Early history
Philip was born as Mikhail in Tobolsk. His father died when he was six years old; his mother's history is unknown. In the first episode of season 4, 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 (where KGB agents live permanently undercover in the US, posing as American citizens), 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.
Season one
In 1981, Philip Jennings lives with his wife, Elizabeth, outside of Washington, D.C., with whom he owns and operates a travel agency ("Dupont Circle Travel"). They are revealed to be a pair of sleeper agents working for the KGB. They have two children, Paige and Henry.
Philip, Elizabeth and a third KGB operative kidnap a defected KGB agent, Nikolai Timoshev, who is revealed to have raped Elizabeth years ago when she was in training. At the time of Timoshev's kidnapping, FBI counter-intelligence agent Stan Beeman moves in 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 former Black activist whom she recruited for the KGB, he is hurt. Elizabeth 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 Westerfeld. He uses his relationship with her to keep tabs on what the FBI is working on. Philip and Elizabeth plant a bug in Secretary of Defense 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 rekindles his youth 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 temporarily separate, with Philip moving into a motel.
After leaving Martha's apartment one morning, FBI agent 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 is soon fingered to the FBI. He commits suicide by cop. Later, Philip helps Elizabeth kidnap a CIA officer who had ordered the murder of a Soviet general, but after she doesn't go through with killing him, they let him go, and 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 missile defense 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".
