120 free The Americans trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This The Americans trivia quiz covers all six seasons of Joe Weisberg's Cold War drama, from the pilot's kidnapping of a KGB defector in 1981 to the train to Montreal in "START". The easy questions are ones any viewer can handle: who plays Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, which network aired it, what cover business the couple ran, and the name of the FBI agent who moved in next door. The harder end is for people who noticed the wigs. It asks about Directorate S and the Rezidentura, Nina and Stan, Martha and "Clark", Gregory, Claudia and Gabriel, the Weinberger clock, the mail robot, Betty, glanders and Lassa fever, William, Kimmy and her father, Oleg's arrest, the Dead Hand plot, Elizabeth's Smolensk childhood, Philip's secret son, Henry's boarding school, the Epcot trip, the McDonald's stop and the platform at Rouses Point. There are also questions on the making of the show: Weisberg's CIA past, the 2010 Illegals Program that inspired it, Hurricane Sandy, filming in Brooklyn and Moscow, the two Peabody Awards, Matthew Rhys's Emmy, Margo Martindale's two, and the cast's other roles from Felicity to The Waltons. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the series, its season pages, individual episodes and the cast before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Cold War and FBI quizzes next.
30 of 120 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which US cable network did The Americans air?
FX
It ran for six seasons from 2013 to 2018.
Q 02Who plays Elizabeth Jennings?
Keri Russell
Russell had won a Golden Globe for a WB drama more than a decade earlier.
Q 03Who plays Philip Jennings?
Matthew Rhys
The Welsh actor won the Lead Actor Emmy for the final season.
Q 04Which Soviet agency do the Jenningses secretly work for?
The KGB
They belong to its Directorate S, which ran deep-cover illegals abroad.
Q 05In which Virginia suburb do the Jenningses live?
Falls Church
It sits just outside Washington, D.C., where the couple work.
Q 06What cover business do Philip and Elizabeth run?
A travel agency
By the finale Philip has retired from spying to run it full time, badly.
Q 07Who is the FBI counterintelligence agent who moves in next door?
Stan Beeman
He becomes Philip's best friend without suspecting a thing for years.
Q 08Who plays Stan?
Noah Emmerich
Emmerich almost turned it down because he was tired of playing men with badges.
Q 09What was the creator's job before television?
He was in the CIA
He later called joining the agency a mistake, but it gave him his storylines.
Q 10What are the names of the Jennings children?
Paige and Henry
Both were born in America and grow up unaware of their parents' work.
Q 11Whose presidency has just begun when the series opens?
Ronald Reagan's
The show ends in December 1987, on the eve of a superpower arms deal.
Q 12Which arms-control agreement is about to be signed when the series concludes?
The INF Treaty
The finale is nonetheless titled after the START talks that followed the Washington Summit.
Q 13How many episodes were made in total?
75
Five 13-episode seasons and a 10-episode finale run.
Q 14How many episodes were in the final season?
Q 21Which child do the Jenningses decide to leave behind in America?
Henry
Philip and Paige ask Stan to look after him at boarding school.
Q 22Which 1980 Soviet film shapes Elizabeth's closing vision of her unlived life?
Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
She had watched it with Paige and Claudia in "Dead Hand".
Q 23Whom does Philip warn Stan about before leaving?
Renee
Whether Stan's wife is a KGB plant is left unanswered.
What passports do the Jenningses use to escape?
10
Every previous season had 13.
Q 15What is the title of the series finale?
START
It aired on May 30, 2018.
Q 16What does the finale's title refer to?
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
Negotiations began in earnest after the Washington Summit.
Q 17Where does Stan confront the Jenningses in the finale?
In a parking garage
He draws his gun, hears them out, and lets them drive away.
Q 18What last American meal do Philip, Elizabeth and Paige eat in the finale?
McDonald's
They then sit apart on the train north.
Q 19Where is the family's train heading when they cross the border?
Montreal
They clear border security at Rouses Point, New York.
Q 20What shocks Philip and Elizabeth as the train leaves the United States?
Paige is standing alone on the platform
Paige goes back to Claudia's abandoned safe house and pours a vodka.
Canadian
They bury the evidence of their American lives, including a fake passport Henry will never use.
Q 25Who is arrested by the FBI in the final episodes after picking up a dead drop?
Oleg Burov
Because he entered on a student visa he cannot be traded in a prisoner exchange.
Q 26Which Emmy did Rhys win for the finale?
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Weisberg and Fields won the writing Emmy for the same episode.
Q 27Who directed the pilot?
Gavin O'Connor
A friend of Emmerich's, he talked him into taking the FBI role.
Q 28Whom do the Jenningses kidnap in the pilot?
A KGB defector named Timoshev
He had raped Elizabeth during her training; Philip kills him in their garage.
Q 29What does Stan borrow from Philip in the pilot that lets him see the Jenningses' car?
Jumper cables
The car matches the kidnappers' vehicle, but with Virginia plates.
Q 30How many US viewers watched the pilot?
3.22 million
No later episode came close; the finale drew 922,000.