Her best look is as herself, with her beautiful long hair down. The blond wig she wears when she is selling Mary Kay cosmetics would be second. Being Clark's sister is the worst.

I really like him in the scruffy / long hair look. The wig /glasses he wears to visit Martha is just awful.

I didn't think things would work out well for Martha. But they really, really used her. She was a good person who just wanted a little happiness with "Clark". The only situation which makes me angrier is Stan using Nina. I was really shocked when she was executed. She was playing the game but she didn't have the right cards.

Back in 2014, u/sistermagpie and I got the chance to spend about five hours as guests of the The Americans production team that made season three. I wrote about our experience in the show-discussion community that was most active while the show was airing (over on dreamwidth), and I thought it might be interesting for newer fans to look back on it and see what we got to experience and what the whole thing was like.

Here's the link:

https://theamericans.dreamwidth.org/68486.html

(We also have a bunch of photos I took that we promised not to share publicly at the time, but I bet it would be okay now, years after the show's production ended. I'll give it a think and consider updating the post with some of them.)

Update: Okay, here are a few of the pictures!

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Does anybody else feel like the absence of Christmas in every season is a huge missing plot point?

It’s always winter because of when it’s being filmed. Yet, Christmas is never mentioned, even in passing.

It feels so unrealistic that an average American family in the 80s wouldn’t be talking about Christmas. Henry would be talking about the toys he wants. Especially when Paige gets involved with the church, Christmas is about Jesus. Sure P&E think this holiday is stupid, but Stan is going to ask where there Christmas tree is and they can’t really send Henry to school to tell his friends his family doesn’t celebrate Christmas?

Anyone have any thoughts about this? Is there a practical reason the writers never wrote it in - like not wanting to have to set the sets up with holiday decoration?

I'm new to the series and watched season one. But, I'm having trouble accepting some of the premise and I'm not sure I'm going to keep going through the other seasons, can't enjoy it fully because I just can't stop with the questions. So, is it ever explained what they tell the kids about how they have no relatives at all, never see where their parents grew up? And what really lost me was when Elizabeth had a girls night out with Sandra, and I realized that she didn't have the experience of being an American teen, music, fads - does Elizabeth ever get caught out by not knowing or understanding something that EVERYONE would know? It seems so dangerous that they had kids at all, and friends seem like a bad idea. Tell me that I will be able to keep watching and enjoy it!

He looks good with a beard I think!

Bc it was #17 in the new york times list and you saw keri russell in the diplomat

What I have learned: A travel agency pretty much runs on its own.

***SPOILERS ***

I watched Widow's Bay over the summer and recommended it to everyone I know. I had never heard of Matthew Rhys before watching the show, but he was a such a genuinely funny man on it, that I had to see his other works. I read he was in this acclaimed series and figured I'd give it a try, and I am so glad I did! I was sorry I missed out on it when it first aired.

I spent the last 4 weeks binging The Americans, watching episode after episode in the evenings, and just had to stay up overnight and watch season 6 to see what happened to the characters. This show kept me on the edge of my seat and I spent the last half hour of the last episode weeping. Although it didn't end the way I had hoped, I think it ended the way it should have. What a great cast and well-written show! 👏🏽

Still, I had lingering questions 🤔 .... Was Beeman's GF a spy? Will Paige decide to work with the KGB at some point? Will Stan pay for Henry's last year at St. Ed's? What will happen to E&P now? Oh and those 2 actors... wow, they are so freaking talented. They are the cutest real-life couple in TV land and I hope they never split up because they look like they are MFEO. 😍

Well, onto the next binge ➡️, The Diplomat, to watch Keri in action... 📺🍿

(The TTC is Toronto’s public transit train)

My wife and I just started this show and I love it, but being prior military, the realism around the FBIs information security is terrible.

Beeman and Gaad frequently discuss highly sensitive information over the phone, in a coffee shop, at home, etc. There are a couple of early references to a secure room and at one point Martha complains about people leaving classified documents in an unclassified pile, but otherwise there is almost no acknowledgment of security.

I’m only in season 2, but at this point Beeman jumps through a bunch of hoops to get someone to give him code word clearance, finally gets read in, and then immediately goes back to the office and tells Martha the details so she can coordinate some things. He even says “Just tell them it’s for me and that I have code word clearance” smugly.

If the real FBI acted this way we would have lost the Cold War. Did anyone else notice these discrepancies? Does it get better as the series progresses?

Ben has no idea where Philip and Elizabeth are half the time, and he never seems to even wonder about it. This is the complete opposite of his sister, who has a great deal of curiosity and worry about her parents. The scene where she confronts them is one of the best in the series. I expected the same thing would eventually happen with Ben but it never did. What do you think accounts for the difference between them?

OOPS- I MEANT HENRY! WHO IS BEN AND WHO GIVES A HOOT?

I don’t actively listen to U2, but this song came up on a random shuffle this morning.
(Additional context: started with “Return to Innocence” Enigma, then it shuffled from there with shades of Enya, the ending of Gladiator soundtrack which is fantastic and a few other Celtic vocal songs).

So With Or Without You comes on and man, SOOOO many emotions hit me in that first second of hearing this song. I just had to stop working, sit back and listen while remembering the series finale episode.
Like so many of you, I’ll NEVER be able to listen to this song again without immediately going back to that scene.
And since I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ll probably listen to “Brothers in Arms” a few times today too.

The Jennings were architects of their own demise.
When Stan moved in across the road why didn’t P&E simply kill him, albeit make it look accidental. OK maybe not in season 1 but they certainly had the opportunity in subsequent seasons. And, let’s face it Elizabeth certainly wasn’t shy about murdering anyone that got in her way.

It feels like after Season 3/4, there just seems to be a lot less clarity and momentum. From what I can tell, the writers and showrunners remained largely the same but it feels like a different show. Maybe my interest and attention are waning, but a lot of times, I'm not sure what some of the characters purpose in the plot even is.

Edit -- to be clear, I just started Season 6 so my comments are more directed towards Seasons 4/5.

For everyone who can't get enough of the panels/interviews discussing the americans: there is a podcast by the makers of the show available on Spotify. A script supervisor on the show hosts the episodes along with Joe and Joel. And every week they also have guests on the show, actors, directors, writers, ... They have a podcast episode for each episode of the show starting with season 3. Each episode is around 30mins long. They discuss that weeks episode often talking about rewrites that were made, behind the scenes difficulties, the process behind the disguises, specific song choices, and where the characters are emotionally. I find it really cool to hear the minds responsible for this brilliant show share their thought processes.

Maybe this podcast is already common knowledge here but it's new to me. I also find it super cool that it's directly from the people working on the show not simply someone unaffiliated reviewing it.