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Storyline: The Americans – Not Your Average Suburban Family2 min read

Nevena Georgieva, MBA Class of 2017Nevena

Imagine the 1980s for a secondVan Halen blasting out of a Z-28 Camaro. An FBI agent moves into a wholesome Washington D.C. suburb. Living next door are Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (played by Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys), a seemingly average American couple with two children. They seem perfectly normal, yet our agent’s spidey sense is on alert. He’s on the trail of a defected KGB operative who’s been kidnapped, and on a whim, he skulks into his neighbor’s’ garage and cracks open the trunk of their car. It’s empty, and he laughs at his irrational suspiciousness.

What he doesn’t knowwhat he’ll never knowis that minutes before, trapped in the very same trunk was none other than his missing Soviet. And the Jenningses are no ordinary family: they are undercover agents implanted into the very fiber of American society to carry out top secret missions for the Russian government. They are the enemy, and their marriage a domestic partnership engineered by the KGB.

So begins a saga that impeccably blends spy thriller with family drama, where it’s perfectly normal for characters to come back from a dangerous operation to tuck their children into bed.

The Americans is by far the most underrated show on television right now. Perhaps it’s the Cold War theme or Keri Russell’s broken Russian that keeps audiences away, I don’t know. What I do know is that this superb FX drama is overdue for an Emmy. Catch up with the show before it returns for a fourth season in 2016.

You can’t resist Elizabeth and Philip’s appeal. You may disagree with their politics, but you admire their passion and patriotism. Because they are believers. At a time when apathy and inertia creeps into American society, they are utterly devoted to their Motherland and bound by a strict moral code.

You want them to get caught but you also hope, deep down, that they’ll grow old together.

The Americans is available with Amazon Prime Video

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