Since its debut, the FX series The Americans has consistently been one of the best dramas on television, with compelling storytelling, expert acting performances, and a family drama at its center that just keeps getting more intense. As the arranged marriage of Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) grows more and more real, passionate and genuine, the personal toll becomes more and more impossible. And with Paige (Holly Taylor) pushing her parents to open up to her, Henry (Keidrich Sellati) becomes the odd man out, in a family consumed with secrets.
During this chat with Collider, showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields talked about being in denial about how soon the series will be ending, being confident in their decision to do two more seasons (Seasons 5 and 6), knowing the endgame for the Jennings family, what they’re most excited about with Season 5, reclaiming the phrase “slow burn,” whether Philip and Elizabeth might be romanticizing what it would be like if they returned to the Soviet Union, what’s in store for Paige and Henry, where Stan (Noah Emmerich) fits in, new characters, and what’s next for Oleg (Costa Ronin).
Collider: Have you gotten to the point where you’re feeling nostalgic and trying to preserve every moment of the remaining seasons and episodes, since you know the end is coming and even when it’s coming?
JOEL FIELDS: No, we’re in utter denial! But the sense of reality is now starting to creep in, as we start to talk about Season 6.
JOE WEISBERG: I think I just turned that corner. I’ll do that thing where I walk into the kitchen and I’m like, “Oh, the grapefruit!” Just in the last week, I’ve gotten very sentimental.
You’ve told me before that it was during Season 4 that you guys decided two more seasons would be a good length of time to finish this story in. At any point during Season 5, have you questioned that decision and wondered if you might need more or less, or have you just solidified the fact that two seasons is a good length to finish this story in?
WEISBERG: We’ve just felt really good about that decision, from the beginning. We had the feeling that we had a lot of story let to tell, and that we could tell it in two seasons. We were really deciding between one and two seasons. We weren’t deciding between one and three or four seasons. We wanted to wrap it up in one season or two, and we just knew one was going to be too tight. As we broke out this season, it came easily. Everything felt great and we could see how it was going to blend into next season, so we have not had any real doubts. That being said and our personalities being what they are, we’re not doubters anyway. We’d have to screw it up pretty good to think, “We really made the wrong decision.”
FIELDS: It has definitely felt right. Individually, we may be doubters, but collectively, we seem to be okay.
As you were working on Season 5, how much were you also working on and thinking about Season 6?
FIELDS: We’re now at a place where we’re turning a corner on that, as well. We were really focused on Season 5. The extent that we thought about Season 6 was just for the purpose of making a really great Season 5. Now that we’re a few weeks passed finishing the last couple of scripts, and we’re editing Episodes 8 and 9 and prepping 12 and 13, we’ve started to talk more practically about Season 6.
Are you guys at the point where you’re pretty confident that you know what the endgame is for the Jennings family, or are you still not quite there yet?
WEISBERG: We’ve known that for a long time, with three different variations, which are just variations of the same thing. As we get closer and closer to it, we’re down to one or two variations, instead of three. We always say that we can always change our minds, but I think we’re getting closer and closer to thinking that we’re not going to change our minds.
What are you most excited about with Season 5?
FIELDS: What’s exciting about this season is that, having paid off so many stories last season, we had a lot of new story real estate. This was able to feel like its own somewhat different story for us. That’s an exciting thing to do in Season 5 of a show.
When you introduce stuff now, do you have to worry about how much space it’s going to need for you to tell a new story, since you don’t have that much space left to tell stories in?
WEISBERG: Yeah, we were talking around the other day, thinking about Season 6, and that was one of the exact issues that we were dealing with. The end is near.
People have used the phrase “slow burn” quite a bit, when it comes to this show. Do you embrace that, and have you always embraced that?
WEISBERG: We’ve reclaimed the phrase “slow burn.” We’ve embraced it. Basically, we think the biggest compliment anyone can ever give the show is to say it’s a slow burn. Who wants to be a fast burn? That’s horrible!
Will this season feel different from previous seasons, being the penultimate season, or will it just feel like the next step in this story?
FIELDS: It will feel like both. Emotionally, for us, it feels different because we’re facing the end of this story that we love. But as storytellers, we are just telling the story that we’ve had in our minds for quite some time. We’re working from a document we created during Seasons 2 and 3, and that we refined, along the way. In a good way, there’s an inevitably to some of the story points, for us.
Philip and Elizabeth have started really considering returning to Russia. But because they’ve been in America for so long now, do you feel like they’ve romanticized what that might be like, if they did return?
WEISBERG: That’s a great question! I think that’s a very serious and important question, and I think they should really ask themselves that question. You know what? You’re gonna get a prize because you are the first person in the five seasons of this show to ask for a spoiler that we’re willing to give. Here’s the spoiler: Philip and Elizabeth, in a future episode, in their own way, with their own language, are going to ask themselves that question. That’s the first Americans spoiler ever given out!
What can you say about Philip and Elizabeth’s journey, this season?
WEISBERG: What we’ve really been interested in this season that’s really stood out to us the most is the place they’re at in their marriage. They’ve got issues, problems, conflicts and things they have to struggle with, and so much is still unresolved about Paige, and so much any other. Some of it is designed and some is a surprise to us, but they seem to find themselves getting along, better than ever, and they have a way to deal with problems where they don’t get into the hot conflict that they used to. They’re able to work through their marriage, in a new way that we’ve never seen before on the show, and we found that enormously compelling, to tell the story of how that works and how that happens this year. It’s an interesting type of drama.
Is there a scenario where Paige will evolve into her mother, or is that impossible, considering that Paige was born in America and is American first?
FIELDS: As we long to say on this show, both. Things can be simultaneously true. She’ll never evolve exactly into her mother, but there is certainly a scenario in which she becomes more her mother’s daughter. There’s a scenario where she becomes more her father’s daughter. And there’s a scenario where she becomes her own person. There are a million possibilities. There will be a lot of tension for Philip, Elizabeth and Paige, surrounding those very questions. When any of us, as teenagers stumbling into adulthood, ask those questions, the family dynamics are fraught, intrinsically. But in their case, the stakes are life and death.
Will Paige have to make a definitive decision about the path for her own future soon, or does she still have some time to figure that out?
WEISBERG: That’s a good question, but we’re not telling you that one. Come on! You got a good spoiler! Philip and Elizabeth talk!
What can you say is in store for Henry, this season? Will we get to see more of him?
WEISBERG: We’ve got our biggest Henry story, ever, and that’s not a joke. Get this – something is going to happen with Henry!
FIELDS: There’s something a little sad about Henry, which is that he’s the outsider in this family now. He doesn’t quite know it, but that’s a fact. There are four people in the family, three of whom know a secret.
Where are things at for Stan, at this point?
FIELDS: He’s still dealing with all of the things that happened, with Nina and with Oleg. Those things are going to be weighing heavy on him, this season. As you’ll see in the first couple of episodes, the stakes are going to be raised and he’s going to have to see what, if anything, he can do. But also, he’s trying to figure out his own life. He’s going to be trying to do it in a way that we’ve never seen before, and that’s going to have implications for his relationship with Philip and Elizabeth, as a couple, but really with him and his friend Philip, too.
Do you have any new characters playing an important role, this season?
FIELDS: You meet many of them in the first episode. Tuan is a big and important new character, and is really almost a family member. He’s an alternate family son. And then, there’s the Morozov family, who will play an important role. Brett Tucker and Clea Lewis are going to be playing important characters, over the course of the season, but we don’t want to tell you too much about that. You’ll see it, as it unfolds. So, we’ve got some really good guest star turns.
What will you be exploring with Oleg?
WEISBERG: We’re so excited about that story, for this season, because he’s going to be back in the Soviet Union. We had Nina in the Soviet Union for awhile, obviously, but she was there under such specific conditions. She was being held prisoner, and even when she got out, she was half a prisoner, running the operations for the KGB. But now, we’ve got a chance to really take one of our characters and have him live a life in the Soviet Union and really tell a Soviet story about life in that society. We haven’t done that before. It’s a huge opportunity, and it’s a major character on the show. The show has always been an American and a Russian story, at the same time, so it feels like a big part of our storytelling that circumstances and the narrative have kept us from being able to explore before. It’s opened up so many wonderful storytelling avenues for us, in terms of drama and visually. The world you get to see is a very fresh and new world.
This has been such a great show, from the beginning, and Rolling Stone recently named The Americans one of the 100 Greatest TV Shows of All-Time. Once all is said and done, how do you think this experience, on this show, working with these people will rank for you, in your life and career?
WEISBERG: I think it’s going to destroy me. I won’t want to do anything else.
FIELDS: You just feel incredibly grateful. In this business, things are fleeting, as it is. To have a six-year run on a show with people you love, who are incredibly talented, and to work on material that always keeps you passionate is just a rare thing.
The Americans airs on Tuesday nights on FX.
