One of the best endings of any show I can remember. It answered the biggest question of the show (concerning Stan) so well, and the ending was both surprising and fully earned. Masterful television.

Keep an eye on The Diplomat with Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell.

Two short seasons down, it's tight, it's sharp, it could go far.

I'm enjoying The Diplomat, but it's silly, popcorn stuff. Not "one of the best of the last etc".

Got introduced to Rufus Sewell in 'The Man in The High Castle'. He played an SS commander. Most intimidating and frightening presence on the screen - without raising his voice and no (direct) acts of violence. Great actor.

He is indeed an extremly good actor .. wasted in some earlier US productions that bought him in for the Shakespearean Gravitas (pissed away by poor scripts in Eleventh Hour) .. but a shining light in various UK productions such as Petruchio in ShakespeaRe-Told.

https://thetvdb.com/series/eleventh-hour-us

https://thetvdb.com/series/shakespeare-told/episodes/375791

I knew of his villainous presence as being the baddie in Knight's Tale. He exuded privilege and eliticism so perfectly. Fantastic actor!

I never finished The Americans but The Shield had the most perfect ending possible for that show and it was amazing! Worth checking out for anyone who has not already seen it.

For someone clearly interested in Cold War era espionage movies ("my voice is my password"), you should definitely go back and finish The Americans...

passport not password. ugh, been too long since I watched Sneakers

agree totally. Shane…OMG, Kenny….

FWIW I absolutely love The Shield, one of my favorite shows. The Americans is better. But it was also hard to get into, and I stopped a few episodes in the first time. It gets much better the more the story goes on.

As a fellow The Shield-lover, I highly recommend you try to finish The Americans.

I couldn't agree more. It was masterful, and had an enormously shocking ending emotionally - in multiple ways, including the Stan ending, though I'm sure we're both talking about something else.

Btw, funny enough, on rewatches, I actually focus more on the one big Stan question that isn't answered (and, in fact, is actually asked to him for the first time). I'm happy it was never resolved, though I keep wondering if there's some clue that they are hiding in there that will resolve it for real one of these days :)

I've watched the entire series twice, but it's been a bit. You mean jurgure Erarr vf XTO[1] or something else I'm forgetting?

[1] https://rot13.com/

Yep exactly that.

>and, imho, manages to the stick the landing.

That last part is the miracle. So many shows start out strong, and are just dogshit for the finale. Does anyone really believe that Severance will manage this trick? Would love to be surprised and mistaken, but they're just throwing crap at the wall to see what will stick, and that only lasts so long.

Anna Ouyang Moench is involved, and she wrote the best play my friends and I ever saw (Birds of North America), so that gives me hope.