Harking back to an era of reds under the bed

TV Watch with Dave O’Connell

The underlying premise – that a quintessentially all-American couple are in fact Soviet-born KGB plants and agents – might seem like quite a stretch on the surface of it, but given the Big Brother monitoring of our emails unearthed in recent weeks, it might not be so farfetched after all.

But suspend your disbelief and get stuck into The Americans – currently topping the ratings Stateside and now showing on RTE2 and ITV – because this is a mini-series that will keep you hooked to the very last second.

It’s not too late to catch up if you’ve missed an episode or two of this 13 part series – and it’s well worth the effort.

The Americans is the story of Elizabeth – actress Keri Russell – and Philip Jennings, played by Welsh actor Matthew Rhys, although you’d never know he was British any more than the neighbours in Washington would think Phil was really Mischa from the old Soviet Union.

To the world at large they own a travel agency in downtown Washington DC and they are parents to the all-American kids, Paige and Henry – but they are really two Soviet KGB officers posing as a married couple in the suburbs in order to spy on the United States.

And then – because that on its own can only provide so much drama – they witness the arrival of their new neighbours, Stan and Sandra Beeman. Stan happens to be a high-ranking FBI counter-intelligence agent who has just completed a couple of years undercover to flush out some white supremacists.

And naturally they all ostensibly become the best of buddies, eating brownies and playing racquetball – the only different being Philip and Elizabeth know who Stan is, but this hot shot FBI man hasn’t a clue.

All of this is set back in the ’80s, during the Cold War era when they Yanks had an actor called Ronald Reagan in the White House. Paranoia was the buzz word, and the Americans saw the Russians in the way that a fox watches the hen house.

As the weeks unfold, you discover where Philip and Elizabeth actually came from; that they’re not married at all, and that they will stop at nothing – absolutely nothing – in pursuit of the intelligence that will help the Soviets keep pace with the Yanks.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.