Homeland Recap: Trust is a Three Letter Agency

The men are in place and a car arrives, but stops short of the target location. Then a new car loaded with armed jihadists (presumably) shows up and basically pins in the American ops team which makes everyone drop a load into their pants.

“Ah, traffic on this street is the worst!”

Turns out they are just clearing the street, but positioned so badly for the meet now that capturing Abu alive will be impossible. The capture team is told to stand down and the kill team is on deck! Brody is starting to get curious what all the hubbub is about and he is told we are locked and loaded for the biggest get in recent War on Terror times.

“We’re totally going to kill your best friend”

Another car pulls in and it’s the informant’s husband with some kind of Deputy-in-Fear. Trigger happy CIA guy says to go ahead and take the both out but I guess they’re Skyping this too because Carrie starts to protest that taking out two targets who show up to a heavily guarded and clandestine meet are probably waiting for another party. Thankfully Estes also has commong sense and he puts the command on hold.

A third car arrives and the doors are slowly opening and fingers are tightening on triggers! Meanwhile Brody was somehow allowed into this meeting with his cell phone! I need some kind of special font for when things happen that don’t actually happen. I will call it Bullshit Font. He sends a text with some kind of code to warn Abu. I kind of call BS on this too because I doubt he has direct contact to Abu’s personal phone at this point. It would be some kind of relay system with a messenger that would never get there in time.

It would be great if this intended to be an abridged version of 5-1-5-0: Code for Crazy person on the loose

The cardoor opens and Abu Nazir himself gets out! Carrie, with her perfect video feed, looks up at Saul is as proud as a puppy.

 “Please don’t let this go to your head… oh, sorry”

True to form, at the very last minute someone hands Nazir a phone and just as the snipers squeeze off a shot, Nazir is leaping back into his car. Random brown people with turbans are shot in the head, it happened kind of fast to see if it was collateral damage or the other targets, but Nazir at least, is speeding off.

Somewhere the guy who played this part is trying to convince his friends that this is him

Carrie is having the same difficulty determining what went on even as Saul is pulling her up to evacuate the safe house. Clearly the mission has gone awry and no one involved on the ground is safe. Looks like another informant is gonna end up regretting her allegiance to America!

The situation room has now got a real situation on their hands and Brody is shaking and sweating like he’s strapped into Mr. Nazir’s Wild Ride and has eaten one too many corndogs. The VP is demanding to speak to Estes and Saul and Carrie are careening through the streets in a very inconspicuous giant black SUV. Saul briefs her on what went down and said that even though they missed the main mark that her information and informant were solid and he refuses to let her call this “anything except a victory”. Awww. Saul, you say the nicest things.

They pull up to an apartment building and the reason for the SUV is clearer when it appears they are trying to get Fatima out as well. A lot of very suspicious guys are watching this go down, but an agent successfully brings Fatima to the car. Any attempt to make this look like a normal car service is shattered when Carrie leaps out and demands Fatima’s house keys. She wants to do a spot check of the apartment for any clues on Abu.

This isn’t exactly protocol, but then again she’s not exactly an agent!

She makes it inside and Fatima is in the SUV but people are surrounding the car and starting to get restless even while Carrie rifles through a desk inside Fatima’s apartment.

 Not a great time to neaten up, Carrie

The locals are now rocking the SUV dangerously and Fatima is seeing her $5M evaporate and her stoning and torture looming and urges Saul to leave. Saul demands they wait. Mostly because that gator don’t sweat. You can see Carrie’s instincts working as she searches the room for that special hidden spot someone would put supersecret Abu Nazir documents in. With the clock ticking Carrie just grabs everything off the desk and stuffs it into a nondescript khaki shoulder bag.

The windshield is smashed and Saul is still screaming “Wait!”, when a brandished pistol changes his song to “Drive!”

“… and stay out!”

Carrie is now going through the kitchen and the angry mob has realized the blonde lady is probably still somewhere where they can get to her. They aren’t messing around this time and when she locks back up the apartment she is greeted by the neighborhood watch gunfire. Time to run to the roof!

She’s being chased and shot at and doing a great roof chase scene when she finds another stairwell heading down. Too bad there is another angry mob guy coming up those stairs at the same time. Too bad for him I mean!

I think the lithium levels are fine, Dad

As soon as she hits the ground floor someone with a gun grabs her by the neck. Ah shit, thinks MrsMiaWallace. But it’s the CIA guy! And he runs her to a point in the street where the SUV can stop for them. Saul greets her with a very appropriate “What the FUCK Carrie!?!?” In response she just tosses the canvas sack to him and settles into her seat to have a little freak out.

The surprisingly superhot agent is the only one to ask her if she is OK. He kind of looks like a poor man’s Greg Kinnear, and I like it. They are now on their way and I think Fatima is secretly grateful she is forced to wear several layers of clothes because at least two have been soiled in this whole process.

~~~

We are back in the DC Metro and Brody is waiting in an empty parking lot for a rendezvous with the reporter. She conveys Abu’s gratitude and then gets the full force of Brody’s freak-out. He makes a good point when he says that a Congressman probably should not be texting secret messages to terrorists in a room full of the Joint Chiefs.

 “It was the first thing they said on Orientation Day!”

After that little errand, Brody heading into a local bar. There is an American Flag waving out front and a sign on the door saying “Thank You” across Old Glory.

That sign is not for you. It’s just too much trouble to keep taking down when terrorists stop by

It turns out this is a meet-up with Brody’s old Marine platoon, including the drunken truth teller Lauder, who is drunk. He starts out by goading Brody about being a Congressman and fesses up that he didn’t vote for him but “maybe next time”. I kind of love that guy, but only because Brody is a terrorist. Brody briefs them all that no one knows who killed Walker (Brody did) and there is nothing in the secret files about a larger terrorist plot (Brody is the plot).

Lauder starts pointing fingers and saying Brody is full of shit. He points out Walker never missed a shot in his life and he missed three that day. He says it’s “unbecoming” for Brody to have so little interest in the demise of a fellow Marine.

“I think yer a terrorisht”

Basically Showtime decided this drama needed a Falstaff. Great literary plot devices never go out of style, they just are too expensive for basic cable.

Brody starts a spin campaign that Tom Walker actually betrayed the platoon’s whole position just before the capture. That Walker was a traitor to everyone in the room. They are all pretty subdued at this news, except Lauder who starts yelling “he may have lost his mind, but he would never lose his aim”. He is silenced by the crowd, but I’m starting to think it’s his body we see Brody dumping in the woods in the previews for this season.

Brody heads back home and finds Dana is still up and they have a tender father/daughter moment. She warns him to say yes to the Jess when she asks him to speak at her charity event. He asks her who she’s chatting with on her laptop and she reveals it’s the VP’s son. She notices he’s on edge and asks if he’s OK, but he reassures her of course. Glad our nation’s security is resting on a drunk, a heavily medicated bipolar, and a 16 year old!

~~~

A car delivers Carrie safely back to her sister’s house. The look on her face tells me she’s not as relieved to be back as she thought she would be when the car pulled away a few days before. The military escort tells her that she’s probably heard it a thousand times so far, but “thank you.” Carrie’s face registers that either she doesn’t feel she deserves to be thanked for a failed mission or that no one actually said that. I will file it under ‘conflicted’.

Carrie heads inside and the house is empty. I’m getting an “uh oh” feeling. She resets her watch with a wry smile at realizing she is back on EST. Then her expression turns puzzled at realizing what time it is and that no one is home. Oh, god. That was fast.

~~~

Back in Beirut Saul and Greg Kinnear are going through the materials Carrie recovered. Greg looks worse for wear and Saul sends him to bed. While stuffing the documents back into the shoulder bag he feels something sewed into the lining. Eureka!

A microchip, thank God. I thought for a minute we were going to have a terrorist story without one!

Saul fires up the memory device and lo and behold, a video of Sgt. Brody pops up. When Saul pushes play we see the carefully recorded video of Brody saying his goodbyes and his explanation for perpetrating the successful assassination of the Vice President. Well, had it been successful. I don’t know how it got into Beirut, but as I recall that video, it is clear and damning.

 “The HR paperwork on rehiring Carrie is going to be a nightmare”

~~~

Oh my god you guys! So now Saul knows everything! I’m so glad for the both of them since he took such a big risk in trusting her all last season and especially this episode. If he survives long enough to talk to her then her entire self-confidence will be restored! Of course it’s never that easy… Will Brody play this off as something they forced him to record when he was in captivity? Will he be on the run from now on? Will Saul get taken out and this knowledge along with him? Will they play Brody out all season to try to take down the main terrorist cell? What about Carrie, does she get her job back? Is her family OK? I love this show so much!

Xoxo,

MrsMiaWallace