History YMMV / TheAmericans

* TearJerker: Anton Baklanov's exfiltration. A Jewish refusenik himself, he gets betrayed by the very Israelis who promised to protect him.

** The surviving teenage son of Emmett and Leanne, who discovered the bodies of his father, mother and younger sister and will never know why they were murdered and that his parents were Soviet spies.

* TheScrappy: Martha Hanson. The writers seem to try to justify her desperation by implying her ChristmasCake quality, but fandom just consider her stupid and pathetic.

* TheWoobie: Nina ''does'' go through a lot.

* Phillip and Elizabeth as characters.

* TheWoobie: Nina ''does'' go through a lot.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Double Subverted. The FBI agent, Beeman, isn't a Straw Man per se, but he's still got a point about being aware that you're breaking the law, even if it happens to be ''Soviet'' law being broken. Theft is still theft, it's just the particular way it's defined that's different.

* SpotlightStealingSquad: Susan Misner as Beeman's wife does a lot with her one real significant scene and nearly steals a whole episode with her somewhat drunken confrontation with Stan.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: A show that glamorizes RonaldReagan and the ColdWar with BigBad DirtyCommunists all over the place, on a channel owned by RupertMurdoch? It's almost too easy...
** I don't think we're watching the same show...
** On the other hand, Stan is kind of a CowboyCop, and his actions threatening the guy in the stereo store [[spoiler: and the woman smuggling caviar]] do not put the FBI in the best light. On the other hand, this is the same episode where Philip and Elizabeth poison a woman's son so that she'll betray her country by placing a bug in the Secretary of Defense's house, so really it's kind of a GrayAndGreyMorality conflict.

* ContrivedCoincidence: The fact that it's [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in-universe might make it a subverion, but an FBI agent just happening to move in right next to the undercover Russians could be seen as this. As Elisabeth says, "FBI agents have to live somewhere."
** Somewhat justified in that it's a WashingtonDC suburb, which realistically have the highest density of government employees anywhere.

* DoubleAgent: Did anyone think, for a brief moment, [[spoiler:that when Beeman was calling up the Rezident, Vasili, using the name "Theo", that he was going to prove himself another secret mole?]] Of course, the whole thing was, as noted in the main page, a brilliant BatmanGambit.
* {{Irony}}: There are those who would consider this towards Elizabeth, being a devout socialist who nonetheless believes [[InTheEndYouAreOnYourOwn that she can and should only rely on herself]].
* SecretKeeper: It's kind of ironic that the parents, Philip and Elizabeth, are keeping secrets from their children, while their children are in turn keeping secrets from their parents.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Double Subverted. The FBI agent, Beeman, isn't a Straw Man per se, but he's still got a point about being aware that you're breaking the law, even if it happens to be ''Soviet'' law being broken; theft is still theft, it's just the particular way it's defined that's different.

** On the other hand, Stan is kind of a CowboyCop, and his actions threatening the guy in the stereo store [[spoiler: and the woman smuggling caviar]] do not put the FBI in the best light. On the other hand, this is the same episode where Philip and Elizabeth poison a woman's son so that she'll betray her country by placing a bug in the Secretary of Defense's house, so really it's kind of a GrayAndGreyMorality conflict

* {{Irony}}: There are those who would consider this towards Elizabeth, being a devout socialist who nonetheless believes [[InTheEndYouAreAlone that she can and should only rely on herself]].

** Somewhat justified in that it's a DC suburb, which realistically have the highest density of government employees anywhere.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: A show that glamorizes RonaldReagan and the ColdWar with BigBad DirtyCommunists all over the place, on [[FoxNewsChannel Fox]]? It's almost too easy...
** On the other hand, Stan is kind of a CowboyCop, and his actions threatening the guy in the stereo store [[spoiler: and the woman smuggling caviar]] do not put the FBI in the best light. On the other hand, this is the same episode where Philip and Elizabeth poison a woman's son so that she'll betray her country by placing a bug in the Secretary of Defense's house, so really it's kind of a GrayAndGreyMorality conflict

** On the other hand, Stan is kind of a CowboyCop, and his actions threatening the guy in the stereo store [[spoiler: and the woman smuggling caviar]] do not put the FBI in the best light. On the other hand, this is the same episode where Philip and Elizabeth poison a woman's son so that she'll betray her country by placing a bug in the Secretary of Defense's house, so really it's kind of a GreyVersusGray conflict

* ContrivedCoincidence: The fact that it's [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in-universe might make it a subverion, but an FBI agent just happening to move in right next to the undercover Russians could be seen as this. As Elisabeth says, "FBI agents have to live somewhere."