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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSbr8shhwCk PREMIERES WED. FEB 26 @ 10 ET ON FX Season 1 available on Amazon Prime Special thanks to drunkill for providing the header images. Check his post below for more cool poo poo! Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys play Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings, KGB spies posing as a married couple in Washington, D.C, circa 1981-82. They have children, they speak perfect unaccented English, and they have stable cover jobs as travel agents. By all outward appearances, they are the quintessential American family. However, issues have arisen. While cold, distrustful Elizabeth remains loyal to the Soviet cause, Phillip has slowly become enamored with American culture and convenience. Meanwhile, their new neighbor, Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich), happens to be an FBI counter-intelligence agent, and with the Soviet bureaucracy understandably seeing Ronald Reagan as a madman, the Jennings are being pushed into increasingly risky missions. If the Jennings want to make it through the Cold War alive, they have to be at the top of their game. Unfortunately, after 20 years of arranged marriage, Elizabeth and Phillip have realized that they're in love with each other, which leaves them emotionally compromised and vulnerable to attacks from directions they've never considered before. Can they be loyal to each other while serving their country? The series was created by novelist Joe Weisberg, working under the tutelage of Graham Yost (Justified). His impression of the pilot script was "annoyingly good." Also on the writing staff is Joshua Brand, co-creator of Northern Exposure, St. Elsewhere, Amazing Stories, and The White Shadow. Background music, please...
Not much is known. To paraphrase Joe Weisberg, if season 1 was the story of a marriage, season 2 is the story of a family. This is further implied by the teaser above ("I hope the Russians love their children, too..."). There was also that BIG-rear end SPOILER from an ad that I'm assuming was redacted: It suggests that Paige and Henry get kidnapped early in the season. Anyway, Susan Misner, Allison Wright, and Annet Mahendru have been promoted to series regulars. Despite starring in The Millers, Margo Martindale found some room in her schedule to reprise her role as Claudia for multiple episodes. As far as new characters go, there haven't been many announcements, but relative unknown Aimee Carrero will play a Sandinista freedom fighter. Thanks to the writers keeping in touch through Twitter, Wikipedia has episode titles for almost the entire season: 1 - Comrades 2 - Cardinal 3 - The Walk In 4 - A Little Night Music 5 - The Deal 6 - Behind the Red Door 7 - ARPANET 8 - New Car 9 - ? 10 - Yousaf 11 - Stealth And that's all I have for now. We're a week away, so feel free to get hyped and share whatever other info you've got. DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Feb 22, 2014 |
# ? Feb 19, 2014 21:21 |
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# ? May 4, 2024 12:44 |
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Season 1 definitely fluctuated in quality, but the last few installments were absolutely the equal of Justified, Breaking Bad, et al. Here's hoping that they get a slightly better handle on Phillip and Elizabeth's relationship this time around, though. Last year it was a bit herky jerky, always pushing changes in the status quo without ever letting us feel the ramifications. But drat, that's incredibly petty of me. Stan Beeman initially did nothing for me, and I thought the show was making a mistake spending so much time with him and the FBI. I was incredibly wrong.
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# ? Feb 19, 2014 21:33 |
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DivisionPost posted:Where did we leave off?
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# ? Feb 20, 2014 01:39 |
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LOVING THIS SHOW. Is this supposed to be a midseason show though, and if so, what is it replacing? Why is it not airing on the regular fall/winter/spring rotation like the other shows? Long breaks will kill it dead and pretty much no other network would pick this up. Also I'm thrilled about the Margo news. The Millers is a really terrible show so I hope that business is concluded quickly and she can get back to screwing around with her operatives on this one.
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# ? Feb 20, 2014 01:44 |
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shizengiggles posted:LOVING THIS SHOW. Is this supposed to be a midseason show though, and if so, what is it replacing? Why is it not airing on the regular fall/winter/spring rotation like the other shows? Long breaks will kill it dead and pretty much no other network would pick this up. It's a 13-episode cable show, so "midseason" doesn't really have any meaning. The "break" was only a little longer than the traditional gap between cable seasons. Now If you mean "Why didn't it start airing with Justified and Archer?" I don't think it's a coincidence that it's premiering the week after the Olympics conclude. Last year's live numbers sucked, but it got its second season rather quickly on the back of some HUGE DVR gains. So it was probably a matter of wanting to air this program uninterrupted, thus protecting it against viewer loss from abnormal breaks (unlike Justified and Archer, whose audiences are well established at this point). BTW - This thread title was suggested by someone else WAY BACK at the beginning of the first season, and I never looked it up. I apologize to the guy I stole this from and hope to credit you real soon. EDIT #2: Mucktron, you're my boy! DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Feb 20, 2014 |
# ? Feb 20, 2014 02:38 |
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I really wish that "I'm not finished with them yet. They don't have to be regular Americans, they can socialists!" would fit as a thread title.
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# ? Feb 20, 2014 03:11 |
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JohnSherman posted:I really wish that "I'm not finished with them yet. They don't have to be regular Americans, they can socialists!" would fit as a thread title. That whole exchange had me chuckling when I saw it. "This country doesn't turn out socialists" seem to be the most current-time on the nose thing to say. Also, excellent OP DivisionPost!
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# ? Feb 20, 2014 03:14 |
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Cannot wait for this to start airing again. With The Americans and Hannibal returning very close to one another it's going to be a great few months for drama. Also wigs.
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# ? Feb 20, 2014 10:42 |
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If this has the sort of S1-S2 quality jump FX is known for, well, we're in for a hell of a ride.
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# ? Feb 20, 2014 13:12 |
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Junkenstein posted:If this has the sort of S1-S2 quality jump FX is known for, well, we're in for a hell of a ride. Based on what little I've seen that seems to imply they're going to let the marriage of Elizabeth and Philip stick and move on to other things, I think it's highly likely that'll happen. Not that that plot was inherently a bad thing, or anything. It was just not handled with nearly as much subtlety as the rest of the show. It felt like they were setting up the marriage's fixing by having Beeman's marriage start to fall apart. You'd need something to contrast that with or else the show just becomes Spies With Marital Problems Hour.
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# ? Feb 20, 2014 23:53 |
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Lugaloco posted:Cannot wait for this to start airing again. With The Americans and Hannibal returning very close to one another it's going to be a great few months for drama. Vikings is back next week too.
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# ? Feb 21, 2014 00:41 |
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We need a moment of silence for Gregory. RIP Gregory, you died doing what you loved... killin' cracka rear end cops. grrarg posted:This is the plot thread I'm most anxious to see, even though it featured some of the most ridiculous scenes (and wigs) in the first season. How in the world is Phillip going to split his time, and what explanation will he give to Martha on the one side and his kids on the other? It cannot end well. Same with me. It's like the darkest sitcom plot I've ever seen.
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# ? Feb 21, 2014 14:17 |
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raditts posted:We need a moment of silence for Gregory. I would've watched the spinoff where he tried to live in Russia as the only black guy for thousands of miles.
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# ? Feb 21, 2014 14:25 |
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e: nvm
Baronash fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Feb 21, 2014 |
# ? Feb 21, 2014 16:45 |
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I remember hoping Gregory could win or at least take out more dudes before going down but then I remembered he was killing cops. gently caress.
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# ? Feb 21, 2014 17:35 |
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Mu Zeta posted:I remember hoping Gregory could win or at least take out more dudes before going down but then I remembered he was killing cops. gently caress. There was no winning for Gregory. He knew that in the end, the Russians didn't give any more of a poo poo about him than America did.
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# ? Feb 21, 2014 18:54 |
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I've been rewatching the first on Amazon. As Lugaloco said, between this and Hannibal coming back its going to be good times. I'm hoping for even crazier disguises on Phillip this season. Didn't I read somewhere that Claudia was going to be in all or most of this season? More Margo Martindale please.
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# ? Feb 21, 2014 21:23 |
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Here's a quick promo video for season 2. Contains minor spoiler images of Phillip in peril, and discussion of what types of intel the Soviets are gonna uncover (last season being SDI/Star Wars). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ8W7y-04lU td4guy fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Feb 22, 2014 |
# ? Feb 22, 2014 09:07 |
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I'm so glad this is back. I like the thread title too, Tusk was amazing in the pilot episode, great chase music. Here are some images to spice up the OP. The main banner can replace 'What Is This?' while the he three custom headers can replace 'Who's Responsible?' 'Where did we leave off?' and 'What's coming up?' respectively. And while we're at it, some of the official posters: Edit: No worries, I wouldn't have done the writeup half as good. Just wanted to help out a bit. Edit2: I went ahead and made a cast banner, if you want to include cast pictures in the OP or not. drunkill fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Feb 22, 2014 |
# ? Feb 22, 2014 13:03 |
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poo poo, drunkill, you clearly would have made a prettier OP than I did. I feel terrible! The YouTube was intended as the header image, so to speak, but I'll definitely use those subheaders. Thanks!
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# ? Feb 22, 2014 13:40 |
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I'm officially excited. I'm going to replay Papers Please to get in the mood. The guy who made that missed a real golden opportunity to put the characters' names in the game.
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# ? Feb 22, 2014 13:51 |
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I don't know if a cast section is necessary, but I appreciate the effort anyway, drunkill. I did just realize that I left some potentially important information out regarding why Nina double-crossed Stan, so I went ahead and added that to the OP.
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# ? Feb 22, 2014 22:30 |
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I am so excited for new wigs.
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# ? Feb 23, 2014 01:13 |
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Sepinwall's review is up and he's gone loving APESHIT for this.quote:"The Americans," FX's Cold War drama about KGB spies posing as a married couple in Ronald Reagan's America, had the poor timing to arrive as a very good new show near the start of what turned out to be an incredible year. Had it debuted in a different period — even a year or two earlier — it would have set a very high bar to clear for all that followed and been a constant point of comparison. But there was just so much quality TV in 2013 that it kept slipping behind other work, even though it had so much to recommend it. When I did my best-of rankings for the year, I wound up putting it 18th, simultaneously kicking myself for doing so while struggling to argue that I preferred it to the previous 17.
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# ? Feb 25, 2014 18:41 |
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I am way beyond pumped now. gently caress yes.
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# ? Feb 25, 2014 18:53 |
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One more thing (first spoiler is very mild, second is vague):quote:Even a relatively minor flaw (if you can call it that) like the show's fans fixating on Philip and Elizabeth's wig disguises, to the point where undercover scenes became funny when they weren't meant to be, is solved with one swift, brutally elegant move in the season premiere. Without spoiling it, I'll just say that the minute it happened, I forever stopped questioning why those things never come off.
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# ? Feb 25, 2014 18:56 |
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I already thought this show was great, so for the second season to get that much better is awesome. Hopefully one of the reasons is more of the daughter's rivalry with that Lita Ford wannabe.
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# ? Feb 25, 2014 19:47 |
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They give out five episodes to critics? God drat, I need to learn to enjoy writing.
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# ? Feb 25, 2014 20:06 |
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Watching Keri Russell beat the everloving gently caress outta people kinda turns me on, so I hope there's a lot more of that.
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# ? Feb 25, 2014 20:30 |
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You should watch Mission Impossible 3. Don't watch Austenland.
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# ? Feb 25, 2014 20:45 |
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Guys I'm so loving excited about seeing some crazy new wigs
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# ? Feb 26, 2014 00:50 |
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At some point Phillip is going to don a mustache so rapey he's going to instinctively kick the poo poo out of himself.
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# ? Feb 26, 2014 01:06 |
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Does anyone know if the episodes will be available to watch on Hulu after they air on FX?
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# ? Feb 26, 2014 18:55 |
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Retail Slave posted:Does anyone know if the episodes will be available to watch on Hulu after they air on FX? Unfortunately FX doesn't really play well with Hulu. You'll probably have to buy a season pass off iTunes or Amazon.
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# ? Feb 26, 2014 19:57 |
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I watched the first season again over the weekend to get ready. I remembered the scene with Keri Russell rearranging Margo Martindale's face, of course, but I had forgotten the amazing scene the next time they meet, in episode 7. Mags apologizes, saying she was just following orders. Elizabeth says she owes more than an apology. Then Mags takes her sunglasses off to show all the bruises. Elizabeth looks at her and says, "I'm sorry I didn't kill you. There, that's my apology." To which she coldly replies, "Better luck next time." Such a great scene that was overshadowed in my memory by the beatdown scene.
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# ? Feb 26, 2014 21:00 |
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grrarg posted:I watched the first season again over the weekend to get ready. I remembered the scene with Keri Russell rearranging Margo Martindale's face, of course, but I had forgotten the amazing scene the next time they meet, in episode 7. I still say the scene where they hot-potato'd the hitman's bomb back over to him right before he detonated it was peak badassedness.
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# ? Feb 26, 2014 23:48 |
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I like the scenes where the parents correct all the misinformation their kids have about Soviet countries/culture.
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# ? Feb 27, 2014 01:31 |
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"Yeah but Apollo 10 didn't land on the moon..." Amusing that that scene had Thomas P Stafford visiting Henry's school, as he was apart of Apollo 10 and the first Apollo-Soyuz mission (which was painted in the background) the first time the USA and USSR worked together in space. And then Elizabeth says "Well getting into space at all is very difficult" sure, the Russians never landed a man on the moon but they were winning the space race up until 1968.
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# ? Feb 27, 2014 02:34 |
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Any good video recap of season one?
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# ? Feb 27, 2014 02:47 |
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# ? May 4, 2024 12:44 |
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FX have a ~3 minute recap of every episode up on youtube, here is the season final but you can find the rest on that channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKu4DrcJekQ
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# ? Feb 27, 2014 03:15 |