They are evil
Are we suppose to like and root for Elizabeth and Philip?
They are good looking spies, but they are evil.
What they did to the Korean family is as evil as it gets. How many other lives have they destroyed? Poor Martha and Gaad!
From our perspective, of course they are evil, but from their own perspective they are only serving and protecting their country - much like British/American etc agents in place do as part of their service to their own country. I expect agents of every nationality have done comparable things in their jobs. That's not to say that I approve - just that I can understand their actions.
share^ this
shareConsidering that Oliver North and others have consulted, as well as the Creator having previously worked for the CIA, idk how anyone would think like the OP. Much, MUCH Worse happened in Real Life. This has to play by some rules... From the CIA and the Network etc.
shareMy first post on this board (my first visit, too). I was discussing this with my wife, how odd it is that we are rooting for the bad guys.
Yes, I said bad guys. If you have two groups of soldiers on a battlefield, you are going to want your side to win, I would presume, no matter how bad, brutal, and damaging war is.
In the case of these shows (and movies that, for example, are about characters pulling a con or an outright robbery - think "the Italian job," for example), you root for whomever's perspective you're seeing.... like rooting for gazelle in one nature show, and the lion in another.
So to your point... if some operative of ours (I'm American) got caught killing people - innocent people, like the guy Elizabeth crushed under his car so that her source could get a position at a local Northrop facility, or the woman she killed with pills while bugging the mail robot... if an American got caught doing that and was executed, I would shrug it off as him deserving it. But just because some of our operatives may end up doing some terrible things doesn't mean we should be "rooting" for the bad guys to do the same to us.
One interesting aspect of this show is how they freely talk about how terrible life is back in the Soviet Union (mentioning things like bread lines and such), all the while insisting what they are doing is right.
--
Formerly OneLeggedHershel. Poor Hershel.
Absolutely, I just watch the show without getting too caught up in any MORAL POV. What they do, or any other CIA agent, Merk, Spy etc, is usually Universally "Accepted" as Serving Your Nation! I mean, I don't work for the CIA or any Intelligence Agency lol, so I can't say what goes on daily inside of these places... But I've read alot of Books on War, Espionage and alot on The Cold War(Ideology being enough to put entire Nations in a state of Paranoia always intrigued me) and the fact remains, People do AWFUL *beep* for what they perceive as National Security. 'The Americans' as a Title works on so many levels because of this. They're spies, they're violent etc... But they're your friends, your neighbor, they have a family of AMERICAN Kids. Who TRULY is the Bad Guy? We want to be, or more importantly, we want to FEEL Safe, so we ignore things and point fingers. Sometimes it's justified, sometimes it's not.... And people in the UK, Russia and all over the Globe a generally want exactly what we do. It's crazy stuff. I just like to watch the show with all this is mind.
share