Episode discussion post: "START"

[jae]

Aired:
30 May 2018 in the U.S. and Canada

This is a discussion post for episode 610 of The Americans (the season and series finale), intended for viewers who are watching the show on the U.S./Canadian schedule. (Feel free to dive in to the discussion even if you're coming in late--and you should also feel free to start a new thread if it seems too daunting to read through what's already been posted first.)

Original promo trailer

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Comments

Re: Future for P&E

[saraqael]

Yes indeed. Elizabeth's 'hmmmmm' is always open to many interpretations. If I were in her shoes, looking at her intensively Americanized, bleeding heart murderer of a husband, I'd wonder where he'd fit in.

It kills me not to know what's going to become of these two and all of the rest of the characters on the show. They all feel like perfectly realized human beings to me, and not just typical TV characters that are forgotten 10 minutes after a show ends.

Re: Future for P&E

[jae]

When asked what happens to whom, the showrunners have said in a couple of interviews that they want the audience to be able to imagine the characters' futures rather than dictate to them. So why not take that and run with it? You get to decide what you think happens, and as long as it's conceivably realistic, it's a potential future that's in line with the show.

-J

Re: Future for P&E

[saraqael]

This is one of the aspects of the finale that I loved the most. Everyone lives but we have no idea what becomes of them. Everyone was left at moments of extraordinary emotional crisis / change / insight, too, which also heightens our sense that there is so much more to see and learn about them. It was brilliant, and honestly the only way to end this series in a way that would satisfy all viewers.

Though I have seen a surprising amount of online grumbling that the Jennings weren't killed because they deserved to 'pay' for all the horrible things they did. I've seen people comment that 'just' losing their children forever wasn't enough punishment. When I see these sorts of comments, I have to wonder if I was watching a different version of the show from them. Dying would have been easy for the Jennings. Losing their children plus the only lives they've known since they were kids, plus losing their mission, plus returning to a country they have seen for decades, plus now facing danger from hardliner purists in the KGB, etc. All so much worse than being shot by the FBI. Every one of these characters has been left alive but emotionally devastated and their lives will never be the same. That is so much worse than going down in a hail of bullets.

Re: Future for P&E

[jae]

Yeah, I'm with you on that. This is certainly a more narratively satisfying ending, and anyone who thinks this was the easy way out doesn't understand these characters at all.

(Also, I have frequently felt like I was watching a different show than a large segment of the viewers.)

-J