Not Quite Great Books: a TV podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Danielle and John are BACK* from their long espionage sojourns and reunited to preview The Americans Season 6. Having both rewatched the S5 finale, they note their surprises and ideas upon this revisiting, before talking through what the show asks of its viewers and what Danielle expects, predicts, and wants heading into Season 6. 

     *"we are SO back" reserved for the actual start of S6 episodes

Season 6 episodes coming your way in 2026. 

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Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

If you can't wait for [redacted] and [redacted] and the dramatic [redacted] of our beloved [redacted], never fear, we'll be back in early 2026 to begin our coverage of The Americans, Season 6 (the last one!).

Danielle and John are joined by friend of the pod Michaela Rife to discuss The Americans Season 5 Episode 11, “Dyatkovo” (a word Danielle is definitely great at pronouncing, and a word John is actually great at pronouncing). Michaela offers up homecoming and the relationship to home as a banger of a theme, and together your hosts consider Henry’s HOMEwork, Philip’s reveries of home, the question of defending a homeland, and what it really means to have a home to go back to - a recurring question for MANY of our characters. Danielle offers some Stan-centric tinfoil hat theories in the Dossier, and in Glas, your hosts give Michaela some runway to give her thoughts on the wedding from the previous episode, and to show off her art historian expertise at breaking down the tableaux of the dramatic final scene. They also check in on Tuan’s sad McDonalds scene and ask whether Henry’s "investigative" "journalism" "skills" are priming a future FBI career. After a few comments on different 80s ‘fits and Henry’s handwritten report, it’s time to descend back into the Cave for more Marx SZN - this time with (drumroll please) The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Come for the solid thematic discussion but stay for the Theoryships and another installment of everyone’s favorite, Marx SZN!

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Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

John and Danielle are back for Episode 2 of Loki, “The Variant.” Danielle Marvelsplains what it means to hide in an apocalypse, and your hosts debate what counts as a joke and how/whether goats are funny, while also thinking a little about gender, temporality, and company towns. John offers an impressive gloss of Agamben in the Cave, and takes on a new round of Easter Egg Hunt. If The Americans is a show made for both of your hosts, Loki shows us where they diverge from one another, but that is part of the fun!

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

John and Danielle are back with a new set of takes on The Americans Season 2 Episode 1, “Comrades”. They confront the episode’s swing to brutality, the swift entry and exit of some friends from work, plus Paige’s heightened suspicions. They also dig into spycraft, deer imagery, and Philip’s glow-up. Season 2 quite literally kicks off with a bang.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Summer is here and so is a new series deep dive on NQGB! John and Danielle shift gears, and tackle the Disney+ series, Loki. Danielle is in the driver’s seat this time around, with John riding shotgun as resident MCU-noob. After watching Episode 1, “Glorious Purpose,” they discuss who might be the audience for a show like this (is it John? Jury’s out) and introduce a few new segments: Marvelsplaining, Easter Egg Hunt, and Politics & the MCU, and bring back a few of their faves from their Americans run (Glas, Minor Char of the Week, and of course, the Cave). A palate cleanser as the summer gets into full swing.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Danielle and John take a break from episode-by-episode reviews to indulge some metanarrative about their respective (and surprisingly divergent) tastes in TV and film. Taking off from John’s proposed grand unifying theory, they explore aesthetic excess, escapism in film and TV, spectacle, fandom, IP, “prestige TV,” and beautiful terror. Along the way, they touch on a number of shows/universes: in order, Devs, Severance, The Terror, The Young Pope, The Americans and spy fiction, Station Eleven, the MCU, Star Wars, Atlanta, and A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. 

Links to items we discuss: 

• Cut to Black, a podcast by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Sean T. Collins and John’s primary referent for TV criticism and aesthetics
• “Black Panther Is Not the Movie We Deserve,” by Christopher Lebron

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Strap in, friends! John and Danielle have called on fellow Americans connoisseur Jon Keller to dissect the season 1 finale, “The Colonel.” Together, they discuss what to make of Philip and Elizabeth’s quarrel, Claudia, Nina, and shoddy spy tactics before Keller regales our hosts with some personal anecdotes about Lev Gorn’s (Arkady) gym habits. This wild ride should not be missed!

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

In the penultimate episode of Season 1 of The Americans, Danielle and John tackle the multiple oaths that take place in “The Oath”. They marvel at Clark and Martha’s nuptials and Nina’s heel turn (or was Stan the heel all along?), and chat about how oaths unite these two sets of events. Wig check returns, and your hosts meet Freud in the cave. Come for the spycraft, stay for the abundant 80s references!

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

John and Danielle are back for Season 1 Episode 11 of The Americans, “Covert War”. Tensions run high between Elizabeth and Claudia, and your hosts are HERE FOR IT. Interpersonal strife parallels geopolitical tensions, and John and Danielle get into it all. Danielle raises some concerns about Claudia in this week’s Danielle Dossier, and John celebrates the quirkiness of Arkady.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay