"The Americans" Finale Gets It Done

Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell

"Philip" and "Elizabeth"

Back in the USSR

This post will contain spoilers about the final episode of "The Americans".  You've been warned.

Regular readers know that I have been a steady watcher of the FX series "The Americans" from Day One.  Those same readers also know that I have felt that the series lost a bit off of its fastball a few years ago and went on for two and maybe even three seasons too long.  That said, in Episode 10 of Season 6, the final episode of the series, "The Americans" hit one out of the park with the bases loaded.

The show opened with Philip (Mathew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) realizing that the jig was up and that they had to lam it out of America and get back to the USSR, and that the only way to do this was to leave their son, Henry, behind.  "He doesn't know anything, he belongs here, he's an American" says Philip, and Elizabeth, who has spent this entire season killing anything that moves and showing no interest at all in her son, shows some trace of Mother Love, something that has been sorely missing from her character for six seasons.

There then followed four critical scenes:

1. Philip, Elizabeth, and Paige ready to take off and make one final phone call to Henry at his New England boarding school.  They have to act like it is just another call while knowing that they will most likely never see or speak to him again.  Henry pretty much brushes it off because he has to get back to a ping pong tournament being held in his dormitory. It was wrenching.
2. Dim bulb FBI Agent Stan Beeman has finally put two and two together and confronts the fleeing Philip, Elizabeth, and Paige in an empty parking garage. He goes all by himself with no backup, talks tough with the Jennings while brandishing his gun at them and then proceeds to let Philip talk his way out of the whole thing.  "Hey, you moved in next to me" Philip tells Stan, as if to say that this is all Stan's fault.   Paige then tells Stan that HE has to now take care of Henry, and Philip drops the bomb that Stan's wife just might be, although he's not really sure, a KGB agent.  In their final conversation, the Jennings' pawn off a kid on Stan and effectively ruin his marriage.  Stan then lets them drive away.  Stan Beeman was without a doubt the dumbest and most ineffective law enforcement agent in the history of television.
3. While traveling by train out of the USA into Canada, all passengers are being checked by Border Patrol agents with sketches of the fleeing fugitive spies.  It is an incredibly tense scene as the agents look over the passports of the disguised and separately seated Philip and Elizabeth before determining that these are not the people being sought.  There then follows a simply stunning scene when Elizabeth looks out of the now moving train window and sees Paige standing on the platform.  Keri Russell's reaction as she realizes that her daughter has abandoned her and is going to stay in America is simply brilliant.  The entire scene is played out with virtually no dialog and with U2's "With Or Without You" playing on the soundtrack.  The entire scene deserved multiple usage of the Pause/Rewind/Play button.
4. Throughout the six seasons of this show you knew that you were watching bad people and in the interest of justice being served, you knew that Philip and Elizabeth would need to end up either dead at the hands of American law enforcement or imprisoned for life.  It didn't happen. The Jennings make it back to the Soviet Union, but forever separated from their children, and with the knowledge that the country that they have served all of their lives is soon about to be changed forever, and in fact, the USSR that they have known will soon cease to exist.  Perhaps it is a fate worse than death for them.  In the final line of spoken dialog of the series, Elizabeth simply says "We'll get used to it."

I don't always agree that long running TV series have to end with everything tied in a bow in a Grand Finale of an episode.  The final episode of "Seinfeld" was a bomb, the finale of "The Sopranos", while not a bomb, was ambiguous and unsatisfying, but I think that the creators of "The Americans" got it just right.  The Jennings do get punished for their various crimes and sins, although maybe not in the way we like.  There was no cutesie fast forward of an epilogue to tell us Whatever Became Of those who remain behind.  We'll never know what became of Paige and Henry, or, for that matter, Philip and Elizabeth.  In it's own way, this becomes a very satisfying ending to this series.

(I have my own speculation as to what happens to one of the characters.  Henry remains at his New England boarding school, continues to excel at ice hockey, earns a scholarship to a big time hockey school, and gets drafted by the Washington Capitols.  After a long and distinguished career with the Caps, the aging NHL veteran Henry Jennings becomes a friend and hockey mentor to the Caps' young rookie sensation Alexander Ovechkin.  How's that for irony?)

So "The Americans" now comes to an end.  I never missed an episode, and while maybe the series should have ended a season or two earlier, the terrific final episode made it a most satisfying series to have experienced over the years.

Final Season for "The Americans"

We are now four episodes into the sixth final ten episode season for the FX series "The Americans".  I have written of this show often on the Blog, usually in favorable terms, but, and you knew there was going to be a but here, didn't you?

For background, the series is about two KGB agents, Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings, who are living under deep cover in suburban Washington, DC during the Reagan Administration.  They pose as travel agents and have two children.  In fact, they are ruthless spies for the USSR, who will stop at nothing as the Mother County does cold war battle with the enemy USA.  And when I say "anything" and "ruthless", I ain't kidding.  That means sleeping with the enemy (in true cable series fashion, this shows offers a generous dose of gratuitous nudity) and, oh, yeah, killing the enemy if that is what's called for.  Over the years, we have gotten to see plenty of shots of star Keri Russell's bare bum, and also seen her and Phillip, but especially her, ruthlessly and relentlessly killing too many people to count.  

They also live directly across the street from Stan Beeman, the FBI agent whose job is to track down Soviet spies.  Apparently, Stan is as dumb an FBI agent as Noah Emmerich, the actor who plays him, is a bad actor.  For six seasons this guy has been the most wooden actor I have ever seen.

How they manage to do all this, while raising two kids in suburban America and running a travel agency, constitutes a plot hole large enough to drive an 18 wheeler through, but so what?  For the first three or four seasons, the show was great.  Fast moving and exciting, you could follow the plot lines, and you couldn't wait for the next episode.  As is often the case, however, "The Americans" stayed too long at the fair.  The show should have ended after season four, maybe even season three.  Last year and this current and final season have just stretched out and are no longer compelling at all.  

So, you may ask, what is wrong in this final season?  Let me cite a few things (NOTE:  If you are not caught up on this final season, the following observations may be considered spoilers; you've been warned):

• Since the end of Season Five, a time jump has occurred, and Season Six takes place four years later.  Daughter Paige is in college, and son Henry is off at some fancy prep school in New England playing hockey.
• Phillip has apparently tired of the spy game, and is now devoting all of his time to running his travel agency.  Question:  Can a KGB agent actually "quit" and remain in his American location, and if so, would the KGB allow him to become a full time capitalist American businessman?
• Towards the end of Season Four, the Jennings' handlers instructed them that it was time to turn Paige into a Soviet spy as well.  This girl, who was your typical American teenager and had no idea what her parents really did for a living, agreed readily.  Would that really happen?
• Son Henry, still has no clue of his parents' occupation.
• Elizabeth remains in the spy game full throttle, working to sabotage an upcoming Reagan-Gorbachev Summit, and is more brutal than ever.  In four episodes so far, she has brutally killed three people.
• She is bringing Paige into her operations, but all Paige seems to be doing is sitting in a car by herself while Mom is out spying.  What's up with that?
• Stan Beeman is still clueless.
• Phillip is faced with financial problems because his travel agency expanded too quickly, and he might now be going broke.

So, six episodes remain to tie this all together.  I predict bad endings for everyone.  I can see a couple of possible scenarios.  

(A) The entire Jennings family gets killed in some final Armageddon-like sequence.  

(B) Paige gets killed in some shoot up with the FBI right in front of her mother and father, who are then sent off to life in a federal penitentiary.  Everybody forgets about Henry, who continue to excel on the ice and gets drafted by the Washington Capitals.

(C) Phillip and Elizabeth get killed right in front of Paige, who is traumatized for life, but still get sent to the pen for life.

(D) When the dust settles and the FBI realizes that their ace Special Agent has lived across the street from these people for ten years, sends Stan to head up the FBI office in Nome, Alaska.

(E) In his final day in office, President Reagan pardons Elizabeth, because his kids Ron and Patti loved watching her when she was in "Felicity".

Okay, I don't really know how this will end, but in all honesty it simply HAS to end badly for the Jennings, right?  I mean, they are spies and killers, enemies of the American way of life, and just really bad people.  They've got to either die or be sent away forever to prison.  Nothing else would be just.

Whatever happens, I wish that it would have happened two years ago.  The show isn't what it was, and we are watching it now, not because it is good, but because after investing five years into watching it, we now just have to see how it ends.  The show now is like an aging ball player past his prime, a shadow of its former self and hanging on for one or two seasons too many, playing out the string.

What's on Television?

I know that you have all been wondering, "What has The Grandstander been watching on television these days?", so it's time to tell you....

• The Pittsburgh Penguins.  Yes, it is Stanley Cup playoffs time, so it's time for me to start watching NHL hockey.  I freely admit that my knowledge of hockey can fill two, maybe three, thimbles, but I know enough to know this...the Penguins are good, very good.  In the Columbus  series I was impressed by the Pens' ability to keep the puck inside the blue line for extended periods of time, thus keeping pressure on the opposing defense.  Of concern, though, was the fact that Columbus was able to register 51 shots on goal in that last game.  Can any team be expected to win twelve more games if the goalie has to make 49 saves a night?  Just askin'.  Looking forward to subsequent playoff rounds, and hearing Doc Emrick doing the play-by-play.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates.  Well, I am still going to wait unto about thirty games are in the books before making any extensive commentary, but, whoa, it is not looking good thus far, despite that sweep of the Cubs last weekend.  It is looking like there will be a lot of "Bob gets to bed early" type games when it comes to watching the Bucs this season.
• "The Americans".  Marilyn and I both thought that this series stayed too long at the fair, so to speak, took a downward turn in quality this season.  It got to the point where we just didn't take time to watch it, and allowed three episodes to back up on our DVR.  However, our friend Mark told us that no, this series is better than ever, so based on that, we spent last evening binge watching those three episodes.  I will concede that the series has picked up a bit, however, it is not what it was in it's initial three seasons.  Too much staring and brooding by all of the actors involved.  And has any character or actor ever been as stiff as the guy playing FBI agent Stan Beaman.  What a dork!  And he's got two KGB agents living right across the street from him so he can't be much of an FBI agent either.  On the bright side, the producers are still delivering gratuitous nudity just about every week, including shots of Keri Russell's bare bum.  Must be in her contract,
• "Feud: Bette and Joan".  I am saddened that this eight week series ends with tonight's episode. I have absolutely loved the show about actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, as played by Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange.  As I put it in an earlier post, two terrific contemporary actresses chewing scenery as they portray two legendary actresses chewing scenery.  It has just been the textbook definition of a Guilty Pleasure.  Davis comes across as the better actress and person in this presentation, with Crawford as the villain and super-bitch. Both Sarandon and Lange are terrific, but I am guessing that the Emmy nomination will go to Lange once awards season rolls around.  In supporting roles, I love Stanley Tucci as Jack Warner, and who doesn't love Jackie Hoffman as Mamacita?  If you haven't been watching this, go to On Demand and watch it.  Now.

Mamacita

• "Fargo".  FX kicked off Season Three of "Fargo" and it promises to be another oddball, quirky, and violent series set in the cold north of Minnesota with all the odd accents of the folks up there.  It started with a scene in an East German police office in 1988, before transitioning to Minnesota in 2010.  Not sure how that is going to tie in, but we'll see.  The story appears to involve two feuding brothers and their disputed inheritance, a female (of course) Minnesota police officer, some strange parolees, including a sexy tournament bridge player, and shadowy criminals horning in on a legitimate business. Oh, yah, it's going to be a good one, you betcha.
• Sitcoms.  "The Big Bang Theory", "Modern Family" and "Life in Pieces" are three must see programs in out house.  Each continues to get better as the years roll on.  Big Bang, in it's tenth season, when shows can expect to be petering out, seems to have picked up a second wind this year and is as good as ever.  It has been picked up for two more seasons, and shows no sign of slowing down (unlike, say, "The Americans").
• HGTV.  Nothing can fill up an evening when there's nothing else on like back-to-back-to-back episodes of shows like Fixer Upper (we LOVE Chip and Joanna!), House Hunters, Property Brothers, or Love It or List It.  One exception: Tiny Houses.  That one drives me nuts.  These dopes who are looking to "go tiny", get into one of the places and say things like "it's a little tight in here" or "aw, no full size refrigerator" or "there's no closet space" or "it'll be hard to have friends over and entertain in here".  It's a trailer with 300 square feet of space. What the hell did they think it was going to be like???  As I said...dopes! We'll stick with these folks:

Chip and Joanna Gaines

So there you go.  What have you all been watching?

Bouquets, Brickbats, and Other Observations

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box.....

Saw the current Pittsburgh Public Theater's production of "Daddy Long Legs" on Sunday evening.  It might have been one of the very best shows we have ever seen at the PPT, and we have been attending productions there since the 1980's.

The show starred Danielle Bowen and Allan Snyder, both of whom were making their first appearance at the PPT.  One can only hope that they will be appearing there in many future productions.

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Speaking of the PPT, it was announced a few weeks back that Managing Director Ted Pappas would be leaving that position at the end of the 2018 season.  Apparently, it was Pappas' decision to move on, and one can only wish him the best.  In his eighteen years in that position, he has made the PPT one of the true gems in the Pittsburgh cultural scene.  Good luck to the person that the PPT brings in to replace him.  He or she will have some HUGE shoes to fill.

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"Feud: Bette and Jane" continues to be one of the most entertaining series on TV.  The scene on last Sunday's show wherein Joan Crawford, played by Jessica Lange, fires her William Morris Agency agents in one of the great scenes with one of the best lines ever delivered on series television, was an absolute classic.  

If you missed it, go to FX Network On Demand and click on Episode 4 of the series.  The scene I am talking about takes place in the first five minutes of the show - you'll know it when you hear it, believe me - so you won't have to invest a lot of time into it if you are not so inclined.

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And while we are talking about TV series on FX, we are now three episodes into Season Four of "The Americans".  So far, I'm disappointed, and I fear that unless things pick up quickly, we could be talking shark-jumping for what has been a really good series for the first three seasons.

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What was becoming a major embarrassment came to end last night when Duquesne University announced that Kevin Dambrot, late of Akron University, had accepted the position of Head Basketball Coach for the Dukes.  Apparently, Dambrot had originally turned down the job, and then so did everyone else the University approached about the job.  So, they went back to Dambrot and upped the ante considerably (seven years / $7 million), and he said yes.

For those of us who came of age when Duquesne was THE college basketball team in the city, and those of us who did are now all in our sixties and older now, we can only hope that, finally, things may turn around on The Bluff, and that Dukes basketball can be relevant once again.

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So, the NFL lodge brothers approve the relocation of the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas by a note of 31-1. The Raiders then say that the actual move won't take place until 2019 or 2020, and that, by the way, the lame duck team will be raising ticket prices for the chumps in Oakland to attend their games.

(Oakland and the State of California would not cough up any public funds for a new stadium for the Raiders.  Vegas and Nevada is forking over $750 million of their residents' tax payments.  Just the way the NFL and other pro leagues like it.)

Mike Wilbon is right: the arrogance and greed of the NFL owners knows no bounds, and the sad part is that those suckers in Oakland will no doubt continue to pony up for tickets when it would serve the Raiders right to play in front of empty houses for their remaining years in the Bay area.

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Has anything been more annoying than the  prominent role being sought out and granted to Lavar Ball, the father of UCLA basketball player Alonzo Ball, and two other hoops' prodigies.  The fact that the Bruins went down to Kentucky in the regional semis last week may have ruined a lot of peoples' bracket pools, but it spared the nation - for now, anyway - any further exposure to Lavar Ball.  By the way, Ball may well be the #1 pick in the NBA draft this summer, but in that game against Kentucky, he wasn't even the second best guard on the floor. Both of those kids from Kentucky were better, for that night at least.

I missed the Kentucky - North Carolina game on Sunday, but was somewhat surprised at the outcome.  I thought that Kentucky was the best team that I had seen play throughout the tournament up to that point.  Not completely surprised, though, because, after all, North Carolina IS North Carolina.

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For what it's worth, I'm calling North Carolina to beat Gonzaga for the Championship come Monday night.  As always, watch but don't bet.  And for the record, the bracket pool that I submitted at the outset of the tournament had UCLA over Arizona in that game.  

Shows you what I know.

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As for the movie scene, last week I pulled to favorites out of the DVD basket here at home, both from director and screenwriter Lawrence Kasden.  From 1981...

and from 1983...

I hadn't watched either one in several years, and both hold up well after all these years and are still terrific movies to watch.

Television Thoughts - No Spoilers

Some quick hit television thoughts.....

• The season three finale of "The Americans", while not disappointing, it did not pack the punch of previous season-ending episodes.  This entire season seemed to be a bit of a miss-mash of too many plot lines that only confused the viewer (or at least the two viewers that reside at our house).  As friend Fred Shugars has stated, perhaps, one of he overlying themes to emerge from this season is that "you can't trust teenagers".
• We are now halfway through the final season of "Mad Men" with only three episodes remaining.  We have invested six years into watching this series, and it is disappointing that in this last year, our overall sentiment is "Well, we have to watch, but we can't wait for it to be over".  All of the characters have devolved into people that are just plain unlikeable to the point where you just don't care what happens to them. (Possible exception: Peggy Olsen.)  
• Perhaps the producers of "Mad Men" should have just ended it a season to two ago and gone out on top.  It's too bad that long running TV shows feel that they must end a show's run with some blockbuster tie-all-the-strings-together Grand Finale.  It rarely works out to anyone's satisfaction.  Exhibit A of this theory of mine is "Seinfeld".

• Has anyone watched this new TBS sitcom "Your Family or Mine"?  I have tried watching it on two separate occasions, and I could not get through to the end of either episode.  Crude and awful.  And one of the stars is Richard Dreyfuss!  I suppose that at this stage of his career, and Oscar winner like Dreyfuss is entitled to an gig like this to guarantee himself an easy phone-it-in paycheck, but it's a shame to see a guy who starred in such things as American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters, The Good-bye Girl, and Mr. Holland's Opus performing in something as dreadful as this.

"The Americans"

The season finale for one of our favorite TV shows, "The Americans" on the FX Network is this coming Wednesday, and we anxiously await it.

If you are unfamiliar with the show, it is set in Washington DC during the first term of the Reagan Administration, and it centers around the lives of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, played by Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell.  The Jennings at first blush are typical Washington suburbanites who have two teen aged kids and run their own small business, a travel agency.  In fact, however, they are KGB agents who have been planted in the American capital city to spy for the USSR.  They do this with an incredible number of disguises, an appalling amount of violence, and the need to use sexual wiles to obtain such vital information.  (Like many shows on these cable networks, "The Americans" features healthy dollops of gratuitous nudity, including almost weekly shots of Ms. Russell's bare bum.)

How they can do this without arousing the suspicion of their children (for the first two seasons, anyway), their employees at the travel agency, and their neighbor, who just happens to be an almost clueless FBI Agent, is one of those questions that you just shouldn't ask.  Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Season three has been a bit bewildering as the producers have give the Jennings an incredible number of balls to try to juggle in the air.  There have been plot threads involving the Russians in Afghanistan, something to do with South Africa, the KGB's desire that the Jennings' daughter be recruited into the KGB, a female KGB agent, the incredibly hot Nina, who is now in a Soviet jail, Stan the FBI neighbor's divorce, and a disturbing and very icky plot element that has Philip being ordered to become "involved" with the 15 year old daughter of a CIA officer. 

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the bug planted in the FBI office by FBI secretary Martha, who is also married to Philip.  If you watch the show, you know what I'm talking about.  If you don't know, it really sounds preposterous, doesn't it?

Anyway, it had gotten to the point many times this season to say things like "now, who is this guy again?" or "why are they talking to this kid here?"  and "who is that lady?" As I said, I think that they have tried to do too many things his season, and it appears that they don't know what to do with all these elements.   And the show seems to have lost contact with the single great tension point of the series: THAT THESE SOVIET SPIES LIVE RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE FBI AGENT WHO IS TRYING TO TRACK THEM DOWN!!!!!

Anyway, about halfway through the season we came to grips with the idea that we not even try to connect all the dots that are out there, and to just let the show flow over us.  Also, in the previous two seasons of the show, the season finale has managed to tie loose ends together and deliver a wallop that will make you anxious for the next season to come around.  We suspect that that is what will happen this time as well.

Wednesday night at 10:00 on FX.  Please don't try to call us during that hour.  We won't be answering our phone.