El cese definitivo de la violencia que la organización terrorista ETA anunció en 2011 dio paso a un debate político y cultural acerca de qué versión de la historia quedaría fijada en la memoria colectiva. Esta confrontación de narrativas políticas se ha conocido como "batalla del relato". Los productos culturales, incluidas las series de ficción, juegan un papel activo en dicha batalla en tanto que contribuyen a la formación de la memoria colectiva a partir de una disposición emocional compartida. Este artículo analiza cómo dos de las principales producciones audiovisuales, Patria (HBO, 2020) y La línea invisible (Movistar+, 2020), realizan su particular aportación a la ¿memoria emocional¿ del terrorismo utilizando la narrativa de la centralidad de la víctima, que pone en el centro del relato a quienes han padecido las consecuencias directas del terrorismo.

This article analyzes, from an aesthetic and cultural point of view, two pivotal moments in The Americans, a Cold War spy thriller set in the heart of Ronald Reagan's America. Both samples¿one from the mid-series episode "Stingers" (3.10.), and the other from the series finale, "START" (6.10.) "show how the protagonists, two KGB spies living undercover in the United States as a married couple with two kids, disclose their secret identity to characters with whom they have a special emotional bond: their daughter, who has become a devout Christian; and their best friend and neighbor, who happens to be a counterintelligence officer in the FBI. After exploring how identity and performance play a crucial role in the spy-thriller genre, the article investigates whether it is possible for the audience to interpret the feelings and thoughts of characters with multiple identities who excel in the art of duplicity; and whether the viewer can infer intention from performance. Following this epistemological discussion, the article then sets out to explain the sociocultural relevance and timeliness of The Americans as a text whose thematic and aesthetic concerns ultimately revolve around individual identity vis-a-vis collective allegiances and ideologies.

The American political thriller, from its cinematic beginnings in the 1960s until its most recent period of popularity in the late 2000s and the early 2010s, has consistently displayed two salient characteristics: on an extra-textual level, it tends to keep a close relationship with the (geo)political environment at the time of production, with themes that resonate with the cultural moment, sometimes even referencing current events, and frequently challenging traditionally upheld American values with mistrustful attitudes towards the State, its institutions, the military and a suspect corporate establishment. On the other hand, the textual configuration of these films reveals a certain nonconformity with the traditionally dominant narrative-aesthetic norms of Hollywood cinema, featuring reactive agency in its protagonists, an unusual degree of subjectivity in its narration and a remarkable degree of ambiguity in the dramatic resolutions of some storylines. These formal features enhance the thematic concerns and cinematic worldview of the political thriller genre, both creating and exploiting perplexity and paranoia in the audience, through highly demanding narratives that remove the feeling of control from the viewer, and with a specific political intent that becomes exceptionally effective thanks to its entertainment value. The works analysed to illustrate this trend covers theatrically released Hollywood films of the genre from 2001 until the present day, with special atten

Political-spy thrillers question the notion of individual agency when confronted with organizational-systemic powers. From an aesthetic perspective, these narratives resort to the mythic iconography of the labyrinth and the Kafkaesque image of the castle. Through this perspective, the article examines the post-9/11 serial narratives Rubicon, Person of Interest, and Homeland.