‘The Americans’ finale answered a lot of questions
Warning: This story contains spoilers from Wednesday night’s series finale.
TThe Americans” wrapped its six-season run Wednesday night, ending the saga of Reagan-era KGB agents (Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell) living undercover as happily married couple Philip and Elizabeth Jennings in suburban Virginia.
When the dust settled, Philip and Elizabeth — finally busted by their suspicious neighbor, FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) — fled back to Mother Russia, leaving behind college-age daughter/rookie spy Paige (Holly Taylor) and their clueless younger son, Henry (Keidrich Sellati), to deal with the fallout.
“This was the one and only ending, so much so that we’ve actually known what the ending was going to be since about the beginning of Season 2,” series creator/executive producer Joe Weisberg told The Post. “At the end of the day, we wanted it to be a satisfying conclusion so that people feel something. We never felt that every single plotline had to be wrapped up, nor could it be. Life isn’t like that.
“What we really wanted was people to feel they understood what had happened and [that] it made sense and it felt emotional and intense … and tragic.”
While “The Americans” finale tied up most of its loose ends, it did leave at least one plotline awash in ambiguity — the possibility that Stan’s second wife, Renee (Laurie Holden), is a KGB agent. (Philip’s final words to a gobsmacked Stan: “I’m not sure how to say this, but I think there’s a chance Renee might be one of us. I’m not sure.”) Near the end of the episode, Renee hugs Stan on the driveway of their house, then stares across the street — watching FBI agents remove boxes of evidence from the Jennings home before turning and heading inside.
“You know, it’s tricky,” Weisberg says. “It’s supposed to be unreadable, so I think we have to let that one sit. Stan is going to have to talk to [Renee] and I love that final shot when she comes up to give him a hug and we see that WTF? look on his face. He’s going to have to talk to her and deal with it. Is she going to freak out? These are questions we can’t answer.”
The show’s final season, particularly the last three episodes, also saw Elizabeth’s cold-blooded-killer facade crumble just a little (she refused a direct order to assassinate a Russian delegate, then murdered a fellow KGB agent to save the delegate’s life). Weisberg is asked about this “180-degree” change — and if some viewers might have felt it was too sudden. “We’ve been getting that reaction from a lot of people, and I don’t think it feels as 180-ish to us because she’s still being loyal,” he says. “The orders are not legit to her, so not following illegitimate orders is still pretty consistent with who she is and has always been. The highest authority in her mind is not the KGB, it’s the leader of her country.
“It would be fair to say that over the course of the show it’s always been clear in our heads that Philip was changing and evolving faster than Elizabeth — and, in fact, was in some ways changing at a relatively quick clip,” he says. “We saw Elizabeth as changing and evolving here and there, little cracks opening up . . . and in the final season a couple of those cracks would meet each other.”
Says series executive producer/writer Joel Fields: “Our hope is that all six seasons of the show are seen as a dramatic piece — and that [the finale] feels like the final piece of the journey.”