The Americans: The Complete Third Season

For the first two seasons of this FX original series about deep-cover Soviet agents living as suburban parents in early 1980s Washington D.C., Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys) kept their secret from their children. But for this season, Moscow orders the couple to bring their teenage daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) into the family business as a genuine American-born spy. While they resist the directive, they also finally reveal the truth to Paige, and Elizabeth speaks frankly about her own life and even smuggles her in to visit her grandmother behind the Iron Curtain. Needless to say, it is quite a shock to Paige, who is active in the church and believes passionately in Christian service, and it takes an emotional toll on her. Meanwhile, Philip has to romance the rebellious teenage daughter of a government official in order to access secret documents, an assignment that puts him in a moral quandary, and he must keep his other "wife"— a secretary for the FBI who he secretly married under the guise of a false identity—calm when the leak in her office is discovered. This season also features drama within the FBI involving a Soviet defector and Agent Stan Beeman's (Noah Emmerich) collapsing marriage, and a turn by Frank Langella as the Jennings' Soviet contact, all set against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Americans, which remains one of the best dramas on American TV, smartly uses the Cold War culture and dangerous world of international spycraft to explore issues of identity, loyalty, responsibility, parenthood, and marriage. Compiling all 13 episodes from 2015, extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette and deleted scenes. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)