The Americans, season 5: episode recaps and reviews

The fifth season of The Americans has proved equal parts fascinating and frustrating to many viewers and critics, alternating between gruesome scenes of violence both physical and emotional and long stretches where the story seemed to be setting up payoffs that didn’t arrive. Yes, this has always been a show known for anticlimax, but season five sometimes seemed to take that to extremes.

The natural thought is that perhaps this was all part of a plan — setup for the show’s sixth and final season, arriving in 2018. That wasn’t so much the case, say showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, a variety of writers offer their takes on the season five finale, “The Soviet Division.”

Todd VanDerWerff: I had two thoughts upon finishing “The Soviet Division”: “Oh, I get what they were going for now!” and “That was it?!”

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, Vox critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, associate editor Libby Nelson, and staff writer Caroline Framke are here to talk about “The World Council of Churches,” the penultimate episode of season five.

Todd VanDerWerff: “The World Council of Churches” features one of the few scenes from this season that truly filled me with the sort of existential dread that The Americans so often manages as a matter of course.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, deputy culture editor Genevieve Koski, senior reporter Dara Lind, and staff writer Caroline Framke take on “Dyatkovo,” the 11th episode of season five.

Caroline Framke: Now this is the episode I’ve been waiting for all season.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy dramaThe Americans. This week, critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, culture editor Jen Trolio, and staff writer Alissa Wilkinson talk about “Darkroom,” the 10th episode of season five.

Todd VanDerWerff: It’s the wedding of the [20th] century!

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, culture editor Jen Trolio, and deputy culture editor Genevieve Koski talk about “IHOP,” the ninth episode of season five.

Todd VanDerWerff: There’s perhaps nothing more “The Americans season five” than having all the Tuan buildup result in him traveling to Pennsylvania to contact his old foster family from Seattle about one of his old foster siblings, who’s really sick. Granted, I suspect there’s another shoe to drop here, but the message is still a potent one: Philip and Elizabeth are in so deep that they’ve lost the plot entirely.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, associate editor Libby Nelson, and staff writer Alissa Wilkinson talk about “Immersion,” the eighth episode of season five.

Todd VanDerWerff: Because I was on vacation when they aired, I watched the sixth and seventh episodes of this season of The Americans right on top of each other, immediately before watching this eighth episode. And not only did the three episodes form a loose trilogy of sorts — call it the Gabriel trilogy — but they all informed each other in interesting ways.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, deputy culture editor Genevieve Koski and staff writers Caroline Framke and Alissa Wilkinson talk about “The Committee on Human Rights,” the seventh episode of season five.

Caroline Framke: Halfway through watching “The Committee on Human Rights,” I realized I was annoyed.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, deputy culture editor Genevieve Koski and staff writers Caroline Framke and Dara Lind take on “Crossbreed,” the sixth episode of season five.

Caroline Framke: The Americans has never let anyone run too far from their past without letting that past catch up to them eventually. Even if they think they’ve buried that shit deep, it always finds a way to bubble up, to catch them off guard.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, Vox critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, culture editor Jen Trolio, and associate editor Libby Nelson talk about “Lotus 1-2-3,” the fifth episode of season five.

Todd VanDerWerff: Ever since its second season — when the series went from a very good show to one with a claim to all-time status — The Americans has been interested in the psychic wear and tear that comes from all the death Philip and Elizabeth deal out. The two aren’t natural killing machines, though Elizabeth comes close at times. And Philip, in particular, seems increasingly gutted by every murder he’s party to.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, Vox critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, deputy culture editor Genevieve Koski, and staff writer Caroline Framke talk about “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” the fourth episode of season five.

Caroline Framke: In an episode that features Philip and Elizabeth launching new honeypot operations, Paige flexing her spy muscles in Pastor Tim’s house (welcome back, Pastor Tim!), Stan essentially blackmailing the FBI, and Mischa making it to New York(!), there was one simple thing I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Alison Wright isn’t playing a person who actually existed in real life on FX’s 1960s drama Feud, unlike co-stars such as Susan Sarandon (playing Bette Davis) and Jessica Lange (Joan Crawford). But to anyone who’s familiar with Hollywood — or just the way business works in general — her character should still feel very familiar.

Wright plays Pauline, the savvy assistant to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? director Robert Aldrich (played by Alfred Molina), who knows exactly how to get what she needs from even the most difficult of Hollywood personalities. (A departure from her fantastic turn on The Americans as meek, hopeful secretary Martha.)

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, Vox critic at large Todd VanDerWerff, deputy culture editor Genevieve Koski, and staff writer Dara Lind are here to dissect “The Midges,” the third episode of season five.

Warning: Major spoilers — like the first word of this recap is a big spoiler — follow after the picture.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, Vox Culture editor Jen Trolio, staff writer Caroline Framke, and associate editor Libby Nelson are here to dissect “Pests,” the second episode of season five.

Caroline Framke: While last week’s season premiere blew out the big picture to become even bigger, “Pests” brings the show’s various threads back down to a more personal level, where you can see their frayed ends. This becomes obvious the instant the episode opens, as Philip and Elizabeth tell Gabriel that they had to kill a possibly bioweapon-infected Hans, their faces taut with the effort of trying not to grieve him.

This article contains many spoilers about seasons one through four of The Americans.

By the time Philip and Elizabeth Jennings’s teenage daughter Paige announces to her parents at the dinner table that she would like to be baptized as a Christian, we know everything Paige doesn’t: that behind their comfortable middle-class home in the suburbs outside Washington, DC, her parents are living a secret life as KGB spies; that their sworn loyalty to their motherland — where they haven’t lived in decades — and its ideals means their attitude toward organized religion is, at best, uneasily tolerant.

Every week, some of Vox’s writers will gather to discuss the latest episode of FX’s spy drama The Americans. This week, a variety of writers offer their takes on the season five premiere, “Amber Waves.”

Every season premiere of The Americans contains a sequence that neatly foreshadows the season’s major themes. In season two, Elizabeth nearly hit a family of deer with her car, presaging the dark times her children were about to be drawn into. Season four featured that gorgeous memory of Philip’s, going back to his childhood in the Soviet Union and revealing a moment when violence overtook him that he’s spent the rest of his life outrunning.

Theoretically, if ever there were a moment for The Americans, FX’s critically acclaimed but little-watched spy drama, it’s now.

It’s the start of the show’s fifth season, and the show is coming off its first Emmy nomination for Best Drama Series. Its ratings ticked up ever so slightly for many of its episodes in season four. It has a planned end date — at the conclusion of season six in 2018 — and can start moving toward its series finale with purpose. This is the closest The Americans has come to the cultural zeitgeist since very, very early in its run, or maybe even before it debuted and the response was mostly, “Isn’t that the show where Felicity plays a Soviet spy?”

Every week, Todd VanDerWerff, Caroline Framke, and Libby Nelson gather to talk about the latest episode of The Americans. Read our complete coverage of the show here. Spoilers, needless to say, follow.

Todd VanDerWerff: The sentiment I’ve heard most often in response to “Persona Non Grata” is, “That’s the finale?!” After a similar reaction to the season three finale, it’s possible The Americans believes in a muted climax, in placing most of the proper “action” in the episodes leading up to the finale.