Discussion Series / TheAmericans

This has been removed twice by the same editor, but it's a valid example as a series premise, anti-villain protagonist.

• Villain Protagonist: The protagonist couple. Especially with Elizabeth always putting country above everything else. The show aims for a Punch-Clock Villain angle in that they are soldiers fighting a covert war and whose violence and manipulations are not pointless but serve a purpose and have a cold logic behind them. All the same, while they're not in it for selfish reasons, the show also makes it clear that everything the Jennings couple does, they do it consciously, readily, and willingly, with varying degrees of remorse.
  William: It eats you up... what we do.

Sure, they are doing a job, but that job involves lying, deceiving, cheating, manipulating other good people (including their own children) and murder on a regular basis . You don't have to be a bad person to qualify, but marrying a secretary for information and keeping the charade for years is quite wrong . You can sympathize with them, they have positive qualities (who doesn't?) but these guys are criminals, not just "the enemy" (from the USA perspective)

The series is pretty grey, but you don't have to be an American or a Westerner to condemn the USSR in-universe, they are shown as an oppressive regime to a "neutral" viewer, doing things like killing disidents and such like Nina. Even Philip gets so fed up with being a "villain" that he quits, but that doesn't mean he was a villain when he wasn't doing that things he abhorred. Raising your elder child to be another spy is shown as rather bad too, crossing the lines they weren't willing to cross after telling Moscow she should be spared and all that, but the cause >>> the person anyway. Another life of lies for your loved one, great. That alone racks up plenty of villain points.

Naturally, Elizabeth keeps feeding Page lies after she is in the loop, what with denying the existence of honeypots... and gets rightfully called on it because she can't have it both ways.

Hey! What happened to the edit history?

I read my own edits and thought they sounded kind of brusque and unfriendly, so I'd like to apologize for that. I also feel kind of bad for deleting most of the last edit, so I should explain why. Irony is pretty debatable here, but I don't see it—how is it ironic that a socialist would believe that she should only rely on herself? And I cited Examples Are Not Arguable because the example as given said "There are those who would consider", which is a definite no-no.

As for Double Agent, some viewers might have thought that about Stan—I didn't, not after the scene in the tea shop made clear that something was up—but the fact of the matter is that Stan is not a Double Agent so the trope should not be listed. If he or anybody else is later shown to be a Double Agent we can list this. (Nina looks like she has a much better chance of becoming one.)

I agree with the listing of Contrived Coincidence but I rewrote it to read a little better. Hope that's OK.