American Playhouse: Season 3
Season 3 Lore Primer
Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.
- Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of American Playhouse Season 2.
- Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
- Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
- Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
Episode Guide
Season 3 Progress Shield
The Ghost Writer
Jan 17, 1984 · 78 min
Aspiring writer Nathan Zuckerman visits the secluded home of his literary idol, E.I. Lonoff. While there, Zuckerman becomes entangled in the author's complex domestic life and beco
Pudd'nhead Wilson
Jan 24, 1984 · 90 min
A slave switches her light-skinned baby with her master's baby. The child grows up raised by whites.
True West
Jan 31, 1984 · 110 min
Estranged brothers, screenwriter Austin and drifter Lee, clash while staying at their mother's house in suburban Southern California, leading to a chaotic role reversal that explor
Nothing But a Man
Feb 7, 1984 · 95 min
Railroad laborer Duff Anderson struggles to maintain his dignity and marriage to a preacher's daughter in the racially segregated South.
Popular Neurotics
Feb 14, 1984 · 60 min
Two young urban professionals, Lynne and Murray, meet by happenstance and begin an on-again, off-again relationship in which they struggle to transcend modern-day neuroses concerni
The Cafeteria
Feb 21, 1984 · 52 min
Esther Mirkin, a traumatized Holocaust survivor, frequents a Manhattan cafeteria where she meets Aaron, a Jewish writer, who tries to uncover the ghosts of her past.
Refuge
Feb 28, 1984 · 90 min
On a remote island off the coast of Maine, four people attempt to relax but the isolated refuge fails to protect them from their own insecurities and jealousies.
The Gin Game
Mar 6, 1984 · 60 min
Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey reside at a nursing home, and they strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company.
Haunted (aka Vengeance Is Mine)
Mar 20, 1984 · 60 min
A recently divorced woman returns to her dysfunctional Rhode Island family home and gets involved in drama with her neighbors.
The Killing Floor
Apr 10, 1984 · 118 min
During World War I, a poor black Southerner travels north to Chicago to get work in the city's slaughterhouses, where he becomes embroiled in the organized labor movement.
Heartland
Apr 17, 1984 · 52 min
Miraculous occurrences happen to people throughout the world every day. God's Miracles presents personal experiences as well as unvarnished scientific and factual evidence, allowin
City News
Apr 24, 1984 · 65 min
The struggles of Tom Domino, publisher and editor of a seemingly doomed, underground newspaper in New York City's East Village are chronicled in this dark comedy.
Hughie
May 1, 1984 · 60 min
In the lobby of a small hotel in midtown New York, small-time hustler Erie Smith talks to the hotel's new night clerk Charlie Hughes, lamenting how Smith's luck has worsened since
Concealed Enemies, Part I: Suspicion
May 7, 1984 · 55 min
A dramatized account of the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U. S. State Department official Alger Hiss of perjury before a federal grand jury and his result
Concealed Enemies, Part II: Accusation
May 8, 1984 · 55 min
A dramatized account of the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U. S. State Department official Alger Hiss of perjury before a federal grand jury and his result
Concealed Enemies, Part III: Investigation
May 9, 1984 · 55 min
A dramatized account of the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U. S. State Department official Alger Hiss of perjury before a federal grand jury and his result
Concealed Enemies, Part IV: Verdict
May 9, 1984 · 55 min
A dramatized account of the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U. S. State Department official Alger Hiss of perjury before a federal grand jury and his result