As Philip gets sucked into some of the more murky aspects of his job as an undercover agent, Gabriel points out the obvious-but-difficult truth when struggling with personal morality: “You have a conscience, Philip. There’s nothing wrong with that. But conscience can be dangerous.” What danger means in this circumstance isn’t only the usual kind of physical danger we think of when presented with the word. What’s dangerous for Philip extends well beyond physicality into his emotional and mental lives. That in and of itself would be enough conflict to be pushing Philip into difficult, stressful territory. The fact that he has to masquerade as other people with their own emotional and mental lives makes Philip’s position in The Americans right now almost untenable. Those lives happen to be coalescing at an unfortunate time, when dealing with the very real possibility of exposing Paige to the KGB’s operations adds more frustration to Martha’s push to…
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