Emily Nussbaum is intrigued by the conceit of FX’s The Americans, in which KGB agents Philip and Elizabeth Jennings attempt to pass as a typical American family:
As with [“Homeland”], many scenes in “The Americans” are meditations on espionage, which requires its disciples to sublimate human decency to larger moral imperatives. Yet despite the sleek surface and fun retro aspects (Jordache jeans, VCRs, landlines), setting the show in the Reagan era is more than a gimmick. With historical distance, “The Americans” has the freedom to sympathetically portray characters who, on a different show, would be hissing terrorists.
Jesse Damiani recently called it the most compelling romance on television:
What separates The Americans [from other anti-hero dramas] is its foregrounding of the simplest device in the history of narrative: love. In effect, The Americans is an extended remarriage plot. Sure, it’s replete with the trappings of espionage, but all the mad chases, brutality, and political intrigue function in service of its romantic core. What leaves viewers clinging to their armrests in these moments of pulpy thrill is the underlying terror that, at any moment, the fledgling relationship between protagonists Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (played by Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell), will suffer a blow—whether physically, emotionally, or both—that it cannot survive.
The Dish 