TV

‘The Americans’ gambling with their kids’ lives in new season

How are we going to live like this?

It’s a question one spy, Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell), asks of another, Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys), in an early episode of Season 2 of “The Americans.”

The Jenningses are KGB operatives who have been working within the United States for 15 years. They have raised two children, Paige (Holly Taylor) and Henry (Keidrich Sellati), and presented a white-bread veneer on a clean street in Alexandria, Va. Their next-door neighbor, Stan Beemer (Noah Emmerich), is a married FBI agent whom the couple have befriended in the spirit of keeping one’s enemies closer than one’s friends. The Jennings’ agenda is often ruthless, and both have been willing to accept the consequences — Elizabeth was shot in the line of duty in the first season, necessitating a long convalescence — until now.

In a shocking event that affects a fellow pair of operatives and their children, Elizabeth and Philip have a crisis of conscience.

“All these years, I never worried about Paige and Henry being safe,” she says.

But the safety isn’t all the Jenningses — comrades, first; spouses and parents, later — have to worry about. This season —which begins three months from where we left off, in 1982 — the cat-and-mouse game that drives the show expands from Americans and Russians, FBI and spies, to parents and children. Paige, the Jennings’ eldest child, is onto them. The puzzle pieces of the family’s life don’t quite fit and she is looking through her mother’s laundry, opening doors that should be locked and conducting her own investigation into her parents’ increasingly strange behavior.

Paige (Holly Taylor) is beginning to suspect something in the show’s second season.FX

Her father, for one, is nervous. “Do we even know if this is the first time she’s checked on us?” Philip asks Elizabeth after Paige’s curiosity hits them where they live. Like Dana Brody on “Homeland” and Sally Draper on “Mad Men,” the eldest child is the real agent provocateur when it comes to uncovering secrets.

“It’s not on Paige’s mind that her parents are spies, but she knows something is being hidden from her,” says executive producer Joel Fields. “She’s breaking the family rules. She wants answers to her questions. How that plays out is the conflict between being a spy and a parent.”

“In a way, that’s the heart of the season,” says series creator Joe Weisberg, a former CIA officer.

Now, all the characters on “The Americans” have something to hide. Stan, the FBI guy next door, is having an affair with Nina (Annet Mahendru), a high-level KGB agent stationed at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. What he doesn’t know is that Nina is playing him, documenting their sexual congress and how it makes him more willing to disclose agency secrets. If Stan is the FBI’s best shot, the Americans will never defeat the enemy.

“It’s not a good thing to be an American and you’re having an affair with a KGB agent, and you’re thinking you’re running her, and she’s actually running you,” says Fields. “It’s a dangerous spot to be in.”

Season 3 will remain topical as the story lines address the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the Sandinistas’ activity in Nicaragua, Werner Erhard and the EST movement.

“We try to include cultural references,” says Weisberg. “Leo Buscaglia was such a big figure then. He was at his zenith. There’s a story line later that deals with Soviet Jewry. Intellivision will play a role.”

Philip — in disguise again — is looking a bit Redford if you ask us.FX

Recreating the world of the first Reagan administration sounds easy enough on paper; the producers can get a copy of “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” and freeze the movie on an image of Meryl Streep lamenting, “I am the French Lieutenant’s whore.” Removing the contemporary world — architecture, signage and other physical elements, such as water towers — is another matter entirely. It is a painstaking task, accomplished digitally, and it’s very expensive.

“It costs money,” Weisberg says, without getting down to numbers. “What is it Al Pacino said?’ It’s a mil’ here, a mil’ there.’ It starts to add up to real money. Luckily, the network and studios this season have really stepped up the budget.”
The show is filmed in suburban New York, Virginia and in and around Brooklyn, where “The Americans” has its home base at Eastern Effects Studios in the Gowanus area. The characters do get out, driving out to Foster Avenue in the Flatlands area, plotting malevolently in Cobble Hill Park and sometime sticking close to the studio. One gritty night scene in the premiere episode takes place at a nearby cement factory, with the elevated F train roaring overhead.

The sometimes-seedy urban backdrops lend “The Americans” a sense of authenticity. Many scenes are filmed in bleak warehouse settings, including some in which Claudia, a KGB supervisor played by Margo Martindale, was beaten to a pulp by Elizabeth after the latter concluded that Claudia arranged their kidnapping.

In such moments, the show is truly terrifying, with Elizabeth and Philip stripping off their suburban costumes to become government-trained killers. Even so, Weisberg and Fields joke about those scenes.

“We shot that on a brutally cold night. That warehouse was not heated,” Fields says. “We had a double for Margo. She always has some excuse as to why we can’t punch her in the face or dunk her head in the water.”

“Yeah,” says Weisberg. “She’s not a Method actress.”

“The Americans” has almost wrapped production on its 13 episodes and the producers reveal that there is one thing holding them back from finishing up: the brutal New York winter.

“We’re carrying a lot of dropped scenes. We’ve had a lot of snow days,” says Weisberg. “If there’s another big snow storm, there are going to be some shots of me and Joel talking to the camera, telling you what happened.”