Sunday, May 11, 2014

FX's The Americans

See a Global Post article on the FX cable drama The Americans, which concerns the lives of a pair of Soviet era moles living and spying in the U.S. The show is described relatively accurately, the Russians get most of the sex, have the good lines, and (presumably) end up losing.

No question it is an interesting concept - not entirely far-fetched as we learned in 2010 with the arrest of Anna Chapman and nine other Russian moles in the U.S. The article gives you a pretty fair notion of whether the program might be for you.

The story is mostly told from the moles' point of view. It is sorta fun to watch our consumer society seduce committed ideologues. The spy craft on both sides feels like the real stuff.

Some months back the DrsC watched a couple of episodes. I decided the moles were being portrayed too sympathetically for my cold war era biases, and quit.