Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in Homeland (Season 2, Episode 11).
All season long, Greg Otto and Tierney Sneed will be recapping Showtime's Homeland, and discuss what they're hoping to see in the rest of the season.
Tierney: For the most part, I really liked this week's episode. It came full circle from the beginning of Homeland, with Carrie fulfilling her longtime goal of getting Nazir. But also in smaller ways, like the scene when she washed herself off in the sink, as she did in the first episode of the series. And Brody showing up at Carrie's doorstep this time around — for better or worse — seemed to play out exactly as she had hoped it would a season ago, when he showed up at her doorstop only to rat her out.
I also liked that we got crazy Carrie — googly-eyed, shaky Carrie, who, knowingly or not, essentially collaborates with a terrorist — and Jack Bauer-Carrie, getting her No Easy Day moment with Abu Nazir. And I held my breath for that entire cat and mouse chase in the tunnels: that was good television.
But, I still don't know if I am digesting Brody's storyline. He is framing the pacemaker operation as a Walden-or-Carrie situation (invoking the vomit-inducing line, "It was either you or Walden, Carrie. It wasn't even close."), but in the moment, he was pretty enthusiastic about killing the VP, and his reaction to Nazir's death seemed pretty "Team Abu" to me. But, I'm even more thrown off by his desire to finally come clean to Jess. What's his end game here?
Greg: I don't know that there is still an end game for Brody to complete. His own enemy (Walden) and the bigger enemy (Nazir) are both dead. I think the most telling scene for Brody was in the car with Jess, it which he admits that there was nothing anyone — even himself — could do to ease his return to normal life. They both realize Brody has been broken for longer than either one of them accounted for, so everyone needs to find a different path and move on. But there is no way the CIA is going to let Brody run off into Carrie's arms without consequence.
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11/26: A Tale of 'Two Hats'
11/19: Soap Opera Spies
11/12: We're All Out in the Open
11/05: The Battle of Gettysburg
10/29: New Spy, New Lies
10/22: New Car Smell, Old Carrie Revenge
10/15: Between Rock Bottom and a Hard Place
10/08: Brody's SMS SOS
The Carrie I enjoyed seeing was the "defiant-but-oh-so-wrong" Carrie, moving to capture a co-worker based on a ridiculous hunch involving his religious beliefs (The weekly "wildly implausible" segment of the show) and trying to crack Roya during their interrogation session. Season 1 Carrie would have been a complete wreck after Roya went beserk, but being buoyed by her "sixth sense" about Nazir, she trusted her instincts, and once again, protected the homeland. If nothing else, Carrie has proven that, for all of her baggage, she will always be the best asset the CIA has in stopping terrorists.
I just wish the show would stick to being a spy show instead of crossing into daytime soap territory. All great spy stories have some level of sexual intrigue, but its primarily used as a means of deception to allow characters to gain an upper hand. Carrie and Brody seem to genuinely love each other, which is great, if this were a Lifetime movie. But the relationship (and the show) thrived when it tiptoed around a layer of deceit. Everything is now out in the open, the "good guys" have won, and now we must endure what is setting up to be a season finale that will be a mix of 24 and Bonnie & Clyde. I'm not as excited as I was a season ago, when we were all left hanging on the switch of a trigger.
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