Emmy Episodes: The Americans

It’s always my policy to watch every Emmy-nominated episode each year, which leads me to sample a handful of shows that I don’t tune in to on a regular basis. For the third year in a row, I’m making a special effort to spotlight each of those installments to offer my perspective on shows that I don’t review each week.

The Americans: Season 6, Episode 1 “Dead Hand” (C+)

I’ve never been terribly fond of this show, and now it’s finally over but it managed to score a Best Drama Series nomination after missing out last year, which means I’ll be marathoning my way through six episodes before the Emmy Awards happen next week. I guess I watched the season five finale last year, but that didn’t help me remember much going into this slow start to the final season. There are many more musical montages than I can recall previously experiencing, and though this show has never been in a particular rush to get anywhere, that felt even more like the case this time. Things have gotten very, very bad between Philip and Elizabeth, and as if the passive-aggressive interactions between them for the duration of the episode weren’t unpleasant enough, the final scene showed that Elizabeth has no patience left for Philip and that the repair of the marriage that felt real enough for a while is unlikely to happen. Elizabeth seemed to be happy with how Paige handled herself during surveillance, but then she went and killed the security guard who confiscated her fake ID, something that hardly seems like it was originally supposed to be part of the mission. The next episode I’m watching is the fifth hour of the season, and I’m hopeful that the plot will have heated up a bit by that point so that this show can be at least somewhat more invigorating than I’ve found it to be so far.