DVD/TV Series Review: The Americans: Season 5

 

+++Warning, this contains spoilers from prior seasons, but no major season 5 spoilers+++

The fifth season of The Americans, which is the second to last season, served to both tie up or advance older storylines, and set up the storylines going into the final season. Phillip and Elizabeth (Matthew Rhys and Kerri Russell) are dealing with the fallout of Paige telling Pastor Tim their true identities, and are trying to keep him from ratting them out while debating how to deal with him without hurting Paige. Oleg (Costa Ronin) is back in Moscow, still grieving Nina's death, but trying to move on in his new job investigating food chain corruption. Paige (Holly Taylor) is getting more and more entrenched in her parent's spy life and having a hard time adjusting, while Henry (Keidrich Sellati) is still in the dark hoping to go to a prestigious boarding school. 

As in past seasons, there are a couple of big themes that run throughout the season. The main one involves an agriculture program that threatens the Soviet Union's food supply, and the second is a continuation of the prior season's biological warfare story arc, and the threat of weaponizing Lassa fever. Toward the end of the season, Phillip's mission involving Kimmy (Julia Garner) picks up again, and he is again put in a very uncomfortable position trying to keep Kimmy on the hook. 

The DVD set is what I would describe as a MOD plus set. The A/V transfer is mediocre, at best, and it only has a few extras. Those are a handful of deleted scenes, a gag reel, and the TNT First Look for the new season. The extras are not nearly as extensive as the season one blu-ray release got, and the DVD video transfer is nowhere near the season one blu-ray transfer quality. So, the only big reason to get the DVD set versus just streaming the show is to keep a collection complete.

The show continues to be well-written and very well-acted. There is still a lot of violence and sexual content, so it is definitely not a family-friendly show. The series definitely seems to be setting up Stan to figure things out, but the big question is going to be how will he do so. There are some good new additions to the cast, including Peter Jacobson (who was a series regular in the middle seasons of the series House) as a new member of the FBI team and Laurie Holden as a new love interest for Stan, brought back Allison Wright for a small side story, and included the great recurring characters of Gabriel and Claudia, played by Frank Langella and Margo Martindale. If you liked the prior seasons, then this one is definitely worth watching.

DVD/TV Series Review: The Americans: The Complete Fourth Season

 

+++Warning, this contains spoilers from the prior season, but no major season 4 spoilers+++

The fourth season of The Americans continues some of the storylines from prior seasons (tying some of them up completely and shifting others) and introduces new storylines. The big new storyline involves bioweapons and brings in the great character actor Dylan Baker as another soviet living in the US and working as a biochemical scientist. The storyline with Martha, after Phillip revealed his real identity to her in the prior season, takes a prominent role this season and both he and Martha are in constant danger of being discovered by the FBI. Phillip and Elizabeth also have to deal with the fallout of Paige telling Pastor Tim about her parents, trying to figure out whether to kill him and risk alienating Paige further.

For those who get the DVD set, the A/V quality is definitely not as good as it could be, and one of those where the streaming quality (in HD) is better than what you get on the physical discs. The extras are very bare bones, just some deleted and extended scenes. There are no behind-the-scenes features or commentary tracks as there have been in prior seasons. So, this basically amounts to little more than an MOD set, and one of those series that Fox (which has heavily preferred steaming) only puts out a bare-bones set. So really, the only reason to get the DVDs is that you want to keep your collection current.

Overall, the season is very good. There are definitely twists and turns throughout the season, and the series ratches up the tension as Phillip and Elizabeth are always in danger of being caught. The cast is top-notch, not only the main cast but the supporting characters as well. Margo Martindale and Frank Langella are great as Philip and Elizabeth's handlers, and Julia Garner does a great job as Kimmy in her limited role. Matthew Rhys gives a standout performance this season playing Phillip as very conflicted and torn between being a good Soviet and an American becoming more and more disillusioned with his real job. There is a lot of violence and some sexual content as there has been in every season, although I would say that the sex is a bit toned down in this season. If you have been a fan of the series up to this point, it is definitely still worth watching. If you are looking for a new series to watch, start this at season one and enjoy.

DVD/TV Series Review: The Americans: Season 3

 

+++Warning, this contains prior season spoilers, but no major giveaways from season three ++++

Season three of The Americans picks up sometime down the line from the end of season two. Most of the characters continue as they had, aside from Nina, who is now in a Russian gulag having been arrested for treason after Stan failed to save her from being arrested by the Soviets at the end of season two. As has been the case for the first two seasons, this season is a mix of a case-of-the-week procedural while having a running theme that goes throughout the season. This time, it involves the Soviet-Afghan war, and the Jennings trying to obtain information from the CIA's Afghan group. That storyline brings in Julia Garner to play the high-school-aged daughter of the head of the CIA's Afghan group that Phillip has to get close to in order to bug her father's home office, which presents a moral quandary for Phillip as she clearly has a crush on him. Phillip's relationship with Martha gets even more complicated as the bug he convinced her to plant in agent Gaad's office is discovered, and Paige continues to become more suspicious of her parents as time goes by.

For those who get the DVD, it is very bare bones. It does have a couple of bonus features, basically deleted scenes and a feature on the character of Paige. Of course, the first season was released on Blu-Ray, but from season two forward only got DVD releases. While the show does not really use special effects, the show does not look as good on DVD as it did on DVD.

Overall, the show continues to be great. The writers do a good job balancing the large cast and making nearly everything suspenseful. The writing and acting are still great, with the standouts this season being Holly Taylor, whose storyline gets more prevalent, and Annet Mahendru whose character is in a much different position this season from the first two. This season also sees Lev Gorn, Costa Ronin, and Richard Thomas promoted to series regulars. Again, the series is definitely not family-friendly as it has as much swearing, sex, and nudity as can be shown on basic cable. But, the stories are compelling and if you are old enough to remember the early to mid-1980s it will definitely give you a flash of nostalgia. So, if you like the first two season, this is definitely worth watching.

DVD/TV-Series Review: The Americans: Season 2

 

+++Warning, this contains minor spoilers from season one, but no major season two giveaways+++

Season two of The Americans is set a few months down the line from the events that ended Season one, with Elizabeth being shot. She and Phillip concoct a story about having to visit an ailing aunt to explain her absence while she recovered from Paige and Henry (and to a large extent Stan). Paige begins to become more and more suspicious of her parents as the season goes along, with a very strong, will he figure it out vibe. As was the case in season one, the series has a blend of procedural and serial elements. There are self-contained missions and several story arcs that thread throughout the season. One of those involves the murder of another pair of illegals whose lives are fairly similar to the Jennings. Then there are several missions that involve the Jennings trying to steal stealth technology and the precursor to the internet called the ARPNET. There are several additions to the cast this year with Susan Misner (who plays Sandra Beeman), Annet Mahendru (who plays Nina), and Alison Wright (who plays Martha) being promoted to series regulars, and the addition of Costa Ronin as Oleg Igorevich Burov, a new KGB officer working out of the Soviet Embassy.

For those who get the DVD set, there are a handful of extras including a featurette on the real "Directorate S", a featurette on the morality (or lack thereof) of the series, deleted scenes, and a gag reel. The show was not released on Blu-Ray, which sucks for those of us who prefer that format and purchased season one on Blu-Ray. But, Fox has a strong preference for just streaming shows and is putting fewer and fewer shows out on Blu-Ray and only putting some out on DVD. So, the fact that this one got a physical release at all, given that it never had a huge fanbase, is kind of surprising.

Overall, the series continues to be great. The acting and writing are both top-notch, and the show is definitely a blast from the past for those of us who actually grew up in the 1980s. The early seasons of the show were set in 1983 when I was still pretty young, but I do remember some things about that time and I think they recreate it pretty well. There is still a lot of violence and sexual content (and as much nudity as they could get away with on basic cable) so it is not family-friendly, but if you watched and enjoyed season one, you already know that. To me, the show is, along with Breaking Bad, one of the best dramas of the 2010s, and is definitely worth watching, especially if you are into crime and spy dramas.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: The Americans: Season 1

 

The Americans is a series created by former CIA officer Joe Weisberg about a pair of "illegals" from the Soviet Union played by Kerri Russell (best known for the series Felicity) and Matthew Rhys living in the United States in the 1980s and spying for Russia. The plot is loosely based on the spy ring that the US uncovered in 2010 as well as Russian Spies in Canada. Rusell and Rhys play Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings who came to the US as young adults after learning how to speak perfect English and blend into American culture. On the outside they seem like the typical 1980s nuclear family with two kids, Paige played by Holly Taylor and Henry played by Keidrich Sellati running a travel agency. They are really deep-cover agents who carry out missions that range from everything from bugging or sabotage to abduction and murder. Life gets even more complicated for them when an FBI agent named Stan Beeman (played by Noah Emmerich) moves in next door. He definitely gets suspicious of the Jennings' comings and goings but mostly accepts that they are normal neighbors. It does incorporate real events (like the assassination attempt of Ronald Regan) into the storylines and uses archival footage to blend in with the story. It also has a great 1980s soundtrack that anyone around back then will recognize.

The show has a strong supporting cast including Annet Mahendru as Nina Sergeevna, Agent Beeman's Soviet mole working in the Soviet Embassy in DC, Margo Martindale as Claudia, the Jennings' KGB supervisor, Susan Misner as Sandra Beeman, Stan's wife, Alison Wright as Martha Hanson, Agent Gaad's secretary and Philip's informant, and Lev Gorn as Arkady Ivanovich, the KGB's second Rezident.

The Blu-Ray extras include deleted scenes, a commentary track on the season finale, a gag reel, and a couple of making-of featurettes. The A/V quality of the Blu-Ray is good. Even though the show does not have a lot of special effects, the colors in the show really pop, and what effects there are (usually incorporating historical footage) do look great.

Overall, the series is very good. I like the fact that it was set during the Cold War (probably not at the height, but not far removed from the height), which really ramped up the tension in the show. The show does a great job with character development and showing that Elizabeth and Phillip have very different feelings about what they are doing and how they would handle their kids finding out about what they do. The show does push the boundaries of what can be shown on basic cable. There is as much swearing and nudity that they can get away with, and a lot of sexual content. The show does definitely hone in on the "honeypot" aspect of spy work in which spies use sex to get close to and manipulate people in positions to be helpful to them. It is well written and very well acted, and the shorter (thirteen-episode) season definitely leaves the viewers wanting more. So, if you are looking for a good drama, this is definitely one to check out.