Pilot

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Remember how J.J. Abrams would always say that the idea for Alias grew out of "What if Felicity were secretly a spy?" I'm kind of glad that Keri Russell finally gets to live that pitch a little bit. Meet Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings. They're KGB agents under deep cover for a division called Directorate S. This particular brand of deep cover -- twenty years in the states, married and raising two children despite not being a genuine couple, complete immersion, forbidden from speaking Russian in private, forbidden from even telling each other their own real histories -- is so intensive that folks at the FBI think it's an urban legend. But there they are, tracking down a KGB defector in D.C., in preparation for a drop-off that they miss because Phillip (the more softhearted of the two) stops to make sure their mortally wounded cohort gets to a hospital (he dies anyway). So they take the defector -- Timoshev -- home and keep him bound and gagged in the trunk of their car until they figure out what to do with him. Elizabeth (the more hardcore-as-fuck of the two) is harboring a secret: Back in KGB training twenty years ago, Timoshev raped her. So she's like extra motivated to choose the "cut him up into small pieces and dump him somewhere" option. The other option is pitched by Timoshev himself: he tells Phillip that he and Elizabeth should defect like he did. He got a cool $3 million for his trouble, so maybe they could too. Phillip's considering the option because his deep, dark secret is that he kind of loves America.

Living door to the Jenningses is Stan, played by Noah Emmerich, who just so happens to be a FBI agent. There are a lot of "Is Stan really suspicious of them or is the show faking us out?" scenes, primarily one where Stan asks to borrow jumper cables and Phillip has to retrieve them without letting Stan see the tied-up KGB agent in his trunk.

The knowledge that a FBI agent just moved door freaks Phillip and Elizabeth out significantly. He presents her with the defection option. She says absolutely not, partially because she's loyal to the motherland, partially because she's maniacally focused on their job, but also partly because she can't bear the thought of their children finding out the truth about them. Still, Phillip is resolute and he plans to defect on his own -- which effectively makes Elizabeth's decision for her -- and he retrieves Timoshev from the trunk to bring him in. But when Timoshev tries to apologize to Elizabeth for that whole raping incident, its news to Phillip, and his husbandly rage takes over. He snaps Timoshev's neck, and Elizabeth's moved/impressed enough that they do it in the car after disposing of the body.

Oh, and it turns out that Stan really is suspicious of the Jenningses, since he sneaks into the garage at night to inspect the car trunk. It's clean, but Phillip was hiding in the shadows ready to kill his ass if he found anything.

Oh, and also, Phillip has a wig drawer that he uses to craft disguises that allow him to, among other things, impersonate a CIA analyst and beat down a local statutory rapist. This show's going to be junky, but hopefully fun-junky.

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First things first: to set the mood, throw on some "Tusk." Trust me -- it's a whole thing in this episode.

So we set our scene in Washington D.C. circa 1981, just as the Reagan era is dawning. We're in one of those D.C. bars you see so often on TV and movies, where political power-brokers (and, more often, wannabe power-brokers) take their hookers and try to seem more important than they are. One such hooker -- in an obvious blonde wig from the Vivian Ward collection -- is our pal Keri Russell. You'd think she'd be disqualified from any and all covert operations on account of that birthmark on her lip making her instantly recognizable. Also, Felicity with an awful blonde haircut was going to be that show's headline-grabber if it ever made a fifth season. So anyway, let's all be adult about this and not pretend like we don't already know that this show is about Soviet spies living in America and that Keri is one of those spies. She's obviously sexing up this mid-level Pentagon staffer (or whatever) to get information and his horny ass is obviously not smart enough not to fall for it. When are governments going to learn to start entrusting their state secrets only to eunuchs and castrati? It's the only way.

So Congressman Horndog or whoever turns out to work for the Justice Department, and Hooker Felicity actually fingers his ID badge because she finds that level of access just so sexy. "Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash is playing in the bar, because I guess this is one of those shows that's gonna be on the nose about music cues. Cut to the hotel room, where Congressman Horndog has Hooker Felicity's shirt off and yet he still can't stop talking about just how important his job is. I halfway believe she commences the BJ just to shut him up, which thankfully it does. Cue the steady drumbeat of "Tusk" and Keri striding out into the night, back to her car. She removes her wig in the car while still in full view of the hotel across the street, which I'm not sure is good ops, but if I get hung up on that kind of stuff on a show like this, we'll be here all day.

THREE DAYS LATER: our old pal Kevin Walker, a.k.a. Matthew Rhys (a.k.a. Philip on this show, if you want to be a grown-up about it) is standing near a fence in the dead of night, accompanied by a cute young comrade. They're talking nonspecifically about some guy, presumably the guy they're staking out, how he's got a reputation for being a ruthless killer. Cuteski is buying into the legend entirely, while Philip attempts to undercut the stories of this guy killing 17 Japanese judo fighters in a single bound. At the same time, Keri (who is Elizabeth on this show, so let's get used to it) is inside the building across the street, bribing one of the residents so she can look out his front window for a bit. Outside, Philip and Cuteski are discussing Phil's NHL fandom (the Caps suck, Phil… sorry) when they see Elizabeth give the signal that she's in. At street level, a man walks by with a briefcase. Presumably this is the badass the boys have been discussing. Elizabeth signals them again to tell them the guy is about to round the corner to them. Just before he gets there, Badass stops and looks up at the window that Elizabeth was in and gets suspicious. Suddenly, he sprints in the opposite direction and Philip and Cuteski give chase. TUSK! I mean, CHASE! Philip yells "IMMIGRATION! We just want to talk!" while Badass yells for help, since any and all intervention at this point helps him. Philip shouts to Cuteski not to get too close, but when Badass rounds a corner, Cuteski pursues and gets a knife to the gut for his trouble. Philip, in a telling detail, hurdles Cuteski's slumped body without even breaking stride and continues pursuit down an alley, up a fire escape, along a fence, down another alley. Badass finally decides this is pointless and turns to face Philip. Time for the hand-to-hand! Of course, Badass's hand has a blade wedged between two fingers, so that's a bit of an advantage. Philip turns out to be quite the skilled fighter, though, avoiding the blade and hip-tossing Badass into a brick wall. Undeterred, Badass lunges again and gets flipped once again for his trouble. "I know you're not supposed to kill me," Badass growls. Philip -- in perfect English, I should say, with not a trace of Russian anywhere -- informs Badass that he's unpopular enough that Phil could deliver him in a hundred pieces and get a separate medal for each one.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth screeches up to the alley in her car and opens the back door. Philip perp-walks Badass to the car, screaming Miranda rights for the benefit of the nosy neighbors so that they can't hear Badass hollering "THEY'RE NOT COPS!" He gets shoved into the car anyway and it looks like Elizabeth glares at Philip before getting back inside. They then pull into an alley and while Philip changes the license plates, Elizabeth tries to keep Cuteski -- who I guess she retrieved previously -- conscious and staunch his bleeding. Back in the car, Philip peels out into the night. Elizabeth leans over the front seat and tells him that Cuteski's bleeding out and has 10, maybe 15 minutes left. Philip thinks they can drop him at Arlington Methodist and still make their scheduled drop time, I guess to hand Badass off to whoever's going to deliver him to Moscow. Elizabeth says they don't have time to do both and "the mission comes first." I know it used to be novel that the woman character would be the most ruthless one, but now I wonder if that's become predictable. Do we have to make the woman extra-ruthless and unemotional in order to give her credibility in this world? Does she need to do that to herself? Food for thought during this silly spy show!

So, compromise: Philip pulls up to walking distance from the hospital, shoves Cuteski out of the car and sets him in the right direction. He instructs him to go in as a John Doe and when he makes it out, don't return to Boston. "Assume they're onto you." "You were trained to surmount every obstacle," he says, which are pretty lousy last words to say to such a cute boy. So Cuteski staggers towards an unlikely salvation, while Philip gets back to the car and he and Elizabeth fret about making the drop-off time. And indeed, when they get there, they see that the slow boat to Minsk or wherever has pulled away. "Why's everyone so punctual in this business," Philip sheepishly offers, while Elizabeth just kicks at the car door.

After the break, we're at the FBI, where Agent Chris Amador is selling Agent Stan Beeman on the benefits of working in counterintelligence. Basically, the selling point is that it's cooler. They're working against "the most sophisticated enemy in the world." Stan dumb-dumbs about how he's gotta take Russian language classes now, so clearly he's somewhat ambivalent about the assignment. They get to their morning meeting where they're met by a highly agitated Agent Bartholomew, who grumbles that "Timoshev" is 20 minutes late. Chris kind of laughs it off, but Bartholomew snaps that since the guy defected, Timoshev hasn't been 20 seconds late to anything. And since Timoshev only reports to the FBI Director and the Attorney General, Bartholomew doesn't even know how to get in touch with him. Bartholomew, by the way, is played by Michael Gaston who in addition to guesting on every other TV show you've ever watched, played a character named "Ben Zeitlin" on Terriers, which now explains to me why I've found the Beasts of the Southern Wild director's name so familiar all these months. ANYway, after Chris grouses to Stan about how ever since Reagan stepped into office, these meetings start at 7 AM (defeat the enemy by waking up earlier than they do), he explains who Timoshev is: ex-KGB colonel who blew the whistle on the Soviet deep-cover "Directorate S" agents. Looks like Timoshev = Badass from last night. But Chris sounds dubious about Directorate S from the start, thinking it's just a tall tale that Timoshev learned in order to snag a multi-million dollar "resettlement" package from the government. And you thought you hated pro athletes' big contracts. By way of explaining his doubts about the existence of such a program, Chris helpfully exposits to us the premise of this show he's on: deep-cover Soviet spies living right door to us, all across the U.S. They speak better English than we do, to the point where -- once they've been placed in America -- they're forbidden to speak Russian, even to each other in their own homes… more American than most Americans. Chris thinks someone's been reading too many spy novels.

So obviously Directorate S is real and Philip and Elizabeth are agents under such a program. Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, perfect suburban couple, only with a bound and gagged KGB defector in the trunk of their car. Not to creep you all out or anything, but let me spend a minute or so describing the gag they're using on ol' Timoshev. It's not your normal ball-gag: it's this wire coil that goes into the mouth, allowing you to breathe and, supposedly, drink fluids, I guess. It's for your more long-term captives. I can't imagine how it wouldn't make you throw up after a while, though. Philip removes it, on the condition that Timoshev not make any noise that would cause Philip to kill him. Timoshev doesn't holler, but he does immediately start selling: the FBI paid him $3 million when he defected, plus more since as a consultant. Philip could get twice that. Probably another $3 million for returning him. Philip listens to this for a moment and takes it in, before hastily returning the gag into place.

Back inside the house, we get our first glimpse at what deep cover looks like. Philip and Elizabeth Jennings: married with two children, Paige and Henry. I guess the idea is that a childless couple looks more suspicious than a more "normal"-seeming family, and boy does that lead to about six different sociological conversations, but I buy it enough that I won't grouse too much about how the children are bound to become little more than walking obstacle courses for their parents. From the way Elizabeth talks, it sounds like their cover job is at the same company; she tells him she can't go in today, which I guess is code for "I will be babysitting the defector in our trunk today. At the sink, he whispers to her about "how much they paid that asshole," but she doesn't seem fazed by the $3 million price tag. She just wants to make sure Henry doesn't go digging around the garage for his skateboard. Once the kids take off for school, it's time to get down to business: Elizabeth says they need to get rid of Timoshev tonight. Philip has already coded the message and will drop it off on the way to work. He says she doesn't have to stay home, but she's worried the witnesses last night might mean they could be tracked. He jokes that she should have let him build that "secret underground lair," and she's like, "you mean that wine cellar you wanted to build?" Domestic bliss meets covert ops! Premise-of-Show alert! He once again brings up the $3 million price tag, but Elizabeth just coldly says Timoshev can buy a "diamond-plated coffin" with it. (Diamond-plated? Diamond-studded, maybe. YOUR ENGLISH IS SLIPPING, NATASHA!)

Later, Philip sits on a park bench alone, obviously readying to make this drop-off happen. He looks around and sees two cops -- from either direction -- racing around, clearly after some perp. Philip actually plays it remarkably cool, taking it in but not looking nervous. Indeed, the cops aren't after him. When they DO come for him, it won't be two sweaty, middle-aged beat cops. They're looking for a mugger and Philip just smiles and, within ten yards of them, he sticks the coded message to the bottom of the park bench and walks off. He knows what he's doing, this one.

Back home, Elizabeth goes to check in Timoshev, but instead steps into a time machine, flashing back to Gryazi in 1960. That's twenty-one years prior and it's still Keri Russell playing the part, which I guess makes sense since she hasn't really aged, but it would mean that 1960 Keri is playing 17-ish and 1981 Keri is playing 38-ish. As somebody whose college years overlapped with Felicity's college years exactly, I am not ready for Keri Russell to be playing 38-ish. So Teen Elizabeth is in training and having a good bit of fun with the hand-to-hand stuff. The session is interrupted by Captain Timoshev, who dismisses the instructor so that he may "teach her how we do it in the field." The instructor's uneasy about this, but follows orders. So the training begins again, with Timoshev not using hand pads. He corrects her on her English ("I'm sorry" not "I am sorry") and when she leaves herself open, he tags her for real. This all seems harsh but not out of bounds for training a field agent... until he slugs her in the gut and powers her to the ground. The instructor watches from his office or whatever, helpless insofar as he won't ever defy institutional hierarchies on behalf of his own morals, which is how Elizabeth ends up getting raped on a sweaty, gross gym mat in Gryazi. I'm surprised he doesn't correct her cries of "nyet" to say "no."

Back in the present day, Elizabeth opens the trunk of the car and makes sure he sees her face. "Remember me, Captain?" she asks. Perfect English.

After the break, the kids are home from school. Henry is explaining to his mom the ins and outs of the latest Archie comic, while Paige is talking about the paper she's writing on "How the Russians cheat at arms control." Obviously, this intrigues Elizabeth. "This is for Hendrickson's class?" she asks, probably filing the name away for future placement on her list of people who've been mean to mother Russia. He wonders aloud whether it's weird to listen to that guy lecture, what with his harelip. Unexpectedly mean! Paige, ever the PC American, chastises her mom for talking about a man's "handicap." Philip comes home and has Henry look out the window at the cool car he rented until they can use the Oldsmobile again. Because, you know, car trouble. He pulls Elizabeth aside and says he made the drop-off, but no word yet. Annoyed, she's like, "Maybe he can just move in with us."

Later, the family's on an outing for soft-serve ice cream. Philip is holding Paige's ice-cream cone in front of her, seeing if she can bite it before he bops her on the nose with it. It's a cute Dad Moment but also one that lets his tactical training side shine through. Elizabeth watches this all warily. She's the not-fun one, but some part of her can't help but smile at her kids. Still, when it comes time for her turn, she shuts Philip down. He even apologizes to her when he accidentally ice-creams her nose.

Later, Philip has a "meeting with a client." In this case, it means he puts on some glasses and a wig (all the wig-work is easily the silliest part of this show) and shows up to meet with Martha at her home. Martha works for FBI Counterintelligence and I guess Philip has been posing as "Clark," an internal-affairs type officer who's been tasked with plugging leaks in the Bureau. This all seems very dubious, that Philip could just openly get inside information this way, even if Martha is as naïve as she seems. But, like I'm sure I will do with many aspects of this show, I'm going with it in the interests of getting on with my life. So obviously, "Clark" is interested in the FBI's response to the Timoshev kidnapping. Martha tells him that the Feds have already linked it to a kidnapping report in D.C. last night. They have a description of the perps (two men, one woman) and the car (''77 Olds, gold, D.C. plates, bumper stickers). She says that extra agents were sent out to the Soviet embassy and the train stations, since they think the plan was to export the guy, but that's all she knows.

Later, we see Philip returning the wig and glasses to his secret compartment at home (behind a false fuse box that combo-locks by flipping the right sequence of fuses). Therein, he finds the tape recording of Elizabeth's encounter with Congressman Horndog. With a pained look on his face, he listens to his wife put her finger up another man's ass, then FFs to her orgasming, then FFs to her strategically questioning the guy's manhood ("time, I want you to be a little stronger, maybe?") in order to get him to brag about his work with KGB defectors. Philip can't help but smile at the way Elizabeth operates, but you can tell his circuits are all crossed when it comes to the personal and professional.

That night, while Elizabeth is watching the requisite archival footage of Walter Cronkite on the news, Philip briefs her on what he's learned: the Feds have the car description, and while they haven't yet tied it to any reports of Cuteski stumbling into the hospital with a stab wound, it's only a matter of time before they do. Meanwhile, they're staking out the Soviet embassy, so that's why their message hasn't been picked up yet, and with all this attention, it probably won't be. The Jenningses are on their own for the time being. Elizabeth thinks they should just get rid of Timoshev. Philip's like, "What's the rush to kill him, honey?" She wants him out of their house; he's putting them in danger and besides, they'll just kill him in Moscow anyway. Philip gives lip-service to completing the mission as assigned, but she gives him the side-eye on that one, since it was breaking protocol to help Cuteski that got them in this mess in the first place. "If you're that worried about it," he says, "we could just defect ourselves." Ha! Oh man, of all the ways you could have slid that into that conversation that was not the smoothest. He tries to pretend he's kidding, but the more he talks about the benefits -- the money, the security, finally being able to relax with the kids and be a family -- you know he wants it. Elizabeth doesn't even process it as a possibility worth joking about.

The morning, Elizabeth's at her GIANT mailbox (like, seriously, that looks novelty-sized) and staring at the new neighbors moving in. Philip's taking the kids to the new mall, which Elizabeth isn't very interested in because malls = America = Elizabeth sneering at America. Paige, meanwhile, emerges from the house wearing a tank top and a jean skirt, to the concerned glance of her parents. Philip remembers Paige wearing a sweater with a bunny on it just last week. Elizabeth kind of rolls her eyes because teens in racy clothing = America = not Elizabeth's problem. The fashions on this show are actually not overtly 1981. When you think about how everybody looked in Argo, like wide-collar shirts had dive-bombed into everyone and realize that this show is taking place less than two years later, it feels like two different universes.

At the mall, Philip's shopping for boots or something (boots = quintessential American footwear = Philip's big embarrassing America-boner), but the more important thing is that Juice Newton's "Queen of Hearts" is playing on the PA system. Philip's eye catches this late-30s mook of a guy walking with his arms around this young teenage girl (she's dressed pretty '80s, with the exposed shoulders), squeezing her ass and instructing her how to best lie to her parents. This seems... over the top. Philip looks at them and then looks at his own daughter and makes the connection. Looks like somebody might be a Family Man first and a KGB operative second. Paige sweetly disapproves of her father's footwear interest, and then she gets appropriately mortified as he tries the boots on and starts line-dancing in front of the mirror, attracting attention. Speaking of attracting attention, while her father's off somewhere (presumably shopping for a bolo tie), tank-topped Paige attracts the attention of Statutory Ray, who practically sniffs at her he's so unsubtle. Hey man -- a little more discretion if you want to be a successful sex-slavery ring operator. Philip shows up in time to intervene, making sure to get a look at the dude's credit card and calling him out by name. "She's thirteen," Philip says, almost as if he's saying "Hey, go be predatory to those seventeen-year-olds at the food court." Statutory Ray is not cowed, however. "I don't know, Daddy," he growls, "she sure looks ready to me." Is this how people talked in 1981? Like they were in Roger Corman movies about predatory drag queens? But Statutory Ray isn't a person so much as a device for painting Philip as a shrinking violet when it comes to standing up to jerks like a Real American. You punch that hollow cipher in the face, Philip! But no. He even meekly apologizes to Paige for not fighting the guy. She says she wouldn't want him to. Don't listen to her, Philip! She's a GIRL!

Home. Elizabeth's baking. Don't think I didn't spot that Betty Crocker cookbook on the shelf, either. She pulls out a big-ass knife to cut the brownies she just pulled out of the over (you gotta let 'em COOL! Didn't Betty teach you anything??) and then clearly imagines a much better use for that knife. To the garage! Meanwhile, Philip returns home with the kids, both of whom are lecturing him about how nobody wears cowboy boots anymore. Elizabeth is back in the kitchen, hovering over the pan of brownies. She tells Philip they're going over to meet the new neighbors later, but he hugs her from behind so he can get a look at the knife. He knows her too well! She kind of smiles at how well, but when he starts kissing her neck, she tells him to stop. Softly, then more forcefully, until she has to round on him, knife in hand. If his hand wasn't quick enough to block her, was she really going to slice his throat at home in front of the kids? I'm dubious that that was more than just promo-fodder. A lot of this show is like that. Anyway, Philip is all, "You're my wife," and she just stares back at him and asks, "Is that right." Stares. Stares. Once again, Philip is stared down.

A bit later, the Jenningses pay a visit to the new neighbors, brownies in hand. I don't catch the wife's name, but she introduces her son Matthew, who is too floppy-haired and adorable not to be mixed up with Paige at some point in a storyline no one will care about. Elizabeth does that mom thing where she volunteers her son to come over all day tomorrow to help out around the house. Moms, cut that shit out. The patriarch of the new family, of course, turns out to be Stan Beeman, the FBI Agent. So of course there's this incredibly awkward conversation once Stan says where he works where Philip is like, "FBI! Like bank robbers?" And Stan's like, "No! Counterintelligence in fact." Philip: "Whoa! Like spies?" Stan: "Yes! Dirty awful spies!" Philip: "Uh oh! Better not do any spying that I totally don't do! Check out how at ease and good-humored I am about how little spying I do!" Stan: "You better not! Especially for those dirty awful Russians!" Philip: "Russian? I hardly even know 'em! What a bunch of worsts those Russians are!" Stan: "They certainly are! Care to join me out back to grill some burgers and take a lie-detector test?" The thought bubble above Elizabeth's head reading "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP" is practically visible.

After the break, Elizabeth and Philip convene back at home by the washer/dryers. She thinks it's just a coincidence. FBI agents have to live somewhere, after all. Philip offers the alternate hypothesis that the Feds are on to them. I would probably tend to side with Elizabeth here, if only because why would a counterintelligence agent put himself on blast like that to the spies he's investigating? But then Philip's argument to that would likely be that it's a tactic to make them THINK someone who's onto them wouldn't do that. And then it becomes a while Wallace Shawn-in-The Princess Bride-thing, where Philip clearly cannot choose the cup in front of himself OR Stan, unless he's spent the past 10 years building up an immunity to iocane powder, which I'd buy from Elizabeth, but not Philip. Philip thinks the Feds are trying to rattle them and make them do something stupid. Elizabeth figures that, either way, it means they kill Timoshev tonight. No loose ends. Philip thinks that's the last thing they want to do. Killing Timoshev means they have no options and no deals to make. He's still thinking about that deal. He pitches it to Elizabeth again, this time more earnestly. "Living the life we've been living, but just really living it." The disconnect here, obviously, is that Philip HAS been really living that life while Elizabeth hasn't at all. She has no interest in it or $3 million, a relocation and a brand new life with the kids. It's out of the question, as far as Elizabeth is concerned. She can't imagine betraying their country like that. "America's not so bad," is basically Philip's pitch. "What's so bad about America?" Elizabeth doesn't even get into that, since her mind won't go beyond betraying the Motherland. He brings up the kids again, giving them a better life. "Better because we'll have money," he says, which is as American as it gets. She asks him what they'd tell the kids. "The truth," he says. She slaps him instantaneously. "We swore we would never tell them," she says. They're out of bounds. He thinks the problem is that the kids will be Americans and she can't stand it. "I'm not finished with them," she says. "They don't have to be regular Americans. They can be socialists. They can be trade-union activists." It's the first sign of equivocation from Elizabeth and thus far it's the most interesting thing about her. "They're not going to be socialists," Philip tells her. "This place doesn't turn out socialists." The bigger truth, I think, is what Elizabeth says : "If we tell them the truth, they would never speak to us again." Oh and besides, the Russians would track them down and kill them for their betrayal (see: Timoshev). Philip says they'd be more careful than Timoshev. He's thought this through. She can't deal and storms out.

Philip's gonna take all that bottled-up frustration of his and go for a RUN. You run it out! He runs all the way into a flashback to Moscow, 1962. A weird-haired Philip (apparently becoming an American curled his hair up nice) stares sadly at a photo of his sweetheart before tearing it up. The KGB will accept no sweethearts! He's brought by Colonel Zhukov into his office to meet Elizabeth. The Colonel leaves them to get acquainted, with the instructions that they are to only speak of their ginned-up American backstories, not their true lives. This way, the only version of each other they will know will be the Americans Philip and Elizabeth. So the colonel leaves and Philip awkwardly offers his betrothed some tea. It's interesting. It's basically an arranged marriage that they have. But arranged marriages generally grow to become real marriages and real relationships (if Apu and Manjula from The Simpsons have taught us anything). Philip and Elizabeth never did, seemingly through Elizabeth's will. Is this because there's an endgame where they finish their work and return to Russia and become their old selves again? I wonder if Elizabeth is holding onto that.

Philip run-run-runs to a pay phone in the park, where he places a call to Arlington Methodist hospital. Pretending to be a Fairfax County sheriff, he inquires about a stabbing victim from the other night. He gives the description of Cuteski and he's told that that patient died that night. Aw. Adorable little cannon fodder.

Philip returns from his run to find Stan in his driveway. He needs some jumper cables. Philip: "Sure! Jumper cables! I keep mine right in the Kremlin! I mean garage!" Philip leads Stan inside to the garage, while Stan small-talks about the "shitstorm" at work that's going to keep him working seven-day weeks for the forseeable future. Philip's ears obviously perk up at that. In the garage, the Jenningses have smartly propped the hood up, the better to sell the broken-down car cover story. Also, for all the shit I rightly have given Philip about being jumpy, he manages to maneuver to the trunk, retrieve the cables and gives Timoshev the "You'll shut up if you know what's good for you" eyes, and field Stan's possibly-suspicious questions about the make and model of the Oldsmobile, all while seeming pretty cool. So good job! He smoothly shuts the trunk just as Stan is walking around to the back, hands over the cables and averts disaster.

Later, at the FBI, Stan and Chris are gabbing by the coffee machine, Chris obliterating the pronunciation of "pirogues," when Agent Bartholomew comes up with his former deputy, Agent Gad. Gad is played by Richard Thomas and is my current No. 1 contender for the "Who's a Soviet mole within the FBI" spot. He's here to help with the Timoshev case. Gad asks Stan specifically for his thoughts, since -- and this is news to Chris, at least -- Stan spent the last three years undercover on a bank robbery assignment, embedded with white supremacists. "When you're betrayed by one of your own," Stan says, "you're not inclined to put him out of his misery fast." He bets the Russians want to bring Timoshev back to Moscow first and look him in the eye before disposing of him. He goes on to correctly describe basically everything the Jenningses have done with Timoshev, from not being able to hand him over to their overseers to keeping him in their home. Bartholomew says if he's in the home of some covert op, they'll never find him. Stan's like, "Uh, yeah." Gad thanks Stan for his help. After the two bigwigs leave, Chris turns to Stan with questions about his last assignment. "Were you like burning crosses with those guys? Like 'Heil Hitler' and stuff?" Stan doesn't look like he wants to get into it, just saying, "It was a little deeper than that." Uh-oh, SECRETS!

That evening, Philip is taking Henry to an event at school, something involving astronauts. They play/sing the national anthem at the beginning, which Philip sings without any visual grudge. You could probably interpret that he maybe likes it. There is an astronaut who is going to speak to the crowd and as he's announced, everybody starts cheering and waving miniature American flags. Then the music gets darker and the pace slows down and Philip's face gets more conflicted, and I start to expect we're about to go into a flashback. Oh no, are we about to find out Philip was molested by an astronaut??

Thank God, no. But that night, in the middle of the night, Philip gets out of bed, heads down to the garage, and takes Timoshev out of the trunk. He un-gags him, so of course Timoshev immediately lunges to bite Philip's throat, which Philip is able to muscle out of with a delightfully annoyed, "You're such a pain in the ass!" Philip wants to make a deal with this turd, news that calms Timoshev significantly. As Philip removes his straight jacket, Elizabeth shows up. What the hell, dude? Philip says he's taking him to Stan door. He was going to drive him farther away from home, but she took the distributor cap off the car. Oh so THAT'S why the hood was up. "So you're leaving me," she sneers. He says he's making a deal -- she doesn't have to talk to the Americans if she thinks it'll make her a traitor, but she will come away with him and the kids afterwards, since her cover's blown either way. "So you're just deciding for us?" she says. "One of us has to," he says, before snapping that they're running out of time. He wants to do this together, but she refuses. "I am a KGB officer," she says. "I would do anything, I would go to jail, I would DIE before I betrayed my country." There's really no way for Philip to counter this. She's ready to finish this bullshit, so she punches her husband and starts brawling with Timoshev. He throws her into the wall at one point, and when Philip moves to defend his wife, she angrily calls him off. She wants this one herself. "COME ON," she yells at Timoshev. How the kids (or even the neighbors) can't hear them is a mystery. More brawling. She gets him down to his knees and when he makes for the tire iron on the floor, she kicks his head through some drywall. WHOA. She then pulls him back through and lords over him with the tire iron. "Sorry," is all he can muster, "I never meant to hurt you. They let us have our way with the cadets. It was part of our job. A perk." Philip asks what that disgustingness means. "How did he hurt you?" he asks Elizabeth. Nobody's talking. She's too busy staring a hole through Timoshev's skull. "Do what you want with him," she says, dropping the tire iron. "Take him to the Americans if that's what you want." Of course, NOW all Philip wants to do is to choke the life out of Timoshev for a moment before snapping his neck with one violent jerking motion. He lets the body drop and stares at his wife. Not sure if this means Phil's back onboard with the KGB or if he just wanted to avenge his Kremlin-betrothed lady, but let's split that hair later.

After the break, it's the obligatory macabre/darkly sexy scene set to "In the Air Tonight." Philip and Elizabeth drive out to dispose of Timoshev's body, neither one saying a word, both of them going over the implications of everything that was said and done in that garage. The camera work is very tight, but it looks like they end up at some harbor where they pour acid on Timoshev's body, zip him up in a body bag and dump him in the water. Elizabeth looks way haggard. That beautiful hair of hers could use a treatment. Back in the car, they finally look at each other and I guess the heteronormativity of Philip playing the hulking man who avenges his lady was what finally did it for her, because she climbs on top of him and kisses him. And then, while Phil Collins's vocals leer at them, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings finally consummate their marriage for real.

The morning, Philip makes sure Elizabeth's make-up is covering her bruises, while she doesn't think they can do the same for his swelling. At the breakfast table, the kids don't seem to notice. Henry's still talking about the planets and the moon and astronauts. "The moon isn't everything," Elizabeth says, though much more good-natured than normal. "Just getting into space is an accomplishment." Oh, go tell it to Sputnik, lady. The phone rings and Elizabeth answers. We don't hear who it is, but she's shocked and gives Philip a look.

Outside, Stan is retrieving his paper when Philip rolls by in his car, Henry in the passenger seat. Some small talk is exchanged about early-morning hours (Stan's been working since 5 AM) and cuts on faces (Philip lies that it was a shaving incident). Everybody's very genial, but Stan gives a Look of Significance at Philip's car as he drives off.

Inside, Elizabeth scrubs incriminating evidence out of the upholstery in the trunk. Hey, international spies anticipating some degree of wetwork in their operations: consider floor mats. Paige interrupts her, asking to go to the drug store… probably for nylons or some other sign of Western indulgence.

Across the street, Stan and Mrs. Stan discuss the Jenningses. Stan likes Philip. Something's a little off about him, sure, but he likes him. Mrs. Stan picks up on the "a little off" caveat and teases him about how she also felt strange about the condo president and the mailman, who she suspects are a drug-dealer and a pimp, respectively. He laughs it off, but she assures him: he's back in the regular world now. "You're now surrounded by the most normal, boring people in the world." She says. Not everybody is worthy of his suspicion. Oh, she's probably cheating on him.

Speaking of those normal, boring people, one of them decided to put on a ridiculous wig and march on down to Statutory Ray's house in order to wreck some anonymous shit and put the fear of God into him about all that teen-sexing he's been doing. This wig, you guys. I halfway expect him to also be wearing a fake scar on his face like Bart Simpson in Shelbyville. (Philip: "But how can I extend this macho streak I'm on without Statutory Ray recognizing me?" Milhouse: "You leave that to the Baron and me!") There's also a mustache involved. He looks like a roadie for Styx. Meanwhile, rather than linger on the beatdown that Phil's delivering, I should note that while I dumped on the show earlier for making Statutory Ray a one-dimensional cartoon villain, we now see that Ray is toasting his hot-dog buns on the grill, so at least there's some non-evil part of him. Anyway, Philip kicks ass, Ray comes at him with a grill fork, which turns out to be a terrible idea since Philip only uses that against him. And his crotch. And finally his hand, which Roadie Phil forks to the picnic table. "No more little girls," Philip warns, in an accent that is either supposed to be New Jersey or Vladivostok or else he'll be back to stick that fork in his heart.

Holy fuck, how is there STILL more show? Elizabeth arrives at the Russian embassy to meet with now-General Zhukov. He's pretty upset with the Jenningses and how they bungled this mission. So is Command Central, which is why they sent him. Zhukov then goes on to hold a Congressional filibuster about how Reagan is a "madman" who has ramped up brinksmanship in Washington and de-Colded this Cold War. So needless to say, it is imperative that the Jenningses accomplish their mission. Speaking of which, he says Elizabeth previously expressed reservations about Philip before. They can't afford a weak link in the chain. Does she still think he is? Elizabeth immediately covers for her husband, saying that one's her bad. She misinterpreted. Zhukov's like, "Well would you cut it out, then? I won't always be around to protect you the time you start dropping hints that your partner is defection material." He talks about how there are certain folks high up in the Kremlin who are starting to get a little hardcore, and he may not be able to keep them at bay forever. Elizabeth promises she won't let him down. It's interesting the way the show is attempting to have its cake and eat it too, pitching Elizabeth and Philip as protagonists and yet the hardline Soviets are being set up as bad guys to our bad guys. Before he leaves, Zhukov puts a hand on Elizabeth's shoulder and sighs that she was just a child when she signed up for this. .

At the FBI, Agent Bartholomew is going over where they are in the case to the task force: thus far, they're still trying to confirm whether the deceased at Arlington Methodist was a Directorate S officer killed while abducting Timoshev or else just an unfortunate drifter. He's interrupted by the Assistant Attorney General, who brings word that Reagan is none too happy to learn that the KGB can just conduct business inside the States like this. He's signed an executive order giving the Feds the authority to use extreme measures. "Ladies and gentlemen," he says, "we are going to war." He proceeds to deliver a pep talk about how the work will be hard, but they have truth and justice on their side or something.

At home that night, the Jenningses drink a couple of vodka shots before bed. Because their bedroom set wasn't yet certain that they were Russian. Dead giveaway, kids. He asks why she never told him about Timoshev and she says they weren't supposed to talk about their old lives. She frets about his dangerous things are about to get, but he reminds her that they've been doing this a long time. She clasps his hand in hers, a new move for her and begins to tell him about her childhood. Her father was killed fighting the Nazis in WWII. Her real name is Nadezhda. Breaking ALL the rules!

Flashback: Northern Virginia, 1965. Philip and Elizabeth arrive at their new home for the first time. They marvel at something called an "air conditioner" and smile nervously at each other. He touches her hair and she says, "I'm not ready." He's fine with it, I guess, but he's like, "Eventually we'll be expected to have kids." Elizabeth instead psychs herself up with talk of how there's a "weakness" in the American people.

I guess the counterpoint to that is supposed to be Stan Beeman, who is so not weak that he can't stride across the street, breaks into the Jenningses' garage and goes snooping in their car trunk. So he IS onto them. Or maybe just wildly suspicious and he got lucky. Either way, the trunk is spotless. Nice job, Elizabeth. Disappointed, Stan trudges back to the street. Then, the Love Theme from The Americans ("Tusk") starts playing again and as Stan makes his exit, he walks right past Philip, lurking in the shadows, gun in hand, ready to go out blazing if he has to. Quite the change of heart from a few days ago. Defector no more. Now, Philip's intentions are as complicated, confused and varied as the Fleetwood Mac album that bears this episode's name. TUSK!