At its best, Alfonso Pineda Ulloa’s film gleefully embodies the grungy spirit of classic exploitation cinema.
Scene after scene transpires as a discussion about togetherness—as eternal ideal and currency.
The Americans is the rolling stone that gathers no moss.
Maybe the ultimate project of The Americans is to recognize its characters’ collective disillusionment.
The episode feels less like a continuation of this season’s efforts up to this point than a tangent.
Another week, another episode of The Americans that’s notable for its pervasive lack of hurry.
The latest episode of The Americans is practically a treatise on the psychodynamic theory of guilt.
The episode thrillingly and daringly comes close to completely pressing down on the reset button.
The episode is unique in the canon of the series for the sterling self-reflexivity of its sense of humor.
The series proves once again that action need not be explosive to be effective.
The episode frames its constituent parts as opposing forces, but in the end each element contributes to a coherent, if half-hidden, whole.
Indeed, it’s another faintly electronic rhythm, this one a music cue, that sends this dazzling season of The Americans hurtling toward its conclusion.
Trust, you might say, is simply the time we spend waiting for the other shoe to drop, and in The Americans, it always does.
The second half of “Born Again” features a number of tautly composed images that jostle against each other as if conflicting emotions.
Despite all the time spent focusing on the spycraft, subterfuge, and secret messages, The Americans is surprisingly straightforward.