Oh sure, they're murderers and they want to destroy the United States, but they love children.
It's the FX show The Americans about a sleeper cell of Soviet spies operating in Washington, D.C., in 1981, the year Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. But these spies weren't sleeping, they were very active.
In each episode so far the commies murdered someone or came close to it. For example, a Soviet spy who defected had to be murdered. And in order to get a maid to plant a bug in an administration official's home they surreptitiously poisoned her college age son with an umbrella tip and withheld the antidote until she complied.
The latest episode involved the newly discovered wife and newborn baby of a dead spy. He had fooled her. She thought he was a drug dealer. But she figured it all out after his comrades kidnapped her to find out how much she knew. So she had to die, too.
But they had a good side. They didn't kill the baby! The Soviets shipped him off to live with his grandparents in Donetsk, Russia, but at least he was alive when that episode ended. They should name him Elian Gonzalez.
The series is not without its cliches. The main guy spy is hotter than James Bond, at least to a blond bombshell he recruited to spy for him. She's blindly in love with him, and he endures it for Mother Russia. To everyone else he's an average looking guy. And although he never trains and doesn't look very threatening, he's a super MMA fighter who can render two larger opponents unconscious in a half minute's time. Now we're talking serious spy movie stuff.
Meanwhile, Ron Radosh sniffs out the motive behind this homage to cold war commies:
The show was created by Joe Weisberg, the brother of liberal journalist and editor-in-chief of the Slate group Jacob Weisberg. Its producers evidently want American audiences to root for the Soviet agents to win! Executive producer Joel Fields actually told The Hollywood Reporter that “it might be a little different to believe and get used to, but we want you to root for the KGB. They’re trying to get the Soviets to win the Cold War.” As the trade paper commented, believe it or not, the creative team behind the high-profile launch expressed a confidence that more than enough time has passed for American audiences to not hold a grudge.
"The Americans." Only in America, folks. Only in America.
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