Tag Archives: Watching the Americans

WTA 44- Season 4 Episode 5 Clark’s Place

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We finally get an episode where the title matches the content! This episode was so riveting that we got an amazing amount of feedback, and so we are splitting our show into two parts again! This is Episode 44 and contains the news and our episode breakdown and analysis. To hear our history, tech of yesteryear, and feedback segments stay tuned for Episode 45.

We are talking this week about The Americans Season 4 Episode 5 “Clark’s Place”, which aired April 13, 2016. It was written by Peter Ackerman and directed by Noah Emmerich.

We have some fascinating news items for you this week. We start with Inverse which is remembering the finest moments of Nina Krilova, followed by Observer comparing how ‘The Americans’ and ‘Orphan Black’ blur identity, and then The Wall Street Journal talks with our friend Alison Wright on ‘The Americans’ and ‘Confirmation’.

Then we break down the episode. It didn’t feature the death of a major character, but that didn’t stop the intense pressure! We have the noose tightening around poor Martha, Philip’s deepening worry, Stan and Oleg dealing with the death of Nina, Elizabeth working Young Hee, Henry and Matthew doing the Time Warp, a repair of the bromance between Philip and Stan, and Elizabeth’s actions to help Philip deal with all the pressure.

Remember that we do love to hear your thoughts about The Americans so please keep sending them in! You can email text or audio feedback to watchingtheamericans@gmail.com or signal us (we have replaced the operator!) at 919-907-0542. Follow us on Twitter @WatchAmericans. Please like us on our Facebook page Watching The Americans. And if you do enjoy the show, kindly rate us or better yet rate and review us in iTunes!

WTA 43- Feedback for Chloramphenicol

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Holy Toledo y’all – The Americans was absolutely riveting up until the last shot! There is so much in this week’s episode that we split our show into two parts! This is Episode 43 and contains our history, tech of yesteryear, and feedback segments. Please check out Episode 42 to get the news and our episode breakdown and analysis.

With such a monumental show we asked our friend Kathleen aka Alternakat to join us! This is all about The Americans Season 4 Episode 4 “Chloramphenicol”, which aired April 6, 2016. It was written by Tracey Scott Wilson and directed by Stefan Schwartz.

In our history segment, we fly on Aeroflot to the mighty city of Tula, all the while listening to our Walkman with a mix tape including Misty Blue by Dorothy Moore and Lucky Number by Lene Lovich. Then we do our research in tech of yesteryear on the side effects of that vaccine used against Glanders containing Choramphenicol. After that we have a ton of great feedback!

And we do love to hear your thoughts about The Americans so please keep sending them to us! You can email text or audio feedback to watchingtheamericans@gmail.com or signal us (we have replaced the operator!) at 919-907-0542. Follow us on Twitter @WatchAmericans. Please like us on our Facebook page Watching The Americans. And if you do enjoy the show, kindly rate us or better yet rate and review us in iTunes!

WTA 42- Season 4 Episode 4 Chloramphenicol

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:30:20 — 41.7MB)

Holy Toledo y’all – The Americans was absolutely riveting up until the last shot! There is so much in this week’s episode that we split our show into two parts! Episode 42 presents the news and our episode breakdown and analysis, and Episode 43 will contain our history, tech of yesteryear, and feedback segments.

With the death of a major character, there was an explosion of news. We start with Hitfix and Alan Sepinwall’s interview where the executive producers explain why they did THAT in this episode, followed by Vulture talking with Alison Wright on the tragedy of playing Martha, and then The New Yorker comparing Outlander and The Americans. Then we delve more into Nina’s fate with EW and another interview with the showrunners explaining what happened and we close with The NY Post and the scene that left Annet Mahendru in tears.

After all that it’s time to talk about the events that happened this week, including Gabriel and Elizabeth dealing with Glanders and its vaccine, Elizabeth’s surprising change of heart about Paige, Martha’s unusual dinner with Aderholt, Stan’s search for the truth about Martha, and the end of Nina’s story.

Don’t forget part two is coming soon!

We do love to hear your thoughts about The Americans so please send them to us! You can email text or audio feedback to watchingtheamericans@gmail.com or signal us (we have replaced the operator!) at 919-907-0542. Follow us on Twitter @WatchAmericans. Please like us on our Facebook page Watching The Americans. And if you do enjoy the show, kindly rate us or better yet rate and review us in iTunes!

WTA 41- Season 4 Episode 3 Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow

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Are we going to Epcot this week? Not exactly! Though we might just be needing a vaccine after this week’s The Americans! It’s Season 4 Episode 3 “Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow”, which aired March 30, 2016, which was written by Stephen Schiff and directed by Kevin Dowling.

For your news pleasure, we have some choice items. First up a great overview of the show in Vulture on making The Americans great, again, followed by Den of Geek’s review of “Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow”, and then the cool blog Film School Rejects’ piece with the opinion that on The Americans everything is horrible and we’re all doomed!

Then we launch into our episode recap and discuss all of the amazing events, including the confrontation Philip and Elizabeth have with Pastor Tim, Nina facing a very uncertain fate, Stan wanting to enlist Aderholt’s help surveilling Martha, and Gabriel’s turn for the worse. Plus, Epcot!

For our history segment we visit (finally!) the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, buy some Cabbage Patch Kids, try out Mary Kay cosmetics, and summit Mount Rogers. In tech of yesteryear we get a shot of Chloramphenicol and make sure to keep all our vaccination records inside our Trapper Keeper. Then it’s time for super feedback!

WTA 40- Season 4 Episode 2 Pastor Tim

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Holy cats is The Americans is off to an amazing start! The tension is unbearable in Season 4 Episode 2 entitled “Pastor Tim”, which aired March 23, 2016, was written by executive producers Joel Fields & Joe Weisberg, and directed by Chris Long!

Two really cool news items start the show this week. First up is a thoughtful piece from Refinery29 with the opinion that The Americans is making an important point about rape. Next we have The New York Times with Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields discussing ‘The Americans,’ Ronald Reagan and Pastor Tim.

We get into our episode discussion from the title and presence or lack thereof of Pastor Tim, two deaths that affect Elizabeth and Oleg, the developing relationship between Elizabeth and Philip, and Paige’s unexpected turn with Elizabeth. Then we have some tidbits from history including the organization CISPES, the cool 80s tune Tainted Love by the synth-pop band Soft Cell, and the city of Vladivostok. In tech of yesteryear we have the invention of the Cooler! Finally it’s on to your feedback about all the craziness this week!

We love to hear your thoughts about The Americans so please send them to us! You can email text or audio feedback to watchingtheamericans@gmail.com or signal us (we have replaced the operator!) at 919-907-0542. Follow us on Twitter @WatchAmericans. Please like us on our Facebook page Watching The Americans. And if you do enjoy the show, kindly rate us or better yet rate and review us in iTunes!

WTA 37- The Americans Season 3 in Review Part 2

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It’s almost time for the start of another amazing season of the best show on TV, “The Americans”! And as we love to do each year, we take time to break down every episode of Season 3 to get our minds in the game! Plus we have a treat to up the ante – our good friend Kathleen Lewis aka Alternakat joins the mayhem! There was so much material to go over we have split this into two parts!

This is the second of two parts, with our discussion diving deep into Episodes 7-13 of Season 3. We break down key events of each episode, point out themes that grew during the season, and of course in these early shows we have to talk about the bone-crunching tooth-cracking action! Plus, we take a quick look at the Season 4 teaser trailer!

WTA 36- The Americans Season 3 in Review Part 1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:24:48 — 39.2MB)

To begin we have two quick news items. We start with an interesting piece in Slate calling Season 4 a thriller without the thrills, then we move to Inverse which offers us a concise guide of everything you need to remember about ‘The Americans’ before Season 4.

Of course, we think there is something to be said for not being quite so concise, and our discussion dives deep into Episodes 1-6 of Season 3. We break down key events of each episode, point out themes that grew during the season, and of course in these early shows we have to talk about the bone-crunching tooth-cracking action!

Come back later this week for Part II of our takedown of Season 3 in our Episode 36!

WTA 35- Comparison of The Americans and Deutschland 83

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Hey everyone! It’s been a LONG hiatus since The Americans Season 4 debut isn’t until March 16th, and to help get us in the groove we have a new show for you! This time we are doing a comparison/contrast between The Americans, the German TV show Deutschland 83, and the Tom Hanks film Bridge of Spies. The 2 TV shows are set currently in 1983, and Deutschland 83 takes a look at East and West Germany and spying during the same time period as The Americans. Bridge of Spies provides a look at the KGB and East German Stasi at the time of the building of the Berlin Wall. There are a lot of similarities and some stark differences in tone and style that were a lot of fun to analyze!

WTA 34- Interview with Alison Wright

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It’s end of season special time! And we have brought back the amazing Alison Wright aka Martha Hanson to recap Martha’s incredible character arc! We also have our good friend and frequent contributor Kathleen Lewis joining in for the fun. In our chat, we recap all the wild swings with Martha in Season 3, talk about acting in general, and answer some terrific listener questions.

WTA 33- Season 3 Episode 13 March 8, 1983

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So many people have a bad day in the Season 3 finale of The Americans we can hardly keep track! It’s Season 3 Episode 13 “March 8, 1983” written by Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields and directed by Daniel Sackheim. The original air date was April 22, 2015.

Paige and Elizabeth journey to West Berlin where they meet Elizabeth’s dying mother. Gabrielle confronts Philip who is becoming more and more unglued. Philip visits another EST seminar where he meets and talks with Sandra. Stan reveals to Gaad that he has been working Oleg and has him on tape confessing treason and Zinaida’s role as a double agent. Gaad furiously tries to have Stan fired and is overruled by the Deputy Attorney General. Philip kills FBI computer specialist Greg and frames him for bugging Gaad’s office. Paige and Elizabeth return home, and Paige tells her mother she doesn’t think she can lie to everyone like her parents do. Philip tries to tell Elizabeth how he is feeling about what he has done and she turns away from him. Elizabeth tells Philip she believes Paige is doing fine with her new knowledge, while Paige weeps in the room next door. She calls Pastor Tim and tells him she is in pain, and that her parents aren’t who they say they are – the are Russians!

We have your latest news! First up we have a great interview by Alan Sepinwall from Hitfix with Joe and Joel and their view that ‘it may be that our sense of bad is changing’. Next up is a piece from Grantland all about Spies in the House of Love, and we wind up with the HuffPo revealing 7 Reasons ‘The Americans’ Was So Addictive This Year.

We have good things for you in history and tech this week! We start with Anton and Nina in their Siberian labor camp, then we listen to President Reagan’s Evil Empire Speech. For tech we fire up the trusty Commodore 64 Computer, pack up our Samsonite Suitcases, and call Pastor Tim on our stylish Princess Phone.

Plus we get your great thoughts about the Season 3 finale!

We do so love to hear your thoughts about The Americans so please send them to us! You can email text or audio feedback to watchingtheamericans@gmail.com or signal us (we have replaced the operator!) at 919-907-0542. Follow us on Twitter @WatchAmericans. Please like us on our Facebook page Watching The Americans. And if you do enjoy the show, kindly rate us or better yet rate and review us in iTunes!