The Americans returned two weeks ago for another incredibly compelling season, as Philip and Elizabeth Jennings continue to try to protect their own identities as KGB agents while debating whether they should do as their commanders wish and begin to recruit their own daughter, Paige.

I sat down with The Americans’ executive producers, Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, to discuss Season 3’s new developments, including the Paige situation and Nina imprisoned in Russia.And, of course, we talked about last week’s gasp-worthy scene, as Elizabeth and Philip disposed of a body in a particularly graphic, bone-crunching manner…

It’s going to be tough and it’s going to be ugly and it’s going to be complicated and god knows where it’s going to go. Well, we know!Part of what makes it so tough and ugly and complicated is a very universal thing, which is they really love each other and they really both love their daughter. They just believe different things. And this is something that happens in marriage and the question is how do you soldier on and make your relationship work and make your family work when you have such conflicting values?Well, those are some of the questions that one would ask. And on the other side of that, is what the Center and what Elizabeth might say, which is that’s not what the Center would be looking for from a second generation illegal. In fact, that’s kind of specifically the job of a first generation illegal is to do something like that. A second generation illegal would be able to have a far more protected, different kind of life. Then the question is raised… are we being honest with ourselves?But listen, even as that comes up, you can hear a couple going back and forth with the kind of rhythms and tones that a married couple argue about anything - but with very big stakes.It never would have occurred to us that they would have a scene together. If you had asked us, we would have said no, they won’t have a scene together… I mean maybe if she gets arrested one day! But we’d probably expect that they’d never have a scene. This just came out of that scene; appeared out of the blue. And boy was Richard [Thomas] happy. I’m not being sarcastic! He loved it.Oh yeah, he had been waiting his entire career to be punched in the face by Keri Russell! He took a selfie and sent us a picture from the set like “look what you guys did to me tonight.”That’s another really perfect example. if you had asked us at the beginning of the season, “Will Gaad and Arkady ever meet?”, we would have said that is something we’ve been wanting to write. If you had said, "Will Phillip and Arkady ever meet?, we would have said forget it, that’s not possible, that will never happen. And yet, at the end of last season, it had to happen. So it works both ways. Sometimes it’s planned and sometimes it’s a surprise.Well, we don’t want to give any spoilers away, but it’ll be a complex relationship and interesting things will happen that’ll pose challenges.And there will be a question about that character which is exactly that. Who is she? And what has or hasn’t she done?Well also, just because it’s worth noting, we learned a lot about that prison and the prison it’s based on which was a prison in Moscow which is a sort of special prison for people, for example, who got in trouble with the party elite or the KGB and sometimes political prisoners. We really designed it very closely on video footage of it and based that cell on what cells would look like and the hallways looked like. So you’re going to get a real look at what it would have felt like there. It’s interesting. It wasn’t really the stereotype like you’d imagine, like our show tries to define also the places where people are being beaten or tortured and stuff like that. It was a relatively civilized place.He is somebody with whom they have a very strong, prior relationship over many years. He’s come back really to help them through the hardest thing they’ve ever been through, which is the recruitment of their own daughter. And that’s delicate and challenging for him because as you say, he is paternal and he does really care about them so he has his own great challenges to navigate in his relationship with them both and his relationship with each of them.I don’t think we really know for sure yet. We have a lot of interest in that area. She’s a great and compelling character and gone from the show before her time. So we hold out hope.Claudia’s not dead and we love Margo.

Continue to Page 2 for more from The Americans producers, including expanding the world of the show and that suitcase scene...