The season 6 premiere of The Americans aired a couple of nights ago and as we found out the Jennings seem to be in for another rough go as the beginning of the end has come. The series has been one of the best that has come along in a long time and people have been very caught up by it, so much that some folks are going to be sad to see it go. But until it’s final episode people are going to be watching closely to see what the family does and how they react to what’s coming. With the onset of this 10-episode finale it seems that the Jennings’ happy ending might be more of a fantasy than anything.
In the first episode we saw that the time line had been pushed ahead to 1987 when the Cold War had just about reached its end. Philip and Elizabeth have come so very close to leaving behind the life of espionage that they’ve had to endure and are looking forward to returning home to the Soviet Union, but somehow decided to stick around when they discovered an opportunity that was too good to pass on. Unfortunately this meant that the status quo had to change to insure their survival. As a result Philip quit the spy game while Elizabeth stayed on course. This of course meant that she had to take on a greater workload in Philip’s absence. She also managed to integrate their daughter Paige into the spy game, which only added to the difficulty. The only thankful part of this scenario was that they allowed their son to remain oblivious as he remained in his boarding school in New England.
Unfortunately as we saw in the opening sequence this is not the most ideal situation as it’s putting a great deal of strain on Elizabeth. Philip is leading a fairly normal life as a travel agent while she’s doing everything she possibly can to serve their country. As a result the strain on their marriage is already starting to show and the weak link in the chain has already been revealed. Philip was already the shaky presence in the relationship since his dedication to the Motherland hasn’t always been as strong as Elizabeth’s. Unfortunately stepping away from the spy game entirely has only made things worse and is beginning to erode their marital bonds. Elizabeth has taken up smoking again, which was something she only used to do when she was extremely stressed out. Her interactions with Philip are at this point extremely strained and any problem he seems to have just seems like noise.
When the matter of geopolitics arises however things just get worse as the rising divisions in the leadership of the Soviet Union put them on opposing sides. When a faction that believes they can overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev gets a hold of Elizabeth in Mexico City to send her on a mission to intercept a Russian diplomat things start to get a little tense. It only gets worse however when Philip is contacted to work against his wife and thwart the actions of those that desire the downfall of Gorbachev. It’s uncertain just what he’s going to do, but if the combative interaction that he and Elizabeth have at the end of the episode is any indication, and it should be, he might be going back to ‘work’ very soon. Buckle up, it’s about to get crazy.
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