ATX Television Festival: The full crew at the Americans finale panel. (L-R: Moderator Tim Goodman, Showrunners and co-writers Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields; Actors Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Noah Emmerich, Holly Taylor, Keidrich Sellati, Brandon J. Dirden; director Chris Long
I’m still not over The Americans finale. It was such a satisfying piece of television, you want to go back to the beginning and watch the six seasons over again. Bingeing it, I think you’d have a different sense of how the show’s relationships developed — Philip and Elizabeth as a married couple with unusual job requirements, Stan and Philip’s bromance, Elizabeth’s commitment to Mother Russia and her consistency over the six seasons. It might all read differently or even more intensely than it did watching year-to-year.
When I heard there would be an Americans panel at the ATX Television Festival this year, I knew it was the year I had to go. This, after missing the Friday Night Lights and Roswell reunions in years past, I finally made the trek from Seattle to Austin. While the Americans panel was the main draw, the Felicity reunion and the screening of You, the TV series based on Caroline Kepnes’ novel of the same name factored in, too. You ended up overlapping with the Americans, so I wasn’t able to catch it. :*(
I bought just the day pass instead of the full conference badge, which ended up working out ok. (That said, I already bought the full pass for next year). Although I lined up a little over an hour before the Felicity reunion, I ended up with better seats for The Americans panel. It may have helped that it was the closing event of the weekend. I bumped into Brandon Dirden in an elevator the day before the panel. All in all totally worth the 4 hour flight down to Austin. (See how good you have it, LA people?)
There’s a good recap of The Americans panel here. Scroll through the gallery above for pics. (Not bad, considering I was about 10 rows back and shooting with the Nikon’s standard issue 18-105 mm telephoto lens).