How the Mail Robot became The Americans' unlikely hero

Vanity Fair

"The mail robot is a deceptively talented performer," says Esther Zuckerman, pointing out that it could be used for comic relief and for dramatic episodes. The mail robot became such a popular supporting player that FX executive Jonathan Frank hopes to turn it into a real mail robot to use in the new FX Los Angeles headquarters. “I was just talking to (showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields) yesterday, and there’s a little bit of them that’s a little concerned that perhaps the most indelible memory of The Americans will be the mail robot," says Frank. "And maybe that’s not the best representation of what the show did for the television environment. But what I said in response was, ‘I think it’s an example of how richly developed the world of The Americans was, and how deep their work went, that something as obscure and weird as the mail robot made such an impression on us.’” ALSO: Margo Martindale revisits her favorite episodes.