The Americans
FX’s Cold War slow burn reached heights of unbearable tension in its stellar third season. The Americans is a spy drama in which tradecraft is never the sole reason for the show’s existence, and a Cold War thriller that chooses to eschew politics to focus on the divide within the Jennings family. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell were predictably great (as was Noah Emmerich), but the breakout star of this season was Holly Taylor as their daughter Paige.
As her parents’ lies unravel around them, and her, Paige loses her grip on all that she assumed to be constant: family, faith, even her nationality. Her decision at the end of the season – to expose her parents to her pastor – was one of the great cliffhangers of 2015, and left one agape, not just at the audacity of the storytelling, but at the achievement.
It’s a shame that the excellence of The Americans is kept secret, like stolen microfilm, because for three seasons now it has been the best examination of the nature of truth, and good vs. evil, on television.
Best episodes: “Stingers,” “Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?”