Starting from watching "The Game of Thrones" our family has a tradition to watch a show every evening. We have already watched Vikings, Spartacus, Tudors, Breaking Bad, the Black List. We really enjoyed all of them except the Black List which was too predictable but Reddington was the best. Now we are finishing the show "The Americans". And I can say that I was very impressed by it. By the way, I recommend to have such a tradition for couples (it brings you together)).
"The Americans" is about Soviet Union spies who lived in the US, had kids, a business but at the same time they served for KGB in the 1980's. The show, of course, is not perfect but very very good.
Smart KGB agents
The first thing that impressed me that Russian spies are shown as smart and intelligent, sometimes even smarter than FBI. As in most American or other movies Russians are shown as stupid idiots.
Main characters appearance
I really liked the actors. They are attractive enough but not top models with perfect faces. They have moderate Slavic appearance. And they play brilliantly. Actually, all actors play brilliantly.
Self - evolution
Through the whole movie you can see the personal sufferings of the main characters.
They are a married couple and love each other. But due to debt to the Motherland they have to have sex relations outside their marriage what, of course, influences their personal relations.
Plus sometimes killing innocent people as the Motherland ordered could ruin any normal personality.
Their elder daughter was also involved in their "job" what only complicated the situation. So, through the whole movie you can see the dynamic development in each character which is a good sign of any book or movie. Russian spies are shown as intelligent, faithful to the their country people with high moral. You really live and experience all the troubles they go through.
Parallel to the life of the main characters we can track many other interesting plots and one of them was love connection between FBI and KGB agents. So, an FBI agent could also have strong feelings and make sacrifices with his high status for the sake of love.
Good Russian language
Another thing I liked, that Russians speak the normal Russian language. I was always shocked why people spend so much money on a movie shooting but they can't find native - speakers. I could do that for them for 200 - 300$. I watched many movies where bad Russian or German or Dutch spoilt the whole impression of the movie.
Background
They also showed correct uniforms and a pretrial detention center. My husband has also checked about the way of execution in the Soviet Union at that time and in the show they depicted it correctly as well.
So, I can easily put the best mark on this show and say that it is high class series about spies. I highly recommend it.
Yours, @aksinya