SPIES IN OUR MIDST HEADLINES

RUSSIAN SPIES PORTRAYED IN LONG RUNNING SERIES

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The Americans (2013-2018) streaming on Disney+ depicts a gritty existence from within and without led by sleeper agents in a suburb of Washington DC during the height of the Cold War.

Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings, and Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings, play Russian KGB operatives posing as a dreamy suburban nuclear family with two kids, one boy and one girl, and two or three or is that five cars now.

The Jennings cover story is that they are travel agents providing client care, which allows them ongoing alibis, for various eyewitnesses, as they slip away from that nuclear family life to go deep undercover for the Russian spy agency.

The series creator, Joseph Weisberg (100 episodes) was the US Central Intelligence Agency directorate of operations from 1990 – 1994, after a number of years with the CIA.

Weisberg provides a gritty reality of merciless foreign spies afoot.

Once the series us underway, a day hardly seems to go by when Elizabeth doesn’t kill someone and then casually slips back inside the cover story in time to provide dinner for her two young children who are, for the longest time, oblivious to her ‘night crawling’ antics.

The series won four Primetime Emmy Awards including in 2018 for Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Matthew Rhys, and Writing for a Drama Series, Joel Fields and Joseph Weisberg, for the episode, For Start (2018). Margo Martindale won two Emmy Awards for Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2015 and 2016. Martindale plays the team’s handler and then the Washington station chief.

Alison Wright, currently appearing in the Netflix Series Snowpiercer, has a long run in a recuring role as the secretary to the FBI Bureau Chief Frank Gaad, played by Richard Thomas.

Unbeknownst to her, Wright’s character is turned into a KGB asset, by Philip Jennings. The master of disguise convinces her that he is an FBI special investigator running a mole hunt out of her office.

Philip takes advantage of the love at first sight, deer in the headlights personality, and enters into a sexual relationship with her, and then somehow, with love being blind and all, convinces her to plant a recording device inside the Bureau chief’s office.

Sexual encounters are common throughout the six years and 100 episodes later series.

Elizabeth at one point explains that when the couple were growing up in Russia, they had absolutely nothing, and so sex was one of the few things they had to give each other, and so sex was now nothing to her anymore.

The assignments do not always go as planned and sometimes their lovers die or must be killed, either because they inadvertently discovered too much, or they just got in the way at the wrong time.

Humor is delicately infused with the sex and violence and suspense of the trade craft. The primitive use of artificial intelligence in the 1970s to run a mail cart inside the FBI offices is a running internal joke as cart on wheels continually breaks down, and at one point refused to open the doors so the mail could be retrieved. Elizabeth and Philip break into the repair shop to plant a recording device on the FBI mail cart during one episode. The owner of the repair shop dies during the operation when Elizabeth forces her to overdose on her prescription heart medication.

These missed opportunities becomes a bit of hyperbole when FBI agent Stan Beeman moves in next door to the Jennings. Stan and Philip bond well over after-work beers, but he never catches on that the KGB agents his office is chasing are right next door.

Weisberg has this ongoing inside joke that the FBI agents are good but a bit dumbfounded after missing opportunities to uncover the KGB operation, such as Elizabeth beating up two FBI agents, including Gaad.

The composite sketch artists cannot seem to get the right image to make her a poster child for an FBI manhunt or even perhaps someone Stan would recognize as his neighbor.

Noah Emmerich does a good job as Beeman, who develops a few facial tics along the way, particularly when his wife surprising leaves him for another man, and then his professional life gets turned upside down on him when his boss finds out the KGB have bugged their offices.

The suspense of this glass menagerie has a kind of a maudlin twist because Stan’s divorce causes him to reach out to the Jennings for friendship, all the while a bit befuddled about the spies ruining his professional career.

Things get more entangled as the children become friends. Holly Taylor as Page Jennings and Keidrich Sellati as Henry Jennings and Danny Flaherty as Stan’s son, Matthew Beeman, are oblivious to the secrets, although as they get older and wiser, they begin to ask too many questions.

Page in particular grows up during the six years, and Taylor becomes a good actor by the series end.

Weisberg also keeps the series compelling by introducing guest characters, sometimes out of necessity as Elizabeth and Philip kill a few of them off a bit too quickly, after only two or three episodes.

A secondary narrative is also created of the Russian Washington residence two or three layers removed from what the sleeper agents are doing in the streets nearby.

Costa Ronin plays Oleg Burov, a high ranking official, with an influential father in Moscow. Oleg is happy about being sent to Washington, but in America happiness can only last so long. 

Oleg makes the narrative go back and forth from Washington to Moscow and then from the Russian Washington Residence to the FBI offices as Oleg meets up with Stan, and the two get each other in trouble without really understanding why that is necessary.

The script gets a bit harry at times with acting within the acting as the spies frequently change appearance to avoid long term detection while operating in deep cover. Elizabeth becomes unrecognizable as a care aid, until of course she must kill her only patient, and then she becomes clearly recognizable again as she decompresses on her way home to her family.

And then as the front line fatigue sets in, the paranoia begins to spread and even Elizabeth and Philip have trouble believing and trusting each other. Philip has had quite enough when Elizabeth begins to indoctrinate their daughter, Page, in the trade craft.

Often the little details keeps the episodes running, such as the hidden boxes for hiding the spy gear, and still never knowing where they get all the different cars from because the spies have access to a number of garages and safe houses.

The binge worthy series can get you watching two or three episodes a night, like watching a full length feature film.

Brandon J. Dirden has a recuring role as FBI Agent Dennis Aderholt, as does Margo Martindale as KGB handler Claudia, and Frank Langella as KGB Station Chief Gabriel. But only Russel, Rhys and Emmerich have parts in every episode.

The storyline is set almost entirely in Washington DC, but the series was filmed in Brooklyn, New York.

Russel had previously found critical acclaim in the television series, Felicity (1998-2002). Russel then moved into feature films when cast in a supporting role with Madeleine Stowe in We Were Soldiers (2002) and then landing a substantial part in Mission Impossible III (2006) as the young recruit, Lindsey Farris, captured by the angry oligarch, Owen Davian.

Disney gave Russel a small part as an off-off world rogue spy in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

But Russel also costarred with Gary Oldman and Andy Serkis in the franchise film, the Planet of the Apes reboot: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).

Rhys played Daniel Ellsberg in The Post (2017). Rhys also played Dylan Thomas next to Sienna Miller’s Caitlin Thomas in The Edge of Love (2008). 

And Rhys was the narrative device as an investigative journalist writing a piece on Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019).