4x07 Travel Agents

[7.2/10] Just get it over with already. I understand that Martha is a major character, that her reaction to finding out everything is important, that the KGB’s response is important, that the FBI’s investigation is important. But it feels like The Americans is dragging her exit out, without really developing or advancing those things. The show is twisting the knife, forcing us to watch Martha descend further and further into this terrible nightmare, and it’s unpleasant to watch that stretched out over three episodes.

Part of the idea seems to be to spur tension. Will Philip and his allies be able to successfully exfiltrate Martha from the country? Will Gabriel and his superiors require that she be killed instead? Will the FBI catch her before the Russians are able to? “Travel Agents” is as much about the “Where’s Martha?” and “Who finds her first?” game as it is about the emotional impact of any of those possibilities, and it left me strangely cold.

Nobody does anything especially clever to find Martha. The FBI tapping her parents phone is a smart play, as is Philip thinking of the places they’ve been together. The episode just wants to revel in the ominous guessing game of who will track her down first. Maybe I’m just inured to the cat and mouse games with the FBI and KGB at this point, but those rival searches had me looking at my watch and wanting to get the part where we have to deal with the consequences of what she knows and where she goes rather than drawing them out longer with a time-filling race to find her.

But instead of lingering on that for too long, like the show does, let’s talk about the two things I really liked in this one.

The first is Agent Gaad’s reaction to everything. He is sanguine, resigned, almost bemused at times. He delivers the line “she was my secretary and she was married to a KGB officer” with this quiet comic gusto. There is an absurdity to this whole setup that’s counterbalanced by the severity of the situation. Referring to different events, T.V. critic Emily Nussbaum referred to it as the clown show/horror show ratio.

On the surface, this is a horrible, galling thing for the FBI. Someone working for the enemy, privy to all their biggest secrets, has been under their noses this entire time. It’s put people at risk and, as the G-Men suspect, has even led to people being killed. There’s danger and tragedy to this from the perspective of the agents looking for Martha. But there’s also the bizarreness to the whole thing, the sort of sitcom-like crazy that the guy hunting for KGB agents has a secretary who is, unbeknownst to him, married to one. If you take a step back, that’s downright silly. Gaad, who knows it’s the end of his career one way or another, has a ten-thousand yard stare and a sort of resigned remove from all of this that let’s him appreciate the absurdity of it all. It’s some of Richard Thomas’s best work on the series.

The other part of the episode I loved is the closing scene between Elizabeth and Philip, where Elizabeth earnestly asks him that, if the kids were grown, he would want to run away to Moscow with Martha. It is a moment of unusual vulnerability from her. It’s meant to be stoic, a “it would be okay, I can keep a stiff upper lip” scene like so many from Elizabeth. But it reveals an insecurity, both about Philip’s feelings for her vs. those for Martha, and about how strong or tenuous his connection to this life they’ve built over the past twenty years is. She is essentially asking her husband how much that life is worth to him.

Philip is taken aback by the question, but doesn't hesitate. He tells Elizabeth that he loves her, and can’t believe she would even think he could do something like that. A wave of relief and gratification passes over Elizabeth, conveyed only in Keri Russell’s expression. It is a very human, emotional moment from a character who is often far steelier than her counterpart, which gives the scene power. Philip offers to come home in a few hours, but Elizabeth, having been reassured, tells him he needs to stay, to reassure Martha as well.

But she also tells Philip that he needs to tell Martha he’s going with her regardless, because she needs to have hope to get her on that plane. Philip can’t do it though. He can’t keep lying to her. He promised he’d tell her everything. So when she asks when he’ll join her, he feels like he has to be honest with her. Martha takes the news that she’ll be starting a new life in Moscow surprisingly well, but “Travel Agents” hints that this will be too much.

Throughout this episode, Philip has been Martha’s lifeline in a sea of madness. It’s his absence that causes her little jaunt in the episode. When Elizabeth shows up to intercept her, she demands to see “Clark.” He has been the only person Martha trusts, the man she’s been willing to break the law, break her colleagues’ trust, and blow up her life for. Take away that, take away the foundation she’s built this life on, and who knows what’s left for her.

Maybe there’s another way out of this for Martha, one where she at least has the agency to make a choice for herself and not be forced or manipulated by the FBI or the KGB or the people taking advantage over her own insecurities about being alone forever. Martha is, slowly but surely, forced to come to terms with all that’s happening here, and the end of the episode is invested in her reaction to it all, not just her as a pawn and an asset for two competing spy agencies.

I find the prospect of that, however harrowing it may be, far more interesting than just another proxy contest between the FBI and the KGB. The thing that elevates The Americans over other run of the mill spy dramas is that it cares deeply about its characters inner lives, about the impact all these world-shaping operations have at the people at their center. “Travel Agents” wants to revel in the drama of who can nab Martha first, but all I want at this point is to understand how Martha, and everyone trying to find her, feels now that this specific corner of their world has been upended, and soon, torn asunder.