Reviewing "The Americans": A brilliant and enthralling spy thriller series

The Americans is a spy thriller television series created by Joe Weisberg and starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, who appear to be ordinary American citizens and travel agents but are in fact Soviet spies working for the KGB. Set in the 80s, the series explores Elizabeth and Philip's lives as they perform missions for their KGB superiors, struggle with the morality of their work, and raise their two children Paige and Henry, who don't know the true identities and occupation of their parents, all while their next door neighbor Stan, an FBI agent, attempts to stop the activities of Soviet spies. The series is very engaging thanks to the great performances, the multilayered characters and the morally complex storylines.

The acting is phenomenal. Every single emotion the characters are feeling translates perfectly to the screen, and the portrayals of every character makes all of them sympathetic to some degree, yes, even the ones who are murderers.

The standout performances for me are Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell, Noah Emmerich, and Costa Ronin. 

Matthew Rhys gives Philip a great sense of humanity in spite of the horrible things he and Elizabeth do to various other people, including FBI secretary Martha Hanson, who believes Philip to be an FBI agent named Clark, from a secretive internal affairs division of the FBI. Rhys's performance makes it clear that while Philip believes he is doing the right thing for the most part, he still feels a considerable amount of anguish over many of his definitely immoral actions, as the consequences gradually weigh on him and his justifications for his actions wear increasingly thin, with later seasons showing him being unwilling to commit to more brutal actions. 

This serves as a nice contrast to Elizabeth, who does feel remorse for some of her actions but remains steadfast in her belief that she is doing everything to serve the greater good, that being the stability and prosperity of the Soviet Union. Russell's performance makes her character complex and layered even as she adamantly refuses to consider an alternate perspective, and continues to manipulate, lie and murder in the name of her country. 

Costa Ronin as Oleg Burov, who first appears in Season 2, is also a very sympathetic character with a lot of layers to him, with much of the sympathy derived from Ronin's earnest portrayal of a dedicated and conflicted KGB science officer in America under the KGB Rezident, basically a spy disguised as a diplomat.

Noah Emmerich as FBI agent Stan Beeman provides a very interesting foil to the Jennings, as an amiable but flawed law enforcement officer working to stop Soviet spies in the US as his family slowly falls apart, unaware that his neighbors are among the people he needs to stop.

Also, Alison Wright as manipulated FBI secretary Martha Hanson also gives a very sympathetic and heart-wrenching performance, making viewers really feel sorry for the ways she unknowingly being manipulated as others use her to get information from the FBI.

Margo Martindale as Claudia and Frank Langella as Gabriel are both superb in their roles as handlers for Philip and Elizabeth, giving them their missions and emotional support in their lives, while also making sure that they stay focused on their tasks and not let their doubts or personal lives interfere with their work as spies. Claudia and Gabriel both seem nice and caring, but it is made clear that they care about the mission more than anything else, and their own higher-ups in "The Center" (The KGB), who are largely unseen aside from the people who work for the Rezident. The removed nature of the Center also contrasts them with the main characters, as while Philip and Elizabeth have their own struggles on the spy's frontlines of the Cold War, their ultimate superiors in the KGB are never identified by name other than a few brief appearances, furthering emphasizing how higher-ups in the field of espionage reap all the benefit while those who actually do the hard work suffer from the physical and emotional toll of what they do.

As I have said, the characters are great. All of the major characters get a lot of interesting development over the course of the series, and even hardline Soviet spy Elizabeth gets some moments to show that as ruthless and cold-hearted as she is, she is not a completely monstrous person, just someone with strong and unwavering convictions who resorts to violence and deception because that is all that she has been taught to do in the KGB. Philip's gradual development as a more empathetic character and Stan''s development as someone who wants to do the right thing by any means necessary while trying to be an ideal FBI agent.

The plot of the series is morally complex. Philip and Elizabeth are murderous spies who have some qualms with their work and what their superiors want them to do, Stan is an initially brutish and troubled FBI agent who only becomes more troubled throughout the series, and while he gets kinder as the series goes on, he still does some morally-ambiguous things in the name of rooting out spies. Oleg knowingly works for the KGB but has more than a few scruples with their methods and the lengths they are willing to go to in order to give the Soviets an advantage. Simply put, it's not black-and-white, though we are obviously meant to disagree and abhor the KGB characters' methods and actions, if not the characters themselves.

The Americans is a fantastic TV series about two Soviet spies living in the US, using murder and deception to achieve their goals while the FBI tries to stop them. It stands out with great characters, enthralling performances, and a healthy dose of moral complexity.

Score: 9/10