Do svidaniya, ‘Americans’
Spy series signs off with a heartbreaker.
Spoiler alert: This story contains details from Wednesday’s series finale of FX’s The Americans.
The emotional bombshells of The Americans finale didn’t just hit viewers. They got to the show’s creators and stars, too.
“We wept the whole time” watching the episode, executive producer Joel Fields says. “A lot of emotional moments hit us hard.”
Fields and creator/ executive producer Joe Weisberg ticked off finale traumas for Soviet spies Elizabeth and Philip Jennings as they flee the U.S. under FBI pursuit: the decision to leave son Henry, who doesn’t know of their undercover work; their final phone call to Henry; and daughter and espionage protégé Paige’s shocking departure from the train and her parents at the Canadian border.
The toll was emotional rather than physical in the final episode of the critically acclaimed spy drama, which tracked real-world geopolitical events in the 1980s, concluding with a 1987 U.S.Soviet summit. No regular cast members were killed; poor Oleg Burov (Costa Ronin), back in the U.S. on a mission to save his country’s leadership — and, in the process, the superpowers’ nuclear weapons talks — was the only one jailed.
“It didn’t go well for Oleg,” Fields says. “Although there was a high body count this season, we don’t think about the action stuff a lot, about who’s going to die. We think more about the emotional carnage. That’s what the finale was about.”
Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys) — make that Nadezhda and Mischa — arrive safely back in Moscow, but they still pay a horrible price, Russell says.
They “could have died or gone to prison, but to take your kids away is pretty hardcore. … It’s such an Americans- appropriate heartbreaker,” she says.
Rhys says the rest-stop phone call to Henry (Keidrich Sellati), the last scene shot for the finale, was the most devastating.
“As a new father, it came very easily to put yourself in that situation and go, ‘I can’t even fathom doing this to my own son,’ ” says the actor, who has a young son with Russell.
Of course, the Jenningses never could have fled if their longtime friend and neighbor, FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich), hadn’t let them escape after apprehending them in a parking garage in a pivotal scene.
The bond between Stan and Philip is genuine, Rhys says, suggesting that relationship played a role in the lawman’s decision to back down.
“Philip genuinely loves Stan. Stan was his best friend,” he says. As for Philip’s motivation, “In that moment, your primal instinct is to protect your family. You do anything that allows you to do that.”
The producers, who had come up with the finale concept by the start of Season 2, won’t say much about the motivation for Stan’s catch-and-release.
“That scene was the culmination of all their years of friendship, everything that had happened over six seasons,” Fields says.
The producers are reluctant to answer hanging questions, preferring to leave viewers to their own imaginations.
On whether Stan’s wife, Renee (Laurie Holden), is really a Soviet mole, Weisberg, a former CIA officer, says “Our lips are sealed.”
The producers won’t explain why Paige (Holly Taylor) left the train, but Weisberg says she doesn’t appear optimistic in her final scene in the safe house used by Soviet handler Claudia: “In that room, drinking that vodka, this is not a good moment in her life. It’s a tragic time.”
And they’re mum about what happens to Elizabeth, Philip, Paige and Henry. They say they have no plans to revisit the characters.
Russell searches for a silver lining, noting that the real-world Soviet Union crumbles shortly after the Jennings return. “I don’t think those are going to be a really easy couple of years in Moscow.” She says the final scene of the couple looking at the city’s skyline conveyed their feelings: “We’ve come this far together, and we’re going to get each other through this.”
With the Soviet collapse on the way, “the hope is they’ll go back and try to find the kids,” she says. “Having that sliver of hope makes me feel better.”
“A lot of emotional moments hit us hard.”