ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the genre conventions and narrative devices that national security melodramas have used to engage with the question of the ethics of America's counterterrorism efforts. It argues that national security melodramas have become a vital site for engaging with the morality and legality of spying and counterterrorism. The chapter explains three major national security melodramas, Foxs 24, Showtimes Homeland, and FXs the Americans. While all three shows belong to the category of serialized melodrama, they also present a range of industrial conflicts and dramatic storylines that illustrate how national security can be addressed. Finally, the FX show The Americans flips many of the tropes of the national security melodrama on their head by focusing on relatively low-level Russian spies living in Washington, DC, during the Cold War, who are, for the most part, caught up within an espionage system that is beyond their control.
