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Most of the episode focuses, of course, on Brody's post-arrest interrogation. In fact, we only step outside that basic scenario after nearly half the episode has gone by: Dana and Finn commit a hit-and-run that will presumably bind them together, Tyra/Landry style, while Jessica spends the day getting the runaround from one of Nick's functionaries (at David Estes's request) that moves her divorce threats pretty close to the line.
Peter Quinn spends this first third of the episode trying to get to the bottom of things with Nick, so we see a lot of different colors there. While the character moments are nice, and it's always fun to see what is actually going on inside Nick's mind -- and you won't catch me complaining about any time we get to spend with Quinn -- the show knows we don't really care. It's about Brody, and Carrie, and catharsis for all of us. So by the time Quinn has slow-burned into a rage he later pretends was a "Bad Cop" act and fully stabbed the kid through his terrorist hand, it seems like everybody's as ready as we are for act two.
Which, um, does not disappoint. Last week's explosive hotel stuff was all about pulling out their emotional resentments, pushing the blisters until they popped, and that delirious feeling that one of them still might end up killing the other hangs over this week for sure. But without much to say on the intrapersonal-disappointment front -- at this point, explicitly saying "I was in love with you and you put me in the loony bin" is kind of as far as that sort of thing can go -- this week we turn the Carrie & Nick show toward the real, secret seed of everything: An American Prisoner Of War Has Been Turned. But why? And how can such a thing happen? And how can it be fixed?
The righteous anger and concern that Carrie showed last week about this subject -- her utter confusion and rage that the man she loves could love a man that took so much from him, and that's poised to take so much from everybody -- blossoms into an on-the-cuff, improv game of mental cat and mouse: Her attempt to interrogate the truth out of Nick Brody becomes an attempt to interrogate the crazy out of Nick Brody. And she does, actually, pretty well.
While they have the Real Or Not Real, multiple-layer compartmentalized spy-identity thing in common, Carrie's never been brainwashed or radicalized or converted to a new religion. So she approaches with what she knows of him, what she knows of the betrayals of reality that madness can bring about, and an appeal to the thing they're both so desperate and thirsty for: Actual, authentic truth.
With heartbreaking compassion and some radical admissions -- "I want you to leave your wife and children for me" is just one of the insane, true sentiments she airs over the hour -- Carrie manages to break through years of Nick's conditioning. At least, enough that he turns over Roya Hammad and some details about the life and death of the Tailor (Still funny! How?) and, by episode's end, has assumed an entirely new shape.
As much as last week seemed to change the show irreversibly, this episode -- which will be hailed in years to come as a classic, not only for this series or genre, but of dramatic television full stop -- goes even further. The episode's finish finds Carrie and Brody delineating their spy/asset cover story as a resumption of their affair (Real Or Not Real?), Saul and Quinn retargeting Operation Brody once again, and Brody coming clean to his wife about his new position with the CIA. Which should complicate everything and endanger everyone quite nicely, actually.
week: I give. From the title I'd imagine it has to do with the fallout from Bassel the Tailor, maybe. And given the way the story is working I'd say something like, "Brody's first mission as a CIA operative goes hilariously wrong in every possible way!" Except instead of hilarious, because it's this show, you would say bodycount. "Everything goes bodycountly wrong."
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Carrie was right. Congressman Nicholas Brody was brought in for questioning. Nobody knows where he is.
AFTERMATH
Carrie stands around, looking very wiggly; inside, Nick taps his foot and stares at the cameras. By the time David gets there, he's fuming.
Estes: "Was this not a surveillance operation?"
Quinn: "Have you ever seen this show? 'If you want to make God laugh, tell Carrie Mathison your plan.'"
Saul: "She says he made her. She barked at him about the ECT thing, and he saw her in there, and so she went upstairs before he could signal anybody."
Quinn: "Which would make sense, if we believe Carrie. Except she's overemotional and reckless."
Estes: "Is it misogynist to refer to Carrie as 'emotional' and 'reckless'?"
Quinn: "This ain't Tumblr, don't overthink it. It's not that bitches are crazy, it's that this particular bitch is a crazy person. Now, get out of my way. I have a Congressman in secret detention what needs stabbin'."
Estes: "Carrie, Quinn is going to question Brody. We have maybe 24 hours before Nazir's people figure out he's been made, and they go to ground or pick somebody new for whatever this season's big op is. Meanwhile, I will go back out into the world and lie to absolutely everybody about absolutely everything for the duration."
Carrie: "With respect, I think I should question him."
Saul: "Clearly that is what's going to happen. Give it about ten minutes, Peanut. And remember that you have no right to be here in the first place."
QUINN
Brody: "I'm a United States congressman. You can't just kidnap me and shackle me to the fucking floor..."
Quinn: "Wrong. Thanks to Obama and Baby Bush and your buddies in Congress, we can do basically anything we want."
Brody: "Oh, my civil liberties! Oh, the price we pay for the illusion of safety! Oh, the chill of a TSA agent's gloved hand moving up my thigh!"
Quinn: "So like, you understand that we're taping you and everything that happens in here will be used against you in your trial? Your treason trial?"
Brody: (Eventually screams, breaking for the first time, for a lawyer that will never arrive.)
The report says that Brody was captured in 2003 and subjected to five years of profound and constant torture. "Brutally beaten, electricity, isolation..." These are knowns, facts. They aren't the truth.
Quinn: "Am I getting things right so far? It's important that we're accurate."
Brody: "I'm totally off the grid right now, huh? Do you not see the irony of this?"
Quinn: "Don't be cute. Why did the torture stop, after five years? And who is Issa?"
Brody: "I told Carrie that weekend, he was just one of my guards."
Quinn: "You're somehow forgetting that Abu Nazir's youngest son was named Issa? That he was killed at his madrassa during an American drone strike?"
Brody: "No idea."
Saul, unnecessarily: "Peter Quinn is using basic interrogation techniques."
Carrie, unnecessarily: "Yes. He is using them."
Field Manual 2-22.3: 8-45. (Interrogation) The emotional-pride and ego-down approach is based on attacking the source's ego or self-image. The source, in defending his ego, reveals information to justify or rationalize his actions. This information may be valuable in answering collection requirements or may give the HUMINT [human intelligence] collector insight into the viability of other approaches...
Quinn: "In your original debrief you said you never met Abu Nazir. Yet according to Carrie Mathison's addendum, you and he were quote 'sitting in a tree.' Explain?"
Brody: "She's lying. I guess because she is a loon, and because she's obsessed with me."
This approach is effective with sources who have displayed weakness or feelings of inferiority. A real or imaginary deficiency voiced about the source, loyalty to his organization, or any other feature can provide a basis for this technique.
These are facts. But they're not the truth.
Quinn: "You converted to Islam?"
Brody: "Lie, see above re: lying liars named Carrie."
Quinn: "Okay, how come Tom Walker shot Elizabeth Gaines on December 17?"
Brody: "I'm guessing he was going after VP Walden. And just missed his target."
Quinn: "See, I think maybe it was to trigger Secret Service protocols and get everybody down in the State Department panic room without security checks. 27 of the richest and whitest of the rich white guys that run our entire world. All in there with you. Plus a bomb."
Brody: [Runs through another set of denials of everything we just talked about.]
That's when Quinn plays the tape.
"My name is Nicholas Brody, and I'm a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. I have a wife and two kids, who I love. [I'll be right back.] By the time you watch this, you'll have read a lot of things about me, about what I've done. That's why I wanted to explain myself. (door closes) So that you'll know the truth. On May 19, 2003, as part of a two-man sniper team serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom..."
Saul: "So now he watches that video, and then we keep him awake for a long time. It can be fun to break a broken thing."
OTHER PEOPLE
Finn: "Let's have a conversation about family things."
Dana: "That wouldn't be very interesting. I'm sure the nice people at home would rather watch Carrie and Nick Brody vibing at each other for like eleven hours."
Finn: "You're right. My bad."
Jessica: "Where's my husband? I kicked him out of the house and now he's not in the house that I kicked him out of. That makes me mad!"
Everybody: "Shut up, Jessica. Forever."
Greg Merriles: "I have something to do with Nick's job as a Congressman."
Estes: "Lie to everybody about everything. It is for the CIA."
Greg Merriles: "I don't respond well under pressure. That is why I work for the House of Representatives, which nobody even knows what they do."
Estes: "Just lie about everything, okay? Tell people he has the flu. Or diarrhea. People don't ask questions once you drop the d-bomb. I learned this from The Mindy Project."
Greg Merriles: "Girl, I love that show!"
Jessica: "Brody, I am very mad your voicemail!"
Greg Merriles: "Nobody cares! That is the truth!"
QUINN
Quinn: "Did you like that movie?"
Brody: "No sir."
Quinn: "But you remember who Issa was, now? And you loved him? And his dad?"
Brody: "Yeah, all those things. And then he was killed in a drone strike ordered by the Vice President of the United States, whom I prefer to think of as a war criminal."
Quinn: "So that morning, you put on a suicide vest..."
Brody: "Nope. No vest, no bomb, no sweat dropping off my pasty face. No bomb went off, and I killed no one. You've got nothing on me. No real evidence at all."
Quinn: "It reeks, you know."
Brody: "My bullshit?"
Quinn: "Your marriage. Do you think Jessica would like this movie?"
Brody: "Are you kidding me? She fucking lives for this shit. This is like infinity points in the sick game she calls life."
8-46. The HUMINT collector accuses the source of weakness or implies he is unable to do a certain thing. This type of source is also prone to excuses and rationalizations, often shifting the blame to others. An example of this technique is opening the collection effort with the question, "Why did you surrender so easily when you could have escaped by crossing the nearby ford in the river?" The source is likely to provide a basis for further questions or to reveal significant information if he attempts to explain his surrender in order to vindicate himself. He may give an answer such as, "No one could cross the ford because it is mined."
Quinn: "Chris is what, twelve? The age you really need a dad to look up to. A role model that, you know, is not a jihadist murderer."
Brody: "I don't even know that kid, first of all, and second of all he's in about five seconds of every episode."
So Quinn abruptly stabs Brody through the hand. Like his day could get worse. Saul runs in there, big ol' bear of a man, and pulls Peter off Nick. Everybody is real tense.
FM 34-52, Chapter Five: At times, a situation will occur in which none of the available interrogators speaks the target language well enough to conduct an interrogation. When this occurs the senior interrogator coordinates with S1/G1 for procurement of native interpreters. The senior interrogator maintains a list of available interpreters. He compares this list with the qualifications of his subordinate interrogators and the information listed on the screening report. Based on this comparison, the senior interrogator can then assign the best qualified interpreter and interrogator.
Carrie: "Put me in, Coach."
JESSICA
Greg Merriles: "Nothing Hinky Going On, Incorporated!"
Jessica: "Is something hinky going on?"
Greg Merriles: "My reply is, No!"
Jessica: "Do you think he would like some chicken noodle soup? I hear that is a thing that people do, bring other people soup."
Greg Merriles: "It's not that kind of flu!"
Greg Merriles: "Estes, Jessica made me. I did not lie so good."
Estes: "Well, I'm sorry that you are in such a tight spot, but maybe you should think about lying better. What part of 'the CIA is doing stuff' do you not understand?"
Greg Merriles: "I am so stressed out! Neither my presence nor my role has been explained thus far and already I am getting it from the scariest people on this entire show!"
HUMINT
"You broke my heart, you know. Was that easy for you? Was that fun? Because of you, I questioned my own sanity. I had myself committed to a mental institution. I lost my job, too. I lost my place in the world. I lost everything."
"Did you even think about me when you went to Estes? Tell me you at least felt a... Pang of regret. A teeny little sliver of guilt."
"You said before that I'm obsessed with you. You really think that?"
"It's a one-way street? You have no feelings for me? Go ahead. I'm a big girl, I can take it. Come on, Brody. Look me in the eye."
Brody: "I'm sorry... I hurt you."
Carrie: "'Hurt'? Fuck you. Answer the question."
Brody: "Oh, for Christ's sake, Carrie. We were playing each other."
Carrie: "I wasn't. I remember thinking I was exactly where I belonged."
Facts aren't truth. Human intelligence is a paradox; it twists back on itself. The reason it's called pride-and-ego down isn't just about hurting the subject. It's about demonstrating that our world is quite big, and we are very, very small in it. Truth accomplishes this. Truths inside of truths inside of truths. If it hurts at first, my field manual would read, tell the truth like it's a lie. Pretty soon you won't need the artifice at all.
8-47. The objective is for the HUMINT collector to use the source's sense of pride by attacking his loyalty, intelligence, abilities, leadership qualities, slovenly appearance, or any other perceived weakness. This will usually goad the source into becoming defensive, and he will try to convince the HUMINT collector he is wrong. In his attempt to redeem his pride and explain his actions, the source may provide pertinent information.
One of my favorite scenes of any movie -- and I mean I have a religious reverence for this moment, I mean that it factors into a lot of the way I see the world on a day-to-day basis -- is the part at the end of Manchurian Candidate where the whole deck is Red Queens. Whatever that does, that ineffable truth that is being explained there -- the lie opens up to contain the entirety of the universe inside of a person's mind, and thereby becomes the truth -- it does to me also, when I think about it. If everything is a trigger, than nothing is a trigger. If you can contain the world, you'll realize you already do.
Brody: "I know what you're doing. And it's not going to work."
If you can tell so many lies at once that you explode the notion of a lie itself, you can do whatever you want to a person. The elasticity of reality, it's what all interrogation is based on, and brainwashing. Use the person's body as a weapon against his mind; chase him through the halls of his mind, pursued only by his own sense of self. Ego down. Change the perspective they're using to look at it, the thing they're protecting, and you change the leverage. Gravity goes a different way, suddenly.
(Possible targets for the emotional-pride and ego-down approach are the source's: Loyalty. Technical competence. Leadership abilities. Soldierly qualities.)
Stands to reason then, if you can tell so many truths at once that you explode the notion of truth itself, you could do the same thing. A deck of Red Queens. And the way this would work is that it's a sacrifice of self. Brainwashing is a way of making yourself God, for one person, in one tiny universe. The opposite of that, then: This is a sacrifice of self. Of acknowledging your own smallness in the universe. Inviting him to be less alone, with every truth; inviting him into a spell that heals you both. Not his ego down, but yours. Armor dropping to the floor.
"I'm just happy to be talking to you again."
How else would you define love?
QUINN
Saul: "Are you kidding me with that stabbing move?"
Quinn: "Let's just say I did it on purpose, okay?"
Maybe he did. Maybe Peter knew it had to end like this, with a boy and a girl and a table between them. If so, then he's learning. There's a curve to it.
Quinn: "...Is she turning off the fucking cameras?"
Saul: "One by one. Not the mics, though. Settle."
ALONE AT LAST
"Alone at last."
She takes off his handcuffs. She lays the cards out, one by one. They consider them, together. In the movie it was the Queen of Diamonds, but that's not the Queen they're looking at now. She spreads them out. They make a picture, if you look at them right; they can tell your future.
"You said up at the cabin that you didn't have anyone to talk to. Did you... Did you ever find anybody? A friend? A therapist? Never went back to that support group, did you? Why?"
Brody: "I don't know."
"People always ask me about the war. Was it as bad as everyone says? I never know what to tell them. My interpreter was burned alive and then hung from a bridge."
He wants to hold her, for a second. She's not looking at him when it happens. They crawl into it together.
"No one survives intact."
Truths inside truths.
Carrie: "What do you say when people ask you what it was like over there?"
Brody: "As little as possible. And if they insist, I lie. Tell them stories they want to hear."
"It's the lies that undo us. It's the lies we think we need to survive."
The truths, too. The truths undo us more, and better. How better to define love?
Carrie: "When was the last time you told the truth?"
Brody: "About five minutes ago, when I said I didn't wear a bomb."
Carrie: "God damn it. Okay, fine. You never wore a bomb... But you did make a suicide tape? That just randomly ended up in Beirut, in a Hezbollah Commander's house? You are drowning in lies."
Brody: "Walden lied too! The drone strike, the..."
Carrie: "And you're not like him. You're not a war criminal, not a monster."
"But Abu Nazir is. His pattern is to target innocent civilians and inflict mass casualties. Kenya 1998, a busy marketplace. Madrid 2004, a packed commuter train. Last spring, a department store in Amsterdam. He doesn't strike soldiers and high-ranking murderers like Walden. He kills wives, and children. Danas and Chrises and Jessicas."
"I know that you think that he was kind to you, that he saved you, but the truth is he systematically pulled you apart, Brody. Piece by piece, until there was nothing left but pain. And then he relieved the pain, and he put you back together again as someone else."
There is no better definition. It's what she's doing now. It what undoes us all, in the end. Love is lions in the desert, ripping you apart. The best you can hope for is that when they put you back together you're better than you were before.
"He gave you a boy to love, and then that other monster, Walden, took that boy away. Between the two of them, they made your life a misery..."
Wouldn't it be a relief to stop lying?
"For instance, if I stopped lying, I could say to you Brody, I want you to leave your wife and children, and be with me."
She laughs, a quick and sharp, an unbelievably beautiful sound. The sound of truth, ringing like a bell. She laughs because it feels good. When you jump like this, gravity goes another way. Living inside your smallness, for just that moment of ecstasy, of revelation, feels very big. Very brave. Ego down. You stick your hand in the lion's mouth, you get the world. He wants to feel that too.
"I said it. I'm still alive. Try it."
He won't. She reminds him that Dana called him, on Carrie's phone, the morning he didn't kill anyone. She needs him to admit it, on the tape. She needs him to admit it. There is a thing going on in there, where the vest is a point of no turning back. First because it's treason and he'll be signing his own death warrant, which is a big thing to be considering. But even bigger, for this man, is the fact that he has chosen one lie, this one lie, to stay afloat. To keep the lions out. 51 cards, he's saying, in this deck.
"I'm still alive: Try it."
He is so jealous, for a moment. The Nick Brody they pulled out of that hole is very close to death. You can see it in his eyes. We'll fight like hell to stay alive and intact when the lions come; the real mystery is how anybody ever submits to love at all.
There's your definition: Nobody survives intact.
"She asked you to come home, and you did. Why? Maybe because you suddenly understood that killing yourself and ruining Dana's life wouldn't bring Issa back. Maybe because you knew then how much you loved your own child. Maybe because you were just sick of death."
"That's the Brody I'm talking to. That's the Brody that knows the difference between warfare and terrorism. That's the Brody I met up in that cabin."
"That's the Brody I fell in love with."
When she tells him he is a good man, his jealousy turns to hope. When she reminds him who he is, and shows him how to put the Nicks back together; that's when he takes her hand, and they weep. Alone at last.
Nicholas Brody's Terrorist Cell
Roya Hammad, international journalist and harsh taskmistress
Afzal Hamid, I don't know who that is but he's dead
Al Zahrani, Saudi attaché, also dead
Bassel the Tailor, pretty jumpy for a guy who makes suicide vests for a living; dead several different ways, like, a variety of ways
Tom Walker, also super dead
Saul: "Okay, that's not crazy helpful. Can you please call your wife and tell her you'll be home later? She's giving Greg fits, whoever that is."
Brody: "Will I actually be home later?"
Saul: "Spoiler alert: Maybe."
HOME
Jessica: "If you marry Finn Walden, I will be the winner."
Dana: "First of all it's just a date, and also we should wrap this scene up pretty soon. Nobody cares."
Brody: "Jessica. I am calling to say hello and how are you."
Jessica: "I was so worried after you did exactly what I told you to do that I will immediately start bitching at you."
Brody: "Our marriage is doing a-okay."
Jessica: "Children! Your father is coming home!"
Dana: "Uh, I'm so sure. Also, I can't believe that you are totally omitting the part where you were the one who kicked him out in the first place. That is just so Jessica Brody."
Jessica: "I won't be happy until I take all of you bitches down with me. And start fucking Mike Faber again, also."
BRODY
Stands up for about five seconds and then crashes to the floor, fetal and reborn. The best thing about rock bottom is finally having a place to stand. Another definition, perhaps.
HOME
Actually, Jessica and Dana have one of the best scenes of this all-time episode. Never lose faith. Mom's sitting on the porch when Dana comes out to wait for Finn to pick her up for their disaster date, and they treat each other like human beings for once.
Jessica: "Don't you look nice!"
Dana: "Heh, I combed my hair."
Jessica: "It's beautiful!"
Dana: "I'm going to sit to you on this porch but I need you to remember the teenage daughter rules. No touching, no looking in the eye. Or the deal is off."
Jessica: "Got it. Did you break up with Xander before taking up with Finn? I kind of forgot to do that when your dad died and came back to life, and let me tell you darling it was a fucking hassle."
Dana: "Of course I did, I'm not a creep."
Jessica: "Very cool."
Dana: "Is it weird that I'm dating the boss's son?"
Jessica: "When you refer to your father's future POTUS that way, it makes me feel less powerful and magical and pretty. So let's refer to them as equals and colleagues, okay?"
Jessica, awesomely: "I'm sorry about all the confusion. I know your dad and I are supposed to be the grownups. It's..."
Dana: "Whatever, Dad changed over there. They did something to him."
Jessica: "Yeah. Sorry about that too."
And their shoulders ride a little higher, then. They both uncoil, unconsciously, just a little bit. Truth is never a burden. Whatever you're afraid of, lying is worse. And when it's hard to remember that, just repeat to yourself, "Nobody survives intact."
And thank God for it.
THE FLOOR
Carrie: "Hey, buddy. You done having your entire body lose it?"
Brody, after nearly attacking her: "Apparently not! Listen, it's pretty cool down here. Pretty fun. I'm just gonna stay down here. Forever, I think."
Carrie: "I'm sorry to heap even more nonsense onto your plate, but we need to talk options, okay?"
Nicholas Brody's Options: Treason Trial, with "all the attendant publicity" and then a long prison sentence, with the added bonus of bringing "dishonor and shame" to himself, the Corps, the US and the Brody family. Those are all the options. Right? Because he is a freaking terrorist and a lunatic who even now could be lying?
Wrong, because then that is the end of the show. So instead, option two: Nothing changes. Go home, stay a Congressman, have the side job of being a secret double-triple agent for the CIA. Total danger all the time, nobody trusting anybody else, always in service to the two masters who broke you so many times you don't even know what fixed would look like at this point.
Oh, and Carrie Mathison is your handler, because that's how this incredible, wonderful show deals with logic problems: By looking you square in the eye and saying in a steady firm voice, "I fucking dare you to bitch about this."
DANA & FINN
Get into a car chase with the Secret Service; run over a lady; drive away. I don't think that Finn is a sociopath, I think he's just entitled and his dad is a cocksucker and things got out of hand. It's not the first hit-and-run in the universe and it won't be the last, and in terms of the "what would you do" that this show is about, it's in bounds. At first it gave me a little bit of the heebies, like, "This too now?" but I've made my peace with it because ultimately, Dana is emerging as a star of the show -- has been since the finale, really -- and honestly this just seems like the most efficient way to bring in the VPOTUS/Future POTUS/Family dynamics stuff that could conceivably spin out of this.
In other words, I am more comfortable with the idea of the show itself just kinda tossing that lady at Finn's new car. "Deal with that, kids. Boom."
HOME
Carrie drives Nick home. I'll tell you what they talked about in a minute. But the important thing is that she'll be watching over his family. Again.
Guardian angel to your boyfriend's real life. Alone at last.
8-48. There is a risk associated with this approach. If the emotional-pride and ego-down approach fails, it is difficult for the HUMINT collector to recover and move to another approach without losing his credibility. Also, there is potential for application of the pride and ego approach to cross the line into humiliating and degrading treatment of the detainee. Supervisors should consider the experience level of their subordinates and determine specifically how the interrogator intends to apply the approach technique before approving the interrogation plan.
But I will say this: Pushing somebody down a well is very different from holding hands with them, and jumping together. When you lay the cards out like that, you can't tell the future unless you're brave enough to look. Without that, the future doesn't come at all.
Jessica: "Welcome home! Get ready for bitching."
Brody: "Actually, shove it. I work for the CIA now."
Jessica: "Is that the truth?"
Brody: "A tiny bit of it, but yes."
Chris: "Dad, are you really home?"
Jessica & Brody: "Who are you? How did you get in here?"
And Carrie sits outside on the street, watching the first truth turn back into a lie.
ASSET RECOVERY
Carrie: "So Jessica's cool, and Roya, she's gonna be cool?"
Brody: "Actually it was Roya who suggested I booty-call you in the first place, so I'll just tell her it went well."
Carrie: "Can you even fucking believe that was just yesterday?"
Brody: "I can't say I won't hold this hole in my hand against Peter Quinn. But there is just something so damned appealing about that guy!"
Carrie: "I know, right? What an asshole/prince of a guy! What a fantastic, wonderful piece of shit he is. I can't explain it. Nobody can explain it."
But here is the plan. The plan, which at this point you just have to laugh and give the show a hug, is that Carrie and Brody will "pretend" to be having an affair, which is their cover story for him being her asset, and so their booty call will now appear to have gone in a sexual direction instead of a direction where Nick was about one second from snapping the shit out of Carrie's neck and instead got his head bagged with fashion's most chilling accessory.
"If you need me for whatever reason, you just call and say you miss me. I'll do the same. We'll meet at my apartment."
Remember last week talking about how Superman wears Clark Kent like a mask, instead of the other way around? This is exactly the kind of shit I was talking about. "My cover story is my actual story." It's like that thing with the two doors and one of the guys always lies and one of the guys always tells the truth, only with this one you're like, "Okay, what's the trick?" and both of the guys are like, "There's no trick, we're both honest and really quite affable, feel free to come and go as you please."
Nobody survives intact. When you are telling the truth like it's a lie, or when you lay down all 52 Queens, or when you explode the very notion of a lie so that it covers the entire universe, then that's the world wearing itself as a mask. Does that make sense? It's called "divination" because you are being reminded of the divinity of all things; it's just opening up the tiniest crack in reality so you can see how wonderful things are behind the scenes and how much sense it makes. God wearing us. That's what truth nets you: Everything. And all you have to do is be brave enough to admit how small you always were.
That's the only definition you will ever need.
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.