Question of the week #3

[jae]

Which character from The Americans is, more than any other, the one who intrigues you most? Not necessarily the one you'd want to have a beer with/befriend/sleep with, but the one whose story you're most interested in, the one you find yourself thinking about even when the show isn't on? And why? You can expect spoilers for the entire first season in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

Comments

[katiac]

Yeah, I agree the pregnancy would've brought a lot of issues to a head. She can't get out of a baby. Even if she wasn't planning to run off before, a baby really seals the deal in a way where she can't have the fantasy in her head either. Sort of like Philip can no longer lie to himself and pretend everything is going to turn out fine for their family. In my head, the more the kids turned into real little people, the more obvious it became that going off to Russia wasn't a viable option and if anything happened to him and Elizabeth (quite likely) they were screwed.

But I don't think she hates Philip. I think she's not particularly attracted to him until much later, but respects him as a partner, a father. There would've been a lot of resentment at first, I think, for all the little things she couldn't control about her life in the US (the Elizabeth in my head is all about control) and since Philip was the only one other than Gregory that she didn't have to lie to, I think he would've been the target for some of those frustrations, particularly since some of them (living in the US, having sex, having kids), he didn't particularly mind--even liked--and she deeply didn't want.

I'm interested in the Philip/Zhukov angle, what made him choose Philip for his little darling Elizabeth...