The Americans · Season 1 · Episode 1 · 30 January 2013
S1E1 Pilot
THE MOMENT A trunk, a KGB officer, and a decision that sets the moral stakes for the entire six-season run.
The series premiere establishes the double life of the Jennings household in Falls Church, Virginia, with a Cold War mission that immediately tests the line between professional duty and personal feeling. The tension is set up with economy - the show trusts viewers to find the moral architecture unsettling without spelling it out.
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The Americans Season 1 Episode 1 'Pilot' aired January 30, 2013 on FX as the premiere of the 13-episode first season. Rotten Tomatoes holds Season 1 at 88 percent; IMDb audience scored the series 8.4. The Hollywood Reporter called The Americans one of television's finest dramas from this inaugural season. The premiere establishes the Jennings household in Falls Church, Virginia with a moral architecture the show refuses to simplify: these are Soviet spies who genuinely believe in their mission, and the pilot declines to make that belief simply evil. A Cold War mission that immediately tests the line between professional duty and personal feeling introduces the tension the series will sustain for six years. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are established as a partnership whose mutual dependence is simultaneously the strongest thing about their marriage and the most compromising. The trunk, the KGB officer, and the decision that closes the episode set the moral stakes for the entire run.