Philip Jennings (The Americans)

Philip was born as Mikhail in Tobolsk. His father died when he was six years old; his mother's history is unknown. Philip describes being attacked by gangs at a young age while collecting milk across the city. One day he fought back, and beat one of the bullies to death. As a teenager, Philip dated a young Russian woman named Irina, who shared his dream of joining the KGB. When Philip is accepted into the Illegals Program, Irina breaks up with him and tells him that she's met someone else. Later, Irina also joins the KGB as an undercover agent in Europe. Philip trains for several years before meeting "Elizabeth Jennings," another member of the Illegals Program, who is assigned to be his wife in America. They move to Virginia in 1965 and have their first child, Paige, in 1967.

In 1981, Philip Jennings lives with his (pretend) wife Elizabeth outside of Washington D.C. They are revealed to be a pair of sleeper agents working for the KGB. They have two children, Paige and Henry. After a failed deportation, Philip and Elizabeth kidnap Nikolai Timoshev, a defected KGB agent, who raped Elizabeth when she was in training. At the time of Timochev's kidnapping, counter-intelligence FBI agent Stan Beeman moves next door, causing Philip to suggest defecting themselves. Elizabeth declines and Philip murders Timoshev when he finds out he raped her. Elizabeth and Philip try to become a real married couple, but after finding out Elizabeth had an ongoing affair with Gregory Thomas (Derek Luke), a Black activist, he is hurt. She tells Philip that she is beginning to feel love for him for the first time in their 16-year relationship.

Philip has become genuine friends with Stan, who he initially befriended because he was a counter-intelligence agent. He begins a relationship with Martha Hanson, an FBI secretary, who knows him under the name Clark. He uses his relationship with her to keep tabs on what the FBI are working on. Philip and Elizabeth plant a bug in Caspar Weinberger's office, and begin listening for vital intelligence. After a mole in the KGB is realized, Elizabeth and Philip are kidnapped and tortured by KGB operatives posing as FBI agents. Philip believes that because Elizabeth's torturing stops, it was she who told the KGB that he considered defecting. Philip is upset that Elizabeth trusts the KGB more than she trusts him.

Philip goes to New York where he rekindles a romance with Irina. She tells him that they had a son together shortly after he joined the Illegals Program, and that she hid this from him so that he would follow his dream. She suggests they leave the KGB and run away together. Philip declines, not believing he fathered a child with her. He returns to Elizabeth, who tells him she'd like them to work on their relationship, to which Philip agrees, but neglects to tell Elizabeth about Irina. She soon finds out, however, and she and Philip separate, with Philip moving into a motel.

After leaving Martha's apartment one morning, Chris Amador, Stan's partner and Martha's ex-boyfriend, attacks Philip and is himself stabbed in the process. Despite Philip and Elizabeth's best attempts to keep him alive, he dies in his sleep. Gregory, who scrapped the car Philip used to transport Amador in, is soon fingered to the FBI. He commits suicide by cop. Later, General Zhukov is murdered under orders from a CIA officer, and Philip helps Elizabeth kidnap him, but after she doesn't go through with killing him, they let him go, but the CIA officer is able to identify them as a white couple.

Philip quickly marries Martha in an attempt to get her to bug her boss's office after Elizabeth finds out that a United States Air Force colonel has information on the SDI project. Despite not hearing anything about a setup with the bug, Philip doesn't believe its authenticity and takes the meeting with the Colonel, where he tells Philip the schematics are 50 years away from being possible. Elizabeth goes to collect the Weinberger tape, with the FBI ready to arrest whoever shows up for it. Philip realizes this and collects Elizabeth in time, but she is shot when the FBI open fire on them. After Elizabeth's surgery, she tells Philip in Russian to "come home".

Elizabeth recovers at a remote safe-house and returns to the Jennings house in time for Henry's 11th birthday. However, the celebration is cut short, as she and Philip must go meet the Connors, another spy couple, but promise a "birthday weekend" at an amusement park. There, Philip is surreptitiously infiltrated in a mission by the Connors, who give him a key to their hotel room for a drop after. When Elizabeth and Philip find the Connors family shot to death in their room, they become paranoid. She locks down the house and suggests he tries to glean information from Martha, his FBI informant. Philip goes to kidnap a Refusnik scientist living in the Washington area and the Israelis save the scientist only to have the Mossad protect him. However he and Elizabeth kidnap the Mossad agent and trade him for the Scientist as well as the Soviet Union letting 1500 Jews go to Israel.