The Americans is many things: dark, tense, intriguing, sexy, and, as “Behind the Red Door” ably demonstrates, occasionally gut-wrenching. It’s been said before, but the biggest coup this show pulled on its audience is getting us to root for the Commie pinkos at its center. Maybe it’s because we already know how the Cold War will end (spoiler alert: we won).
“Behind the Red Door” was the sexiest episode of The Americans to date. Well, “sexiest” might be the wrong word. There was a lot of sex, but most of it was fucking, the kind of sex people have when they don’t know each other well, or when they’re too overcome by passion to have any other kind. After Phillip and Elizabeth meet with Andrew Larrick – Emmet and Leanne’s possible killer – they have wordless, passionate sex, the aftermath of which lingers on Keri Russell’s nude body, not just to show it off (but seriously, she looks great), but so episode director Charlotte Sieling can show how vulnerable Elizabeth is with Phillip. She lays there naked and prone, while her husband is fully clothed.
Jealousy has started seeping into Elizabeth, spurned by Martha’s admission that Clark is “an animal” in bed. Elizabeth wants that, she tells Phillip. She wants to experience it. She doesn’t want to have sex like she’s Martha, she wants to have sex with Clark – or at least she thinks she does. When Phillip finally relents and, wearing Clark’s hair and glasses, takes her roughly from behind, she breaks down as she flashes back to her rape at the hands of a KGB officer. She cries hysterically in her bra and panties (like I said, “sexy” might be the wrong word).
Sex is used as a form of blackmail, too. Claudia informed Phillip and Elizabeth that they intended to blackmail Andrew Larrick by using his homosexuality; Lucia, the KGB’s newest recruit, uses sex to distract her congressional aide boyfriend Carl so Elizabeth can sneak into his office; and most pointedly, Nina seduced Stan to the point that she’s more or less his KGB handler at this point, as he’s going so far as to pull the FBI surveillance logs on Oleg Igorevich. Even Claudia isn’t immune. She admits to Elizabeth that she was with a man and revealed who she truly was, and in doing so, might have inadvertently caused Emmet and Leanne’s murder.
There’s some groan-worthy joke to be made about the saying “politics makes strange bedfellows,” but The Americans is going for something deeper than that. This isn’t a show about sex, and never has been. It’s a show about trust, and sharing your body with someone – intimately, passionately – requires an immense amount of trust.
A Few Thoughts
– I love that all of Phillip’s disguises are a pinky ring and a gold chain away from making him look like a 1970s porn producer
– Poor Stan. The noose is tightening around him, and he might very well be tried for treason. If that was the plan all along, I have to say bra-fucking-vo. What a great slow burn
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