Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
As we prepare for the fifth season of The Americans to begin tonight on FX, one can’t help but think back onto last season, with its incredible, beautiful, and shocking moments. Perhaps one of the strongest seasons of the Russian spy drama yet, and that’s really saying something. Ok, now here come the spoilers!
It’s hard not to notice that last season “got rid of,” in many forms, three major female characters: one of a very certain death, one sent off on a tiny plane to Cuba/Russia/God knows where, and one of an irreparable ending of a sweet friendship.
Nina (Annet Mahendru) met her untimely death, just at the moment we were starting to have a glimmer of hope for her, but instead we were met with her poor body slumped over on the floor of a Soviet Union prison. Martha (Alison Wright) got on the plane, in a beautifully silent scene with Phillip/Clark (Matthew Rhys) as the last alternative to keeping her safe and alive. And Elizabeth/Patty (Keri Russell), forms a fake yet sweet friendship with Young Hee (Ruthie Ann Miles) and then ruins it in one perfectly orchestrated, equal parts slick and devastating, deceiving afternoon, after learning her husband would be of no help. Not only is it a bummer to have the amount of estrogen on the show go down, but these women gave some mind-blowing performances throughout the season. While the female performers of The Americans have always 100% brought it to this show, the levels of emotion and confusion they reached last season were previously unmatched by this show and really, anything else currently on the air.
Yes, these incredible actresses will be missed, but more important…does this mean season 5 is going to be a major sausage fest? Will the larger number of dudes be noticeable, and even a problem? On a conference call last week, showrunners Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg addressed this, with Weisberg explaining, “I think that we felt that we were losing some very central and important characters on the show, and the question that we asked ourselves was, ‘Do we need to replace those characters? Do we need an agent that they’re running to replace Martha, do we need a KGB officer to replace Nina?’ Ultimately, although there are plenty of new characters on the show, we felt we didn’t have to replace them in a one-for-one way like that.”
It’s true, season 5 wastes no time introducing viewers to new characters, and there are certainly some ladies in the mix, from new mom friends to even a love interest. If they will play as important a role as their lady predecessors remains to be seen. And yes, there are a whole bunch of new dudes on the show too, but the reason why this might not be a noticeable concern for those both working on and simply viewing the show, is that The Americans has always been about a gender balance.
“I think for us,” Weisberg continued, “we never felt that show had a deficit of women in any way. It always felt like the main characters were Phillip and Elizabeth. It was a very balanced show in that way, so I think because we never thought of there being any kind of issue that way, it never occurred to us that we had to replace it when we lost two women.”
Yes, there is a balance to this show, evident in the fact that we poured one out for both Agent Frank Gaad (Richard Thomas) and William Crandall (Dylan Baker) last season too, as both also suffered very different but very yucky deaths. But whether it is the number of males to females or the amount of Russian subtitles to English dialogue (or even completely silent scenes, i.e. Martha’s departure, and there’s plenty more where that came from), this balance just might be the key to what makes this incredible show work, what keeps viewers on their toes. The Americans knows how to present viewers with two or more very different sides to a story, and keep them feeling conflicted about who they’re rooting for, and where they stand on moral decisions and actions taken by the characters. Anyone who has stuck with this show since the beginning knows not to hold on too tight to an opinion about one of these characters. It could (and does) change by the next episode, or even the next commercial break.
From the gorgeous to the gruesome, and this show truly has it all, we’re excited to see where the new season will take us. Between Russell’s Elizabeth, Margo Martindale’s Claudia and the rise of PAIGE (Holly Taylor) the girl power already emitting from this show is a true force to be reckoned with. Good luck keeping up, dudes.
