So I wanted to do a show about a husband and a wife and their children who don’t know and how it affects the kids. We always conceived of The Americans as a show about a marriage, more than espionage, that shows how, even under the craziest circumstances, the marriage still looks and feels like any other marriage. — The Americans’ creator Joe Weisberg on Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings, played by Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell.