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.