[jackfoxy]

I watched the entire series, The Americans. It's thrilling and well-crafted television, but totally bogus as a representation of how illegals worked in the USA.

Illegals were/are special assets that would never be concurrently running so many different operations and engaging in risky wet (i.e. assassination) operations right and left. More likely they would spend many boring years cultivating their positions in society and a select few important contacts. That doesn't make for good television.

[pixl97]

Typically the best television stories are taking an entire organizations stories and distilling it down to just a few people. Easier to develop characters that way and keep the audience from being confused by actors that don't contribute much.

[Fnoord]

A good 101 on an illegal story is by Jack Barsky, on his own account. He wrote a book on it, there's various interviews with him, a podcast series (The Agent) and he got interviewed by Lex Fridman (#301). I recomment The Agent podcast series [1] on his (life) story. Also available on Apple Podcast.

[1] https://open.spotify.com/show/5DToOunQsM18OmGD5eVRXR