TV #61 of 2021: The Americans, season 6 A time-skip is an inherently risky creative maneuver, introducing discontinuities that can suspend audience investment in the ongoing narrative and generate boring mysteries of the what-do-these-characters-know-that-we-don’t variety. (Both examples are apparent in the final season of Parks and Recreation, to note just one prominent example.) There are …
Tag Archives: The Americans
TV Review: The Americans, season 5
TV #58 of 2021: The Americans, season 5 I feel torn about this penultimate stretch of The Americans, which in general is serving its deep-cover protagonists quite well. Their share of the story is richer than it was in the previous year, and sees the operatives drawing closer together and experiencing ever more remorse and …
TV Review: The Americans, season 4
TV #49 of 2021: The Americans, season 4 This remains a good show from scene to scene, but I’m growing frustrated with some of the larger plotting decisions. Last year built up a few tense and untenable situations that never came to a head, like Kimmy’s advances and the literal Chekhov’s gun in Martha’s kitchen …
TV Review: The Americans, season 3
TV #46 of 2021: The Americans, season 3 Another strong year of the deep-cover Cold War drama, albeit without as clear a throughline in thematic material or plot. Season one was largely focused on parallels between the Jennings marriage and its accompanying spy partnership, and the next one turned to the protagonists’ role as parents, …
TV Review: The Americans, season 2
TV #37 of 2021: The Americans, season 2 A second fantastic run of this spy-drama period piece, this one built largely for considering its central couple as parents — struggling to keep their kids safe and raised with like-minded ideals as any of us would, but with the extra tensions that necessarily stem from their …
TV Review: The Americans, season 1
TV #14 of 2021: The Americans, season 1 I’m really enjoying this tense spy thriller, which so far has been equally about its outlandish premise of Soviet operatives in deep cover as a normal American couple and the quieter moments within their marriage (or sham thereof). There’s a natural thematic element of negotiated trust in …
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