FX’s ‘The Americans’: Does [spoiler’s] casting mean the end of the character?

If there is one thing that we continually do not understand when it comes to the way in which many TV shows announce their casting news: the blatant disregard that it causes for other shows that certain actors and actresses are appearing on. The worse example that we can give of this is when the news broke that Jon Bernthal was joining a TNT pilot before his character Shane died on “The Walking Dead.” While the move was expected in some ways given the character’s shelf life in the comics, the producers still had an opportunity to shake things up if they wanted to.

In this case, we’re not guaranteeing that the person being talked about here is set to have their character die. However, news broke recently that Margo Martindale was cast in the new Will Arnett-fronted CBS pilot, and this leads to insatiable questions about whether or not her character Claudia on FX’s “The Americans” is set to die or be replaced. While executive producer Jodi Fields would neither confirm nor deny what is happening to the character in a new chat with TVLine, she did have the rather hilarious quip to share about what CBS will have to do in order to pry the Emmy-winner away:

“Look, we’re The Americans. We’re spies. And I would never threaten anybody else in the business or at another network, but we love Margo. And Claudia is part of The Americans. So [CBS] can TRY to come after her and put her in another pilot. But they should be aware of the KGB. The KGB is a very powerful organization with a long reach.”

We especially hope that Martindale’s time is not over from the standpoint of it just being a strange coincidence if she does leave. After all, it would mark the second straight Graham Yost series to bid farewell to one of her characters and also her character of Claudia had just replaced Elizabeth and Philip’s former KGB contact.

What do you think: should Margo stay on “The Americans,” if at all possible? If you want to read more news on this show, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: FX