The Soviets
Claudia
Claudia is the new KGB handler and contact for Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings, who generally get their orders through contact with Claudia. She replaced a man named Gabriel, who Phillip and Elizabeth trusted implicitly. They aren't so sure they trust Claudia the same way.
Claudia and Elizabeth develop a particularly divisive relationship, with Elizabeth not trusting Claudia at all and forming an intense dislike of her. Claudia seems particularly ruthless in her approach to pulling the strings around Phillip and Elizabeth's missions, and Elizabeth occasionally goes over Claudia's head, breaking the chain of command to make sure Moscow is giving the orders that Claudia is handing down.
Claudia does, however, have Phillip and Elizabeth's best interests at heart — despite her very cold and intentionally distant methods. It is clear that Claudia has been doing this a long time and rarely saves time for emotion and feelings.
- Best Served Cold
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Subjects Elizabeth and Philip to this.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones
- The Handler: To Phillip, Elizabeth, and likely others.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As season 1 finale has revealed, she is deeply loyal to his agents, even asking her direct superior to cancel a mission—something a KGB officer is rarely inclined to do.
- Knight Templar
- Laser-Guided Karma: In a nice bit of instant justice, Elizabeth snaps and almost drowns Claudia in the basin she was going to dunk Elizabeth in.
- Mouth Of the Soviet Union
- Mother Russia Makes You Strong
- Never Mess with Granny
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Receives one from Elizabeth.
- Old Soldier: She is a veteran of the Battle of Stalingrad.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Is shown to be this in the first season finale. It is revealed that she was forced to issue directives that she did not agree with upon the Jennings and defended them infront of Arkady
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Elizabeth and Phillip. They have a tense relationship that's more pronounced on their side. Later, after she helps the Jennings escape an FBI trap in season 1 finale, they have a much better relationship.
Vasili Nikolaevich
Vasili Nikolaevich is an older, high-ranking official in the Soviet Embassy who is quite content to maintain his status within the government and enjoys the perks of being an important guy with a comfortable life. Vasili's duties often have him meeting with KGB resident Arkady Invanovich, and the two don't always see eye to eye.
- Dirty Old Man: Carries on an affair with Nina, who's young enough to be his daughter.
- Frameup: Stan frames him as The Mole at the Russian Embassy to protect Nina's identity... and possibly because he's also angry that Vasili is sleeping with her.
- May–December Romance: With Nina, although only he is under the illusion of it being a "romance".
- Punch-Clock Villain: Like most of the other characters, he's only doing his job and his status as "villain" is only in the eyes of the FBI and Nina.
- Put on a Bus: As a result of the Frame-Up, he's sent back to the USSR. As of Season 2, The Bus Came Back with him effectively exiled to Siberia.
Vlad Kosygin
Vlad Kosygin is a co-worker of Nina's in the Soviet Embassy. He's a quiet and shy guy, but clearly has some feelings for Nina.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Heavily implied, for Nina.
- Killed Off for Real: Shot by Beeman in a fit of rage.
General Viktor Zhukov
Victor Zhukov is a General in the KGB's First Chief Directorate. He is a mentor and father figure to Elizabeth. He is also the man who arranged her marriage to Philip.
- Cool Old Guy: Zhukov seems to be a genuinely nice person.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: He is assassinated by the CIA in retaliation for the deaths of four FBI agents and a scientist by a renegade faction of the KGB.
- Old Flame: In "Covert War", Claudia reveals that she used to be romantically involved with Zhukov.
- Parental Substitute: He seems to genuinely care about Elizabeth and think of her as a daughter. In turn, Elizabeth looks at him like a father.
- Pet the Dog: A literal example. One scene has Zhukov telling Elizabeth about how much he loves his pet dog.
- Reasonable Authority Figure
- The Spymaster: As a General in the KGB's First Directorate, his job is to give orders to KGB agents in the field and oversee operations.
Kate
The Jennings' new handler in season 2.
- Hidden Depths: She is responsible for seducing at least one of the Illegals' children into becoming a KGB agent.
- Sucksessor: The Jennings don't respect her much, perceiving her to be less competent than Claudia.
Fred
Others
Matthew Beeman
The teenage son of the Beemans. He forms a friendship with Paige.
Gregory Thomas
A former black militant who now works as an agent for the Jennings. Passionate and driven, he is in love with Elizabeth and previously had an affair with her. The KGB frames him for the murder of Agent Chris Amador, and he is subsequently killed in a shoot-out with police.
- Heroic Sacrifice: He takes the fall for Amador's murder and chooses Suicide by Cop. 'Heroic' is probably not the best term however.
- Scary Black Man: He's friendly enough, but he's also ruthless enough to work with the KGB.
- Suicide by Cop: He wanders toward cops with the full intention to getting gunned down, since he doesn't want jail or Moscow and Elizabeth won't run away with him.
- Undying Loyalty: To Elizabeth and 'the cause'.
Lucia
A young woman who's an agent for the Sandinista (a Nicaraguan communist political party). Thanks to her affair with a congressional aide, she becomes valuable to the Centre.
- Kill the Ones You Love: She is forced to cover her tracks by killing the Congressional Aide (Carl) that she's been involved with. Considering that she has come to care about him, it's very difficult for her to do it.
- Too Dumb to Live: Despite being told that Larrick is off-limits, Lucia breaks into his house and tries to kill him, and fails so badly at said attempt that she ends up getting shot with her own dartgun. Elizabeth shows up and makes a deal to try and bail Lucia out... and Lucia makes another attempt to kill Larrick. This time, Elizabeth lets Larrick kill her.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Lucia's still new to the spy game, and still sincerely believes that the Revolution will be glamorous.
Carl
A congressional aide who is romantically involved with Lucia. He has no idea that his girlfriend is a Sandinista agent.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Lucia kills him by loading his syringe with a lethal dose of heroin and encouraging him to take it.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Lucia entices him to have sex with her in the congressman's office, allowing Elizabeth to crack the safe in Carl's office while the act is going on.
- Momma's Boy: He wants to introduce Lucia to his mother. A little later Lucia asks if there's anything he would die for, and he responds "my mother, maybe."
- The Stoner: He's a drug user. He is seen taking both cocaine and heroin.
Andrew Larrick
A high-ranking Navy SEAL working on the Martial Eagle project.- Armored Closet Gay: The KGB was able to blackmail him into betraying his country by threatening to reveal his homosexuality, which would end his career in the Navy.
- Big Bad: Of season 2.
- The Captain: He has a rank of Captain in the Navy, the equivalent of a Colonel in the other branches of the military.
- Determinator: After returning from Nicaragua upon hearing that his friends at the Martial Eagle camp were killed. He begins hunting down the Jennings with a cold, machine-like efficiency reminiscent of The Terminator.
- The Dreaded: Claudia is very scared of him, and warns Philip and Elizabeth not to underestimate how dangerous he is.
- Genius Bruiser
- Neck Snap: This is how Larrick kills Kate.
- Revenge Before Reason: The Jennings agree to let him go after he gave them access to the Martial Eagle facility. After he finds out they killed his Navy brothers during their infiltration, however, he returns to the States and starts hunting them down.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When the Jennings kill friends of Larrick during their raid on the Martial Eagle camp, Larrick returns to America and begins a hunt for the Jennings, leaving a trail of dead KGB agents in his wake.
- Smug Super: He is one of the very few people who can show off to the Jennings couple and stand his ground.
- The Stoic: Rarely shows emotion. When Kate spits in his face after he asks her to give up the Jennings, he doesn't react with anger. Instead he calmly reaches up, grabs her by the head with both hands, and snaps her neck.
Emmet and Leanne's son.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: He kills his mother, father, and sister.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: For most of season 2, Jared is portrayed as a victim whose parents and sister were murdered. In the season finale, however, we learn that Kate seduced and began training him to be a KGB spy, and he was so fanatical in his devotion to the cause that he murdered his parents (and also his sister, simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time).
- Greater-Scope Villain: Virtually all the problems the Jennings have to deal in Season 2 can be traced to his murder of his own family.
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The Woobie: The lone survivor of a vicious attack that left his whole family dead, he's a mess for the rest of the season. Horrifically subverted when you find out that he was the one who carried out said attack.
