Anyone else watch The Americans?

I LOVE The Americans! (Although I agree that last season wasn't very good.)

I think Elizabeth should be the one to die, but it'll probably be Philip and she'll have to deal with that, especially as she was just starting to feel some human emotions. I don't think anything will happen to Paige or Henry.

she serves no purpose on this show

unless there might be a spin off somehow

like what happens to the'illegals' with the end of the cold war

the calendar on the wall in the last episode says Dec 87 so in 4 years the USSR crumbles

do they all go home to mother russia?

do they stay living as americans?

and what happened with Phillips other wife - that they shipped to russia?

gina

We often watched it with our DS so we're going to wait until he's here for Father's Day weekend to watch it.

Things I want to happen:

Elizabeth and Philip turn on the center, spill their guts and go into witness protection. Philip also gets Oleg out of jail.

Stan realizes Renee has been using him and shoots her in self-defense.

Claudia dies a very slow and painful death.

ETA: Isn't tonight's episode 90 minutes?

ETA again: This show is one of the best shows ever on television that so many people never saw.

you bet it is!

Such a great show! I hope that Matthew Rhys gets an Emmy for this season, but they are all really amazing.

I loved the parking garage scene! That wrapped it all up and left me completely satisfied with the series. The rest was interesting and surprising. I'm glad they didn't kill anyone off. I liked it that they left things somewhat open-ended, for each viewer to imagine the future.

This really is one of the best things that has been on TV. I worked in military intelligence during the Cold War, so that made it even more interesting. I will miss the nostalgia of revisiting the 80s, orange wallpaper, pay phones and all.

We need a thread about your former work   Phillip joining Elizabeth on that mission was a great segment! 

It was fun revisiting the 80's, I loved seeing the fashions and realizing I dressed Older at 22 than I do now.... 


We would notice a scene, like the parking garage, that would be different today with security cameras everywhere.

I liked the ending. Paige acted like typical Paige. Hers was the only character I didn't like throughout the entire seried.

Haha, I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you...  

I really loved Elizabeth’s character, too. She was so passionate and stayed true to her cause. I liked Philip’s comment, something about how she wanted to fix the whole world. 

DH and I loved this show...sad it’s over, but I’m glad they had a series finale and didn’t just disappear.

When we were first married in the late 70’s, we lived in the DC suburbs, in a little garden apartment complex. At the height of the Cold War. My good friend lived a couple of buildings over. Her neighbors were Russian. One day, the FBI contacts her, and meets with her and her roommate. They ask all kinds of questions about the Russian neighbors, and then give them a contact name and phone number and ask them to call if they notice anything “strange” going on with the Russians. As I recall, they explained in detail what would constitute “strange”.

My friend laughed it off at the time, although it creeped me out even then. But watching this series creeped me out even more, knowing it was going on right under our noses back in the day. I read somewhere that no one agent would have done all that Philip and Elizabeth did, their characters were a mash up of what a whole team of agents would do. But still...

I liked the finale, sort of. I wish there had been an epilogue of some kind. Philip running into Martha, or the two of them realizing things weren’t quite what they’d been led to believe. I don’t know. I realize they are left all alone without their children in a country they don’t know anymore, and have no connection to, but they did some pretty horrific things, especially Elizabeth. Her kids never came first, they were just there to support her cover. So it was a bit of a letdown that she just walked away.

1. Hopefully, Martha adopted that darling orphan girl and they both end up bilingual. 

5. I’m okay with most open-ended scenarios, but this one bothers me. She could end up in prison.

7. Technically, there’s nothing to prevent Philip and Elizabeth from calling or writing to their kids right away ...eventually emailing. There’s no fear of extradition. After the political reorganization, Paige and Henry could even visit Russia - if they chose and if Paige is free. (Okay, I admit it; I’m worried about her. She’s a starry eyed 19 year old who has no money or home, her biggest expressed fear is being alone, and she was an unwitting accessory to murder. And she forgot to drink the castor oil before the vodka. And yes, I realize she is fictional. LOL.)

My answers, based on nothing but wishful thinking... lol. 

1. Martha has adopted that cute little girl and finally has someone to love and who will love her. She is fairly happy and is now pretty fluent in Russian.
2. Phillip's son Mischa is working at a factory, and living with Philip's brother (we saw that in the episode where Mischa had to go back to the Soviet Union). Philip will contact them after he's settled in Moscow (or wherever he ends up).
3. Yes, Stan will help Oleg. We know that Gorbachev and the reformers survive because historically we know what will happen in a few years.
4. Renee is an undercover Russian. I forget why Philip and Elizabeth originally suspected it, but that look she had when she was watching the FBI raid the Jennings' house was a satisfied type of look. Philip warned Stan so that he would be careful not to bring home information that Renee could pass on. And if she ends up working at the FBI he can keep his eye on her. At the same time he loves her. This is his punishment that he has to live with for the rest of his life for allowing Philip and Elizabeth to walk away.
5. Paige is harder to wrap up, lol. In the garage she said to Stan that she'd known about her parents since she was 16 so in his eyes she's not entirely innocent, although of course he has no idea that she'd been doing some small missions with Elizabeth. But Stan can't just have her arrested because he'd need probable cause and he couldn't admit to the others at the FBI that he'd talked to Philip and Elizabeth in the parking garage or else he'll be arrested for treason. So my theory is that Paige eventually goes back to her apartment and/or to Stan's house and he takes her in. But he's always a bit suspicious of her. And of course she's brought in to the FBI for questioning but she can probably get out of any trouble by just saying "I was just a kid, I didn't understand" or something like that. 
6. No idea about Stan's son because he wasn't ever really in the show except for that short time when he and Paige were a thing.
7. I think they could contact them right away, I mean even in the days of the Cold War people were allowed to write letters. They'd probably be censored though, at least those coming out of the Soviet Union. I would think that Philip and Elizabeth would never be allowed to leave the Soviet Union, and probably not from Russia either after the Soviet Union crumbles. And I wonder if the kids would ever be allowed to go there. I wonder if they'd even be allowed to have a passport. But once the internet is invented (lol) they could do email. But...will Henry and Paige even want to talk to their parents?
8. I'm sure Stan has not forgotten Nina. I think that memory was partly wrapped up in his mind as he stood in that parking garage with the gun pointed at Philip. He's entangled in the whole Russian spy thing and can never admit any of it or he'll be tossed in jail for treason.
9. Claudia has gone back to the Soviet Union and is working at whatever job the KGB set up for her. Whether she survives the fall of the Soviet Union depends on how high up she is in the KGB (i.e., the higher one is the worse it will be for them) and how much she can lay low.

How's that?   

One of my unanswered questions is how the heck did Paige get all the way back to Virginia from the Canadian border when she seemingly had nothing with her? Unless she had money stashed in her pockets. 

Sure. A few episodes ago, as part of Paige’s training, Claudia and Elizabeth taught Paige to drink castor oil before she drinks - to delay drunkenness. Then they all got drunk and talked about sex.

btw: That teen son of the other “Illegals” killed his family because his KGB parents disapproved when they found out that a handler had seduced and recruited him. It’s easy to misremember because it’s such a wildly preposterous premise that an American-raised kid would massacre his family out of brand-new loyalty to the USSR - and sex - but it was a plot contrivance to explain why the Center asked Elizabeth and Philip to out themselves to Paige in preparation for recruiting her as a second generation spy.