
police bullets. Natalie, who helped the Nazis execute the Soviets as a
teenager, watching her husband die before being shot in her own dining room. Vlad,
shot by Stan, who mistook him for murdering his partner. Leanne and Emmet, spies
murdered by their spy son, himself later killed. A soldier at the military
base, killed by Philip. Sofia and Gennadi, murdered by Elizabeth, their bodies
left to discovery by their child. Pasha, pushed to the brink of suicide. The
lab technician in Kansas, killed by Philip to gain nothing. Gaad, bleeding out
on his retirement vacation. Tatiana, shot in the back in broad daylight. A CIA
official, poisoned by Claudia as he lay paralyzed on the floor. The deliveryman
outside the military base, left to freeze to death, tied to a tree. Kate,
hanged in her own home by Larrick. A security guard, strangled by Elizabeth in
a hotel room. Two FBI agents, killed while trying to capture Harvest. Anton,
abducted back to the Russia he had finally escaped from. The South African,
burning to death with a tire around him. Kimmy, emotionally manipulated for
years. Lucia, the vengeful Salvadoran spy strangled by Larrick. Fred, shot
after trying to glean the secrets of the Stealth program. Harvest, swallowing a
cyanide pill, praising his mother and cursing his father. A man in a swimming
pool, his heart stopped by Elizabeth. A bus boy, shot by Philip when he got in
the way.
That’s just
off the top of my head and we’ll never even know how many lives were shattered
in the three years between seasons five and six. It was all for an ideological
battle that turned out not to matter. What a stupid waste.
The Americans was a show about both a clash of
countries and all the little clashes that happen in families and marriages. Its
brilliance is that it viewed one through the prism of the other. This finale
and this season have been brilliant, showing what happens when ideologies break
down and neither side knows how to live anymore.
The Americans will go down in the hall of fame of TV
drama. It’s one of my very favorite shows of all time, just stunning on every
level. For every horrible murder or corpse disposal that set your teeth on
edge, there were quieter moments of violence that sent a shiver up your spine
and haunted you. If there is justice at the Emmys this year, it will get a
long-overdue Best Drama award, and there will be awards for the flabbergasting
performances by Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys.
I really will
miss this show. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to binge-watch the whole
thing again.
