‘The Americans’ Finale: “START” Includes a Family Meal at McDonald’s | Eater

"Used as a symbol of abundant American food culture and capitalist triumph, the chain provides the setting for a tense, telling family moment in the series finale: the spy parents and their daughter stop for a drive-through dinner on a dark country road, Paige goes in first, Philip follows, and Elizabeth stays in the car. As U2’s “With or Without You” scores the scene, Philip watches a party of four laughing and eating fries — the ordinary American life he both longs for and has failed to fully inhabit — then catches his reflection in the window, his light-blonde wig and ashen complexion making him look like a ghost. The brief meal stop crystallizes the show’s contrast between Soviet restraint and American abundance and underscores the capitalist way of life the couple spent years opposing." - Hillary Dixler Canavan