# The Americans: Season 6 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 28, 2018, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379 "2018-03-28T22:50:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/221 "2018-04-26T22:08:55Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I’m with you. I’m a little disappointed about how blatantly the writers are setting up her presumed demise or incarceration-under-torture or whatever they’re going for. ‘The monster is defeated, huzzah!’ seems to be what they’re aiming at, audience reaction-wise. Do you listen to the insider podcast, though? They have always seemed to be against that view in the past. It’s puzzling. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/222 "2018-04-26T22:18:42Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Do you listen to the insider podcast, though? They have always seemed to be against that view in the past. It’s puzzling. I haven’t found time to listen to the podcast (though maybe I will in coming weeks). Interesting about their being aware of the view, let alone against it—they certainly are feeding that audience segment now! ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/223 "2018-04-26T22:19:44Z")
Yes, which makes me wonder if they are planning a reversal. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/224 "2018-04-26T22:24:56Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Yes, which makes me wonder if they are planning a reversal. I agree that engineering a reversal of audience expectations would interest writers as sophisticated as these. Though I can’t see them making the Elizabeth-haters/Philip-lovers switch their allegiance without some sort of massive sabotaging of the show’s premise, a la ‘it was all a dream and Philip is actually a child-molesting used-car salesman while Elizabeth is actually the saint.’ That wouldn’t fly! ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/225 "2018-04-26T22:33:50Z")
I think it’s only Philip-good-Elizabeth-bad if we look at it from a USA-centric standpoint. Philip cutting the operation short and telling Kimmie to refuse to go to any communist country (and if she’s as smart as he seems to think, she’s going to connect the dots and tell her father) was a MASSIVE betrayal of his homeland. Did he make the ethically correct choice? Well, arguably, but don’t we also value loyalty, both to one’s nation and one’s family? In any case, this was a fantastic episode. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/226 "2018-04-26T22:56:08Z")
It’s not an either/or - Elizabeth haters and Phillip lovers. I hate them both. Phillip may be “better” by some standards, but he still murders innocent people in order to undermine our country. The only reason I might root for Phillip to “do the right thing” is because I want the Illegals missions to fail, not because I think Phillip is deserving of any sympathy. If he rotted in prison for the rest of his life, it still wouldn’t be enough. But I could live with it. In reality, if he flipped, he’d get immunity. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/227 "2018-04-26T23:08:06Z")
Currently, my problem with Elizabeth is that her kill count is becoming ridiculously high. Yes, both she and Philip have murdered people routinely, but in most seasons they weren’t dispatching poor schmucks in Every. Single. Episode. We are five episodes into this season and Elizabeth has offed at least one person per ep, sometimes more. Just how sloppy are we expected to believe that the Washington DC police and the FBI are that she can get away with so many killings in such little time? I’ll caveat this by saying I did really like this episode, so far the best for this season, but Liz all on her own busts into an _FBI safe house_, kills her targets, and gets out without ANY altercations with an agent? My suspension of the disbelief is reaching its breaking point. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/228 "2018-04-26T23:09:08Z")
JAQ, I am always amazed by how many people watch the show the way you do, which is clearly “against the grain” of the writers’ intent. Do you ever feel like you are fighting against their efforts to make you see it differently? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/229 "2018-04-26T23:50:46Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > The only reason I might root for Phillip to “do the right thing” is because I want the Illegals missions to fail That’s the genius of the show… we KNOW that their missions, overall, failed. We know that the USA (the good guys, if not perfect) won and the Soviets (the bad guys, on the whole) lost. If this were a show that took place in the present and there were a couple who were undercover infiltrators from China who were working to undermine the current USA, I’d find it very hard to sympathize with them, even if they acted in precisely the same way that P&E. But because it’s established historical fact that P&E’s entire cause and entire belief system ended up on the dustbin of history, I find it much easier to enjoy their moment-by-moment successes and failures than I would if there was any risk that they would possibly win a lasting victory. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/230 "2018-04-27T00:30:19Z")
That olive oil thing was bullshit, right? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/231 "2018-04-27T01:19:16Z")
Max, I think it was much easier to interpret the show (and history) that way when it started. Now that a guy who was a KGB colonel in the ‘80s is not only running Russia but messing in our elections and treating the U.S. president as his lapdog? Hmm. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/232 "2018-04-27T01:31:20Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > …If this were a show that took place in the present and there were a couple who were undercover infiltrators from China who were working to undermine the current USA, I’d find it very hard to sympathize with them, even if they acted in precisely the same way that P&E… Well the infiltrators could still be from Russia. The Jennings may’ve been on the loosing side of history, but their successors in the SVR have succeeded at something beyond the KBG’s wildest dreams. > [@hajario](#): > > That olive oil thing was bullshit, right? It’s as bullshit as coating your stomach with milk before drinking is. Having food in your stomach does help slow the absorption of alcohol. And there are tricks Paige can learn to make it seem like she’s drinking more than she actually is. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/233 "2018-04-27T02:03:03Z")
On the show MI-5, the agents ate a shit-ton of cheese cubes before drinking. That seems more likely to work. ---
**Author:** ![golffan1963](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4af34b/32.png) [@golffan1963](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/golffan1963)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/234 "2018-04-27T04:44:26Z")
In SlackerInc’s response to Just Asking Questions he wrote: **Do you ever feel like you are fighting against their efforts to make you see it differently?** First, full disclosure, my sentiments are identical to Just Asking Questions’…while I think it’s a great show and have seen every episode, from the first scene of the first show, I have wanted Phillip, Elizabeth–and now Paige–to either wind up dead or locked away in an American prison, though I can stomach a defection by Phillip, whom I agree would receive immunity. As far as how we watch the show is concerned, I don’t believe there is any “with the grain” or “against the grain”. We all watch the show in our own way, and I don’t feel like I am fighting anything. By saying that the writers want us to see things differently, it sounds like you are saying there is only one proper way to watch the show…the way the writers want us to watch. I’ve seen others post similar things in past seasons…that some of us aren’t “watching the show the way we should.” There is no proper way to watch a show. If my rooting against the Soviets because they were enemies to my country disappoints the writers, I’m sorry, but I can’t help them. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/235 "2018-04-27T05:32:06Z")
It may be that Phillip’s warning to Kimmy, an rare act of true decency, may be the first link in a chain of events that brings them down. But also, he is kind of doing what he was told to do by Oleg, find out what Elizabeth is up to and stop her. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/236 "2018-04-27T05:52:32Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > It may be that Phillip’s warning to Kimmy, an rare act of true decency, may be the first link in a chain of events that brings them down. But also, he is kind of doing what he was told to do by Oleg, find out what Elizabeth is up to and stop her. Good point, although it cuts both ways. If they got that info from Kimmy’s father, it might have actually reassured them that the Americans were bargaining in more or less good faith, as history seems to show was basically true. > [@golffan1963](#): > > As far as how we watch the show is concerned, I don’t believe there is any “with the grain” or “against the grain”. We all watch the show in our own way, and I don’t feel like I am fighting anything. By saying that the writers want us to see things differently, it sounds like you are saying there is only one proper way to watch the show…the way the writers want us to watch. I’ve seen others post similar things in past seasons…that some of us aren’t “watching the show the way we should.” > > There is no proper way to watch a show. I expect you wouldn’t agree with Emily Nussbaum, TV critic for The New Yorker magazine. She has written extensively about “bad fans”, who are in her view in fact watching shows wrong. She actually tends to focus on cases where the “bad fans” like antihero characters more than the show’s writers intend, whereas I think you like characters on “The Americans” less than the writers intend; but the principle is the same. > **[Fandom's Great Divide](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/07/the-great-divide-emily-nussbaum)** > > The schism isn't between TV viewers who love a show and those who hate it—it’s between those who love it in very different ways Many people do take your position rather than Nussbaum’s, but I consider it a fundamentally untenable one. If there is no such thing as watching a show with or against the grain, this must mean you think it’s impossible for people who make TV shows (writers, directors, actors, and editors especially) to put their thumbs on the scale to influence the audience to see characters a certain way. Which is, again, untenable. Even documentarians who don’t use any voiceover can slant their subjects dramatically depending on what footage they use. A documentary about Obama made by Michael Moore five years from now would leave a viewer who didn’t know much about the former president (say, a fifteen-year-old) with a much different impression of him than would one made by someone at Breitbart. Nussbaum writes about Archie Bunker and the “original bad fans”. But a good recent example is the Colbert Report. I was stunned to learn there were a large number of conservatives who liked Colbert and took him at face value. But this is clearly “watching wrong”, and I’m not saying that just because I don’t share their conservative ideology. I don’t like what Sean Hannity says, but I don’t believe his fans are “watching wrong”. In the case of Colbert, that was “watching wrong” not just because Colbert himself did not really believe the things he was saying, but because (like Archie Bunker) his conservative fulminations were carefully constructed to be self-defeating, to have some kind of contradiction or clear illogic nested within them. So a conservative appreciating the show for its conservative message is watching it wrong for his own cause. Furthermore, the natural extension of your logic would hold that we couldn’t criticize the makers of a TV show for perpetuating ugly racist or misogynistic stereotypes. A sitcom that featured a black character talking with an exaggerated “ghetto” accent and always eating watermelon, much to the audible mirth of the studio audience, couldn’t be faulted because that’s just how those particular people in the audience interpreted it and there are many ways to watch the show. Is that really what you believe, or did you not think it through that far? I want to note that I don’t necessarily go as far as Nussbaum in automatically making a “watching wrong” assessment. That’s why I used “against the grain” instead, a term that comes from literary criticism. I think it’s quite possible to watch “The Americans” with your arms folded and your eyebrow skeptically raised. But you have to be aware that the show is aiming for a certain reaction and you are consciously refusing to go along. Otherwise you are watching naively and, yes, incorrectly. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/237 "2018-04-27T07:17:31Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > JAQ, I am always amazed by how many people watch the show the way you do, which is clearly “against the grain” of the writers’ intent. Do you ever feel like you are fighting against their efforts to make you see it differently? > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Many people do take your position rather than Nussbaum’s, but I consider it a fundamentally untenable one. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > But you have to be aware that the show is aiming for a certain reaction and you are consciously refusing to go along. Otherwise you are watching naively and, yes, incorrectly. You’re Team Elizabeth, aren’t you? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/238 "2018-04-27T07:41:13Z")
Not any more. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/239 "2018-04-27T07:51:05Z")
Appealing to authority, no room for personal interpretation, only one true answer… could have fooled me. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2018, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379/240 "2018-04-27T08:04:27Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > That’s the genius of the show… we KNOW that their missions, overall, failed. We know that the USA (the good guys, if not perfect) won and the Soviets (the bad guys, on the whole) lost. If this were a show that took place in the present and there were a couple who were undercover infiltrators from China who were working to undermine the current USA, I’d find it very hard to sympathize with them, even if they acted in precisely the same way that P&E. But because it’s established historical fact that P&E’s entire cause and entire belief system ended up on the dustbin of history, I find it much easier to enjoy their moment-by-moment successes and failures than I would if there was any risk that they would possibly win a lasting victory. Which is one of the reasons they are screwing up the landing. In the time since this show premiered Russia is once again an adversary, the Russians have been accused of carrying out a major operation against the US election. The narrative of the story now is held hostage to real world events. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-season-6/811379.md?page=13)