Set during the Cold War period in the 1980s, The Americans is the story of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, two Soviet KGB officers posing as an American married couple in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and their neighbor, Stan Beeman, an FBI Counterintelligence agent.

Set in 1932 Los Angeles, the series focuses on the origin story of famed defense lawyer Perry Mason. Living check-to-check as a low-rent private investigator, Mason is haunted by his wartime experiences in France and suffering the effects of a broken marriage. L.A. is booming while the rest of the country recovers from the Great Depression — but a kidnapping gone very wrong leads to Mason exposing a fractured city as he uncovers the truth of the crime.

Two KGB spies are posing as Americans in suburban Washington D.C. shortly after Ronald Reagan is elected President. The arranged marriage of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, who have two children—13-year-old Paige and 10-year-old Henry, who know nothing about their parents' true identity—grows more passionate and genuine by the day, but is constantly tested by the escalation of the Cold War and the intimate, dangerous and darkly funny relationships they must maintain with a network of spies and informants under their control.