Pilot

I would never have watched this show except I'm a huge SONS OF ANARCHY fan and the Season Five DVD's have tons of commercials for it. Well. SOA is great, but The Americans stunned me. This was one of the best pilot episodes I have ever seen!

I've been a huge fan of Keri Russell ever since Felicity and Malibu Shores. To me she's as beautiful as Grace Kelly, yet somehow much more accessible, more down to earth, someone who always seems rugged and gritty and real, even when she's wearing a ball gown. Yet someone who's alluring and seductive even in dirty jeans and a t-shirt.

So it's a good thing she's Keri Russell. Because in this pilot, she has to play not just one role, but about a half a dozen of the toughest roles she's ever had. She has to be a wife, a mother, a spy, a non-native speaker, a martial arts fighter, a rape victim, and much more! It's literally stunning the chances she has to take as an actress, the fight scenes, the sex scenes, and if that's not enough, she has to play her (much younger) self in a whole series of flashbacks!

But it's not just Keri's show. Matthew Rhys is amazing as the husband, a guy who seems so pleasant and appealing it's very easy to miss the deadly killer underneath. At the same time, he's so cynical and sophisticated that it's easy to miss what a devoted husband and father he really is. The chemistry between him and Keri is obvious (they're a couple in real life) but it builds slowly and somehow still manages to take you by surprise. Everything about this family feels real, and the two kids are never just cute. They're real people with dreams and ideals, just like their parents. Even the music is authentic, ("Tusk" rocks the house) and I know because I graduated from high school in 1981, the year this pilot episode is set!

I love this episode, the amount of story tension they managed to fit into an episode a little over an hour is amazing. This is combined with awesome music choices such as Tusk by Fleetwood Mac during the chase scene just added that extra umph that made me fall in love with the series.

Two Russian spies are in conflict over what to do with a captured defector.

I enjoyed this first episode of The Americans as it sets up a pretty intriguing concept and contains a number of solid performances.

The idea of a spy thriller from the perspective of Russian sleeper agents living a family life in the US is an excellent basis for both compelling plot lines and exploring themes about identity, trust, marriage, parenthood and political ideology. It's hard to tell if all this or more will be done from watching one episode, but I'm holding out lots of hope.

Right from the start we are informed who the characters are, what motivates them and what challenges they are likely to face in the series. I found all this to be an effective hook to watch more.

There were several memorable scenes, particularly those showing the seemingly conflicting motivations between the two central characters and some clues to how the feel about each other.

Sexual predators, sexual violence and the use of sex as a weapon was tackled in numerous scenes which were quite interesting. Some satisfying moments of justice were served, yet I get a feeling that the theme will be continued particularly from the perspective of the Elizabeth.

All performances were excellent and made the central characters highly watchable.

The cinematography was good but nothing particularly earth-shattering. I enjoyed the editing and the use of popular music to keep things interesting and define the period setting. On that note the period detail was pretty good but a lot more subtle than the likes of Stranger Things which prides itself on colourful 80s retro symbols in every scene.

My only negative is a rather obvious lack of effort to make Keri Russell look younger in the flashback sequences, but in the grand scheme of things it's not the end of the world.

For me this is an 8.5/10 but as always on IMDB I like to round up.

It was a good story line but I'm deducting points for the fact that they did a poor job of capturing the mood of the era and some inaccuracies. There were several things that didn't jive with the times. One of them was the fact that several of the men in the episode had no hair, it was very uncommon to have shaved heads in 1981, besides Kojak at the time there were very few people that would've embraced that look. The scene where he was sitting in the park, there was a lady walking around with a modern stroller. And the police officers were talking into modern radios when communicating with each other, that would've never happened.

Also the scene where Elizabeth's character is sitting in the bedroom and she uses a wireless remote control to shut off the TV, while remote controls existed at the time it was very, very unlikely that somebody would've had a wireless one to control the TV in their bedroom. In 1981, even cable companies did not provide you with a wireless remote.

Then there were the scenes at the mall, malls at the time were still in their infancy stages and would not have look anything like a modern mall especially the department store scene.

Lastly, I take issue with their house. First of all, it looked way too modern from the outside. Also, that while they did a good job with the kitchen making it look period, the rest of the house still looked way too modern such as the painted moldings, which at the time would have been wood stained. The garage had unfinished walls, which is more a of a recent practice by contractors.

I would've really liked to see them do a better job with setting the mood of the era, other than that it was a good storyline and I will continue to watch.