Homeland TV Show - Yourself As The Good Guy - Homeland Photos & Videos, Homeland Reviews & Homeland Recaps | TWoP

Recapped by Jacob Clifton · Aired 11-25-2012

It's been twelve hours since Brody was whisked away in a helicopter by the time he gets back in touch with Carrie, telling her to get his family to safety immediately. We never really see what went down between Nick and Nazir, but from what he says it was pretty tense. They threatened him with torture, he drank some tea, they left him in Baltimore without a phone. From Nick's story, it would seem he reassured Nazir of his loyalty, and that was enough.

Enough to give him details on the Big Thing that was going down this week, anyway: A Special Ops homecoming from Afghanistan, 300 soldiers to be reunited with their families under the caring, watchful eye of Roya Hammad. Of course, her news van will be full of El Mysterioso's explosives, and the only people to survive will be him, Roya and Nick. David Estes arranges a "debrief" at which Nick Brody does his impression of "stoic surprise" and Walden does his usual impression of a "blustering idiot," and everybody settles in for the big show in the morning.

Of course, a lot can happen overnight. Much to Brody's rueful grin, Carrie has installed Sergeant Grace and Mike Faber at the safehouse. Jessica lasts about ten minutes before diving into Mike's bed, but honestly I think they both deserve it at this point. And back at the Shop... Hoo boy. Well, Virgil and Max have been digging into Peter Quinn's background, and once they find his apartment they are given pause. He lives like you'd expect a black-bag operator would -- sniper supplies, humble sleeping bag, freakshow paranoid precautions, scarily empty apartment -- which is weird, considering he's just an analyst. Clues lead Saul to a snippy police officer, the mother of Quinn's illegitimate baby and possibly part of another cover story entirely. The boys follow Quinn to a meeting with F. Murray Abraham, a FBI superspook named Dar Adal that scares even Saul.

As Carrie's leading a team takedown of the entire Roya plot -- and believing them to have bagged Abu Nazir in the process -- we learn what the "two hats" Peter Quinn really wears are about: Mighty CIA Analyst and goddamn angel by night... Future assassin of Nick Brody by day. But since Nazir's still out there and Brody's now his, like, only terrorist, Estes calls off the hit. So Nick has to go to the stupid ceremony after all, where he'll most likely be announced as the presumptive Vice President of the US.

A stunner of an ending, not only because it answers the question of how could Peter Quinn be more awesome? Wearing a limo driver suit and a silencer on his Glock, apparently, is the answer. The fact that he has a four-year-old son with, one assumes, an even more scrunched-up little face. All of those things being true at the same time. This show is gonna kill me.

So what's left for the three episodes? One thing I know won't happen is Roya Hammad letting these motherfuckers see her sweat. I don't think we know the whole story with Nick's Nazir time yet. Saul and Dar Adal will be working together in some way, I guess since now Quinn's secret is out, and Walden I think will announce his run, with or without Nick Brody. Somehow Dana is going to psychically figure out her mom fucked Mike Faber, which might turn her into a terrorist since she literally has nobody left at this point. There's more going on with Quinn than just him being awesome all the time -- or double awesome, as it turns out -- and I doubt Carrie's going to buddy up now that we know his main job is killing her boyfriend. I just hope everything works out for everybody.

PREVIOUSLY

After Brody lost it on Roya Hammad, only to come crawling back, her cool demeanor belied a plan to abduct him in a helicopter for a little bromance time with everybody's favorite terrorist -- who rather dubiously is just hanging out these days near our nation's capital, bringing lunatics tea and reminiscing about the good old days -- and without so much as a TTFN for Carrie and the rest of Team Quinn. Oh, and Carrie has asked her boys to look into Peter Quinn, because he is sketchy in some way she has intuited but doesn't yet have a color-blocked magic-marker strategy to decode.

12 HRS LATER

Carrie: "So it's been twelve hours since he was abducted, and it only took Roya four of those to get her ass back on TV."
Team Quinn: "The intelligence community has little to offer, as well. This being the same intelligence community, of course, that hasn't noticed Abu Nazir wandering the countryside in a giant black nightmare helicopter."
Carrie: "My boyfriend is dead. If not physically, then at least operationally. We have to look at other plans."
Quinn: "Obviously we grab Roya Hammad. I will stab her through the hand no problem."
Saul: "Or Brody's fine, in which case grabbing Roya is a burn notice on him."
Carrie: "I love it when we say things like that. But yeah. I guess we should just almost, almost grab her and then he'll coincidentally call me right before we blow his cover, like is obviously going to happen, because that's what always happens."

Saul: "Hey, are you freaking out?"
Carrie: "Am I not always freaking out?"
Saul: "Is it because Brody is operationally dead, or um, the other one?"
Carrie: "I have never been more in the mood to watch Peter Quinn stab a hand."

LOADING DOCK

Nazir: "It's been real, and it's been fun."
Brody: "Being a terrorist with you has been a highlight of a pretty shitty life, brother."
Nazir: "Do you think people at home will wonder what we talked about, since they didn't get to see it and you are the least reliable narrator to ever narrate a narrative?"
Brody: "A year ago when I did not blow myself up and everybody was asking how this show could possibly keep going, this is the kind of thing. Who knows if I am back to being your kind of crazy, or still a double-agent. Who knows, man."
Nazir: "Okay well, have fun blowing yourself up or whatever."
Brody: "In some ways you're like a nice friend, but also other ways you are a mean friend. You're like Regina George, if Regina George had access to heavy ordnance and dirty bombs."

By Jacob Clifton

SOME STORE

Nick: "Hey, do you have a payphone I can use? I am from eight years ago."

THE SHOP

Carrie: "A call from a strange number. I wonder who it could... Oh, you know what, I bet it's Brody."
Brody: "I don't feel like telling you what happened or whether or not I am back to being in Al-Qaeda, but I do want you to get somebody to spirit my family into the safety of darkness."
Carrie: "Can you give me just like a hint about what happened or if you are back in Al-Qaeda?"
Brody: "No."

Carrie: "You guys! Good -- no, great -- news. Nick Brody is back from being kidnapped!"
Saul: "Did he mention anything about what happened or if he is back in Al-Qaeda?"
Carrie: "We didn't actually get around to discussing that. I was just really happy to hear from him and see what's up, what's goin' on... Anyway, don't kidnap and torture Roya Hammad, but do get Jessica and Dana and that little boy into custody..."
Quinn: "Sure, he was just only hanging out with known terrorists for twelve hours, completely off the radar, and also he is a terrorist with about this much of a hold on reality as it is. Let's do exactly what he says. Now, who should we send to pick up Jessica and the kids?"
Carrie: "...I just had the funniest idea."

BRODY

Mike Faber: "Hey Jessica, pack a bag. I am whisking you away."
Jessica: "Oh my goodness, am I dreaming?"
Faber: "No, you are in terrible danger."

Brody Ladies: "Is this because of how Nick Brody is always letting a sister down?"
Faber: "No, it is because of the CIA. Terrorists are coming to your house to kill you."
Dana: "Fuck you, fuck my mom, fuck my dad, fuck the House of Representatives, fuck the Vice President, fuck America."
Faber: "Dana, I don't have time for your bullshit right now."
Dana: "Good thing you're essentially my real dad or I would actually be rebelling right now."
Faber: "You don't even get how awesome this is going to be. A high-rise condo with TVs in every room, enough beds for me to sleep inches away from your mother's omnipresent breasts, and even Major Mendez is going to be there! Valerie Cruz!"
Dana: "Oh, why didn't you say so. She is freakin' awesome."

By Jacob Clifton

THE SHOP

Carrie: "Okay, I sent the most hilarious person to take care of your family for you. Spoiler alert, it's not the first time! Now, where are you?"
Brody: "Remember the first time we met?"
Carrie: "How could I forget? I had so much more free time to be a supercreep back then."

CHEZ QUINN

Virgil and Max do a thorough shakedown of Quinn's apartment, which is pretty much a terrifying place to be, because it turns out Quinn is like, what you think of a spy being at their worst. Assassination, black-bag, little-kids-dying, we-did-things-that-would-make-you-hate-your-country kind of spy stuff. Like his apartment is 100% rifle-cleaning supplies, boobytraps, copies of The Catcher In The Rye, and like, just a sleeping bag, not even a pillow.

Virgil and Max get the hell out. It is too creepy. It is like the inside of a P90X person's head in there.

THE SHOP

Saul: "So fine, I knew we asked you to investigate Quinn's beeswax. So what."
Boys: "So it was creepy, is so what. He is a sniper. A secret sniper, which is like the most secret possible creep you can be. David Estes told us he was an analyst. Something is going on. Either he is a bad guy for us, or he is a bad guy for them, but he is bad news."
Saul: "With that little face? Come on. I'm so sure."
Boys: "Inside a copy of Great Expectations we found a picture of the most intense person that has ever been on this show, a tiny little police officer named Julia Diaz who has a baby with him maybe. But she is very scary, don't look her in the eye when you go talk to her."

SAFEHOUSE

Major Joy: "Sadly, I have a real job and can't just hang out with you and your kids all day, so you might never figure out how awesome I am. But I did get you some okay wine and I'm just a phone call away. There are military on either side of you, so you're safe."
Jessica: "So this top-secret CIA national security stuff, can you tell me all about it?"
Major Joy: "No? Because it is top secret."
Jessica: "I am never, ever going to understand that, okay? Now, what is going on and where is my husband and who is trying to kill us. And follow-up question, can I tell everybody I know where we are and why?"

By Jacob Clifton

PTSD CHURCH OR WHATEVER

Carrie: "Goodness, where have you been?"
Brody: "Okay where is my family?"
Carrie: "Yeah, they're fine. Let's focus on us, okay?"
Brody: "I thought I was going to fucking die!"
Carrie: "It's okay, I'm fine now. You're sweet to worry, though. And I won't say there weren't some touch-and-go moments for me, emotionally speaking, when I thought you were murdered."

They hold hands, and he pretends that he was also talking about their relationship.

Carrie: "Where did you go in that big helicopter?"
Brody: "I don't know because there was a bag on my head. But OMG, I left out the most WTF part which is that they were taking me to see Abu Nazir."
Carrie: "Twist! That's so crazy that the answer to the question Where is Abu Nazir would turn out to be, Just a short helicopter ride away from the Pentagon."

THE SHOP

Everybody: "We also cannot believe it."
Brody: "Anyway, they wired me to a car battery and I was like, Screw you guys!"
Team Quinn: "Wait, why?"
Brody: "Because screw them! I love Abu Nazir more than anybody on this Earth and he's gonna torture me? That is so rude! I killed Tom Walker like four times for that asshole!"
Saul: "Right off the bat you were just like, 'Fuckin' kill me then,' huh? Looks like we got ourselves a bad-ass over here."
Brody: "Yeah, but they never even turned the battery on. They just left it sitting there for like three hours, and then Nazir walks in with a tea tray."
Team Quinn: "From a car battery and begging for death, to having tea with Abu Nazir. This is like a story a person would make up. In their crazy person imagination. To keep us from wondering if they were back in Al-Qaeda."

THIS MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE HAPPENED

Abu Nazir: "You've been acting pretty sketch, lately. Roya said you tried to quit and you threw a hissyfit? Is this true?"
Brody: "Bro, I am just super tired of being a terrorist. It's like I keep doing these things you ask me to do, fine, and but then there's another one, and another one... And it's like jeez, how many favors does one blowed-up little kid get you these days?"
Abu Nazir: "Pretty sure Allah wants you to continue to do disgusting things that don't actually amount to a statement of anything in particular."
Brody: "How do we know the will of Allah?"
Abu Nazir: "First of all don't play theology chess with me. I am a lunatic fundamentalist, so nothing you say actually matters because I will just make God say what I want. And anyway, I'm pretty sure you have fucked up like 99% of the things we have asked you to do."
Brody: "I killed Tom Walker like a hundre..."
Abu Nazir: "It's really, it's... More about quality over quantity?"

Abu Nazir: "First of all don't play theology chess with me. I am a lunatic fundamentalist, so nothing you say actually matters because I will just make God say what I want. And anyway, I'm pretty sure you have fucked up like 99% of the things we have asked you to do."
Brody: "I killed Tom Walker like a hundre..."
Abu Nazir: "It's really, it's... More about quality over quantity?"

(Team Quinn: "What did you tell him about your hissyfit?"
Brody: "Shit like I love my family or whatever, and I was worried for them.")

Abu Nazir: "Oh, I can solve that whole 'family' problem for you real fuckin' quick."

(Team Quinn: "Whoa, so there's that. He always seems like such a nice guy in these flashbacks or lies or whatever they are. Anyway, did he tell you why he was in the country?")

Abu Nazir: "My choice was simple. Run, hide and wait for death like a cowering animal, like Bin Laden; or die taking the fight to the enemy."

DEBRIEF

This is the briefcase bomb of this season, then, which they've been talking about for two and a half months, it has finally come: "Tomorrow afternoon, the VP and I are scheduled to greet the Special Operations group returning from Afghanistan, at Dam Neck Naval Base. 300 soldiers to be reunited with their families. Nazir plans to hit the homecoming. All I have to do is get the VP's permission for Roya to come cover it."

Team Quinn: "Anything else of note?"
(They prayed together, he remembers; it's the only part that feels honest.)
Brody: "...Nope."

WAIT HERE, BRODY

Team Quinn: "Either this is a super coincidence, or this is everything working out. Or he is lying. Or he's telling the truth and Nazir is playing him. On the one hand, Nick Brody just spent twelve hours with his favorite guy, getting re-brainwashed..."
Carrie: "But on the other hand, it sounds like something Abu Nazir would totally do. Wait for those 300 American soldiers to get home and then murder them in front of their wives and children. With Roya Hammad there taping the whole thing for propaganda, and her news van all full of El Mysterioso and the Big Box Of Something Terrorists Like."
Team Quinn: "Abu Nazir really is just like Regina George. It's uncanny."
David Estes: "As much as I like to make you guys work for every fucking thing, no matter what side you're on at any given time, I guess fine. Tell him to be with Walden in 90 minutes so I can come tell them all of this information."

By Jacob Clifton

Nick: "Do you believe me? Because that's all I care about right now."
Carrie: "The part of me that is a spy feels good about that. The part of me that is a very needy woman feels great about that. The part of me that is a human person who recognizes that you are a broken animal looking for approval and/or manipulating me and thus treating me like an idiot, though, those parts feel not so great."
(Saul and Quinn act like a Greek Chorus of how fucked up both of these people are. "Is she really going out with him?" etc.)
Brody: "Oh my God, I can tell just looking at your face that you sent Mike Faber to save my family."
Carrie: "Fucked up, huh?"
Brody: "Yeah, that's pretty fucked up. It's also hilarious, though."
Carrie: "Right? That's what I thought, too."

SAFEHOUSE

Kids: "So like is Dad in the CIA now? It's always something with that guy."

Mike: "Dana, for what it's worth I kind of hate your dad too. But also I love him."
Dana: "My life has not improved markedly since his return."
Jessica: "We all feel that way, honey, but part of being an emotionally repressed WASP is that we don't talk about it. Okay?"

BIG OFFICIAL YET INFORMAL MEETING THAT IS ALSO ADDITIONALLY A LIE

Walden: "Dave, Nick. I call you by your names like that because I am the VP. And a dick."
Estes: "I don't have time for all that, sir. I just wanted to tell you that Nazir's terrorist cell is going to attack the Special Ops thing tomorrow."
Walden: "I need to throw my weight around, like, immediately. I'm just going to start yelling and see what I come up with."
Estes: "...Actually sir, we think you can help us take out the whole cell. You'd basically be like the biggest hero of all time."
Walden: "I'm listening."
Estes: "Just let Roya Hammad be there. Oh, also she is a terrorist."
Walden: "But she's so pretty! Anyway, how do I help?"
Estes: "Oh, that was it. Just letting Roya come. The rest of it will all happen while you are eating breakfast and being horrible with your horrible family."
Walden: "That's disappointing."

Walden: "I want to yell about that so hard! But I promised not to!"
Estes: "Feel free to impotently order me around if you'd like, sir."
Walden, verbatim: "Get me these terrorists, David."

Estes: "Feel better now, you supercilious prick?"
Brody: "He really is an astounding douchebag, isn't he? I'll call Roya."
Estes: "Make the call. Do it."
Brody: "Yeah, I already was. Kind of being a Walden yourself there, a little bit. I'm going to try that on the phone."

Nick: "Roya, I told him if he wants Nick Brody as his running mate, by God he'd better make the invitation at this naval base, in front of returning troops."
Roya: "That's actually a beautiful bit of bookending there, Nick. Your homecoming miracle, and then your wife making that speech that never went anywhere, and now you welcoming them home... If I weren't planning on blowing them all up, it would make a real neat human interest piece. I mean that. Oh, and on that note, you're going to want to stand pretty close to me. You feel me?"
Nick: "Yeah, I get it."
Roya: "I mean the bomb radius."
Nick: "No, I got it."

THE SHOP

Saul: "Okay, we've got some hours to kill so I'm just going to do something that is not checking up on you."
Quinn: "Cool, I'm just going to chill out here and not be totally scary or anything."

SAFEHOUSE

Dana: "All other options being exhausted, I will now be cool with my little brother."
Chris: "Let's do geometry homework."
Dana: "Okay, have you ever heard of the Donkey Theorem?"

She's a subversive one, that Dana. You wouldn't write this conversation without knowing that the Donkey Theorem doesn't work, so the point of this little aside is that Dana is being hilarious rather than helpful: You can prove triangles are congruent using two sides and an angle, but the angle has to be between the two sides (SAS, side-angle-side) and not just any old angle: Angle-side-side, or ASS, won't do it. And since you can't say "ASS" in grade school, you call it the Donkey Theorem, basically as a way of begging the question so that you get to say "ASS" in grade school without actually saying it. Kind of the AP version of typing on a calculator, if calculators even still exist.

Jessica: "I am dissatisfied, generally."

By Jacob Clifton

Jessica: "I am dissatisfied, generally."
Mike: "I am only slightly enjoying this wine, Major Mendez was correct."
Jessica: "I think you should sleep in the guest room."
Mike: "I was going to take the couch."
Jessica: "Um. No. Definitely the guest room. And have some more wine."

JULIA DIAZ, PO-PO

Saul goes to see this intense lady Julia that may have had a child with Peter Quinn. He gives her a fake name and pretends to be with the IRS, which -- even though you have probably pieced together by this point how I feel about Peter Quinn -- is smart. He does have a bit of that deadbeat-dad, tax-lien quality. Especially now that we've seen his terribly sad, scary apartment.

As far as Julia's saying, she and "John" split up four years ago, after John Jr. was born. And that, my friends, is all she's saying. Did I mention that she is about the fiercest person we've ever seen on the show? Like Aileen Margaret Morgan would look at this lady and be like, "Not before I've had my coffee, thanks."

Saul: "Could you just tell me John's last name, maybe?"
Julia: "I can confirm it for you, no problem."
Saul: "Okay, I should just go. You're giving me, Saul Berenson, the willies."
Julia: "Watch your ass, whoever you are."

(Donkey.)

MEANWHILE

Jessica wakes up, her children piled around her -- after all, they're in a safehouse waiting to be killed by terrorists -- and after about three seconds she's in Mike's room dropping her clothes, and snaking her hand immediately under the sheets. I knew, it's so weird that we know this, but don't we know this? I said aloud, "She is going for the dick straight away. It's her signature move." And then she did.

THE SHOP

Saul calls home, where Virgil is skulking, to make sure the Boys know that Peter Quinn, whoever that is, is about to get a call from the scariest lady. He does, and immediately bounces (after reassuring her, it's worth noting, that she played it just right). The Boys follow him, and he gets on a bus and then gets off the bus wearing a different jacket and hat, and gets on another bus going the opposite way. Max gets a picture of the man he randomly starts talking to on the second bus, and it is F. Murray Abraham so you know it is a big deal.

Saul: "This is Dar Adal that Quinn is working with. I knew him 18 years ago, when I ran company missions we don't talk about, into Somalia from Nairobi Station."
Boys: "It would seem we don't know everything about Peter Quinn. But maybe that's okay, because the things we are learning just get more and more unsettling."

Or not. I mean, it's The Mighty Quinn. He's everywhere and nowhere. If you stopped loving people on this show just because they do evil shit, you wouldn't even watch the show. And he is wearing a limo driver uniform and packing a very large, very scary gun. Which as it turns out really does it for me, which is not a thing I knew or could have guessed about myself, but I'm willing to still blame it on Quinn. It may well be, I'm saying, Quinn-dependent.

But mostly, this is fine with me because Rupert Friend said a neat thing about Quinn after this episode, which is basically that he's one of those black-bag guys that is in so deep that everything becomes patriotism, that he is able to do these awful things -- hand-stabbing things -- because terrorists are so awful, and he just hates them. Like a junkyard dog hates intruders. It doesn't matter if the dog is a sweet dog, it matters that your junk is safe.

It's something that I think about a lot, letting yourself be the bad guy if you can handle that. That sometimes loving and protecting America means cutting little chunks out of your own soul, to the degree that you can handle that. I think regular people find that a lot less appealing than, say, I do. That movie The Dark Knight was so great because they kept coming back to this central idea of, doing good things for no credit is just a step away from doing bad things for good reasons, and being vilified for it. If you can handle being hated, if you can handle being the bad guy, it really opens up the playing field as far as stuff you can do. I mean, there's your parallel with Carrie, who was willing to blow Saul Berenson of all people once upon a time, to get the job done. Who was willing -- like a week or so ago -- to send the man she loved to Gitmo, if he didn't manage to snap her neck first, to get the job done. The job being, of course, to save the world.

The major reason I love soldiers and anybody with a calling, in fact, is because of this idea, that service of any kind means laying down your own stupid ego on behalf of something bigger. And "Yourself As The Good Guy" is always the most elusive part of your ego, because there is nothing in the world that is ever going to convince you to let it go. Yourself As The Good Guy is the only thing for which you will spend your life receiving 100% validation and encouragement for at all times -- which makes sacrificing it practically unthinkable. Turn it a few degrees, and you get Walden, huffing and puffing and trying to be in charge of taking down Abu Nazir through sheer force of bluster. I tend to find Yourself As The Good Guy pretty nauseating, a lot of the time, because it inevitably seems to end up with you treating other people pretty poorly, in order to maintain it.

But where the parallels get real interesting is that, once you see all these people sacrificing their own self-love and self-interest in the pursuit of ideals, then you can arrive back at terrorists fairly quickly. The only line any of these people can draw -- even Nick does it a couple times an episode, generally -- is that Abu Nazir kills innocent people on purpose, to make a point, while America supposedly only does this by accident. Which is a fine line to draw for yourself, of course. But look at it from Quinn's perspective, from the Dark Knight perspective, and you can see how addictive that self-sacrifice would be, for Abu Nazir himself, for a terrorist: Killing soldiers in war is a bad thing you do for good reasons, so how much stronger and self-effacing must you be to kill innocents? Or yourself?

Nobody ever said Abu Nazir didn't have a point. I mean, it's obscured to the point of illegibility by his actions, but for me, the definition of a terrorist is somebody who doesn't feel heard, so they speak as loudly as they feel they need to: "Terror," because we weren't listening in the first place and we wouldn't listen otherwise. Sometimes it's a lot clearer to just look at terrorists that way, as people with a grudge that at one point made sense; people who have been driven crazy by feeling trapped, in one way or another. Philosophy or religion are merely the clothing that age-old dynamic wears, not the point of it, but it seems like inevitably that's how we end up trying to explain terrorists to each other. That it's driven by one active agenda or another, rather than being a desperate reaction to a world that has stopped making sense to the person. So afraid they have to scare you back.

By Jacob Clifton

SAFEHOUSE

With seconds to spare, Jessica realizes that her kids will probably find her naked in the arms of their real dad, so she shoots back into her clothing and runs! But no, they are still asleep. Oh well. She'll just have to try harder to tank her marriage time.

THE BIG OP

Goes like this: Roya and her crew are going to have breakfast at some diner before the big homecoming event, and while they're doing that El Mysterioso's team is going to be trading out film canisters in her van for lookalikes full of C4. Everything happens very, very fast once this begins, but for now everybody's just getting ready and/or having their terrorism breakfasts. Carrie's had eyes on Roya since six AM, and there are tactical teams everywhere, and various CIA vehicles, and the only thing we don't know is whether or not the guys in her actual news team are also terrorists. I'm guessing not.

Carrie: "Do you guys think maybe that is Abu Nazir in that other van with El Mysterioso? He said he wanted to be directly involved. And it would really fix like everything that is wrong with my life, if it were him. Think about it. Nick Brody gave him to us, so that whole heroic narrative could actually come true. And I would have stopped 9/11 Part II thanks to being the world's foremost Abu Nazir expert, so probably I could have my job back and not have to be under Quinn anymore. Maybe that delusional lie I told Brody was neither delusional nor a lie!"

Except, of course, that it depends on Abu Nazir being in the van. To be fair, it's very much like the one that Nick saw him go away in after their man-date that we don't really know what happened, so maybe he could be. It just seems unlikely that Abu Nazir would be chilling in this parking lot with a bunch of bombs, when he could be off doing higher-level stuff. Or even just admin stuff.

Saul: "Who's really running this operation, David? You? Or Dar Adal? And Quinn, who is he really? What are his orders?"
Estes: "He's here to kill terrorists, Saul. Just like all of us."

("This is a Nick Brody-Shooting hat, I said. I shoot Nick Brodys in this hat.")

Team Quinn finally orders the various tactical teams out, and everybody goes down in a freakin' hail of bullets, I can't even tell if Roya's okay but they storm the diner, they get everybody down, all the Team Mysterioso guys are dead, and just as Quinn's pulling up to a person's house in his limo-driving hat, Carrie flips over the driver of the van: Not the Sandman. Not Abu Nazir.

Which sucks, because how amazing would it be if you wrapped this shit up by 9 AM today, you know? But also, somehow when certainties fall apart things feel less solid than they would have if you'd never thought about it. You know? Like, if that guy really was the Sandman, the whole world would be different. Literally Carrie's entire life, small and harsh as it is, would be completely different. Winning the lottery different. And Nick would be the greatest hero, and they'd both be saved. Today could have been a very good day.

But instead, everything is uncertain. All those questions come back: Did Nick think Nazir would be there? Did he know for a fact he wasn't? Was Nick getting played? Was this all just a coincidence? Was this a Queen's Gambit, giving up Roya so that Nick would be stranded, or worse, desperate in the silence? Did they even stop the Big Event? Was this thing a trap they nearly fell into, or is something else -- Nazir loves this move too, right? -- is something else happening elsewhere and we didn't know. Because Brody planted the idea that it was worth blowing Roya's cover, taking her off the board, telling Walden about Nazir, all of it was worth it because today could have been a very good day.

By Jacob Clifton

Saul: "Who's really running this operation, David? You? Or Dar Adal? And Quinn, who is he really? What are his orders?"
Estes: "He's here to kill terrorists, Saul. Just like all of us."

("This is a Nick Brody-Shooting hat, I said. I shoot Nick Brodys in this hat.")

By Jacob Clifton

BRODY

But for one guy, at least, it actually is. Just before Nick gets into Peter's car, just before that silenced Glock comes out of the glovebox, Estes calls Peter and tells him to stand down. For now.

Nick: "Why the fuck are you at my house, dressed incredibly cute? If I had my pick of people taking me to this big event that may or may not be a bloodbath, I would not pick you."
Quinn: "Actually I'm here to watch your back. We got everybody but Nazir, who is still out there and probably now knows that you are a double-agent. So I am your best friend in the world, right now. Isn't that funny?"
Nick: "Well, based on the way Jess smelled on the phone, that position might actually be open. So wait, you're not going to stab me again? Or kill me because the whole idea that I would live through this is, let's be honest, absolutely ludicrous?"
Quinn: "I am your best friend in the world right now. Let's not overthink it."

WEEK

The jig is up, as far as Dar Adal and the whole monstrosity there, so I guess Estes is going to stop playing around and let everybody work together. I'm guessing Carrie is not going to immediately find out that Peter Quinn's actual job is to murder her boyfriend, but we can content ourselves in the meantime with imagining the faces she will make when she does.

JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife and Homeland for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, his novel The Urges, and a novelette, "The Commonplace Book," appeared this month on Tor.com.

Homeland TV Show - Yourself As The Good Guy - Homeland Photos &amp; Videos, Homeland Reviews &amp; Homeland Recaps | TWoP

Homeland TV Show - Yourself As The Good Guy - Homeland Photos & Videos, Homeland Reviews & Homeland Recaps | TWoP