Does The Americans have a Henry Jennings problem?

Does ‘The Americans’ know what to do with Henry Jennings? We discuss whether or not the series has a problem writing for Philip and Elizabeth’s son.

Does The Americans have a Henry Jennings problem?

Fans of the series know that Henry, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings’ teenage son played by Keidrich Sellati, is the show’s most underwritten character by a long shot. He’s normally in just one or two scenes per episode, and on some occasions he hasn’t been in any scenes at all.

Meanwhile his sister Paige (Holly Taylor) has become a larger part of the series, now that she’s aware that Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) are Russian spies and has to keep their secret. Even Paige’s budding romance is a significant part of The Americans, because it’s with the son of FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich).

Henry, or rather the lack of him a majority of the time, sticks out like a sore thumb.

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The show is making an effort as the current season has given Henry Jennings his own subplot. Viewers found out that Henry is gifted in mathematics, and thus bumped up to an honors class, which seems to impress Stan more than it does his parents. That’s a nice accomplishment for him, but is it also a solution?

Compared to the literally life and death matters being tackled in the rest of The Americans, no one really cares how Henry is doing in math class. Thus the episodes don’t have time to give him more scenes when those minutes ought to be used on the next crisis.

Unless Henry is secretly building a superweapon at his friend Chris’s house, his story just isn’t relevant and therefore will probably be subjugated again.

And yet Keidrich Sellati is still a series regular despite being used less than some recurring cast members over the last few seasons.

If The Americans wants to keep him as a main character, it has to find a way to write something bigger for Henry, and that something has to be meaningful. Maybe he can support Paige through her relationship troubles. Or maybe this is the season to finally tell him that his parents are spies, especially since it’s also the next to last season.

Otherwise the show should seriously consider reducing him to a recurring character. There’s no shame in scaling back; The Good Wife gave less screen time to Graham Phillips and Makenzie Vega when their characters, Zach and Grace Florrick, became less relevant to the story. That series didn’t suffer with less of them, and The Americans wouldn’t suffer if Henry wasn’t in every episode. He’s already not around every week.

Perhaps the show is keeping him because with Paige in the know, Henry Jennings is the one character other than Stan who’s in the dark about Philip and Elizabeth’s identities. Maybe the show wants to tell at least one story of a normal kid, and that’s understandable. It wants the contrast between family life and spy life.

But it’s not doing that particularly well with Henry Jennings. Henry and Keidrich Sellati ought to have more to do, if for no other reason than we don’t want to get to the series finale next year without getting to know this character. Heck, season five of The Americans has demonstrated that even his parents don’t know Henry Jennings.

Maybe he could use his math skills to help his parents’ next mission. Hey, it worked for Charlie Eppes on Numbers.

Next: What's next after The Americans season 5, episode 6?

What do you think about Henry Jennings? Do you think The Americans needs more of him or even less? And where did he pick up his newfound genius? Leave your thoughts about Henry in the comments.

The Americans airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on FX.