The extraordinary ordinariness of The Americans finale

Tick tick ... tick tick ... tick tick ... tick tick ... tick tick ... Tune in next season for the boom! (Maybe.)

The Americans, season 5, episode 13.
(Image credit: Patrick Harbron/FX)

The fifth season of The Americans has perfected the art of intriguing fakeouts that build in anticipation of consequences that never come. Stan's girlfriend seems sketchy. So (from different points of view) do Sofia's boyfriend and Henry's friend "Chris." Paige, who looks miserable, hangs a rope in the garage and walks through dark parking lots. Oleg stares grimly at the water. So does Philip. We're trained by now to see disaster looming around every corner, death at every door. "You aren't going to make it," Elizabeth tells Tuan in the preview to the finale, and we all wonder how Tuan will die.

But Gabriel's memorable remark — "you're losing it, Philip" — turns out to apply to us too. Tuan isn't dead, he's just annoyed at his spy-parents and a little freaked by Elizabeth's laceratingly gentle prophecy. Paige wasn't suicidal, she was just training. As for Sofia's gigantic fiancé, he comes up clean, and Renée still seems fishy, but at least she's teaching Stan to cook something other than fettuccine alfredo while she talks him into remaining at his job. For all our sinister imaginings, Martha seems like she's muddling through. She's even getting a child! And Oleg — who we don't see in the finale — is either bound for a prison camp or a promising career in middle management.

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Lili Loofbourow

Lili Loofbourow is the culture critic at TheWeek.com. She's also a special correspondent for the Los Angeles Review of Books and an editor for Beyond Criticism, a Bloomsbury Academic series dedicated to formally experimental criticism. Her writing has appeared in a variety of venues including The Guardian, Salon, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and Slate.