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How the FX espionage drama ‘The Americans’ secured the ultimate victory: the chance to go out on its own terms

WMatthew Rhys’ booming stage voice, imbued with Welsh-accented gravitas, fills the commuter train sitting at the edge of the platform at a station in Tuckahoe, N.Y., about 18 miles north of Manhattan. “The Americans,” the beloved FX drama series starring Rhys and Keri Russell, is filming a pivotal scene for its series finale under extremely cramped conditions on a chilly March morning. The train, borrowed from New York’s Metro-north Railroad, will move back and forth 2,000 feet for three-plus hours while “Americans” director- executive producer Chris Long and his team gather the shots they need. Rhys, Russell and the rest of the crew are charged up to deliver a powerful conclusion to the six-season saga of the Soviet spy couple masquerading as Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, embedded as a typical 1980s suburban Washington, D.C., married couple with two kids, Paige and Henry. The critical adoration showered on the show has raised the stakes for Team Americans, led by showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, to stick the landing with the final season that bows March 28.

The only hiccup on the Tuckahoe shoot is that the Metro-north conductor dispatched to help producers needs permission from a central dispatcher every time the train moves an inch. The authorization begins to take longer and longer between takes, and the delays are greatly concerning to the crew — Long calls it “torture” — as the clock ticks down on precious daylight lensing time.

Rhys’ declaration, delivered with mock anger and a broad smile, helps take the edge off the collective mood. Russell asks via the IFB radio if craft services has a bag of Fritos handy; it quickly complies.

Rhys and Russell’s spirit is notable because the shoot is taking place on March 4, the same day as the Academy Awards. Rhys co-starred in one of this year’s best picture nominees, Steven Spielberg’s “The Post.” But there’s no glamming it up in sunny Los Angeles for Rhys and Russell, who are a couple on screen and off. They’re hard at work in Spartan conditions on one of the last days of filming on a show that has been life- changing for both actors.

The wait between takes prompts some on the production team to nostalgically swap stories about their time on the show. A feeling of finality is in the air. Set dresser Kevin Leonidas recalls his first encounter with Rhys after joining the show in its second season. “I was working in the Jenningses’ kitchen, and I hadn’t met anybody yet,” Leonidas says. “Matthew walks up to me, shakes my hand and says ‘Hi, I’m Matthew Rhys.’ What star of a TV show does that?”

“The Americans” heads into its final season as a rare breed of series, even in the Peak TV sea of scripted dramas. Produced by Spielberg’s Amblin Television, Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Prods., the series has never been a big ratings draw for FX, but it has developed a fanatical fan base among TV critics and culture pundits, who have waxed on at length about its depth — “Nothing else can match its combination of genuine sadness and muted, mordant hilarity,” The New Yorker gushed in 2016. Yet it has never been an awards magnet. “Americans” broke into the top drama series race at the Emmys after its fourth season in 2016, only to be snubbed the next year. Rhys and Russell have landed Emmy noms for their work the past two years, as have Fields and Weisberg for writing. But they have yet to take home a trophy. Go deeper into Cynthia Littleton’s exploration of the acclaimed drama series with additional content available exclusively to our magazine subscribers via Variety Premier’s quarterly Thought Leader report. All Variety subscribers will receive an email March 27 with a link to much more on the show. of Thrones,” “Homeland,” “Sons of Anarchy,” “Orange Is the New Black” — but it has endured as FX’S most consistently praised recurring series.

“This has been an incredible experience for me,” says Noah Emmerich, who co-stars as the dogged FBI counterintelligence agent Stan Beeman. “Americans” not only marked Emmerich’s first series regular role but also gave him the opportunity to branch out as a director. “Joe and Joel are incredibly open and collaborative and supportive,” Emmerich says. “They seem to take authentic pleasure from watching people grow.”

Weisberg and Fields, known on the show as “the Js” or “J&J,” set the tone from the start with a partnership forged out of an Fx-arranged marriage.

When production on the series began in 2012, Weisberg was the CIA officer turned novelist turned TV writer who created the series. Fields was the seasoned TV pro who knew how to run a show. FX’S Eric Schrier, president of original programming, had a hunch Fields would be a good tonal fit with Weisberg. Amblin TV co-president Justin Falvey says the pairing was perfect. “They became like one hive mind,” he says. By all accounts, the two have