2x06 Behind the Red Door

[7.6/10] So, huh, there was a lot of sex in that episode.

I’m not complaining exactly. Very little of it felt gratuitous in any way. Almost every instance of it in the episode served a purpose, which is really all you can ask from episodes that aim to push the envelope a little bit for basic cable.

What I liked about it was how it took issues that don’t normally get play on television -- couples trying to communicate with one another about their sex lives -- and didn’t play it for the sex appeal or for laughs or for anything other than the difficulty, even for people who’ve been together for a long time, to express what they want in that guise.

I like that they followed up on Elizabeth’s intrigue at Martha’s description of what Clark is like in the bedroom. The way that bold Elizabeth is so shy about it is, frankly, kind of adorable. The way she broaches the subject with Philip by framing it as something “funny” she heard from Martha, the way she jokingly asks him if he’d be that way at first and plays light but flirty over it, and the way she then more openly seduces him when he’s still in his Clark getup speaks to the way that it’s uncomfortable for her, to where she has to dance around what she really wants without being able to speak openly about it.

Philip’s reaction to all of this is just as interesting. He brushes Elizabeth off, despite his hope last season to stay closer to her, with each come on until she basically goads him into it. Philip doesn't want that, and it’s hard to know why exactly. Why is he that way with Martha and not Elizabeth?

Maybe it’s because there is a sense in which he wants to be passionate with Elizabeth, where sleeping with her is more sacred and sensual and not just doing a job. Maybe he’s getting out frustrations in strange places with Martha, or it’s something calculated to make him seem more interesting than Clark’s button down persona might otherwise suggest.

Or maybe it’s because that’s the kind of thing that Clark really likes and, knowing Elizabeth’s history, he doesn't want to put that on her even if it’s what gets him going in the bedroom. There is something meaningful in Elizabeth’s reaction to Martha -- the sense that Philip’s fake wife is getting a side of him that his real (or at least real-er) wife isn’t, and that she doesn't like that idea.

But when Philip gives in, when Elizabeth pushes for what she wants, it gets ugly quickly. Philip’s violent manner shocks the conscience a little bit (or maybe, I’ll admit, I’m just a prude). It’s not sexy, it’s not erotic, and it’s not wrong -- it’s two people thinking they’re asking for and delivering what the other wants and being horrified by the consequences.

Elizabeth’s tears in the aftermath are heart-rending as she ends up with something much harsher and more difficult than she bargained for. Philip is frustrated and guilty afterward, hardly able to look at himself in the mirror and tearing away at the persona that Elizabeth thought she wanted. And the next day is appropriately tender and awkward between them, with concerns that the other is hurt or mad, and a distance and difficulty that comes from a couple who tried to express their wants, obliquely but enough to be heard, and found that even among confidantes, that sort of subject is difficult to broach and hard to make right with one another.

Stan is trying to make things right for Nina after Oleg attempts to blackmail him for their arrangement. I have to admit, while I liked the Stan/Nina storyline a lot at first, it’s reaching the point where it’s run its course, and the show either needs to pull the trigger on a major change in the status quo or it needs to just tie things up. Throwing Oleg into the mix is interesting, but it’s throwing twist after twist and doublecross after doublecross out here, to the point that it becomes ridiculous. I like Nina seeming to want extraction but blanching at a lie detector, but they need to cool things down before it gets ridiculous.

We also get a meet between the Jennings and Larek, Emmett and Liane’s asset in the Navy Seals. It’s interesting that he’s a part of the Nicaraguan Contras situation and that’s what they’re after, but overall, it’s pretty glancing in this one, and feels like something the show is going to tackle in more detail later. But it connects with the theme when Philip catches him having sex with another man, which complicates and already complicated matter for Larek.

We continue to get a much softer, more distraught side of Claudia than we’re used to. Again, in keeping with the episode motifs, with Larek off the table (ostensibly) for Emmett and Liane’s murders, Claudia blames herself, because she too got romantically involved with someone else and let her true identity be revealed, possibly setting off a chain of events that led to their deaths. Again, it’s pretty abbreviated and seems poised for more to come, but it’s an interesting idea.

But the most compelling story in “Behind the Red Door” outside of the Jennings household is Lucia, the “baby spy” as Mrs. Bloom calls her, who has to both do her biggest operation and make her first kill here. She’s sympathetic as someone who could pass for a young Elizabeth -- a true believer, willing to die for the cause, who’s a little naive about what that means.

She too, has trouble when she has to miss sex and what she thinks she wants with her mission. While she tells Elizabeth that women move too quickly in that sort of thing, when prompted for the good of the motherland (or an ally of it at least), she has no compunction about sleeping with the Congressional Aide she’s romancing for information. It’s the one scene that feels a little gratuitous, but it’s a first for Lucia -- doing this sort of thing in the name of the mission -- that both poses a contrast with Elizabeth who’s an old pro at that sort of thing, and which feels like something that pushes Elizabeth further into pursuing the same sort of thing with the much gentler and more romantic Clark.

It also makes it harder for Lucia to kill the aide when she has to. She tries to reason with Elizabeth, to find another way, but does what she’s told. And the way she tries to be kind in it, the way she lets herself get emotionally involved, likely makes it harder. That’s what Elizabeth tries to tell her -- how giving yourself to another person, how letting yourself share that kind of true intimacy, complicates things when the mission, or the other parts of your life, or just the intersection of what you think you want with what you really want gets in the way.

Maybe that’s the lesson of an episode that is far more lascivious than even this anything-but-staid show normally is -- that sex is more than just a physical act; it’s an act with emotional consequences, and potentially significant consequences in other parts of your life, whether you want to admit that or not. “Behind the Red Door” is more sexual than The Americans normally gets, but rather than just using it to titillate the audience, it use that to say something about the role sexuality and intimacy plays in the rest of the grand machinations of the show.