The Americans: Final Season Premiere Review

It's finally getting to you after all these years. You're amazing, but it is getting to you. - Philip Jennings

Last year, I told you what you likely already knew. Season 5 of The Americans was the series' weakest, but it had to be, in order to set the stage for a jam packed, though truncated set of ten final episodes in 2018. We got through all of it, the highs and the lows, and we've now reached the final stage of Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields' exquisite period piece.

If you believe in "TL;DR," here's your quick takeaway. "Dead Hand" was a phenomenal hour of television. This was The Americans at its artistic best, but also at its most focused. In the same hour, we got a superb array of music, mixed with some of the best montage sequences in the history of the show, and a smorgasbord of meat to move the story along.

That opening sequence was fantastic, and featured "Don't Dream Its Over" from Crowded House. Lead singer Neil Finn said this about the song's meaning:





Pretty fitting I'd say, especially for Elizabeth Jennings.

As Philip walks the Washington D.C. streets and looks across the way at the movie theater, we see posters for Wall Street, Revenge of the Nerds II, and The Pick-Up Artist. What this reveals, before we hear about the upcoming Arms Summit, is that we're in late 1987. A quick search will tell you the Nerds sequel his in the summer, Robert Downey Jr.'s rom-com hit in September, and Oliver Stone's classic look at 80s greed released in December.