The americans cast talk season 4 and the fallout from paige's discovery

The cast of FX’s acclaimed The Americans gathered at the TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour today to discuss Season 4 of the series and the fallout from everything Paige and Martha discovered in Season 3.

Said Holly Taylor (“Paige), with a laugh, “I was hoping, wishful thinking, that if Paige found out [her parents secret], she’d be put in a wig right away.” Taylor said she was “a little disheartened that Paige told her pastor,” but also understood why she did it. “When you break it down, her whole life is a lie.”

Alison Wright (“Martha”) said that her character is “still living in the grey area. She doesn’t know what she’s decided or how she’ll move forward,” now that she knows her husband “Clark” is actually a spy.

Initially, before she confronted them and got the truth, the Jennings were debating whether to recruit Paige as a spy, but executive producer Joel Fields noted that in Season 4, “I will say that the game has certainly shifted in terms of parenting Paige. The question of focusing on her recruitment is now secondary to how to manage this family’s survival.”

The Americans has a large cast who, given the nature of the show, often never interact on screen, but Fields promised, “This season, there are a few [character meetings] that would surprise us as it came together.”


Last season, Elizabeth began to have trouble compartmentalizing the fact that her job requires her and Philip to sleep with other people, and Fields noted, “Elizabeth over the course for this season will run a new operation that will challenge her in new and even more difficult ways.”

Keri Russell said, “This season for me has really been about opening Elizabeth’s perspective” and really seeing “the emotional cost” for all the characters, based on the choices they’ve made over the past few years.

Real life events that will be seen in Season 4 meanwhile include the day the incredibly successful and impactful The Day After TV-movie aired (depicting a nuclear war breaking out between Russia and the United States) and Reagan’s Star Wars missile defense program speech.

Fields said no decision has been made about when The Americans will end, but he and fellow EP Joe Wright do feel as though, as they complete Season 4, it feels like they’re close to the end of the second of three acts – but whether it takes five or six seasons (or more?) to complete that third act, “we’ll discover as we get into it.”