Keri Russell Returns As KGB Agent, Mother, Lover In ‘The Americans’

On Wednesday night Keri Russell graced the television screens once again as she returned to her role of KGB double agent, diguised as a mother, wife, and — in this season — a lover of her husband played by Matthew Rhys.

For those of us who remember the time of the Cold War, it’s always interesting to revisit what it was like during those days and not many television miniseries touch on the subject, The Americans does and it sends viewers back to one of the most dangerous eras of the 20th century.

The shroud of suspicion that surrounded the former Soviet Union is depicted well in the FX series, which stars Keri Russell as Elizabeth, a woman that uses men to extract secrets crucial to her country’s mysterious goals. She will go to any length to get the information her bosses want to have, even to the point of having sex with less than desirable characters.

In Season 1 the intimacy she was forced to engage in with her subjects was part of the job, but now that her relationship with her husband, fellow agent Phillip Jennings (Rhys), has become real, it’s making it more difficult for her to handle her missions, as are his, especially when they involve pretending to be married to another woman.

Keri Russell says that this time around The Americans will be more focused on the other characters that make up the story, like the Jennings children, Paige and Henry.

Like any teenager, Paige is curious, much more so than her younger brother. She sees things and suspects all is not what it appears to be, but after the falling out between her mom and dad last Season, she is happy to see them together and obviously in love with each other.

For Elizabeth, it will get harder to do her job because she is much more emotionally invested with Phillip and the kids, and wants to protect them at all costs, Keri Russell told the Los Angeles Daily News:

“If last year was a metaphor on marriage, this year is a metaphor on family. Philip and Elizabeth start the season with a new kind of unified front with each other. Certainly Elizabeth hasn’t been engaged emotionally before, and I think she has decided this is where she wants to be.”

The dynamics are certainly different and for Keri Russell it will be a balance, because she is not only a wife and mother, but a spy with a job to accomplish for very dangerous people that want nothing more than to destroy the Americans.

[Images courtesy of FX]