The Americans Season 2, Episode 6 “Behind the Red Door”
Written by Melissa James Gibson
Directed by Charlotte Sieling
Airs Wednesdays at 10pm ET on FX
For a season that opened with a family being brutally murdered in their hotel room, “Behind the Red Door” reaches new levels of darkness for The Americans, a display of just how ugly things can get when love is involved (and when its in the dangerous minefield of espionage, multiply that potential ugliness by about a thousand). Openly dramatic but also intensely intimate, “Behind the Red Door” is not only one of the best episodes of The Americans this season, but in the series.
The Americans begins teasing much larger ideas for season two in “Behind the Red Door”, introducing Laric as a very savvy (and very gay) wild card for Elizabeth and Philip to deal with. He’s tied up in some deal about Nicaraguan rebels being funded (or armed?) by the American government, a very damaging piece of PR the Soviets are desperate to have. So desperate, in fact, they’re willing to throw their “prized agents” into a chess match with this man, under the guise of a new handler (one who’ll have a drink in a bar because it is a bar, after all), with the KGB killer still on the loose. There’s also mention of ARPANET (think pre-internet Internet) , radar technologies, and the conspiracy Claudia is convinced of… all of this is plenty enough for an entertaining drama, but The Americans aims to dig deeper – and does so in fascinating fashion in “Behind the Red Door”.
Named after the door Stan’s wife painted as she tries to “find” herself, “Red Door” is about business becoming personal – when dangerous situations are invited into one’s home, hence the red paint on the front door of his house. The most disturbing of these instances comes when Elizabeth tries to spice up her sex life with Philip by experiencing a little bit of what Martha gets when her “husband” Clark strips down to his wig and his socks. Elizabeth’s long accepted sex as part of her career: but with Philip she has a relationship, not an internal arrangement where her sexuality is currency for valuable information. As we see when Philip slowly removes Elizabeth’s boot when she’s getting undressed after work, this isn’t work: underneath all the stress of life (and a second, much more stressful life) these two people love each other – and that’s exactly why their brand of Inception-like role playing is so disastrous. Wearing a wig and Clark’s glasses puts him in a different identity – and with that identity comes a different sexual approach, one of a “wild animal”… but not the kind Elizabeth was looking for.
What follows is one of the most disturbing things we’ll see on television this year; Philip’s attempts to indulge her fantasy (albeit being a little frustrated, given all the teasing and prodding Elizabeth had given him up to that point), giving her a little taste of Wild Clark – except that it becomes eerily similar to her sexual assault back in Russia, springing forth that painful memory she’s tried to leave in Russia. Not only is it traumatizing, but nails home just how real the relationship between Philip and Elizabeth has become – she’s not only traumatized by what Philip does, but how he does it… behavior that he’d have with another woman. When their marriage and sex life was viewed as work, it was one thing: but she brought Clark into her bedroom, forcing the most unpleasant parts of their long, complicated relationship to the forefront.
“Red Door” continues to circle back to this idea of not bringing love into work, whether it’s with the corners Nina and Stan are being pushed into by the organizations they’re supposed to be fighting against (Oleg wants information from Stan to keep her safe, Nina tries to “get out” of her mission and end things with Stan when he pushes her to take a polygraph to ex-filtrate her), or Claudia getting involved with an asset and revealing her identity. Ideologies cannot stand up to the heart: something we’ve seen numerous times over the series. And when characters start choosing their heart over the mission at hand, things begin falling apart. As Elizabeth so unkindly forces Lucia to face (convincing her to have sex with the congressional aide, then kill him by dosing his heroin), blind loyalty to an ideology or a government that demands everything and gives nothing, will only leave you a broken, lonely human being.
— Randy