The Americans Season 4
Overview
If season three was about Paige learning the truth, season four is about what the truth does to everyone it touches. Paige, now in on her parents' secret, is quietly falling apart — and her parents make it worse by asking her to report back on the pastor she confided in, turning a scared teenager into an unwilling little spy. It's the most heartbreaking stuff the show ever did, and Holly Taylor holds her own against Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, who are giving two of the best performances of the decade. Philip's double life as "Clark" reaches its endgame too, as the FBI closes in on Martha and an extraction becomes unavoidable; what passes between them before the end is devastating. Then there's the other plot, the terrifying one: a meek, lonely scientist named William, played beautifully by Dylan Baker, is stealing samples of a virus so lethal that even hardened spies go pale describing it. Season four is slow, sorrowful, and almost unbearably tense — the year The Americans stopped being an underrated gem and became, for many critics, the best drama on television. Nothing about it is easy. All of it is worth it.
