The Americans Season 4 kicks off in the wake of Paige (Holly Taylor) alerting her pastor last season to the Russian origin of her parents, Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell). We’ll see how that impacts Philip and Elizabeth, but also how it impacts Paige, and her relationship with her parents. What will the family dynamic be going forward?
“There’s always a sense of disillusionment from a teenager who’s growing to see his or her parents in a new, more realistic light as they grow up,” said executive producer/co-showrunner/writer Joel Fields at a recent press conference. “It just so happens that the stakes for these guys are life and death.”
“I mean, for me,” added Taylor, “I was hoping — wishful thinking — that if Paige ever found out, she’d like to be put into a wig straightaway and be like, ‘Oh, yeah. I’m down.’ … I was of course surprised and a little disheartened with how Paige reacted, and the fact that she told her pastor. But when you really break it down and try to understand her perspective and where she’s coming from, her whole life is a lie. So I find it really understandable what Paige did.”
“I think there is a bigger sensitivity to the fragility of her family this season,” Russell said about her character Elizabeth’s perspective opening up in Season 4. “This season feels a lot to me [like it is] about the emotional cost in the people that all of these choices over the last three years have had, and I think there is a big opening for Elizabeth in a new way, especially with Paige and seeing how it’s affecting her. And I think that’s a very parent thing.”
As The Americans moves along deeper into the ’80s, the reality of the world of the time will, of course, eventually affect the storytelling, as the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. When asked about how many seasons he would want to fully tell his story, Fields offered, “Honestly, I don’t think we yet know the answer to that. This fourth season feels — if you were to think of a three-act story structure — like we are coming towards the end of the second act, and whether it takes a fifth season or sixth season to tell the rest of that story, I think we’ll discover as we start to dig into next season’s work. … We often surprise ourselves in terms of how hard it is to make progress through our story. We think, ‘Oh, we’re going to make it to the fall and the Berlin Wall will go.’ And then, we’ll get six scripts in and realize we’ve traversed seven days.”
In the meantime, viewers can enjoy the ride. Fans who remember the early ’80s will especially enjoy some of the touches and cultural moments that make appearances in Season 4. Fields said this season the show will reference David Copperfield’s magic special in which he made the Statue of Liberty “disappear,” the airing of the controversial TV movie The Day After, and President Reagan’s “Star Wars” speech (about the planned defense initiative, not the movie), all of which took place in 1983.
“And I think we all have a lot of fun thinking back to that handheld football game, which I think we pretty much wrote in just because we wanted one on set,” Fields added.
The Americans Season 4 airs Wednesdays at 10pm ET on FX beginning March 16.
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Eric Liebowitz/FX
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