Homeland Recap: Season 2 Premiere!!!

Recaps

By MrsMiaWallace | Wednesday, October 3, 2012 | 6:28 pm | 8 Comments
Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in: Homeland, Recaps

Carrie pulls up to her sister’s house and notices a black Suburban parked across the street. Her sister greets her to let her know that Sal has been calling nonstop. That is one old coworker she will not ignore, so she calls him back. Sal is sitting in Beirut (where it is not the right time of day, way to go fact-checkers) and asks her to meet with Estes, who is in the black Suburban. Although Carrie is in tears over the thought of this torture all Sal has to say is “please”.

Estes swaggers up to the front porch and starts by thanking Carrie for seeing him. She is not softened and the tension is palpable. This dude treated her very poorly as an agent, even more poorly as a person and handled her removal from the Agency with zero tact or care. Also he is a dick for blaming his failed marriage on her instead of his own inability to be faithful.

“So, fucked any of your bosses seen any good movies lately?”

Since there will be no small talk he asks Carrie to identify the woman from the Embassy gates and she is indeed a recruit of Carrie’s, Fatima Ali, first wife of a Hezbollah district commander. There is no record of her because Carrie went rogue (as usual!) and kept her off the books in the interest of keeping Fatima alive to sing another day. Carrie couldn’t transfer Fatima to another agent’s care because she refused to work with anyone except Carrie. As we suspected this is still true and Estes is asking Carrie to take a quick trip to Beirut to see what’s up.

Carrie is flabbergasted that he would dare ask her for a favor after humiliating her and unceremoniously throwing her out of the Agency. Estes tries to soften her up by letting her know this is in no way a job offer. Smooth talker! We all know Carrie can’t say no when her country needs her so she is upstairs packing in a flash and dodging her sister who is chasing her around the room and telling her not to go. Carrie is nervous but resolved and says Sal will be there for her sanity. Finally the co-schizo dad steps in to tell big sis to back down.

“I give him a granddaughter and a place to live and my unstable loser sister is still the favorite”

Carrie gives her dad a long hug goodbye and with one last lingering look back at the house, gets into a car with Estes to head to the airport. Awkwardddd.

Brody is seated in his office with a pretty young reporter. He gets his statesman smarmy voice going to banter about the possible nomination and then the girl turns serious and asks if there are any recording devices in his office. She drops Abu Nazir’s name and Brody loses all composure. One assumes he has had no contact with his old brown friends during his campaign and subsequent Congressional days.

“I just started enjoying all my new toys!”

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MrsMiaWallace is an east coast girl with a  penchant for travel, libations and great cuisine. She is not known to turn down a mimosa or a martini and finds the transition between the two a good way to mark the passing of time since she can never remember to wear a watch. Her secret love for reality tv and addiction to Bravo have drawn her like a moth to the glittering snark of TVGasm,  where she finds there are others like her... hopefully also nursing Bloody Marys.

8 Comments

  1. 1
    JKW
    Posted October 4, 2012 at 1:02 am

    I LOVE this show. Carries big ass smile at the end was great. I had a big smile and was laughing . One thing I remembered when I saw the previous season re-runs they had on. When Sol took the lie detector test the needle spiked when they asked about slipping the terrorist a razor blade. He ran out of the room and never finished the test. I hope he is a good guy but it’s something to think about. So great to have this show back. Good job on the recap…I am sure it’s tough to recap with everything going on. Carrie and her dad are bipolar.

  2. 2
    MrsMiaWallace MrsMiaWallace
    Posted October 4, 2012 at 6:48 am

    @JKW – I loved that moment of her being back on her game too! I had forgotten about Saul (spelling correction alert!) having a possibly shady backstory, but as her only supporter it makes sense that he has an unorthodox story somewhere too.

    Also thanks for the correction! I don’t know why I was thinking schizophrenic, I even read recently that Claire Danes did an extensive amount of research on the behavior and affectations of bipolar people to study her role. She’s getting major kudos from the medical and mental health community for her portrayal.

  3. 3
    Bridget
    Posted October 4, 2012 at 6:56 am

    Now I am interested. What does the US Embassy in Beirut look like? I am always interested in how television shows or movies portray other countries especially when they get it wrong. Was the portrayal of Beirut at all factual? Okay back to recap.

  4. 4
    MrsMiaWallace MrsMiaWallace
    Posted October 4, 2012 at 9:16 am

    I am very biased because Lebanon and Beirut specifically is one my favorite places. Beirut is moder, metropolitan, diverse and developed. The cafes, clubs and shops are some of the best in the world. Beirut used to be called the Paris of the Middle East and has worked very hard to rebuild that since the war. The most “rustic” thing about the city is the bullet holes that still riddle many of the buildings.

    My guess is the filming took place in a smaller village outskirt in Israel or Jordan. It looks like Egypt but there’s no way they could have filmed there recently. Also Lebanon is very liberal. The offices we worked with had women in headscarves and also women who looked like they shopped at Bebe for work clothes. It was more conservative in more rural regions, but I travelled from Tripoli to Tyre and was never looked at askance in short sleeves, long shorts and an uncovered head.

    As for security, the US building there are extremely guarded. In general all embassies are compounds with perimeter walls that are mandated to be a certain height and thickness. There is also a regulation on how far from the first building the wall must be (space for people outside with rocket launchers etc), and how thick the outside walls of the buildings must be. In regions with strife the roads and entrances would be cordoned off and heavily patrolled and guarded. I was there in a relatively peaceful period 3 years ago and we still never left the hotel without a convoy of armored, tinted cars. Much less driving out of an Embassy in a single sedan through the front entrance. Its laughable.

    The regional unrest and deepseated strife is a shame because Lebanon is lovely and very lush. Their national symbol is a tree because of their dense forests. Beirut is located on the sea and has a lovely coastline and mountainous topography. The city is very hilly and views of the harbor are breathtaking. The food and hospitality of the Lebanese is fantastic and traditional dinners are a hours-long 50+ plate affair. The cost of war is dear in both lives and culture for us all.

  5. 5
    TiredinTacoma
    Posted October 4, 2012 at 5:34 pm

    Glad you caught the Schizophreniz vs Bipolar disorder diagnosis. Many people with Bipolar are very high functioning in high stress careers and remain stable with meds & stable schedules, big difference with schizophrenia! Love the recap, looking forward to the next episode!

  6. 6
    vallegirl vallegirl
    Posted October 4, 2012 at 7:50 pm

    Nice recap, Mrs. Mia. As a fellow “prestige premium cable” recapper, I know how hard it is to focus on being funny about a show you love. And you don’t even have Paul Sparks and Bobby Cannavale making a meal out of every piece of scenery they can find to make it a little easier.

    And while my own experience isn’t nearly as exotic as Beirut, whenever I watch Dexter I rupture tiny clusters in my brain spotting all the Long Beach landmarks that they use to sub for Miami, most egregiously the Long Beach convention center’s mural of blue whales. In Biscayne Bay. Really? Maybe it’s Showtime that doesn’t bother with continuity.

  7. 7
    JKW
    Posted October 4, 2012 at 10:34 pm

    Correction noted Mrs Mia. I was assuming Sauls name was short for Solomon. Hope her sister sent a load of her meds with her or she will be bouncing off walls. Claire Danes does a great job and so does Damian Lewis. It sounds so weird when he speaks in a Brit accent. He was great in Band of Brothers. I have watched that over and over for yrs.

    It will be interesting to see if Carrie goes off the map. After Saul turned her in at that VP affair, she may not trust him.

    I don’t know if anyone else saw this but….this was an original series from Israel.

  8. 8
    Goldie
    Posted October 5, 2012 at 8:21 am

    Wow, references to MSCL and The Game in one recap? I am impressed! Love this show, love Claire Danes. I am looking forward to the next episode like I used to look forward to seeing Jordan Catalano every Thursday!

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