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The Americans

FX's The Americans: episode recaps, reviews, analysis, and roundtable discussions.

The Americans finale proved there are TV fates worse than death

By Emily VanDerWerff June 2, 2018

The Americans series finale’s greatest secrets, explained by its showrunners

By Emily VanDerWerff May 31, 2018

How The Americans built one of the best final seasons ever made

By Emily VanDerWerff May 31, 2018

The Americans seeks a new “START” in a tremendous series finale

By Emily VanDerWerff, Genevieve Koski, and 2 more May 30, 2018

The Americans spends its penultimate episode raising lots of very big questions

By Emily VanDerWerff, Genevieve Koski, and 1 more May 23, 2018

The Americans unveils a master class in building tension in “The Summit”

By Emily VanDerWerff, Libby Nelson, and 1 more May 16, 2018

The Americans builds and builds and builds that tension

By Emily VanDerWerff, Caroline Framke, and 1 more May 10, 2018

The Americans spends a lonely Thanksgiving contemplating the end

By Emily VanDerWerff, Genevieve Koski, and 1 more May 2, 2018

The Americans enters its endgame with a brilliant episode full of lines finally crossed

By Emily VanDerWerff, Libby Nelson, and 1 more April 26, 2018

The Americans threatens its most important character: Philip and Elizabeth’s marriage

By Emily VanDerWerff, Genevieve Koski, and 1 more April 19, 2018

The Americans begins its long plunge toward the end in a riveting episode

By Emily VanDerWerff, Caroline Framke, and 1 more April 12, 2018

In “Tchaikovsky,” The Americans turns a gap between spies into a chasm

By Emily VanDerWerff, Libby Nelson, and 2 more April 5, 2018

The Americans’ final season premiere is a masterful exercise in tension-building

By Emily VanDerWerff, Genevieve Koski, and 2 more March 28, 2018

The Americans’ showrunners explain their intimate, sometimes polarizing season 5

By Emily VanDerWerff May 31, 2017

The Americans finale leaves us arguing over the point of this next-to-last season

By Emily VanDerWerff, Caroline Framke, and 2 more May 31, 2017

The Americans’ "The World Council of Churches” tests loyalties, limits, and parenting skills

By Caroline Framke, Emily VanDerWerff, and 1 more May 24, 2017

On The Americans, “Dyatkovo” pushes Soviet loyalties to the brink

By Caroline Framke, Genevieve Koski, and 1 more May 17, 2017

The Americans’ latest episode has a big twist up its sleeve — it’s heartwarming

By Emily VanDerWerff, Jen Trolio, and 1 more May 9, 2017

The Americans’ spies confront the ghosts of missions past

By Emily VanDerWerff, Genevieve Koski, and 1 more May 2, 2017

Is The Americans season 5 ever getting to the point?

By Emily VanDerWerff, Libby Nelson, and 1 more April 26, 2017

On The Americans, a set of goodbyes gets personal — and troubling

By Caroline Framke, Alissa Wilkinson, and 1 more April 19, 2017

On The Americans, everything’s falling apart at the worst possible time (as always)

By Emily VanDerWerff, Libby Nelson, and 1 more April 4, 2017

The Americans’ “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” tries to do the decent thing

By Caroline Framke, Emily VanDerWerff, and 1 more March 29, 2017

The Americans says hello to some old friends in “The Midges”

By Emily VanDerWerff, Dara Lind, and 1 more March 22, 2017

The Americans’ “Pests” forces everyone to reconsider what it means to do “the right thing”

By Caroline Framke, Libby Nelson, and 1 more March 15, 2017

The Americans has always been a show about faith

By Alissa Wilkinson March 14, 2017

The Americans season 5 premiere digs a hole some characters won’t escape

By Libby Nelson, Emily VanDerWerff, and 3 more March 8, 2017

The Americans enters its endgame, reluctantly hopeful about humanity

By Emily VanDerWerff March 7, 2017

How 2016's movies and TV reflected Americans’ changing relationship with religion

By Alissa Wilkinson December 28, 2016

The Americans’ showrunners on their Emmy breakthrough and our summer of Russia

By Emily VanDerWerff August 31, 2016

How a TV show goes from an idea in someone’s head to an episode on your screen

Making television is a fast-paced, involved, and deeply collaborative process. We spent five months on the set of FX spy drama The Americans learning how it all works.

By Caroline Framke June 9, 2016

Was The Americans' season finale stellar or disappointing? We hash it out.

By Emily VanDerWerff, Caroline Framke, and 1 more June 9, 2016

5 comments / new

The Americans' showrunners on that finale, fake relationships, and what’s to come

By Emily VanDerWerff June 8, 2016

Can the end get any closer than it already is on The Americans?

By Caroline Framke, Libby Nelson, and 1 more June 2, 2016

9 comments / new

The Americans kicks into overdrive as it heads into the season's home stretch

By Emily VanDerWerff, Caroline Framke, and 1 more May 26, 2016

9 comments / new

The Americans season 4, episode 10: "Munchkins" hears the sound of approaching doom

By Caroline Framke, Emily VanDerWerff, and 1 more May 19, 2016

10 comments / new

The Americans fills with apocalyptic dread in "The Day After"

By Emily VanDerWerff, Caroline Framke, and 1 more May 12, 2016

18 comments / new

One chart that explains 47 episodes of The Americans

By Emily VanDerWerff May 5, 2016

The Americans airs one of the best TV episodes of the year

By Emily VanDerWerff, Caroline Framke, and 1 more May 5, 2016

9 comments / new

The Americans tightens its focus in an enthralling, tense episode

By Emily VanDerWerff, Caroline Framke, and 2 more April 28, 2016

27 comments / new