Best of Television 2016

The Path

One of the more interesting new premiere seasons from this year, The Path (formerly known as The Way), had a lot riding on it. It was pushed as Hulu's first big scripted show, created by Jason Katims (showrunner on Friday Night Lights and Parenthood) and featuring Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Hugh Dancy (Hannibal) and Michelle Monaghan (True Detective) in the lead roles. Did it succeed? Well...

This show is different. It presents the viewer with a cult called The Movement that follows a lifestyle centered around The Ladder. The closest point of entry the audience has is Eddie (Aaron Paul), who seems to be the only person within The Movement that understands how strange it all is and has serious doubts regarding its newly appointed leader Cal (Hugh Dancy).

While there are some supporting characters that are investigating the movement from the outside, most of the series take place within the cult itself. As a result the viewer can tend to feel excluded, surrounded by true believers. Episodes such as The Shore feel like a breath of fresh air because so many episodes take place within the cult environment. Another shortcoming was the use of confusing repetitive visions throughout the show that made it difficult to interpret.

That being said, as the season progressed The Path began to find its footing. Unfortunately it ended right as things started to get interesting. Hopefully season two lands on more solid ground.

American Horror Story

This was the first season that American Horror Story's theme was kept a secret. Usually the FX marketing team announces the theme for each year fairly early on, but this time they decided to switch it up and released a slew of misleading teasers, with only one of them turning out to be correct. That being said, the showrunners placed other teasers' themes in the premiere erratically to keep the audience guessing.

By the end of the premiere the theme became clear, this season showed some promise with multiple interesting changes in format. Unfortunately, although the sum total is a definite improvement over most of the Lady Gaga filled mess that was Hotel, it just can't match up to the quality of seasons like Asylum.

There was strong acting here from Kathy Bates and especially from Adina Porter, but the past few seasons haven't been dramatically interesting or scary; instead going for cheap shocks above all else.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Sunny is starting to show its age. Going into its 11th season, this cast just isn't putting out quite as many great episodes per year as they used to. While there are some clear highlights, such as Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs and Being Frank (primarily for its inventiveness), most of the rest of this season was filled with jokes that didn't hit as well as they should have. This was capped off with a two-part finale that fell flat.

Hopefully the Gang gets back on the wagon next time.

Designated Survivor

Disclaimer: I have only seen up through Season 1, Episode 4: The Enemy.

Jack Bauer's on television again!

Wait, that's not Jack Bauer, that's the president? So you're telling me he's not going to be in 24: Legacy?

DAMN IT!

20. Luke Cage

Sweeeet Christmas!

As the Netflix Marvel slate continues to grow, the next Defender enters the ring and delivers a knockout. Mike Colter may have already been introduced in last year's stellar Jessica Jones, but that was only through Jessica's point of view. In Luke Cage we really learn about his way of life, and more specifically, Harlem.

Hell's Kitchen may have been the setting for Daredevil and Jessica Jones, but really it was mainly just a reference point. Harlem feels like an actual character in this show, from the way that people talk about it, down to the culture that gives it life. Colter is serviceable enough for the lead role, but the soul of Harlem really lies in the supporting cast.

Specifically, I'm talking about Mahershala Ali and Alfre Woodard. Ali has a magnetic presence throughout most of the first season, as the owner of Harlem's Paradise, a front for the local mob. Meanwhile, Woodard's political presence is a huge part of what makes the city of Harlem sing, and her role only gets more interesting as the season progresses.

Executive Producer Cheo Hodari Coker uses music in an interesting way throughout the season, punctuating action beats and utilizing the club's locale to showcase the singers just as much as our hero. It's an interesting mix of standard comic book fare with the flare of this side of New York.

Unfortunately, the second half of the season doesn't deliver the punches quite as well. Once Ali's Cottonmouth plays his role during the season, a new villain is introduced to enter the ring. Woodard's Mariah continues to build her character throughout the season in interesting ways, but is sidelined for a more traditional confrontation that is disappointing mainly because the actor playing the new villain just isn't that engaging. However, the ending of the season sets up an intriguing future storyline that I just wish had played out this year instead.

Overall, what you have here is a flawed first season that has a lot of good ideas in place, but spent a little too long getting there. Simone Missick and Theo Rossi round out the cast nicely, with both having the potential to step forward in the coming seasons.

Standout episodes this year include Step in the Arena and Manifest.

Always Forward, Forward Always

18. The Walking Dead

Man this show has just been a TRIP.

So starting with delaying the moment that all comic readers were waiting for in the mid-season finale (and essentially making the mid-season premiere just mid-season finale: part 2), The Walking Dead began a disturbing trend of delaying audience gratification and taking what could have been potentially great adaptations of key moments from the comic and slicing them off at the knee. It also ended with this ridiculous montage.

This trend continued in the penultimate episode of season six, where the episode ended with the ridiculous notion that one of the core characters was going to be killed by an off-screen gunshot and one of the worst special effects I've ever seen in a television show. This was insulting to fans and just a cheap shot to catch people offguard.

However, the absolute worst offender of this was in April's season finale, which continually teased the new villain Negan (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and that he was going to make a huge impact in that episode. Instead, what happened was this moment was saved until the very end of the episode, and then they refused to deliver; deciding instead to turn one of the most impactful moments in the comic into a guessing game that completely cheapened the impact this moment may have had (it also doesn't help that they beat this horse in the first half of the season back in 2015).

It doesn't end there folks! Even in the September season premiere, this moment was delayed further, and then preempted with another letdown, adding an unnecessary addition to the moment that could have been covered earlier in the season. Therefore, when the moment finally arrived, even though it was extremely faithful to the moment in the comic, it wasn't nearly as effective as it could have played out in the season finale.

Beyond that whole mess, there are some aspects of the show that are still working. Melissa McBride is still doing amazing work as Carol, and although her character hits a snag near the end of season six, I think that ship will be righted before all is said and done. There's also an extremely dark episode in the latter half of season six that poses a great moral question to our heroes.

However, once season seven started, things were still shaky. There was a great introduction to The Kingdom early on, but most of the other episodes decided to focus on a single location and didn't work nearly as well. AMC has also been a bit too lenient on the showrunners this time, giving them a lot of extended air time during episodes that really didn't need it.

Speaking of extended air time, a lot of focus has been placed on Negan during this first half of the season, and while Morgan is doing good work here at times, cable television censorship is hurting the character's image and while it's clearly tempting to use Negan as much as possible, a more restrained approach would help make his presence more effective.

Hopefully the backlash that resulted over the missteps the creative team made this season will impact their decisions moving forward.

Standout episodes this year include Not Tomorrow Yet, The Same Boat and The Well.

16. Mr. Robot

When Mr. Robot first premiered last year, it was a breakout success and most people never would have expected to see it on a network like USA. A lot of shows are guilty of drastically oversimplifying or misrespresenting how a process like "hacking" actually works (not that I'm a hacking expert by any means, but I do have a Computer Science degree), and Mr. Robot is one of the few shows that actually tries to get it right. Beyond that, one of the most interesting aspects of the show came to the forefront in Season 2: Elliot (played by the hypnotic Rami Malek) has a second personality named Mr. Robot (represented by Christian Slater, his long-dead father nonetheless). The "big twist" of season one (which in reality was a bait and switch for the real twist, being the revelation of Elliot's sister) became the core conflict of the season, making it impossible to tell what was real and what wasn't (as a later episode in season two would prove).

This meant that much of Elliot's story this year was an internal conflict, instead of an external one. While last season had a clear goal and resolution with the 9/5 hack, this year Elliot almost never knew what was going on (most amusingly during the episode where showrunner Sam Esmail opened an episode with the most audacious sequence the show has ever attempted: a 17 minute sitcom inside Elliot's head). What this meant was that the supporting cast came to the forefront in regards to actual plot momentum, with Darlene (played by Carly Chaikin), Angela (played by Portia Doubleday) and Dominique (played by Grace Gummer) each having huge storylines with FSociety, EvilCorp and the FBI respectively. Given that one of the primary criticisms of season one was that Elliot was the only fleshed out character (and just about everything seemed to be in service of the 5/9 hack plotline, except for Angela and Tyrell), this is a definite improvement. All three of these actresses were given a great range to work with and converged with each other in interesting ways throughout the season.

One of the things that didn't change however, is the online theorizing machines, which resulted in the primary twist of the first half of the season being guessed fairly quickly (more on that phenomenon later in this list). While this didn't take away from my overall enjoyment of the show, I will be avoiding critical analysis of this show in the future.

The core mystery this year was where in the world is Tyrell Wellick (played by Martin Wallström) after his encounter with Elliot at the end of last season? Tyrell was one of the most interesting characters last year, and his disappearance, while at first intriguing, takes far too long to get resolved. While his wife Joanna (played by Stephanie Corneliussen) beceomes more interesting the more we learn about her, she's only peripherally involved to the story this time around and there's no one else that shows up to fill that gap (though Craig Robinson and Joey Bada$$ are great additions to the cast).

Rounding things out is the partnership between the CEO of EvilCorp Phillip Price (played by Michael Cristofer) and the shadowy cross-dressing leader of the Dark Army Whiterose (played by BD Wong). Though their scenes are less interesting plot-wise (mostly focusing on the mystery of the Washington Township Plant), both of these actors have particular styles that make them more interesting to watch as people, and thus, make their scenes a treat to look forward to.

Overall, this season expanded the mythology of this universe in interesting ways, I just wish Elliot's internal conflict and Tyrell's disappearance hadn't taken so much of the season.

Standout episodes this year include eps2.4m4ster-s1ave.aes and eps2.8h1dden-pr0cess.axx.

14. Horace and Pete

Once upon a time, there was a comedian named Louis CK.

Louis began his career as a standup comedian and made a name for himself. Then one day, he worked with FX to make a show called Louie. This show incorporated elements of his real-life experiences to create a show that was unapologetic, unique and pushed boundaries. After five years of that, Louie went away for a while and all was quiet. Then one day, an e-mail popped into our inboxes with the title of a new show: Horace and Pete.

The first of it's kind, this show was released on LouisCK.net with an unorthodox pricing structure, no promotion whatsoever and filmed over the same ten week period that it was released in (which just sounds insane). This was an attempt by Louis CK to do something different and well, he certainly got my attention. Since he produced the show entirely by himself, there was no network sensors to accommodate for and no target audience to appease. Instead, he got to continue producing the content he wanted (though FX certainly gave him a lot of leeway on Louie) and it shows here.

Horace and Pete is a show about two brothers running a family bar that has existed for 100 years, carried on over generations always by a man named Horace, and another named Pete. In the current generation Horace is played by Louis CK, while Pete is played by the great Steve Buscemi. The previous Pete, who still works at the bar, is played by Alan Alda; then there's also Horace and Pete's sister Sylvia, who's played by The Sopranos' Edie Falco. Finally, while there were numerous other memorable characters throughout the supporting cast, the one that stood out to me the most was Marsha, played by American Horror Story's Jessica Lange.

This a show with a lot of philosophical debate and the milage may vary depending on your interest in the topic being explored in each episode. The topics explored throughout the series include abortion, infidelity, politics, religion and the transgender community. I don't want to discuss the plot anymore than I already have because going in blind is the way Louis CK would have intended it.

Check it out. It's on Hulu now as well.

Standout episodes for this year include Episode 1, Episode 3 and Episode 7.

12. Bates Motel

Yet another horror movie prequel a la Hannibal and The Exorcist, Bates Motel uses its relationship with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho to create a never ending feeling of tension with Norman Bates (played by Freddie Highmore). Having always been overshadowed by the great Vera Farmiga (who plays his mother, Norma Bates), Highmore finally comes into his own here. This show began as a slow burn, depicting Norman with as much innocence as possible for someone that would eventually develop into a psychopathic killer. However, as the seasons progressed the moments of Norman slipping into his other persona began to happen with more and more frequency. Although the insanity was dissipated by sending Norman off to a psychiatric facility, this allowed for the kind of interesting and introspective material that was normally reserved for the concluding episodes of previous seasons.

Norma completely lost any semblance of control she previously had over Norman. His other personality is now more present than ever, further destroying any innocence that Norman has left. All of this finally begins to get explored with his psychiatrist Dr. Edwards (played by Damon Gupton), who over the course of the season learns the extent of the damage to Norman's psyche. These are some of Highmore's biggest showcases he's ever had in the series, among other scenes with Norma.

Meanwhile, Norma's storyline is primarily focused on her romance with Sheriff Romero (played by Lost's Nestor Carbonell) and it feels like she can finally find happiness that isn't predicated on her relationship with her son. Carbonell has always felt partially like an antagonist to the Bates family simply because of his status as a police officer and the knowledge of what Norman will eventually become. Though, ever since Norman has become more unstable, this has led to Romero becoming more likeable and justified in his suspicions. This ties directly into the endgame of the season, which I won't talk about here. However, I will say that this is the best ending run of episodes of Bates Motel so far.

There are still some rough edges here and there: such as the continued presence of Chick (played by Ryan Hurst), a quirky oddity that while entertaining at times is a strange leftover character from last season's storyline. Since then Chick has turned into a plot device to create external conflicts for Norma. Meanwhile, as charming as the relationship between Dylan (played by Max Thieriot) and Emma (played by Olivia Cooke) is, it can't help but begin to feel increasingly irrelevant to the plot (except maybe as future cannon fodder) especially now that they've moved out of the area.

This has been the best season of Bates Motel since season one and if this conclusion is anything to go by, the final season is going to be very interesting.

The standout episode for this year was Forever.

10. Person of Interest

"If you can hear this, you’re alone. The only thing left of me is the sound of my voice. I don’t know if any of us made it. So let me tell you who we were. And how we fought back."

For a lot of shows, the final episode can shape the entirety of the way it's perceived for years to come. The Sopranos, Lost and Dexter were all examples of shows with controversial (and some outright bad) endings that forever changed the way those shows were perceived. All because of one final moment. One final episode that revealed what the show was really about. This is because the moment that often matters the most to people is the last one.

Person of Interest was often a show about preventing final moments. A science fiction analysis of artificial intelligence disguised as a weekly procedural on the network most guilty of harboring that repetitive type of show. The type of show that a viewer can drop in on any random episode and get a contained and complete story with no dependencies, such as NCIS, CSI and Law and Order. So when The Dark Knight's Jonathan Nolan decided what he wanted to do, he kept it a secret. Sure, some of the writing staff probably knew what his true ambition's were, but if he had initially pitched what the show eventually became, he would never have made it on a network like CBS.

A man named Harold Finch (played by Lost's Michael Emerson) built a machine that can tell when something bad is going to happen, and he works with another man named John (played by The Passion of the Christ's Jim Caviezel) to stop that final moment from occurring. The first season was full of episodes where it functioned just like you might expect a procedural to, a one and done premise that has no complicated storylines that might tempt a new potential viewer to change the channel. However, as the series continued it slowly began to transform, bringing in organizations and crime syndicates with memorable leaders: a clear influence from the man that used to write for Batman movies.

By the time the show reached its final season the recurring cast had grown considerably, particularly after the introductions of Sameem Shaw (played by Sarah Shahi) and Root (played by the always enjoyable Amy Acker). Both a part of seemingly close-ended storylines, these two actresses became series regulars after the nature of their roles became clear. In this series Nolan would often employ the concept taking a seemingly close-ended story and pulling the rug out from under the audience to show how it would factor into the core mythology. This was also true when it was time to introduce what eventually became the primary villain.

During a group of episodes in the middle of Person of Interest's run, one of Finch's old friends who was in trouble was revealed to have been working on a project that would have far-reaching implications for the future of the series. This project was a machine called Samaritan. Samaritan was a lot like the one our heroes would work with every day in order to help people, only malicious and ran by a man named Greer (played by Nolan's uncle John Nolan). This would eventually pivot the show's path into a war story between two machines, which continued into the final season.

Hobbled by delays and unclear vital signs, the final season felt like it would never come. Finally, in the summer months CBS aired a shorter season, which was planned to be the end of the series. Instead of a single overarching plot, the show continued to tell individual stories for most of the final season. While this led to some episodes feeling irrelevant, others were used to give justice to moments from earlier in the series that were never given their full due (such as in Sotto Voce). However, not everything would get tied up; scheduling conflicts would hinder the return of characters like Control (played by Camryn Manheim) and Zoe (played by Paige Turco). Luckily, at least one pivotal character wouldn't be left out.

After sitting out the second half of the last season due to her pregnancy, Shahi's Shaw finally returned in what was one of the greatest episodes of Person of Interest, and one of the best television episodes of the year. In the fourth episode of the season, Nolan and his secret weapon for achieving maximum tragedy, Denise Thé, wrote their magnum opus. This was a story with an ending so devastating that the rest of the season couldn't help but pale in comparison to the gravity of what they accomplished (with a few exceptions).

Overall, what really mattered was that final moment and the creative team behind the show delivered in spades. With a couple of inspired musical choices (including a haunting piece by Philip Glass) and a clear message, this was a perfect sendoff for a series that was always about subverting expectations. While some characters may have gotten short shrift (Kevin Chapman's Fusco in particular), this was never originally supposed to be the final season. Given what the team had to work with this turned out far better than it could have.

Finishing a story is no easy thing, as Damon Lindelof once said: "Endings are hard." When a series caps off with something special, though I may be sad that the series ended, I sit up and take notice. I didn't have the problems that most people did with Lost's ending and I still haven't finished The Sopranos, but Dexter's ending hurt. So much so, that it forever tarnished the memory of a series that was great for over half of its run. Dexter was a character that inspired my video editing pseudonym, and it crashed and burned into a lake that it never should've crawled back out of. So when a series that I love takes the proper time to finish it's story right, I take notice.

"Sure. Everyone dies alone. But if you mean something to someone, if you help someone, or love someone. If even a single person remembers you. Then maybe, you never really die at all."

Standout episodes for this year include 6,741; The Day the World Went Away and Return 0.

8. Outlander

After Ron Moore finished Battlestar Galactica (the greatest modern science fiction show of our time) I wasn't sure what he would do next, but if you had told me it would be a fantasy adaptation skewing to be the antithesis of Game of Thrones for women (with less violence, yet somehow more rape), I never would have guessed it.

Starring the magnificent Caitriona Balfe as Claire and Sam Heughan as Jamie, Outlander is a time travel romance with a dose of action here and there. Based on the long-running series of novels by Diana Gabaldon, this is an ambitious undertaking by Starz. The first season was successful in grabbing its target audience and ended with some of the darkest and disturbing episodes of television I've ever seen.

Season two premiered in a new country and with a baby on the way. The production design grew and the cast was simplified, giving Duncan Lacroix's Murtagh some time to shine and introducing the slimy Prince Charles Edward Stuart (played by Andrew Gower) who alternated between being an adversary and an ally. The new setting really expanded the world, adding flair unseen in the previous Scottish locale.

This season also features the return of the deplorable Captain Jack Randall (played impeccably by Game of Thrones' Tobias Menzies), one of the most terrifying and captivating villains I've ever seen. Largely responsible for almost every atrocity that occurs on Outlander, Jack Randall always grabs my attention whenever he returns to the storyline.

While the first half may be full of surprises, the second half returns us to familiar territory. It feels like meeting old friends seeing Dougal MacKenzie (played by the great Graham McTavish) and Angus (played by Stephen Walters) again. However, once the countdown to the Battle of Culloden begins, those feelings are washed away. While clearly not possessing a budget as large as some of its contemporaries, the show still made quite an impact with its war climax.

Beginning the season by showing the viewer the conclusion is an interesting decision; it completely changes the way the season is viewed, and adds an element of tragedy to the whole affair (pun intended). At times knowing the ending feels like an unwanted spoiler, but it also adds a welcome layer. By the end of the season it became clear the decision was effective in achieving the maximum emotional impact.

Standout episodes this year include La Dame Blanche, Untimely Resurrection and Dragonfly in Amber.

6. Game of Thrones

I'm not even going to mention anything that may or may not have happened with Kit Harington. Just putting that out there up front.

Last season's Game of Thrones began to show some cracks. Based on the long-running epic novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, this is the most ambitious television show ever made. The showrunners haven't always able to match up to the scale that the novels have put in place such as the truncated battles from the end of season one and the missing chain from season two's Blackwater. However, Game of Thrones has been successful enough for HBO that they have given showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss the resources necessary to pull off incredible episodes on the level of last year's Hardhome and this year's Battle of the Bastards (both of which were directed by Miguel Sapochnik).

However, other than the aforementioned Hardhome, season five was a bit of a slog. It was shackled by a misguided attempt to stay within the confines of the most recent novel (A Dance with Dragons). While there were a few moments that surpassed that novel's scope, most of the ending of that season was cliffhanger after cliffhanger in order to give Martin enough time to finish writing The Winds of Winter (the sixth of seven currently planned novels). The worst part about this that Martin didn't even manage to get it done and there is no release date in sight.

So when it became clear to Benioff and Weiss that Martin wasn't going to be able to keep up, they had several choices: either delay the show, sidestep the storyline and adapt a spinoff based on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms or surpass the novels altogether with whatever knowledge has been bestowed to them by Martin behind closed doors. Obviously they chose the latter option and it has resulted in a very unique case where an adaptation of a written work will now most definitely be completed before the original. This gave the show a huge burst of energy that was sorely lacking in season five and has resulted in a return to the kind of exciting storytelling that drew everyone to Martin's work in the first place.

Given how big of a secret everything was this season, it would be remiss of me to discuss plot details in this entry, so I'll simply leave it at this: the build-up and resulting conclusion of this season is one of the best the show has ever pulled off, with an expertly executed climax, directed by Sapochnik, and containing the best piece that composer Ramin Djawadi (also the composer of Person of Interest, by the way) has ever written.

Standout episodes this year include The Door, Battle of the Bastards and The Winds of Winter.

4. Halt And Catch Fire

AMC hasn't always been the powerhouse network it is now. Before the massively successful The Walking Dead or the critical darling Breaking Bad, AMC was only home to classic films and little else. That all changed in 2007 when Mad Men premiered with Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm). Focusing on the 1960's advertising industry, Mad Men would go on to revolutionize the network's appeal and show what a period piece with strong characterization is capable of; though after seven seasons of success the show came to a close. Other period dramas such as Masters of Sex on Showtime and Manhattan on WGN may have tried to replicate Mad Men's success. However, it was AMC who would eventually be home to the true successor to this vastly influential series' legacy.

Halt And Catch Fire is a show that begins in the 1980's and is about the rise of the computer industry. It is centered on a group of engineers all rounded up by one man to change the world. With a clear dose of inspiration from Don Draper, the marketing guru within this universe is Joe MacMillan (played slicky by Lee Pace), a visionary who's always looking for the next big thing. At the beginning of the series he recruits two people to help accomplish his vision: Gordon Clark (played by Scoot McNairy) and Cameron Howe (played by Mackenzie Davis). Their attempt at building a computer that would rival the big boys was interesting enough in season one, but it wasn't until season two came around that the show really caught on fire.

Once Gordon's wife Donna (played by Kerry Bishé) and Cameron started their own video game company called Mutiny the series really began to turn heads. Along with John Bosworth and a band of merry programmers this tale about a fledgling video game distributor soars high and above everything that came before primarily because of a change in perspective. Instead of the center of this universe being on Joe MacMillan, showrunners Christopher Cantwell and Christopher Rogers shifted focus onto what would become the core relationship of the series with Cameron and Donna. In recent years Joe has still had an active role, but instead of always being in direct orbit with the primary cast he's tasked in different environments until worlds collide, a more effective use of his magnetic presence. This also has given Bishé the type of storytelling her character deserves after being frequently sidelined throughout the first season.

As the characters move to California in the third season Joe moves from one life to the next, leaving a fiancé and gaining a protégé. After attending an inspiring presentation by Joe (who is currently the head of MacMillan Utilities after stealing a security algorithm from Gordon), Ryan (played with exuberant youth by Manish Dayal) is pilfered from Gordon and Cameron at Mutiny in order to help pioneer the next big thing. While at first manipulative, their collaboration together is heartwarming to watch and is the best new pairing of the season.

In addition to Joe's storyline Cameron and Donna begin a business relationship with Diane Gould (played by Annabeth Gish), while Bosworth begins a more romantic relationship with her. This, as well as other business dealings over the course of the season begins a schism between Cameron and Donna that continues to build until it erupts in a life-changing meeting where Davis gives her best performance on the series thus far. The fallout of this confrontation reverberates until the season finale, which just like the end of previous seasons has large implications towards an exciting new direction for the fourth and final season.

Standout episodes this year include Valley of The Heart's Delight, The Threshold and NeXT/NIM.

2. The Americans

Some day there has to be a reckoning.

Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (played by Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell, respectively) have left far too much death and destruction in their wake for there to be a clean way out. Their daughter's life has been irrevocably shattered by their actions and now that she knows the truth, it takes everything that Paige (played by the immensely talented Holly Taylor) has not to suffocate under the incredible pressure she's being placed under. The long-running agent that Philip has been manipulating from the FBI since the series began has the most exciting arc of the season and Alison Wright does her best work as Martha throughout every bit of it. All of this and more sums up the best season of the one of the best shows on television, and thank God that FX is keeping it on the air because its ratings sure aren't.

One of the most interesting inclusions in recent seasons of The Americans is EST (or Erhard Seminars Training). It was initially introduced as part of a subplot where Philip was simply trying to get closer to his neighbor Stan (played by the wonderful Noah Emmerich of The Truman Show and Super 8), whom let's not forget also works for the FBI (this really has to be leading to a Walt/Hank situation a la Breaking Bad, right??). However, EST has become a refuge for Philip to explore his feelings about all of the horrible things he's done over the years. Philip has never been as committed to the cause as Elizabeth, having previously voiced interest in getting out, as well as his concerns about indoctrinating Paige into the business (as The Center is pushing) and pushing Martha into dangerous situations.

Speaking of the Center, Nina Sergeevna (played by Annet Mahendru) was on the fringes of the story for so long that at this point, it makes you wonder if she'll ever have scene with Stan or Oleg (played by Costa Ronin) again. That being said, her arc this year definitely leaves an impact, though not in the way you might expect. In addition to Nina's Russian captivity, there is Philip and Elizabeth's ongoing collaboration with Gabriel (played with reverence by Frank Langella, in a role that replaced a similar one that Dexter's Margo Martindale was fulfilling, but whom now appears far too infrequently due to other commitments). This relationship has always been complicated due to the mix of their previous close relationship, as well as the part where he frequently asks Philip and Elizabeth to do terrible things. The crux of those terrible things this year is primarily in association with Dylan Baker's character, William, and biological weapons. This storyline will push Philip and Elizabeth to their limits, in addition to everyone else they have to tangle with to keep everything afloat.

With two more seasons to go before the end, showrunners Joseph Weisberg and Joel Fields have shown that The Americans is just getting into it's best material yet; I have high hopes for the future of this Russian spy saga.

After all, as their Russian consultant has said, they are hard men.

Standout episodes this year include Chloramphenicol, The Rat, Travel Agents and Dinner For Seven.