March 31, 2015

“The Americans” Is One Of The Best Shows On Television

Courtesy of FX.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Do you watch The Americans? You should watch The Americans! Why don’t you watch The Americans? Do you not watch it because it’s about Soviet spies who love each other and also work together to bring down America by wearing wigs and having sexxxxxxx? Well, guess what? That’s only sort of what it’s about. It’s really about a marriage. Are you married? If you’re married, you’ll relate to this show a lot.

You’ll watch it and be like “God, my wife and I just had a very similar fight about how to raise our daughter.” Just replace spying for the Soviets with whatever you do for a living. They’re so cute together, The Americans! They love each other so much, but they’re torn in different directions by competing loyalties, and they don’t know what to do! Bonus: I recently found out that The Americans are dating in real life, which is so cute OMG.

I love The Americans. I’m not nuts about the dumb kids, and some of the storylines are dumb, but the show is really great. The one thing I don’t like about the show is that The Americans are not actually Americans, they’re Soviets and I don’t like rooting for people who are trying to bring down America. I keep hoping they’re going to defect.

But I think they probably won’t. They seem to like communism a lot. But at the same time they also like living in America and enjoying the fruits of capitalism. Their minds are all messed up! You can see what a complicated situation they’re in. A lot of D-R-A-M-A.

Anyway, it’s one of the second best show on television.

The problem is, not that many people watch it. :(((.

The ratings for season 3 are in the hole. A cloud of pessimism and fear has overshadowed the last few episodes; I figured it was unlikely to get renewed by FX for a fourth season. But, guess what? Good news! It’s coming back!

So start watching it please oh dear god I beg you please watch it, please! We can be best friends if you watch it.

Update, Wednesday, March 16, 2016: Tonight is the night! The Americans season 4 premiers on FX at 10pm ET. Get excited. Here’s the trailer:

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate