The seventh episode of The Americans devotes a good chunk of its running time to an extended heist apprised in the previous episode, “Rififi,” as one that’s destined for failure. Here it ends with four dead bodies and one remarkable…
The Americans 6×06 Review: “Rififi”
The title for The Americans’ sixth episode will leave a few cinephiles raising eyebrows. Rififi’s director, as mentioned in the episode, is the American expatriate Jules Dassin who fled his home country after the House of Un-American Activities commenced its witch…
The Americans 6×05 Review: “The Great Patriotic War”
We’re now about halfway through The Americans and already the show is beginning to commit to the catastrophic implications reinforced by the show’s previous four episodes. Aside from a couple deviances involving Oleg and Stan, “The Great Patriotic War” is…
The Americans 6×04 Review: “Mr. and Mrs. Teacup”
In the fourth episode of The Americans, Philip and Oleg talk about the dissolution of the Soviet government, but what hangs more desperately over the show is the possible dissolution of Philip and Elizabeth’s relationship—brought up in the conversation with…
The Americans 6×03 Review: “Urban Transport Planning”
“Urban Transport Planning” amps up on the ambiguity as more and more character motives start to interweave into a more unsettling conflict of interest—the most disconcerting of these must be the ones between Oleg, Stan and Philip. As we know,…
The Americans 6×02 Review: “Tchaikovsky”
The second episode of The Americans, “Tchaikovsky,” continues “Dead Man’s” sense of impending demise—Ronald Reagan’s senility is mentioned (referencing the president’s onset of early Alzheimer’s) and the bedridden wife of the weapons negotiator is staking out plans with her husband…
The Americans 6×01 Review: “Dead Hand”
The American’s sixth and final season begins just as the Soviet Union’s dissolution does, perfectly fitting as both—in their own way—spell the beginning of the end of something. One is the end of a communist state, and the other the…