The Beastie Boys’ Spike Jonze-directed video for “Sabotage” is an absolute classic, a shit-kicking ’70s pastiche that catches the Beasties’ mid-career embrace of rock at its sledgehammer best. Part of the fun of the video was the depth of its cop-drama fiction—you could picture the whole damn season of Sabotage playing out, one hardass interrogation scene at a time.
You do not have to imagine that full TV show playing out anymore, as the four seasons of The Americans have been re-edited into their own version of the video. The fit is shockingly clean, with the show’s quiet intensity remade into a balls-to-the-wall romp full of funny disguises and high-stakes espionage, repurposing many of the same cheeky edits and scenes from the original video.
Compare to the Beasties’ version below.