Last night was the season finale of The Americans on FX. I've been watching the show pretty regularly. It's the story of two Russian "illegals", spies with deep covers that could be executed if they were discovered. They have kids together and a sham marriage as part of their background, with even their children not realizing that Elizabeth and Philip (or mom and dad if you prefer) are secretly Soviet spies.
During the course of the season, they've tackled some pretty intense things that you just don't see in drama any more. Human issues which tend to be left in the dust when "drama" has become a catch-all word for showing more nudity on television and more violence; now don't get me wrong, The Americans is no different in its love of showing such, but they don't become the central story, but rather act as an aside to it.
One of the main story arcs deals with the FBI agent hunting Russian spies, who is their next door neighbor. When the series began, his life seemed to be perfect and he was almost two dimensional in what a great American and stand up guy he was. However, all was not well. He turned a KGB secretary and then began to have an affair with her, as she could relate more to his life in the shadows than his wife could. Slowly but surely, he became ever more distant from his wife until she confronted him with the knowledge he had to be having an affair, because the office knew nothing about his "stake outs".
Continuing in his path to darkness, Stan, the FBI agent, lost his partner who had served as a more immoral counterweight to him. This drove him over the edge as the man he loved like a brother was gone. Eventually Stan killed a KGB agent they had grabbed as an act of sheer vengeance, while the agent's guard was down and eating a burger Stan had given him. Nina, the secretary began to ask him to find out what had happened to Vlad and explained how Vlad was going to quit the KGB by next year to stand up to his father and go to medical school like he had always desired. In more ways than one, Stan has innocent blood on his hands, and is being forced to cope. As of last night's episode, there are some ominous hints that come Season 2, he might end up "turned" by the KGB due to his moral flaws; Arkady the KGB Rezidentura told the secretary, "A man who did what he did to you Nina, is more flawed and vulnerable than you can imagine."
Meanwhile, the A-plot is that of Elizabeth and Philip. It's revealed, as he marries a woman for the purposes of seducing her while disguised as another man, that the two of them never really took vows and that their marriage is fake. However, that doesn't mean everything is smooth sailing, if anything it means the opposite. The two of them are going through a trial separation at the time. The show pulls no punches and no "magical divorce" that sitcoms seems to portray, where the wacky ex still shows up time to time and things get worked out, or an easy peace is drawn, for the sake of the children.
There's a visceral pain between the two that translates so well onscreen and the pain of the children is especially evident as they don't want to choose between mom and dad, even though dad is blatantly their favorite, even as he tries to downplay that for Elizabeth's sake. One of the happiest moments with the kids in the season finale is when both their parents sit together with them to watch a hockey game on the couch and for a brief moment, they're reminded of what life was like before the marriage began to fall apart.
Over the course of the season they start out putting on the married act as they have for fifteen to twenty years. Then there is the sting of marital infidelity and betrayal outside of that which is required of them by work and things begin to fall apart. At first Philip wants to come back, but Elizabeth doesn't want him there and then it was the opposite. Only at the end do we see them beginning to repair what happened and possibly, quite possibly, beginning to form that real love that was missing from the marriage all these years.
As the season's action draws to a close, they believe that a meeting with an American Colonel is a setup. Elizabeth has been ordered by their superiors to attend it and Phillip has been ordered to retrieve a tape of a conversation between high level officials. They believe that the Colonel is a trap, because he's too good to be true. Philip then does something that one might expect of a good husband in the situation, he resolves to sacrifice himself for his wife; he leaves her a note saying that he's taking care of the meeting and for her to get the tape and then flee the country with the kids as they had discussed previously.
Unfortunately, Phillip and Elizabeth are wrong, the tape is the setup. As the abort signal comes too late (and the series is pre-cell phone), their handler drives up to him to give the news the abort was given. When it becomes apparent that the Colonel isn't the trap, he runs to his car and drives like a maniac to get to his wife, throwing the door open and yelling for her to get in, as the FBI tries to encircle them. In the ensuing shootout and chase, Elizabeth is shot and badly hurt by Stan, their neighbor, who doesn't realize it's them.
The next scene shows a doctor and their handler and Philip removing the bullet in a warehouse and the handler saying Elizabeth will need time to recover and that Philip should go home to the kids. Philip, however, is adamant that he won't leave his "wife". He calls Stan and asks him to watch over the kids, because "Elizabeth's great aunt fell and we need to help her with recovery".
Philip goes back into the warehouse where Elizabeth is lying beneath the watchful eye of Claudia, the handler they never trusted who saved their lives this episode and finally, the last two dimensional typecasting is shattered as Elizabeth shows that she has a heart after all. The entire season it's been emphasized to them that they're not allowed to speak a single word of Russian while in America, but she whispers to her husband, "Philip..."
He leans in close to reassure her that he's there and takes her hand. She whispers again, this time in Russian, "come home". Elizabeth, who didn't know how to be human, becomes it in that moment, and more than that, she ties together a first season of very Biblical undertones.
I would be very unsurprised if we see Philip and Elizabeth "renew their vows" in Season 2, having worked things out (or in reality, take them for the first time), because they've realized their marriage is more than a sham and that it's about more than a contract between two people, it's about love. It's the covenant that was put into place between God and His people and between His people with one another. Similarly, Stan broke his covenant with his wife and we see that even his attempts to bribe her with an 8 day tropical vacation has failed, not because he broke a contract with his wife, but because he has destroyed a sacred bond.
The Americans isn't a good drama because of action or sex. The Americans is a good drama because it tackles the most dramatic element of all, why good people do bad things and that there is the problem of a real evil in the world which we don't want to admit exists. In it, the cast goes from two dimensions to three and the lines are blurred as to who is "right" and "wrong". The Americans invites us to sympathize with these flawed, but human, Soviet spies and their plight, while showing that America isn't necessarily the good guy at all times and that in the case of our nation and those who serve it, as shown by Stan's descent into darkness, that sometimes the road to Hell (and damnation) is paved with the best of intentions.
And while that would be a great note to end on, there's something else I'd like to say about Stan. At the beginning of the series, he is almost the perfect incarnation of Micah 6:8, "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." His very character design is reminiscent of the epistle of James, where in James 1:12 states, "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him."
However, Stan for his strong moral start does not remain steadfast under trial: In his affair with Nina, in losing his partner, in deceiving his wife, in murdering Vlad (the most inoffensive person we meet on the show, including the kids) in cold blood...in all of these things, Stan falls from grace. In the end of the season, Stan is perhaps best described as a man in need of and possibly seeking repentance along the lines of Acts 8:22, "Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you".
Stan is a man in need of repentance and I hope in season 2 he finds it. However, I am not hopeful and more of the opinion that his descent into darkness will take him to the realm of betraying his nation, something he already did unintentionally in the season finale when he spoke to Nina about possibly exfiltrating her due to a "big case" and therefore leading to Elizabeth and Philip getting away and getting back together.
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