The following article contains spoilers for seasons 1-5 of The Americans

As The Americans approaches its conclusion, it’s hard to imagine things will end well for anyone.

The sixth and final season of the FX drama premieres on March 28th and each peak into the final 10 episodes has been fraught with impending doom. The foreboding for each character has been building with every second since the show premiered in 2013.

The passage of time binds the characters of The Americans together but also fills every frame of the show with dread. This paradox fuels relationships and builds the anxiety that drives each episode.  

With each season, relationships that started as professional or antithetical strengthened into powerful bonds. The foremost example is Philip and Elizabeth’s relationship to America and to each other.

When we first met the Jennings family, Philip and Elizabeth already posed as Americans for almost 20 years. Their shared history built in a deepened love and respect that started to be explored in season one.

However, their marriage wasn’t formed from love like their respective connections with Gregory and Irena. The marriage fundamental to the show was created as a cover—a professional partnership that slowly became the real thing.

“When we got here, I was 22 years old. I was living in a strange house, in a strange country, with a strange man,” Elizabeth told Philip in season one’s “Gregory”. “It never really happened that way for us. And I’m sorry, I wish that it had. But I feel like it’s happening now.”

While their lives only became more stretched and stressful over the next few years, the marriage of the show’s central characters experienced growth.

The distrustful relationship from season one evolved as Philip and Elizabeth peeled back layers of their former selves and learned to trust each other. In season five’s “Darkroom”, they finally turned their sham marriage into the real thing with a secret ceremony using their Russian names.

In addition to a growing love for each other, both Philip and Elizabeth also learned to love America. Philip was willing to defect to the United States in the very first episode and it may be the only option for the Jennings family to remain unscathed moving forward.  Philp enjoys the food, the cars and the security that the United States offer. Over time, he developed a yearning for a normal American life. Now that Philip is retired from spying, he’ll have a chance to live the American Dream as a travel agent in season six.

While Philip’s love for America is more apparent than Elizabeth’s, she also grew accustomed to the American lifestyle. Elizabeth’s distaste for capitalism and American leadership is always present, but she still enjoys the perks of living in the United States. The sharp contrast between the way of life offered in the United States and the Soviet Union is front and centre in season five. The struggle for food security is significant to Oleg’s story in the U.S.S.R., while the excess in America plays a larger role.

Ultimately, when faced with the choice to leave their life in America behind, the Jennings decide to stay despite the danger. By the season four finale, Philip and Elizabeth spent nearly half of their lives posing as Americans and have American children, making it even harder to leave.

Meanwhile, Philip’s friendship with his FBI agent neighbour Stan Beeman also strengthened over time. What started as another problem for the Jennings family to deal with has turned into a real friendship between Stan and Philip.

When Philip is arguing with Elizabeth over the direction they should take with Paige, he goes to Stan’s to seek help and vent. The nature of the relationship causes Philip to be duplicitous with Stan constantly,  but he lets loose shreds of honesty in their conversations like he would with a real friend. Philip also fears that Stan’s life will be destroyed because of his proximity to undercover Russian spies. 

“I don’t want Stan to end up like Martha,” Philip said in “Darkroom”.

The passage of time has had an effect on other relationships in the show as well. Stan and Oleg, Philip and Martha, and Elizabeth and Young-Hee all grew to respect each other as time went on.

With Stan and Oleg, their relationship was built on a foundation of deceit. However, over time, they learned to appreciate each other as good men on opposite sides of the Cold War. When the CIA wanted to blackmail Burov, Stan risked his career for him.

“Burov is a decent man. He did the right thing— not for money or because I twisted his arm—but because he wanted to prevent a lot of innocent people from getting hurt,” Stan said early in season five.

While time has made relationships between the characters stronger, it has also increased their odds of falling apart.

For Oleg, his decision to betray his country has loomed over his story since he gave Stan information in season three. For Stan, he’s in constant danger of learning the truth about his best friend and subsequently losing his job. And for Philip and Elizabeth, they’ve been so tired and overworked for so long, that a slip up is inevitable.

“Every morning I wake up with this feeling in the pit of my stomach,” Philip said in season four.

That awful feeling in the pit of the stomach is familiar to fans of The Americans. The endgame is nearing and a happy ending for Philip and Elizabeth seems unlikely. They’ll have to reckon with over 20 years of spying, murdering and lying before the show fades to black—it’s just a matter of time.