The Americans Review: “Baggage” (Season 3, Episode 2)

So what happened? Well, Annelise was killed. Philip and Elizabeth working together has often helped to improve their relationship, even when it’s work as disturbing as fitting a corpse into a carry-on (the contortions required to do so being well beyond what Clark has learned from the Kama Sutra). All told, the evening’s unpleasantries should come out to a net positive. The Jennings having Yousaf in their pocket brings more to the table than Annelise herself could ever offer. Taking an incriminating photo of Yousaf is almost unnecessary, as he may come to believe he’s doing the right thing by helping the KGB. “My people are dying in Afghanistan,” Philip offers as explanation for who he is, with Yousaf instantly understanding just who this bespectacled, Pilsner-popping cleanup artist is.

Yousaf’s guilt encroaches further on his conscience for every foot of distance Philip manages to give him from the actual crime scene. It’s reflected in the choice of rendezvous Philip makes for the following day, the entrance to an abandoned building acting as the prison gate that’s locking Yousaf in with his actions. As for Philip, he’s not so much the warden as he is a fellow cellmate; you believe the regret in his voice when he and Yousaf agree that Annelise, despite being unpredictable, was someone special.

Philip partially blames himself for Annelise’s death, but there’s someone else he blames more, even if he himself doesn’t realize it: Elizabeth. The master bathroom, which is already looking to be the most important location in the Jennings household this season, stages a fight between the couple that’s like most fights between people with a lot of history. A professional disagreement (in this case, how to reconnoiter the CIA members Yousaf sets a meet with) quickly dredges up many of the personal divisions in their relationship.

The list of CIA names Elizabeth lost last week –which, at the time, seemed inconsequential compared to his wife’s safety- indirectly put Annelise in peril. Philip makes his frustration known guerilla style, passive-aggressively mentioning that security may be tighter on account of the CIA’s recent close call with the Afghan group. Aside from a little cut-eye in the mirror, Elizabeth takes the remark on the chin. But when Philip presses further, suggesting she just, oh you know, “push things along faster” with her latest recruit, that’s an indictment of Elizabeth’s ability to do her job. You don’t need to be married to her 15 years to know that a potshot like that isn’t one Elizabeth Jennings will take lying down. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if I’d been handling Yousaf from the start,” she counters sharply, shifting blame back onto Philip for (in her eyes) not having confidence in her after returning to the job last year.

Tit-for-tat rarely makes for good domestic policy, so it’s only after both combatants get a blow in that the gloves come off, and the real reason they’re fighting makes itself known: Paige. This argument, the recent friction between Elizabeth and Philip, Philip’s guilt over Annelise: all of it has been because of Paige, and rift she creates between her parents. “What do you want Philip, a guarantee that life’s going to be easy?” “For my daughter? Yeah,” Philip answers with flippant confidence, replicating Elizabeth’s own possessive claim to Paige from last week.

The venom Russell and Rhys bring to the table makes the scene a knockout, but “Baggage” does even better by using the rest of the episode to explore how people navigate a relationship faced with irreconcilable differences. In truth, Paige isn’t the only elephant in the room. The woman who puts the “mother” in Mother Russia has been largely responsible for instilling in Elizabeth a sense of duty that places country above all other considerations. In a dream, we subjectively take on the view of the younger Elizabeth (nee Nadezhda), watching her as she watches her mother toil in the kitchen. The revelation that Elizabeth’s father was a deserter fills in a big piece of her background to the viewer, while perhaps offering evidence of why she has such fondness for a supportive paternal figure like Gabriel.

But when Philip asks about the dream, all Elizabeth is willing to reveal is that her mother wore a blue dress, before physically and emotionally retreating from her husband. The domineering mother character is something we often consider a cliché, but it exists for a reason. Even spies have parents, and those parents sometimes have influence that even a normal partnership can’t control. Philip tries to work this nugget of information to his advantage, wearing a blue shirt to their next laundry room meeting. She doesn’t bite though, and when the two do go to tail Yousaf, Elizabeth’s car is a light shade of blue that’s similar to the dress, while Philip’s is a little darker. Even when Elizabeth tries to explain herself in the episode’s final scene, it no longer matters to Philip. The two simply can’t see eye-to-eye on Paige right now, or who it is that’s the most important woman outside of their relationship.