Lots of moments of people looking into the camera and going "how could communism do this?" which is cringe, but otherwise it's a fantastic story of human drama and how bad shit can get. Funny, I read this morning that Gorby is now dead, weird timing.
I never made it to the end, so I don't know if it every mellows out. But the first few seasons had plenty of "The central agency is asking you to do something obviously immoral in the name of state security" / "Back in Soviet Russia, we were so poor and they dehumanized us so brutally in order to prepare us for this mission" scenes. I think there's one about them kidnapping and deporting a Refusenik physicist.
There's plenty of dunking on Reagan-Era machismo and other Americana bullshit. But the underlying conceit is that smol bean Russians are struggling to keep up with the American juggernaut and failing. You're waiting with baited breath to see how the Jennings Family endures the End of Empire as foreign spies operating overseas.
Bated breath. As in, you abate breathing.