Comparative Thought: The Americans and Homeland

[This is the second in a series of posts regarding FX's The Americans. The first dealt with my general impressions of the show. There are no spoilers here nor there.]

A lot of television shows have done the spy thing. And wanting to compare The Americans to something like Alias, 24, or Homeland is easy. In fact, I have encountered many brief comparisons to Homeland. Which I find to definitely be warranted. Both shows are quality programs taking place in Washington DC, dealing with counterintelligence and characters hiding in plain sight. And to further align these two series, I found The American's first season to be the best first season of television since Homeland's freshman run on Showtime. So yes, they're comparable. However I believe where Homeland falters, The Americans excels wonderfully.

I would say the main difference between The Americans and Homeland is that Homeland is all soap. Listen I love Homeland, particularly that first season (and the first half of the second), but the show lives on the brink. Stakes and emotion are always high. Scenes are regularly tense, putting me on the edge of my seat. And it's great. It's fantastic television and amazingly well-acted to boot.  It deserves all the recognition it has gotten. But I still think Homeland would have been better off as a one-season show-- I simply don't see them successfully keeping up that pace. They're going to burn themselves out at some point. And while the stakes on The Americans are also high, the characters aren't as extreme. They are just as damaged and just as complex, but more quietly so. The show exhibits beautifully balanced restraint. The characters have quiet moments of tension that I find just as compelling as a manic Carrie Mathison jazz freakout. And seeing a show strike that perfectly soft cord of complex emotion is incredible to witness.

Related to the idea of restraint, is how The Americans is far more nuanced. There are actual themes and motifs happening throughout the season as well as within individual episodes. Symbolism and foreshadowing and mirroring help us arrive at points in an episode in wonderfully artistic ways. And so the show resonates more deeply than the star crossed lovers of Homeland. One fantastic episode of The Americans involved the necessary death of a minor, yet compelling character. But the show never feels the need to spell it out for us. We arrive at that point of realization together with the characters. Seeing no other way out, we have to come to grips with what is about to transpire while the characters are doing exactly the same. And that makes the emotion of the show feel so much more earned. It feels more visceral and relatable. The Americans doesn't feel the need to race to the rooftops and shout out its frustrated darkness. It plays out much more subtly. And it is just as satisfying as anything on Homeland. This isn't to say that I don't love some of the over-the-top Carrie Mathison freak outs or her incredibly compelling cry-face. Because I do. I'm not bashing Homeland. There's just something to be said for a slower build up and letting your audience arrive there themselves.

The American's season finale was one of the best episodes of television I have seen all year. They nailed every aspect of that episode, from the plot, to the story of these characters, to the waves of emotion rippling throughout. And the final sequence utilizing that perfectly chosen Peter Gabriel song brought it all together amazingly well. (In fact, Emily Nussbaum of the New Yorker has a nifty theory regarding that song choice). The Americans has quite an artistic eye. And I find it to be unique to the show. But like the plot and story, it is never over the top. You settle into it and learn to appreciate its little nuances along the way. Meanwhile I can't remember loving a song choice on Homeland (maybe I'm just not into jazz) or a particular camera angle or series of shots. I mean, Homeland is shot well and still remains great. And I'm not saying some cinematic flourish is what makes a show good. But it definitely helps. I mean, just look at Breaking Bad. (No. Seriously. Look at it. That show is visually stunning.)

The Americans: Games Without Frontiers

Oh boy, where do I begin with The Americans? I've been wanting to write about this show its entire freshman season. Every week there was something new and exciting to mention. This is a show I wouldn't mind doing weekly recaps for. If it wasn't for my great Game of Thrones project, I probably would have. Just trust me when I say it is fantastic television. I already know it's going to make my Top Ten at the end of the year. And I have been recommending it to everybody and anybody in ear shot.

At various points throughout the season I went as far as to actually write notes, which would typically evolve into proper posts. But I failed to follow through. Instead I have decided to compile and refine my rough notes and update with a series of posts about the show. So here, my friends, is the first installment of my mega-series regarding FX's fantastic freshman program, The Americans.


First Impressions
The Americans stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Russian spies living in the United States during the 1980s. Right away, just based on that, I was interested in the premise of the show. A few early reviews seemed to imply that the pilot might be worth my time...and it sure was. The Americans isn't about spies per se. I mean yes, spy things are happening (to an amazing soundtrack of Fleetwood Mac, Phil Collins, and Peter Gabriel, by the way), but there's SO much more to it. There are elements of loyalty and duty to these characters' actions--as you would expect coming from a spy drama--but that loyalty and duty is about marriage and family just as much as it is about commitment to home and country.

From the beginning, one of the most compelling aspects of The Americans wasn't necessarily the time period or the spying, but rather the idea of partnership and marriage. Not only the one between Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings (Rhys and Russell, respectively) and how it is a faux marriage of necessity--a commitment to the motherland via each other. But also the marriage of FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) and his civilian wife. Both couples are neighbors. Both couples have children. And both couples have secrets within their own family. The Jennings' children, Paige and Henry, have no idea that their parents are Russian, let alone spies. And as the season continues, the dynamics of their relationship comes into sharper focus. Elizabeth comes across as cold, committed, and serious while Phillip appears to take to American life a little too well, and this obviously all affects their marriage. Throughout the season Phillip and Elizabeth navigate the ups and downs of their relationship while also managing to engage in some extremely entertaining espionage.

All the characters have damage and past experiences that others, including spouses, don't even know about. This is made clear in the pilot episode and comes back again and again throughout the season. Stan is still a mess from his past undercover jobs and it is negatively impacting his home life. Meanwhile Phillip and Elizabeth are partners who have been spying together for well over a decade. They have children and they depend on each other in all aspects of their lives. But there's still a distance between them, and individual pasts and relationships the other knows nothing about. The entire season deals with Phillip and Elizabeth recognizing this distance, coming to grips with their feelings for one another--how deeply they may or may not run--and doing something about it. It's a delicate yet fascinating relationship. Especially when they are encouraging the other to seduce a target and gather post-coital intelligence.

Emotions run strong throughout this entire season. To the point that the season finale was so much more emotional than a show about Russian spies in America has any reason being. And that's what makes The Americans such a fantastic program. Not just the fact that I'm sitting here at home with my baby-boomer mother rooting for these Russians and worrying about their safety, but because the characters are so well drawn, the dynamics of their relationships so delicately laid before us, that it elevates every action on the show to another level. And its not cheap or soapy, but rather genuine and relatable.


And Did I Mention Spies?
The show is about spies! Russian spies! In America! During the Cold War! In the 1980s! The clothes! The technology! The cars! THE WIGS! It's all fantastic, really. There are great action sequences, and sexy times, and costumes to keep the most shallow viewer entertained. But there is also a compelling story and an intricate plot with wins and losses and actual stakes. And woven throughout is the dynamics of the main characters' marriage.

Just know that The Americans is one of my favorite shows at the moment. And for damn good reason: because it's a damn good show.

A Quick Post About Veep

NOTE: I know I have been neglecting this blog lately. I am still going to blame it on the fact that I am reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series (I'm about 300 pages into A Feast for Crows). But there are still several topics I am going to try to blog about in the near future. For now, I just wanted to express some thoughts on the current season of HBO's Veep. They're not very well articulated and for that I apologize.

There's not much to say about Veep aside from the fact that I think it has been hilarious from the start. And in it's second season Veep not only continues to be hilarious, but it's hitting its stride so strongly that it is very quickly becoming one of my favorite comedies. A lot of shows take some time to find themselves and figure out the type of show they want to be. And it's usually in the latter half of the first season that things typically come together for the whole production. But seeing as that Veep, being on HBO, had a shorter first season it seems that we're now at the point where it's found its sweet spot. And it's truly glorious to behold. I'm having nothing but an amazing time watching this season's episodes these past three weeks.

No one makes cursing sound as poetically hilarious as the show's creator, Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, In The Loop) and I have had high hopes for the show and its humour from the start. But now Veep is really beginning to lean into its talent, writing for the actors, highlighting their strengths, and settling in comfortably to world it has created for itself. And I honestly can't wait to see what the rest of the season has in store.

The latest episode, "Hostages" had me laughing so hard and so often that I honestly couldn't remember the last time a comedy was landing so well with me. I love a good comedy. I love shows like Community (which is having a disappointing fourth season) and Parks and Recreation (a show I have long considered to be the most consistent comedy currently on television), but neither of them have had me laughing the way Veep had me laughing on Sunday night in quite some time.

I feel like it's easy to compare Parks and Recreation and Veep seeing as that they both have female leads and are set in the world of politics. But for all the optimism and hope and genuine heart Parks and Recreation has, Veep answers back with equal amounts cynicism, pessimism, and bluntness. They are total opposites of each other yet I still love both for not only their humor, but their respective political lenses. And I love that both manage to even surprise me. This past Sunday's Veep ended with a moment in which Julia Louis Dreyfus's Selina Meyers actually showed some concern (and dare I say, remorse?) for another human being and it actually felt deserved. It didn't feel cheap or random at all, which somehow managed to surprised me even more. When I realized she was showing hints of a genuine emotion it made the episode stand out even more strongly.

Lastly, a quick side note: I was reading the AV Club's recap of "Hostages" earlier this week and the recapper, Robert David Sullivan, brought up this one stray observation regarding the gender politics of the show. And not only do I wish I had noticed this myself, but it actually makes me admire the show even more.

Gender politics: Amy and Sue are the most level-headed people on Selina’s staff, and the males all bring to mind female stereotypes. Gary is emotionally fragile, Mike is a ditz, and Dan is a gossipy social climber. At the climax of “Hostages,” Selina goes into a national-security meeting with Amy and barks, “No, no, you’re not needed here, Gary. This is man’s work. Same goes for you, Dan.”

It's a great point that I could honestly break down in a whole new post. But I won't. Instead I'm just going to gush over this and say that I love the show even more for flipping gender stereotypes on their head. It is only going to enhance my enjoyment of future episodes. And it adds a whole other amazing layer to the comedy of this program.