How The Amer­i­cans uses pop cul­ture to bridge Cold War politics

Spies: they’re just like us. In the excel­lent sixth and final sea­son of The Amer­i­cans, pop cul­ture helps us to make sense of a messy world, allow­ing char­ac­ters to recon­nect with a place they haven’t been to in over 20 years. Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Eliz­a­beth Jen­nings (Keri Rus­sell) are the embod­i­ment of the Amer­i­can dream. Sub­ur­ban liv­ing, two kids, their own busi­ness; they also hap­pen to be deep-cov­er KGB operatives.

The series has cov­ered the major­i­ty of Ronald Reagan’s admin­is­tra­tion, begin­ning when Cold War pos­tur­ing esca­lat­ed again in the ear­ly 1980s. As The Amer­i­cans comes to an end, the Cold War thaws, but ten­sion between the mar­ried cou­ple heats up. It is now 1987, Philip is all but out of the spy busi­ness, their daugh­ter Paige (Hol­ly Tay­lor) is learn­ing the ropes. Spy­craft is a big part of this, but she is also con­nect­ing with her par­ents’ Russ­ian her­itage through food, music, his­to­ry and movies. The lat­ter takes place in safe house along­side Eliz­a­beth and her han­dler Clau­dia (Mar­go Mar­tin­dale). Paige gets the grand­moth­er she nev­er had, one that has lived (and fought) through World War Two and this decades-span­ning conflict.

Three gen­er­a­tions of women sit on a sofa watch­ing Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears in the sea­son six pre­mière. The film won the Oscar for Best For­eign Lan­guage Film in 1981. The pre­vi­ous year, Team USA boy­cotted the Moscow Olympics, but the Acad­e­my didn’t shun Sovi­et era art. As per direc­tor Vladimir Men­shov, Pres­i­dent Rea­gan watched this film before meet­ing Mikhail Gor­bachev in 1985, in order to under­stand the ​“Russ­ian soul.”

Rus­sia is no longer an abstract idea or hos­tile place the news has been describ­ing for all these years. The so-called ene­my also expe­ri­ences com­plex rela­tion­ship dynam­ics. Paige has less-than-glow­ing thoughts about the por­tray­al of the man-hun­gry women in the work­ers’ dorms in Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears. She also scoffs at the tra­di­tion­al behav­iour of the male char­ac­ters. The younger gen­er­a­tion bristling against gen­der con­ven­tions is expect­ed. No mat­ter the coun­try. Clau­dia talks of her expe­ri­ence sneak­ing boys into these kinds of spaces; this isn’t just for col­lege kids in the West. Both sides of the ide­o­log­i­cal divide have human desires.

It isn’t an entire­ly rot­ten review, Paige has praise for Kate­ri­na (Vera Alen­to­va); like Eliz­a­beth, she is deter­mined and brave. Sovi­et ​’80s fash­ion also gets top marks. A fan­tas­tic skirt suit and vest doesn’t sound like a far cry from office attire in 9 to 5.

Philip is not privy to these bond­ing expe­ri­ences, Paige’s spy edu­ca­tion is not part of his agen­da now that he has retired. Eliz­a­beth bris­tles at the com­forts of this coun­try, Philip has always had fun with this side of their cov­er iden­ti­ties. Now he line-dances while his wife is out col­lect­ing intel­li­gence on the US gov­ern­ment. But Philip is feel­ing adrift, his Amer­i­can dream has turned sour. Cap­i­tal­ism bites back; the trav­el agency that was the side busi­ness is capit­u­lat­ing rather than thriv­ing. The more effort he has put in, the more unsta­ble it has become.

Wear­ing a dis­guise to rent a movie seems extreme, how­ev­er just press­ing play on the 1980 Russ­ian satire, The Garage is enough to con­firm Philip’s nation­al­i­ty. Art that is polit­i­cal­ly and per­son­al­ly dan­ger­ous has found its way into many homes. It is a risk worth tak­ing so he can get a sense of self back, to remind him of the peo­ple they have been work­ing to protect.

In fact, The Garage was banned in the USSR upon release because it por­trayed the imbal­ance of pow­er in a cor­rupt sys­tem. The provoca­tive back­sto­ry of this film mir­rors Philip’s posi­tion this sea­son; there is a divide back home between the old guard and those hop­ing for progress in peace. Philip has been work­ing with a fac­tion of the KGB that is in oppo­si­tion to anti-Gor­bachev forces, while his wife has unknow­ing­ly been manip­u­lat­ed into help­ing the latter.

“A tense and chaot­ic sit­u­a­tion involv­ing vio­lent con­fronta­tions between par­ties” could be the log­line for Elizabeth’s oper­a­tions this sea­son, which have result­ed in a high­er-than-usu­al body count. Instead, this is one mean­ing behind the French slang word ​“Rifi­fi.” Eliz­a­beth goes to see the 1955 Jules Dassin film in an episode of the same name, in order to seduce a senator’s intern to get impor­tant intel­li­gence about the forth­com­ing Reagan/​Gorbachev Wash­ing­ton Sum­mit.

Rifi­fi is the ice­break­er, Jack­son (Austin Abrams) is the mark. He shows off his cinephile cred by not­ing this isn’t actu­al­ly a French movie – direc­tor Jules Dassin was Amer­i­can, but black­list­ed dur­ing the McCarthy era. He found solace in the Euro­pean film indus­try. The 28-minute heist scene in Rifi­fi includes no dia­logue, a nod to the word­less 10-minute hole dig­ging sequence from the sea­son five pre­mière. Scenes stripped of dia­logue are an Amer­i­cans sig­na­ture and Dassin’s influ­ence is more than just a plot point. Rifi­fi shows the minu­tia of a heist, The Amer­i­cans has always been detail ori­ent­ed in its spy­craft por­tray­al, rather than anoth­er flashy Bond wannabe.

While Euro­pean and Russ­ian cin­e­ma dom­i­nate the final sea­son of The Amer­i­cans, the spec­tre of cap­i­tal­ist excess looms in the form of a Wall Street ​‘com­ing soon’ poster. As Crowd­ed House’s ​‘Don’t Dream its Over’ plays over the season’s open­ing mon­tage, Philip is dressed for suc­cess. He gets into his car com­plete with remov­able stereo, car phone and elec­tric sun­roof. As he pulls away the Wall Street poster is clear to see. But greed is not good. He is in dire finan­cial straits, the busi­ness is crum­bling. Maybe before the Berlin Wall does.

Pop cul­ture is woven into the fab­ric of The Amer­i­cans, from the music on the sound­track to the films these char­ac­ters con­sume. Movies act as an escape, but also pro­vide a con­nec­tion to places and peo­ple. Paige has nev­er set foot in the moth­er­land, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears is a con­duit to her her­itage, to the life they could be liv­ing. Nei­ther ide­ol­o­gy is per­fect; it is destruc­tive and dam­ag­ing on both sides. Art is one way to bridge this gap, to under­stand the ​‘oth­er.’ You don’t have to be a deep-cov­er spy to crack this code.