Fan community for FX's The Americans

I see it differently. I feel like Brad embodies many of the qualities that are what draws her to Philip. He's "soft" and not afraid to have an emotional side. He immediately wanted to come to her defense and aid once he found out about the rape--exactly what Philip did with Timoshev. I think interacting with Brad both had the effect of her for the first time seeing a target as not only a person as opposed to someone she sneers at, but someone who is genuinely a GOOD person. It's not completely unlike how she just decided to close her mind to Philip from the start and then was floored to discover he wasn't what she'd assumed all along. And I think in walking through the steps she did with Brad for the purposes of work, she verbalized and finally came to understand some of the things that had been there all along in her reactions to Philip.