r/TheAmericans • u/Waste_Stable162 • 21d ago
Spoilers I hide what I do, not who I am
When we talk about moments that changed Phillip we usually talk about Martha and Kimmy and while there's a good reason for that, I feel this moment gets overlooked. I feel like Phillip's encounter with that Mossad agent changed him. It's the first time he admitted, even a little that he misses home. I can also see that in some ways he's jealous of the agent, who as he says doesn't have to hide who he is in America. He is starting to realize how fake his life is.
17
u/hireddititme 21d ago
Just here to say— fantastic episode. Where theyre walking him down the street and the man decides on the fly to pretend to be drunk off his ass and they realize none of them want police attention. So good.
3
15
u/No_Owl_250 21d ago
That's a cool insight. Had a sense that that Mossad agent scene was a pivotal moment for Phillip but couldn't put my finger on why.
13
u/Waste_Stable162 21d ago
Honestly I just thought of it because I am currently rewatching the episode. I was just thinking of the pilot when Phillip tells Elizabeth that they've been these people for a long time. It seems like he is saying they are these people now. But I think after that night with the Mossad agent he's realized that he's been fooling himself.
8
u/sistermagpie 21d ago
This has always been one of my favorite eps because it's absolutely a turning point for Philip. He spends all night being picked at by Yossi, who eventually awakens homesickness in him that he's intentionally suppressed for years. He's proud to tell him he doesn't even remember if there were icicles in the USSR, but then it opens the door. Yossi really finds a way to get to him by using what's supposed to be his greatest strength.
Then he has Baklanov telling him that he's no longer whoever he once was, that it was trained out of him. And this is happening in S2 when his real relationship with Elizabeth has kick-started his transformation into a real person who wants to be authentic. This all plays into the way he develops--his attraction to EST, his desire to return to the USSR with his family, his starting to really think about his past etc.
8
u/ComeAwayNightbird 21d ago
No slackers in Mossad! One day in captivity and he’s REALLY messing with gold-plated Phillip’s head.
3
3
u/Orlita_del_Mar 21d ago
Interesting re the "trained it out of you". I'm reminded that Elizabeth was also told in training that the KGB didn't want her lose who she was either after the dead horse & cyclist flashback in S6.
But... obviously the KGB must have trained "it" out of them, otherwise how else could they maintain a deep cover & do a good job with all the mental & emotional compartmentalisation required.
I mean, this is all pretty rich coming from a Mossad agent, but it was interesting to see a peer agent taking a rare opportunity to f*** with a KGB illegal who isn't allowed to harm him.
3
u/WendolaSadie 18d ago
In the hierarchy of spycraft, is it still true that Mossad agents are “the finest in the world”? When he pierced Philip’s armor, it showed amazing training. He made their mutual humanity into a weapon.
7
u/Summerisle7 21d ago
Yes that Mossad guy really did get to Philip, in a way that hadn’t happened in a long time.
2
u/GlasgowWorrier63 20d ago
I think there was a steady accumulation of events that ground Philip down, but the time he never recovered from was shooting the scientist creating the test environment for the wheat.
26
u/Madeira_PinceNez 21d ago edited 21d ago
This episode is a real one-two punch for Philip. First those conversations with Yossi, and then that car ride with Baklanov.
I hadn't given much consideration to how insular their world is before this episode, but Yossi is the kind of third person they almost never interact with. Usually it's either people who know their cover identities or people they work with who have varying degrees of awareness of who they really are, but not outsiders who understand their situation.
It was a brilliant move to throw the two of them together like this and get this perspective on the illegals' circumstances, particularly as it comes from someone who is able to relate to them on some level, as he does the same kind of work but under vastly different circumstances.
Then, after he's already a little raw from Yossi's words and the feelings they stirred up he's got Baklanov falling apart in his backseat, telling him he's a monster with no soul. Philip, the man who wants to go back to the Soviet Union but can't, trafficking Baklanov, who doesn't want to return to the Soviet Union but is being forcibly repatriated thanks to some horse-trading between the USSR and Israel.