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No, it was much more likely that Mike was part of the Witness Protection Program:

1) There is no way in hell that Mike is an architect. You move a family with six kids into a two story house and there are only two bedrooms upstairs for the kids? And only one bathroom for all six of them to share? Ridiculous. Marsha and Greg were fighting over the attic, for Christ's sake. That can't be his real job.

2) He had Alice as a "maid" long before Carol was around. She helped take care of the boys. Take a good look at her. She's no maid. That's a Federal agent if I ever saw one. Tough as nails. She'd rip your heart out and show it to you before you died if you ever screwed with her. "Sam the butcher" was her partner.


3) Mike had an office that he went to and also worked at home. Watch closely how he interacts with the kids when they go into his home office. He's not doing anything important in there. He's just hanging out while the FBI runs a sweep to check for bugs.


This is what happened:

Feodor Guiliano works himself up from the mean streets of Chicago to become the right hand man of a Mob Boss. Right before one of the biggest drug deals goes down, Feodor develops cold feet. The Big Man kills his wife and threatens his boys to let Feodor know what the score is, to let him know that there is no way out. Feodor turns pigeon in exchange for amnesty and entry into the Witness Protection Program. His boys are young (they would have to be, for them to successfully take on the Brady persona), so they set him up with an agent to pose as "the maid" while he begins his new life as Mike Brady, architect. After a while he gets lonely and wants to take on a wife. They match him up with an air-headed widow who falls for him because of his own widower status. Obviously Carol dosn't know the real story but is happy to find peace and love. The tenison and, in my opinion, the beauty of the series lie in the subtext of the vicious mobster parading as a family man and trying to make his new life work. If you watch all of the episodes in reverse you may begin to see tell-tale clues of this "hidden story".