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The following podcast contains explicit language.

I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest Prime Directive edition.

It's Wednesday, March 19th, 2014. On today's show, The Americans, it's a show on FX entering its second season.

It's about deep cover Soviet spies and it's excellent.

And then we'll discuss Amazon.com.

Will it destroy literatures?

We come to know it since the Gutenberg Revolution.

And finally, trigger warnings.

Are they the latest frontier in empathy or are they PC on steroids?

Joining me today is Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner.

Hello, Julia.

Hi, Steve. And of course, Dana Steven, Slate's film critic. Dana, hi. Hey, Steve. All right, well, let's dig right in. The Americans is an FX TV show. It's entering its second season. It stars Carrie Russell and Matthew Reese as a married couple who, in America,

in Washington, D.C., in the Washington, D.C. area, who are actually, in actuality, deep cover

Soviet spies. They've been embedded in the United States for something like 15 years when the show

opens. It's a period piece. It takes place in the early Reagan years. And they've completely normalized themselves as

American citizens. They're raising children who, of course, are completely in the dark as to

their true identities. And in the middle of the marriage is a schism opening up between the father

...