Title: Dimebag

Episode M.V.P: Matthew Rhys
The first three episodes of Season Three of The Americans featured (in order): A naked woman being strangled to death, the same naked, deceased woman having her bones snapped in order to fit her into a suitcase, and a husband pulling out his wife’s tooth with a pair of pliers. All three moments were unsettling, but none of them made my skin crawl the way Philip’s interactions with Kimberly did in this episode. In the hands of a less talented actor on a lesser show, this storyline could ruin Philip’s character. However, Matthew Rhys’s haunting work in “Dimebag” proved that this storyline will only serve to make Philip an even more complex character than before.

Rhys has always been great at conveying Philip’s mental and emotional state through his eyes, tone of voice, and body language, and that talent was used potently in “Dimebag.” It was there in the way “Jim’s” smooth talking could barely disguise the disgust in Philip’s voice. It was there in the way his back stiffened when Elizabeth asked who wore the pants in “Clark’s” marriage with Martha. It was there in the way he purposely didn’t look at Kimberly as she was dancing until he visibly steeled himself to do so at the end. It was there in the slump of his shoulders when he had to leave after his teenage daughter’s birthday dinner to seduce a teenage girl—his posture showing how much he hates the hypocrite this is causing him to become. And it was there every single time the camera lingered on his face as Philip looked at Paige with the sad eyes of a father contemplating lost innocence and his role in it.

I loved the way this episode focused on how much Philip loves his kids as he was being asked to do something that went against everything he believes as a father. The genuine warmth Rhys exuded in the scene that featured Philip and Henry doing flashcards as Philip talked to Paige about her birthday dinner brilliantly contrasted the disturbing nature of his new mission and the clear discomfort he felt about it.

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Source: http://enemyoffate.tumblr.com/post/110862541082/you-know-its-funny-because-thats-sort-of-the

Title: Open House

Episode M.V.P: Keri Russell and Mathew Rhys
It’s impossible for me to separate Russell and Rhys’s performances in “Open House.” This was an episode that reminded us what a great partnership Philip and Elizabeth have, so it only makes sense that it was also an episode that allowed the acting partnership between Russell and Rhys to shine. Just as Philip and Elizabeth came to see in this episode just how much they need each other, the episode itself needed both Russell and Rhys to be at the top of their games in different ways for it to work as well as it did.

Both of their performances played off one another and complimented what the other was doing perfectly. For example, the scene between them in their bedroom wouldn’t have resonated so strongly if one of them was bringing less to it than the other. Russell’s openness had to be met step-for-step by Rhys’s petulance. And both shaded those initial impressions with the right amount of depth. Underneath Elizabeth’s playful teasing, we saw the somewhat sad attempt to use her sexuality to fix things with her husband because she doesn’t know what else to do to make things better between them. And underneath Philip’s cold response to her flirting, we saw his deep sense of hurt that she would talk to Gabriel about Paige without him. That scene felt so much deeper than simply a husband shutting down his wife’s sexual advances because he’s mad. That’s the stuff of lesser shows. On The Americans, in the hands of those two actors, it became a layered portrait of two people who use their bodies to manipulate other people but have reached a place of honesty with one another where that won’t work between them. This scene brilliantly conveyed the idea that, when you’re really honest with someone, sometimes you can’t pretend that you can just kiss and make up, especially when you’re two people who frequently use sex to cover up the truth about themselves.

The way these two actors handled the buildup and release of tension between them throughout this challenging episode was stunning. It was their ability to communicate so much with just their expressions that made “Open House” something special and created a moment the likes of which I’ve never seen on television before and am not sure I’ll ever see again. It was their talent and their director’s trust in that talent which made a scene that—for all intents and purposes—should have been horrifying to watch instead feel like something beautiful and moving.

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