History Characters / TheAmericansTheJenningsFamily

!!Philip Jennings / Misha

* OutDamnedSpot: As the series goes on, Philip becomes more and more consumed by guilt over killing innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. [[spoiler: At the end of Season 5, he and Elizabeth decide that it has become too much and so he retires from active KGB Duty.]]

->'''Played By:''' Creator/KeriRussell & Matthew Rhys

->'''Played By:''' Holly Taylor

->'''Played By:''' Keidrich Sellati

* NotSoDifferent: Many scenes juxtapose Philip and Elizabeth's efforts with the efforts of American intelligence operatives and show that they're not very different, they're just on opposing sides.

* NotSoDifferent: She tries to pull this with Pastor Tim, who isn't having any of it.

->'''Played By:''' Matthew Rhys

* CigaretteOfAnxiety: Elizabeth was always a smoker, but she takes up the habit much more heavily in the sixth season [[after Philip retires from active spy duty and she has to do most of the dirty work herself.]]

* DisappearedDad: [[spoiler: To his long lost son, Mischa (who he had unknowingly with Irina),]][[as well as Henry (who gets left behind in America when Philip and Elizabeth flee the country) and Paige (who abandons her parents at the last minute before leaving the USA).]]

* DisappearedDad: [[spoiler: To his long lost son, Mischa (who he had unknowingly with Irina).]]

* OnlyKnownbyTheirNickname: In scenes that show his early life, he is always referred to as "Misha". The Soviets would never allow a diminutive as someone's legal name. In Season 4, his real name is confirmed to be Mikhail.

* YourCheatingHeart: Her role as a DeepCoverAgent and FemmeFatale requires her to sleep with people other than her husband. It's just part of the job, but she's also carried on an affair with Gregory, one of her assets, for years. She finally ends the affair when she starts feeling love for Philip for the first time in their nearly 20-year marriage.

* YourCheatingHeart: Before he was paired off with Elizabeth, Phillip was trained to be a honey trap. Many of his assignments thus involve seducing women in strategic places, sometimes carrying on long affairs with them. Elizabeth is surprisingly understanding about this.

* EvilParentsWantGoodKids: Unlike Elizabeth, Philip is initially quite adamant Paige not become [[FollowInMyFootsteps a second generation agent]].

* PapaWolf: In the pilot episode, a pedophile hits on Paige, who is only 13 years old. Philip later tracks the man down and beats him severely. Later on he warns Claudia to stay away from his children.

* GoingNative: Over the years that he's been in the US, he's grown to appreciate some things about American culture, and is somewhat less sanguine about the whole "bringing down the West" idea.

* KarmaHoudini: Subverted; [[spoiler: They manage to flee the American authorities and escape to the USSR together, but they are forced to leave Henry behind and Paige [[IChooseToStay decides]] to abandon them at the last second, meaning they'll probably never see their children again. They're also forced to return home to a Russia neither of them really recognizes, knowing the people they've been serving for years were really the enemy. And what's more, [[ForegoneConclusion the Soviet Union is due to collapse in a few years anyway]], meaning that despite their fervent belief in the meaning of their work, every awful thing they've done in service of their country will have been for absolutely nothing.]]

* NeverGotToSayGoodbye: [[spoiler: In the GrandFinale, they're both unable to give a proper goodbye to either of their children, due to Henry not knowing the truth about them and Paige deciding to abandon them at the last second by getting off the train she'd been traveling with them on.]]

* RetiredMonster: [[spoiler: "Monster" is stretching it, but by Season 6 he has retired from active duty and started running the travel agency as a legitimate business.]]

* HoneyTrap: Both of them are skilled at luring the opposite sex into..."difficult" situations.

* AntagonisticOffspring: Played with. Paige's rebellion includes joining an activist church and protesting nuclear weapons. She is smart, inquisitive and dedicated to a cause greater than herself. In virtually any other series this would make Paige come across as the mature, trustworthy and reliable child compared to the more impulsive, impish Henry. Given that her parents are Soviet spies, these traits are treated not as positives, as an American family might view them, but as a dangerous subversion of all they hold dear. [[spoiler:Further, once she finds out the truth about her parents' work, her faith, her inquisitiveness and her unshakeable belief in doing what she believes is right makes her a significant threat to their operation, especially when she tells Pastor Tim the truth in the season 3 finale.]]

* OutOfFocus: Henry has the fewest plotlines in the Jennings family. Once [[spoiler:Paige finds out about her parents' true identities]], he spends a lot of time conveniently out of the house so that people can talk openly.

* TheUnfavorite: After Paige starts to follow in the family business, Phillip and Elizabeth don't pay as much attention to Henry, which he grows to resent. [[spoiler: They don't even attempt to take him with them to the Soviet Union but abandon him in the USA.]]