Holly Taylor shines in ‘The Americans’

IF YOU WATCH

What: “The Americans”

Where: FX

When: Today, 10 p.m.

By Frazier Moore

AP Television Writer

Learning and keeping secret that your parents are Russian spies would be a lot for any teenager to handle. That’s been the heavy burden for Paige Jennings on FX’s Cold War-era thriller “The Americans.”

The responsible, good-hearted Paige strikes a stark counterpoint to Elizabeth and Philip, her mom and dad, who, behind their masquerade as modern circa-1980s Americans, are Soviet-born KGB officers doing their undercover best to help bring down the U.S.

This powerful series, which airs today at 10 p.m., has no shortage of action, intrigue and wig disguises as the cloak-and-dagger couple (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) carry out their subterfuge right under the nose of FBI counterintelligence agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich).

But it’s Paige who has emerged as the show’s pivotal figure. Propelled by Holly Taylor’s winsome portrayal, she has blossomed as the series’ moral center. And she represents the series’ biggest question mark as “The Americans” races toward its sixth and final season next year: What path will this all-American girl choose as, more and more, she becomes implicated in her parents’ mission to make Russia great again?

Now 16, Paige was first seen on the premiere of “The Americans” typing a theme for class on a topic that made her mother seethe: How the Russians cheat on arms control.

The relationship between Paige and Matthew Beeman (played by Danny Flaherty) is sweetly innocent thus far. But it could always go further. “Some of the things, I had a stand-in for,” Taylor volunteers, with no details. “I have to do the kiss itself because you see my face. But anything that goes past the kiss is not me. I’m not comfortable doing that, for now, and the producers respect my boundaries.”

This season “The Americans” has gained an unsought burst of relevance as America suffers a relapse into Cold War-style heebie-jeebies.

Even so, Taylor’s show remains laser-focused on the long-ago ’80s. And despite her not having been born until 1997, so is she.

“All the writers are so talented, just reading the script I feel like I’m THERE,” she says. “And once I get into wardrobe and get on set, I’m in the character who lives at that time.”

“Still, as a viewer, you relate ‘The Americans’ to yourself and what you see going on around you,” she allows. “That’s what people are finding out about our show now. And that’s cool.”