“Homeland” is back in full swing, and things are just as up in the air for Carrie as in the previous seasons. Only what’s Saul’s deal? He said he wasn’t going to throw her under the bus, but he did just that at the end of this episode.
Carrie is smack in the middle of a hearing about the attack on Langley a couple months earlier. The agency is crippled and in tatters. She goes through the rundown with the idiot chairman (or IS he an idiot?). Yes, she was fired last year for conducting an unauthorized surveillance and taking home classified documents. And yes, her mission upon her return was to expose Abu Nazir’s whereabouts in this country.
They give her a document noting that Brody has immunity if he’d help the CIA. Carrie said she doesn’t think Brody knew the bomb was in his car. “Just what is it you’re smoking, Miss Mathison,” says the chairman. Ugh, politicians. Always so cuddly.
Carries heads outside to get some air and leaves a notebook full of scribbles that her counselor looks at and sighs. Except… those are just the kind of scribbles that prove, in my mind, there’s a lot going on inside Carrie’s head. Outside, Carrie calls Saul and wants to know who leaked the memo about Brody’s immunity. Seriously, can’t we all just get along?
At the CIA, Saul, now acting director, is telling operations director Dar Adal that, no, he won’t throw Carrie under the bus (really?). But things aren’t looking good for the CIA. The government seems to be throwing THEM under the bus, especially given the fact that no repairs have been made to the giant hole left by the attack.
Dana leaves the facility where she’s been since a month ago when she got into a bathtub and slit her wrists. Her counselor tells Jessica she needs ongoing treatment, but Jess says they have no insurance and her mom had to reverse mortgage her house just to pay for treatment. Ripped from the headlines. As Dana says later, though – after dodging press on the way home – when the government brands you as a traitor, government benefits start to taper off.
In her room, she takes her top off and sends a naked selfie pic to the guy she met in treatment. He responds by sending one back. Um, something tells me that’s not a smart thing to do.
Saul meets with the National Security Advisor and they agree that Javadi, a.k.a. The Magician, is the guy they should be chasing.
Back at home, Carrie finds her dad looking at her intel on all the places Brody may have been in the past few months. He asks if she’s off her lithium. Yes, “but it’s all good,” she tells him. “I feel good.” She’s following a doctor-supervised program – running six miles a day, sleeping eight hours. It’s working, she says. “You think it is,” he says. He’s got a point. some stuff can’t be cured by exercise.
But she’s got a point too. The lithium makes her only “half-there,” and maybe that’s why she missed the signs of the Langley attack. “It was right in front of my eyes and I never saw it coming.” Don’t you feel like she should be in a different line of work?
Back at the hearing the next day, Carrie has to account for 14 hours in the aftermath of the attack. Per her previously written statement, she was in the ladies room and was knocked out by the blast, where she remained for 14 hours.
The annoying chairman says people saw her leave with Brody. Her counsel says she’s going to assert her constitutional right to not be a witness for herself. The chairman is really ticking me off, but is he right…? He expresses contempt for the CIA and says she’ll pay for what she did someday. That’s uncalled for.
At the CIA, Saul gives the order to take out six bad guys in various countries, but only if Quinn makes his connection in Venezuela. He does, planting his home-made bomb, but ends up killing a kid in the process. I thought Saul said they’re not in the assassination business.
But shortly thereafter, all targets are made, and they all have CIA-issued Wizard of Oz names: Tin Man, Toto, Scarecrow, Dorothy, Cowardly Lion…
Carrie buys booze (I guess?) at the store and ends up having sex in her house with some random guy she sees at the store. She’s off the rails. And things don’t get any better the next morning, when there’s a big fat story in the paper about an unidentified CIA agent who was having sexual relations with Brody.
She goes to find Saul and slaps the paper down in front of him, accusing him of leaking the story. He says he didn’t; he thinks Adal’s the culprit. Adal seems skeevy to me too.
But later at a senate hearing, Saul does appear to throw Carrie under the bus, saying she has a history of erratic behavior and she’s been diagnosed as bipolar, a condition she concealed from her superiors. And oh yes, she also concealed the fact that she was sleeping with Brody.
I don’t know what I’d do in her position right now. Go find Brody and live happily ever after? What say you?
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