'The Americans' - great show, things are rapidly going haywire

'The Americans' Season 2, episode 6: Sex, drugs and covert murder in 'Behind the Red Door'

Of all "The Americans" episodes in this excellent Season 2, "Behind the Red Door" might best encapsulate the passion, fear and danger of espionage.

It's hard to remember sometimes that these are people who have literally given up everything for a cause -- and that makes them some of the most fascinating and dangerous people on the planet. Even in this fictional version, it's fascinating to watch them try to change the world.


Another amazing, complicated woman

There's a lot of commentary out there about how women are portrayed in the media. Movies are often seen as the worst offenders, but TV also takes some abuse for not showing women as complex, driven and three-dimensional characters.

But if every TV show were like "The Americans," there would be no problem. All of the characters in this show are beautiful, living creations, while the women are quite simply phenomenal. We get to know another of them this week in Aimee Carrero's Lucia.

A Sandinista operative loosely affiliated with the KGB, Lucia starts off with a combination of Elizabeth's passion and Nina's air of vulnerability. This could be nothing more than a throwaway role in "The Americans," plying a congressional aide with sex and drugs for access. Yet somehow she uses only a few minutes of screen-time to create yet another female character that lives and breathes and makes the audience care.

When ordered to kill her "boyfriend" to hide any involvement in espionage, Lucia could have taken Elizabeth's advice and walked away. A drug overdose, fake or not, pretty much takes care of itself. But passion like Lucia's isn't just for a cause. A woman like that will have passion and devotion to every aspect of her life.

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