Last night’s episode of Homeland had, in my estimation, three main objectives. The first: Trying to convince us that Carrie has really, truly changed this time. No longer is Ms. Mathison the white-wine-swilling nervous wreck of yore, y’all—Carrie’s nine months sober, even going so far as to turn down a drink from her billionaire boss on a rooftop where both casually note the sound of nearby gunfire. (“It’s probably just a wedding,” says Carrie, a woman incapable of separating love from the threat of imminent death.)
Carrie’s totally done with the CIA, too, outright refusing to share any information about her current post with her former colleagues, which makes her look suspicious and also just kind of rude. (Like, Carrie, are you really in a position to turn down friends right now? I can’t even remember the last time you chilled with somebody you weren’t trying to murder, bribe, or sleep with.) Apparently, Carrie’s cut CIA ties because she’s not lonely anymore, so she doesn’t feel the same burning desire to hurl herself into the path of rabid terrorists. As she explains to During about her “adventurous” past as a reckless CIA agent, “I was different then. I was younger, and I was alone.” Now, she explains, she has somebody waiting for her at home — her reasonable ginger boyfriend, who is basically Brody minus the desire to end hundreds of human lives (well, at least as far as we know), and her daughter, Franny, who’s doing remarkably well for a baby who almost met her end at the hands of her own mother during a languid evening bath.
The episode’s second objective: To remind us that nobody on Homeland can be trusted. In one corner, we’ve got Allison calmly throwing Saul under the bus by suggesting to Dar Adal that the CIA blame Mandy F*cking Patinkin — the menschiest man alive, a man who inspires poetry in my very soul — for the entire German security debacle instead of her (more on this in a moment). In another corner, we’ve got the always-trusty Hezbollah dudes turning their backs on Carrie, promising to protect her, but then trying to blast her into the stratosphere. In yet a third corner, we’ve got Peter Quinn killing a woman who, in her last moments, appeared to recognize him, suggesting they had some kind of past relationship, perhaps romantic or professional. I mean, sure, she was recruiting young girls for ISIS, but damn, Quinn. The function of this plot point was to suggest that Quinn has no problem taking out people he knows personally, because he is a stone-cold assassin with severe and untreated PTSD. In other words, everybody on Homeland‘s gotta stay woke.
Which brings us to the third and final objective: Lastly, and most unforgivably, last night’s Homeland wanted us to turn on Mandy Patinkin (I will henceforth refer to Saul only as Mandy Patinkin, as the two are inextricable). Homeland would have us believe that Mandy Patinkin, Carrie’s longtime mentor and BFF, has hardened his heart so profoundly that he has no problem asking Quinn to murder her. At the end of the episode, Quinn picked up Mandy’s latest coded mission, which was to end Carrie’s life, probably because she’s going around town acting shady as hell.
But it matters not why Mandy wants to kill Carrie. What matters is that the very notion upsets the balance of both Homeland and the entire natural universe, which is a universe in which Mandy Patinkin would never murder Carrie Mathison. This is not the Mandy Patinkin I voted for. This is not the Mandy Patinkin I fell in love with. Homeland, for this, I abhor you.
Anyway, now that I’ve relinquished Homeland forever, let’s move on to the episode’s real stars:
Chin quiver of the week: Though Carrie’s “changed” (at least on a surface level), Claire Danes’ cryface remains. This episode’s best chin quiver took place as Carrie bid adieu to During, explaining to her boss that she’d have to stay behind in Beirut to figure out why Hezbollah was trying to blow him to kingdom come. Her face was brave, but as always, that shaking chin betrayed her.
Beard of the week: This is tough — mainly because of Mandy Patinkin — but I’m going to have to go with Carrie’s German boyfriend, whose facial hair vastly improves his entire face in this episode.
What’s in Carrie’s ubiquitous messenger bag this week: A gun!
Betrayal of the week: Homeland, to me, by suggesting that Mandy Patinkin is capable of assassinating his best friends.
