I’ve taken an intense interest in The Americans on FX. But I’ve avoided blogging about it until now because it’s just so complicated. There are so many levels to examine.

However, the TV Tyrant blog my colleague Erika posted earlier this week raised some interesting points. Using her roadmap, I’d like offer my perspective.

The 1980s.

I was in high school and college for most of the decade. Unlike Erika, I was not beset by images of nuclear holocaust. The threat was there, certainly, but it was beyond my control. And, let’s face it: By today’s standards, the MAD logic of mutually assured destruction was pretty simple. We knew our Cold War enemies, and they knew us. There was sort of a comfort level. The Americans portrays this mutual suspicion well.

That said, I too was struck by the idea that the KGB would think the Reagan shooting was the start of a coup d’état. Such a total misunderstanding of American culture – and where it could have led if it really happened – is scary.

But the show goes on, much as America did under the nuclear threat. So what I notice more about the settings are the forgotten touchstones of my formative years. They’re driving an Oldsmobile! (Heck, all the cars.) The music! What do kids do without cell phones when their parents don’t pick them up at the mall? They hitchhike! (I guess we didn’t know as much about serial killers back then either.) The attention to detail is impressive.

Like Erika, I sometimes watch The Americans and wonder for whom I should be rooting. As I wrote earlier, it’s a complicated show.

The Main Characters.

I agree with Erika that Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys give masterful portrayals of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, the KGB spies posing as suburban American parents.

But where Erica finds Elizabeth to be a horrible psychopath and Philip a simpering, hypocritical weakling, I guess I’m a bit more charitable. For me, the issue really comes down to their “marriage” – how much they’ve invested in it over 15 years and how it has changed them.

On one hand, they were two strangers matched by the KGB to do a job. The are reminded of this often – by their handler Claudia (Margo Martindale) and their surveillance expert Gregory (Derek Luke). Of course, those supporting characters have their own agendas.

On the other hand, they’ve been paired up in close quarters for 15 years and have two very real children to show for it. Those kids know nothing of the spying, but they make the Jenningses a family regardless of how Elizabeth and Philip feel about each other at any given time.

These people are humans, not KGB robots. Where Erica views Elizabeth’s ideological stridency as pathologically driven, I see it as a defense mechanism to cover her insecurity. Whenever events throw her for a loop, her initial reaction is to revert to her KGB indoctrination.

I’m also inclined to take Philip more or less at face value. He’s lived in the United States almost as long as he lived in the Soviet Union. He’s gotten to know America and appreciates some of its qualities. Is it so crazy that he might rethink his worldview? He perseveres, but is it out of loyalty to Mother Russia or to Elizabeth and their kids?

Philip and Elizabeth also have displayed their humanity with unprofessional bouts of rage: Philip when he discovered in the pilot that their prisoner had raped Elizabeth during her training; Elizabeth when she beat the crap out of Claudia following interrogation by their own organization.

FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) at first resembles an All-American lawman, the classic guy in the white hat. But it takes only a few episodes for him to turn gray. He appears damaged from a long stint undercover with a hate group, which has left him disconnected from his wife and son. He takes refuge in his work – the long hours only exacerbating the problem.

The job also reveals some moral shadings. He blackmails Soviet Embassy worker Nina (Annet Mahendru) into spying for him, yet seems to believe naively that he can do right by her in the end – even when his boss (Richard “John Boy” Thomas) is skeptical. The Stan/Nina relationship eventually becomes an affair, leaving me to wonder who is playing whom.

[A lust-driven aside: Where did they find the stunning Mahendru?!? Her IMDB profile indicates she’s been acting for about seven years, but this appears to be her first recurring role. Yet she’s fantastic! A Maxim profile I found with Google said she came to the United States from Afghanistan when she was 13. The very fact that she’s appeared in Maxim, not to mention her nudity in recent episodes of The Americans, would seem to belie a traditional Afghan heritage. Regardless, she could end up being The Americans‘ breakout star this season.]

The Spycraft.

In keeping with the 1980s setting, the spycraft is pretty low-tech – even by the standards of ’80s movies and TV. Sex is the Jennings’ primary method of getting what the KGB wants, followed by violence and only then gadgetry.

It’s hard to believe so much Cold War espionage came down to looking realistic in a variety of wigs. The simplicity of the tactics stands in stark contrast to the complexity of the story.

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Stuart J. Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations practitioner and social-media guy based in Phoenix.