The Illegals: The Americans Rewatch Podcast

Elizabeth is unraveling — Zhukov is gone, Gregory is gone, and Philip just got an apartment. he Jennings' marriage is in shambles. Sandra finally calls out Stan, Martha forces Clark to meet her parents (YIKES)!   Hosted by Michelle Kinney and Julie Roginsky with Jeff Jarvis, Lt. Col. Jaclyn Urso, Olga Lautman, and Nina Jankowicz. We break it down — what was happening in the world when this episode...

Episode 10 hit differently this time around. Gregory is gone — and we barely knew him, which somehow made it worse. Elizabeth breaks for the first time. And Stan, who we always rooted for, is looking more and more like the actual villain the older we get and the more we've lived through. We remember watching this back in 2013 and we're processing it in 2026 through a different lens. A lot has chan...

Things got a little crazy. Agent Amador got himself into the wrong mess. Nina is trapped with no way out. Julie is still baffled: why are the English subtitles not giving us the real Russian? And the wig survived circumstances it had absolutely no business surviving. This week's panel: Michelle Kinney, Julie Roginsky, Nina Jankowicz, Lt. Col. Jaclyn Urso (ret.), and Jeff Jarvis. New episodes every...

It seems everyone on this show is getting it on this episode. Everyone except Philip and Elizabeth, who are having the same fight again. It is a full women's panel for Episode 8 and we cannot stop laughing — the wigs, the honeypots, and the wigs during the honeypots. This week's panel: Michelle Kinney, Julie Roginsky, Nina Jankowicz, Olga Lautman, and Lt. Col. Jaclyn Urso (ret.). New episodes ever...

The full panel is back for Season 1, Episode 7 — Duty and Honor. Honeypots, the Polish Solidarity movement, Philip's reunion with Irina, and the lie he tells Elizabeth when he gets home. PS Matthew Rhys is just the best. We stand by that. This Week's Panel: Michelle Kinney, Julie Roginsky, Jeff Jarvis, Nina Jankowicz, LtCol Jaclyn Urso (ret.), Olga Lautman, and Craig Miller A Soviet refugee, Russi...

"Trust Me." Good luck with that. Spies. Handlers. FBI agents. Creepy strangers in cars. Everyone on this show is asking for trust and almost no one deserves it. The full panel is back for Episode 6 — heated, hilarious, and a little bit Jersey. Elizabeth beats the hell out of Granny and the panel is mostly okay with it. The guy who runs honeypots gets honeypotted by his own secretary. The subtitles...

Episode 5 of The Illegals: The Americans Rewatch Podcast covers "COMINT" — communications intelligence — but the real signal running through this episode is what women are required to endure just to exist in their jobs. Elizabeth. Nina. Martha. The show makes it visible, and the panel makes it personal. The conversation connects what Elizabeth and Nina are forced to do to what real women face ever...

"In Control." Pick your punctuation. Episode 4 covers "In Control" — the episode built around the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, and what happens when both superpowers are convinced the other one did it. The panel digs into the fog of war, the clash of Soviet and American mentalities, why the Cold War never really ended, and how close the show comes to depicting an accid...

Episode 3 of The Illegals: The Americans Rewatch Podcast digs into "Gregory" — and this week the full panel is back. Michelle Kinney, Julie Roginsky, Nina Jankowicz, Olga Lautman, Lt. Col. Jaclyn Urso (ret.), Jeff Jarvis, and Craig Miller. A scorned asset. A long-buried affair. A widow who never chose any of this. And a baby sent to Donetsk. New episodes every Thursday on YouTube and Apple Podcast...

Season 1 Episode 2 digs into "The Clock" — and the panel brings the kind of analysis you're not going to find anywhere else. A Soviet refugee who lived it. A former Marine who knows exactly how you break someone's arm — and why. A media critic and author who contextualizes it. A creative director and former actor with an eye for every frame. And someone who appreciates good caviar and knows it sho...

The Mayday Network co-founders Julie Roginsky and Michelle Kinney launch The Illegals — a rewatch podcast for the greatest spy drama ever made — with a panel that could actually run an intelligence briefing. Joining them for the pilot episode: author, professor, and media critic Jeff Jarvis, disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz, Russia expert Olga Lautman, former Marine Judge Advocate Lt. Col. Jac...

The Illegals: The Americans Rewatch Podcast revisits the acclaimed FX series The Americans through the lenses of history, intelligence, geopolitics, culture — and great television. Hosted by Julie Roginsky, Michelle Kinney, Olga Lautman, Nina Jankowicz, Jeff Jarvis, Lt. Col. Jaclyn Urso (Ret.), and Craig Miller, the show brings together experts in Russian affairs, disinformation, national security...