First things first: Philip and Elizabeth announce to the kids that they're separating, and they take it as poorly as you might expect. Paige suddenly finds all her snitting totally justified, so she turns all THAT up to eleven, while Henry starts getting sullen and shirks his Social Studies duties.
So, now that he's unencumbered and living out of a motel, Philip (as "Clark") is more amenable to Martha's pathetic begging for him to stay the night with her. The fallout the next morning is twofold: one is that Martha ends up telling him that Special Agent John-Boy appears to be rallying agents for an extracurricular hit on a KGB agent. The second is that, as Clark makes his exit in the cold light of day, he's accosted by Agent Chris, who isn't sure what he's suspicious of, he just feels like pushing around the guy who just screwed Martha. When he threatens to take Clark in for questioning, Philip's back is against the wall. They fight, and Chris ends up taking his own switchblade (!) in the gut. So Philip piles him into the trunk and takes him to a safe house, where he and Elizabeth (whose disguise this week is going to take me SEVERAL days to figure out how to describe, so please meet me back here for the recap) decide that they need to keep him alive long enough to get him to talk about this assassination plot.
Stan, who had originally opted out of the extra-legal hit operation, is suddenly radicalized by Chris's disappearance, which he's certain is KGB-related. He has all these flashbacks to his and Chris's friendship, the better for us to see how scummy Chris really is, and he gets super cold with Nina. Most importantly, he hijacks that assassination attempt. When Arkady -- the original target -- doesn't show up for his regular jog, Stan orders the agents to grab his junior-level jogging buddy instead. He's a no-value target, but Stan delivers a painfully Walter White Lite intimidating speech in order to shake loose any information about Chris. Problem is, nobody knows a blessed thing about Chris, not this kid, not Nina, not Arkady. Just Philip and I Still Can't Talk About Her Disguise Elizabeth, who are finding it hard to get Chris to talk about much of anything, as he's in the process of dying. Once they've passed the window where the hit was supposed to take place, Chris tells them Arkady was the target. Elizabeth confirms that Arkady is still alive, however, but Chris dies before she can gloat about it.
When the FBI finds Chris's body, Agent John-Boy promises Stan there will be bloody retribution. Stan gets a head start on that when he returns to the house where they're keeping that little pipsqueak KGB agent. After offering him some Pollos Hermanos, he gets the kid to admit he's KGB, then blows his brains out. Because Stan has gone DARK, you guys.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously: Philip had sex with his childhood sweetheart and lied about it and Elizabeth found out and they broached the very 1980s subject of divorce. Martha helped "Clark" get info on American scientists, and Agent Chris saw Martha rummaging through files and got suspicious. One scientist and three FBI agents were killed in a bombing that Philip and Elizabeth were unable to stop and Special Agent John-Boy pledged vengeance.
Currently: the Jenningses are having family dinner, and Paige is acting unusually pleasant and everybody is raving about Elizabeth's fried chicken, so obviously someone's about to say something terrible. Of course, Elizabeth clears her throat and begins to make the "Daddy and I are separating" speech. Which is traumatic enough for children when they know Mom and Dad have been fighting, but Philip and Elizabeth are so good at hiding themselves that these two kids haven't the first inkling that they should've expected this. Paige even first guesses that Elizabeth is going to say she's pregnant. ...Okay, actually, Paige tells Elizabeth "you're too old" to be pregnant, and I'm going to have to STOP THE UNIVERSE for a second because Felicity was in college the same four years that I was in college, so Keri Russell cannot be too old to have children because if that is true then I SERIOUSLY DO NOT KNOW WHAT. Anyway, Elizabeth says that Philip will be living somewhere else for a while, and Philip decides to use the euphemism "hitting the pause button," which I can't imagine is very useful at all. Paige and Henry are devastated and react in the ways you'd expect. Paige gets snitty and curses and storms off, while Henry gets sad and introspective and wonders if they'll ever stop loving him and Paige.
Later, Henry has locked himself in his room, and Philip is barely not crying as he sits out in the hall and begs his son to open up. Poor Henry. Even his Runaways-style shag haircut is sad. "I love you so much," Philip says from outside the door. This is pretty heartbreaking.
Cut to still later, when Philip and his packed bags are leaving for the night. He says he'll see her tomorrow at the Beemans' party, to which Elizabeth expresses some uneasiness that they attend a party together. But Philip says Stan's work buddies will be there, so they should. See, as I said last week, this is why divorce/separation is a dumb idea unless they're ALSO going to stop working missions as a team. Now every time they work together, it's going to look double strange to outside observers. Where's Margo Martindale to whap them upside the head with her copy of Pravda? Anyway, Philip sad-walks out into the night.
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