SAG Awards: The Americans getting snubbed is a travesty
The Americans deserved the Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series over This Is Us, and it’s not even close.
Why do awards shows get it wrong so often? The SAG Awards followed in a long line of awards shows that simply got it wrong. Simply put, The Americans deserved an award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
It’s an absolute travesty The Americans didn’t win.
The nominees
- The Americans
- Better Call Saul
- The Handmaid’s Tale
- Ozark
- This Is Us
Out of all the above, it’s easy to eliminate three immediately. Better Call Saul is really a one man show by Bob Odenkirk. Conversely, the waters of The Handmaid’s Tale are muddied by the overt nature and exaggeration of a feminist’s wet dream, where 100% of females are in danger of being raped, beaten, and tortured 24-hours a day. And Ozark just isn’t as good as the others. So that leaves The Americans and This Is Us.
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Everything about This Is Us is emotional manipulation and cliffhangers. The timeline jumps are a great technique that works, but the continuity is lacking because the incessant television trope box checking. We get it, Kate wants to lose weight, and all her problems are related to her obesity.
Of course Jack went all Ponyboy and Johnny before dying. Yes, the adoption was emotional. A stillborn fetus is always going to be sad. The pills and alcohol were as inevitable as when they happened on Saved by the Bell. It’s gotten to the point where the guilt, sentimentality, and depression is so prevalent, and the routine so repetitious, that viewers perpetually wonder who will be the most miserable.
And that’s one of two reasons why it didn’t deserve the best ensemble award. The cast in This Is Us are supplementary to the sorrow.
The Americans is far superior.
Contrary to This Is Us, the cast on The Americans does some serious heavy lifting. Aside from Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys literally playing multiple characters with varying personalities, subtleties, and range, the performances on the critically acclaimed final season are crucial to the success. The key players of The Americans have to be100% believable as Soviet KGB officers posing as American, or the entire series doesn’t work. It’s not about simply playing a caring father or a tough love mother; their subterfuge has to be real, like an actual spy, or The Americans literally can’t be a show.
If someone on This Is Us isn’t appropriately happy or sad – let’s be real, it’s sad – then the audience reaction is, “X Pearson should have taken it more harshly.” If Philip, Elizabeth, or Paige Jennings have an off moment, or an unsatisfactory emotional response, the story unfolds. The drama dies. The curtain is pulled back on the wizard. It’s less believable than the Wayans in White Chicks, Uncle Rico’s quarterback tales on Napoleon Dynamite, romance between Anakin and Padme, or Elijah Wood in Green Street Hooligans.
Furthermore, the same thing goes for every person playing a Russian operative or FBI Agent. Someone at the Rezidentura or FBI who feels inauthentic absolutely ruins the show. This epic scene absolutely atom bombs the previous five seasons if it’s not completely believable,
dark. Next. The epic end to The Americans
The award is for the outstanding performance, not the amount viewers may cry. Literally any of the misfortunes of This Is Us could have been swapped to another character with negligible difference. The same can’t be said of The Americans.