In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Seconds after Dana gets to know her teenage daughter, that lady Finn ran over dies. This sends Finn into privilege overdrive, and Dana herself down a rabbit hole of guilt and that particularly Dana-esque ticking-timebomb quality where probably she will end up blurting out the secret on some kind of live broadcast. The acting is good and the parallels I guess are on point, but the story itself is not super interesting to deal with. Nobody has blown up or developed a mental illness yet, maybe is the problem.
Also happening at the Brody house: Estes and Saul tell Mike to stop pursuing the Tom Walker stuff in a rather chilling way, so of course Mike immediately heads over to Brody's garage and finds the ammo he used to kill his co-conspirator. Jessica is incapable of being surprised by anything at this point, so she just kind of bugs her eyes out and tries to figure out how her husband can be both a terrorist and an agent for the CIA and a Congressman, all at the same time. I guess at this point the CIA stonewalling plus the news that Brody is working with them will lead Mike to an "Inside Job"-type conspiracy place, which is where Lauder already lives. And when Jess leaves Brody for Mike, which seems more likely each week, I guess she can go live there too.
Virgil and dear Max are unable to lock down an ID on their first time out trailing Roya, so Brody is called in to identify her new contact. He can't do that, but does remember to tell Carrie and Quinn about the time he accidentally murdered the Tailor. So the idea is that this new friend of Roya's might be the new Tailor, and thus in charge of things like suicide vests, which means whatever the action is that we're preventing this season could be happening quite soon.
It also means that Team Quinn can investigate the Tailor's front in Gettysburg, which they've been watching for weeks. Roya signals that there's something to be found there, but before Quinn can find it, the new guy and a bunch of like paramilitary dudes burst in, gun down the entire operation -- including, possibly, Quinn himself -- and remove a large locker full of heaven knows what. I do hope he's going to be okay. I mean, national security is very important, don't get me wrong, but that dude is like, so interesting.
Carrie, caught between her weird bond with Quinn and even weirder bond with Brody, suddenly finds herself in the opposite bind from last year: Now that the love of her life is nominally working on the same side, it's more important than ever not to trust him. So did he know that Team Quinn would get gunned down in Gettysburg? Of course not. But he can't explain that, because the amount of shit that Nick Brody doesn't know is like, an unrealistic amount.
And then on the other side of that coin, Brody has no way of knowing just how unprofessional and out of control Carrie is at all times, so he's constantly misinterpreting her crossing the lines and sending mixed signals and genuinely being crazy about him as some kind of CIA mind trick. It is such a clusterfuck with those two, you guys.
Week: Mike Faber continues wading in over his head with this Tom Walker conspiracy stuff. Jessica continues to stockpile resentments, lies and distrust like an extreme couponer in the hopes that one day she will have enough saved up to divorce her husband without feeling like a ho. Dana and Finn progress to the stage of whatever the point of their story is. Carrie and Nick, I'm thinking it won't be that long until they bone. And Quinn? I'll feel a lot better once I know either way.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Jessica was fickle, Dana and Finn ran over a person's mom, and Mike and Lauder slowly (and perceptively) started to put the pieces together about Brody's triple-agency. Meanwhile, Saul watched as Quinn went haywire on Brody, then turned him over to Carrie for the greatest episode of television ever made. In the end, Brody ended up telling Jessica he was working for the CIA, which like everything out of his mouth is both true and a huge lie. He and Carrie are "pretending" to have an affair, which can only lead to them "pretending" to have lots of weirdo CIA sex which is actually just them doing it.
WATCHING ROYA
Roya Hammad, how you do confound. First walking this way, and then another. But to where, and for what? Perhaps we will never know. Up to no good, we surmise.
Virgil: "I am watching her do nothing from a respectful distance."
Max: "I am standing around being useless and amazing to look upon. Such is my destiny."
Carrie: "I am having fits. Just fits, I tell you."
Roya stops and looks at a puppy, then pretends to check her phone. What's that over there? A super loud fountain? Perhaps she should investigate.
Carrie: "She's an internationally acclaimed journalist who is going on TV in about five minutes! Bitch, just go do whatever you're going to do so I can have a sandwich and apply my Latisse! You know, I'm starting to see why you guys find me so maddening."
Saul: "Really?"
Carrie: "No, not really."
Then comes a man. What sort of a man? Nobody knows. He has no name, nor has he provenance. He may well have sprung into being right here, to this very loud fountain. With a face that no machine has ever seen.
Carrie: "Max and Virgil, get closer to them. I want to hear what they're saying."
Virgil: "It sounds remarkably like [the sound of rushing water]."
Max: "It sounds remarkably like [if you put my head close to your ear]. Am I being helpful?"
Quinn: "Why do you keep these men as pets? They have no function."
Galvez: "I have been here this whole time, on Team Quinn. If you didn't know my name already, spoiler alert but don't bother."
Carrie: "Have the machines ever seen his face?"
Galvez: "They have not. His sunglasses beguile the machines."
Carrie: "If only I were slightly closer to this op! I could run in there like a lunatic and ruin everything but also solve this problem. David Estes would make his one face he makes."
Max chases the man for one hundred years, and it is glorious because Max is glorious, but also comes to no avail, because Max is useless. Carrie and Quinn are angry, which unites them, but also divides them. I worry about old Quinn, I really do.
BRODY HOME
Jessica: "Is your injured hand still injured?"
Brody: "Yes. It works much like a hand in that way."
Jessica: "Can you tell me about your secret CIA doings?"
Brody: "No. They are much like secrets in that way."
Jessica: "Is our daughter performing her morning routine in a satisfactory manner?"
Brody: "Perhaps you should bitch out on her."
Dana: "I cannot go to school today. I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash, and purple bumps. Also, I ran over a lady with the son of the Vice President of the United States."
Jessica: "In this family those are not excuses."
TEAM QUINN
The machines still cannot recognize the strange man, even without his sunglasses. Did he go to Oxford? They cannot say. Did he work in television, perhaps in Yemen? No, they cannot say. The machines are mum on Yemen.
Carrie: "I have an idea."
Team Quinn: "Is it that we call your married boyfriend to come here? Like you've discovered a bug in your shower and need a man to save you from it?"
Carrie: "Why don't we call Nick Brody to come look at this man. He is only part machine."
Quinn: "Yes, let's tell the Al-Qaeda jihadist everything we know instead of making him tell us things he knows. Let us do the opposite of our plan."
Carrie: "Were it not for Brody, we wouldn't be uselessly following Roya in the first place. Perhaps he can give us some more semi-useful information."
Quinn: "Valid..."
Carrie: "-- Besides, we've already told him more than enough for all of us to be murdered."
Quinn: "See, I get why you think that's a compelling part of your argument, but in fact it does not make me feel more comfortable."
BRODY HOME
Jessica: "Dana! A bright new day of things to blurt out at the wrong time!"
Dana: "Where is Chris?"
Jessica: "Who's this 'Chris'? Get up!"
Jessica: "Brody, our daughter has problems. I don't like it, and I don't like her."
Brody: "Oh, my text messaging."
Jessica: "Who is text messaging you? Is it the CIA? Is it that crazy lady who doesn't work at the CIA?"
Brody: "You are a ridiculous person. You have managed to find a reason to hang out with Mike Faber in every episode so far, which is half the season, and you're worried about Carrie Mathison? A crazy lady who doesn't even work at the CIA?"
Dana: "One of you bitches better drive me to school, if I'm going. I'm sure as hell not getting a ride with Finn Walden."
SCHOOL
Brody: "There's a car following us. I guess that's going to be how things are from now on, which should really make it difficult to juggle my various tessellate identities. Is it true that you have problems?"
Dana: "I have many, many problems. And yet I am the only person on top of anything. It's me and like Saul Berenson versus an insane world. Saul Berenson, who lives like a homeless raccoon."
Finn: "Dana, you look tired. Or at least like the 'tired' flashcard when I'm learning about human emotion."
Dana: "It's not 'tired,' it's 'guilty.'"
Finn: "Don't worry about it. I'm sure that old lady went to the hospital and got fixed up right as rain. Now, if you're done worrying about other people, we have rich white kids school to attend."
Dana: "Your priorities are dicked up. I'm not so sure I should have broken up with Xander."
Finn: "I'm not so sure I should have taken you on a joyride for killing ladies either, but we have to live with what we have done."
TEAM QUINN
Quinn: "Brody, hey! How is your hand where I stabbed it for no real reason?"
Brody: "There's just something likeable about you."
Carrie: "Brody! Tell me, is your marriage crumbling?"
Brody: "No. Jessica realizes that CIA work has social cache after the fact, so she's willing to sit on it until I get Plamed. She did ask about you, though, so that's a sign."
Carrie: "Hey, so remember that time that we arrested you and got you to confess to being a terrorist, and I was like..."
Brody: "I remember."
Carrie: "Okay well, look at this picture of a mysterious man."
Brody: "I do not recognize him. Perhaps I am too much machine. Also, do not follow me in cars."
Carrie: "I was off the clock!"
Brody: "I meant the CIA. Yikes."
Quinn: "But so you're absolutely sure? You're absolutely sure that you don't know anything that could help us?"
Brody: "Well, I don't know that guy..."
Quinn: "I see how you work now. Fuck you for making this harder. What I asked was anything."
Brody: "Why don't you just tell me what you don't know I know, and I will say yes or no."
Quinn: "Fine. Where is the Tailor? He's missing."
Brody: "Oh, my bad! I fully murdered that dude."
Quinn: "You what?"
Brody: "I was chasing him through the woods and he fell on some rebar or something. My wife was being a real bitch. You know that one day where it was super rainy?"
Quinn: "I have had six men round the clock watching the Tailor in Gettysburg this whole time, and you just forgot to tell us he's dead?"
Brody: "I said my bad, bro. In case you haven't noticed I have a lot on my plate right now. I can't be alerting you to the whereabouts of every Tom, Dick and Bassel."
Quinn: "It just slipped your mind. That's fucking great, really."
Brody: "How was I to know you were watching that place? You don't tell me anything..."
Quinn: "First of all, no we don't. But second of all, get outta here with that. I don't need to expressly explain to you that we have an interest in the sleeper agent who made your suicide vest. You don't need to be a mind reader to get there. Now hold your other hand real still."
Carrie: "Quinn, a word?"
OUTSIDE
Quinn: "Your boyfriend is crazy and a liar."
Carrie: "Maybe it's my fault for not asking about the Tailor specifically."
Quinn: "Yeah, because you are gay for each other."
Carrie: "I have no idea what you are talking about."
Quinn, verbatim: "In the interrogation room, you said you wanted him to leave his wife and run away with you?"
Carrie, verbatim: "And you put a knife through his hand. The difference being, what I did worked. So don't worry about my objectivity, worry about your own."
Always one to point out a silver lining -- well, half the time! -- Carrie reminds him that they can now drop the surveillance team and search his place in Gettysburg, since if the person is dead you don't have to be invited in. Wait, no. That's vampires. I guess it's just because he won't come back and find them going through his shit and get all offended. Like how they do.
But what if the new mystery man is the new Tailor? He looks fit, unlikely to barf or run away into the forest at the drop of a hat or die just from a little abdomen-stabbing and neck-snapping. A stronger Tailor that we don't know about, or where he is. Let's have Brody just casually ask her like it's no big deal, they say, nodding to themselves, but I don't know. That sounds pretty awkward. "So about that toy of yours I was supposed to take extra good care of but killed and buried in a shallow grave instead..."
Quinn: "Are you sure? Nick Brody is pretty fucked up."
Carrie: "I know, you said that. But he's all we've got between us and 9/11 Part Two."
Quinn: "Just don't trust him."
Carrie: "I know, you said that like a million times."
THAT STORM DRAIN
Detective: "So you're Marines?"
Lauder: "Yeah. Don't rub it in. You think these crutches are distracting, ask me about my alcoholism."
Mike: "This is why I wore my prettiest Marine outfit."
Detective: "And you worked with Tom Walker. Hey, do you know why he went super crazy and shot a random lady?"
Mike: "Maybe we do, but that's neither here nor there. Can you tell us about his dead body?"
Detective: "A homeless man heard Brody shoot him, and called the cops. It's a storm drain, so you can't see any leftover blood. Trust me, it was a clean shot to the forehead."
Lauder: "You know what else about this storm drain is, nobody would come in here at night unless they thought they knew what was up, because it is dark and scary and smells weird. That means he was in here with somebody he trusted. Or was on the downlow."
Mike: "Can we see your detective report?"
Detective: "There isn't one. Just my words. Twenty minutes into the investigation, the CIA swooped in and threw us out, like on TV. I figured they were covering for some elected official that's into black guys dying ignominiously. A whattayacallit, a Republican."
Lauder: "That is a very interesting theory. Like maybe a member of the House of Re..."
Mike: "-- We have to go now."
Mike: "What was the one rule we had? The one rule? No mentioning Brody."
Lauder: "Good rule. Now, to whom should we first mention Brody?"
Mike: "Let's take this to the head of the CIA. Yes, let us do the opposite of our plan."
HOSPITAL
Dana Brody, how you do confound. First walking this way, and then another. But to where, and for what? And why are you in this hospi... Oh, no. Oh, you stupid girl.
Daughter: "Why are you staring at my mother like you ran over her with the Vice President of the United States?"
Dana: "Certainly not for that reason. Is she going to die?"
Daughter: "Well, they immediately brought her in after this hit and run, and so she got fixed up right as rain."
Dana: "Thank goodness!"
Daughter: "But then she threw a clot in her brain, so I'm fucked."
Dana: "I am looking for my dad, he's a cardiologist."
Daughter: "Nice."
Dana: "I guess so. I don't know him super well. Anyway, sorry about your mom."
Dana stumbles off, acting exactly like a person who ran over your mom and then came to the hospital to stumble around guiltily. Call it grief or call it shock, but if this chick can't even put this simple shit together maybe she doesn't deserve a mom.
Dear Dana storyline: Unless the plan is to have Dana eaten by a catamount, which would be sad but ultimately redemptive, please get your shit together and be as good as the rest of the show. Kim Bauer's Cougar was the Felicity Porter's Haircut of its day. You know what I am saying.
SAUL TIME
Saul: "Here to harass you like your dad. Or alternately, here to harass you, like your dad. Either way, it's late and you're susceptible to crazy."
Carrie: "I gotta ask Brody to approach Roya tomorrow and it's making me antsy."
Saul: "No doubt. And what's this about Quinn, you had a little fight?"
Carrie: "I hate that guy!"
Saul: "Really?"
Carrie: "No, not really. Well, kind of. Is that why you're here?"
Saul: "I am checking up on you overall, not merely because Quinn is obviously right."
Carrie: "He said not to trust Brody, Saul! Can you believe that shit?"
Saul: "I can."
Carrie: "I mean, I invented not trusting Nick Brody. Give me a break!"
Saul: "Yeah, well. Things change."
Carrie: "You don't know what it's like, having everyone assume you're at your worst all the time. Like I can't see straight."
Saul: "First of all, nobody thinks that. And second of all, being your handler means having that day every single day, so don't cry to me. And third of all, it's entirely worrisome having you in such close proximity to Nick Brody all the time. You have to agree on that."
Carrie, lying: "It's not like before, Saul. I saw his suicide tape. My eyes are open. How could they not be?"
Saul, lying: "That's all I wanted to hear."
It's not like before, it's worse than before. Before, her obsession was tinged with horror and fascination that bloomed into a dark and scary love which was redeemed by the Weekend, when he showed her what being a person was like for them both. This time, there is no horror and no fascination, exactly, because whatever else they are, these two are family now. It's the difference between staring somebody in the eye to standing beside them, or back-to-back. You hold hands and jump together, there's a part of you that will never stop falling.
GETTYSBURG
Quinn is so very official when he's leading a team! In this case, the evidence team and their security, as they case the joint for contacts and materiel providers and whatever is weird and whatever is a detail that matters and also maybe secret compartments and things of this nature.
Quinn: "You two guys who are soon to be vaporized, post up by the door. Gettysburg is a friendly small town with a rich heritage, the kind of place where neighbors get curious if you go missing for a week and suddenly the military is going through your shit."
Guys: "We will say we are conducting a sales tax audit. But what if there are guys dressed just like us that come in here and murder everybody before we even notice the difference?"
Quinn: "It would be good for me to warn you about that, given that the bad guys are playing with Nazir money and also that they knew this place was for suicide bombs even before we did, and also they dug up this guy and re-buried him, so probably they have known this whole time that we were watching. Good point. But I won't."
It is maybe a metaphor. It for sure makes me worry about Quinn. He just has the best little scrunched-up face. The kind of face where even if you didn't know his name was Rupert Friend, probably you could guess that pretty easy.
"You just look like a Rupert," you'd say. "And I'd be happy to call you Friend."
CONGRESS
Carrie appears out of nowhere in Brody's car in the parking garage! It's slightly freaky.
Carrie: "Hey, what's up?"
Brody: "What the fuck are you doing at my work? In my car, at work?"
Carrie: "You remember that time we arrested you for being a..."
Brody: "I told you I don't know who that man is."
Carrie: "I believe you! But I think that him showing up, with his mystery face, means whatever Nazir was planning is happening now, and that guy is part of it."
Brody: "Probably. Seems like he's always up to something, and this is the midpoint of the season, so..."
Carrie: "Roya has an interview with Congressman Mackie at noon today in this very building. Maybe I will just spend the day crawling around the air ducts and Jeffries tubes and appearing in random cars."
Brody: "I can't just walk up to her and be like..."
Carrie: "I know, I thought of something kinda awesome. She thinks we're..."
Brody: "Fucking?"
Carrie: "Making love. So anyway you say I was on the phone with my married Congressman boyfriend, and I got a call about a Hezbollah operative who maybe just entered the country. I was wearing black panties that I got on sale, and eating half a churro because I was hungry because of all the doing it. Then we settled into bed and watched Hulu and..."
Brody: "-- Is that what he is?"
Carrie: "IF WE FUCKIN' KNEW WHAT HE... Sorry. That is just a guess, you're right. This is how spying works, you put out a feeler and see what comes back."
Brody: "Seems like pretty delicate work for a guy who just got stabbed and deprogrammed -- or was I -- a hot minute ago."
Carrie: "Just don't push too hard. Like how right now I am comfortingly massaging your neck, that's me totally working you. See? Like that."
Brody: "Argh, you got me!"
Carrie: "Or did I?"
Brody: "Or did you? This is fun, I could do this all day."
Carrie: "Wait 'til we get to the part where we pretend to have sex by actually having sex."
Brody: "That is essentially what is happening right now. Just kidding, now I am pissed off for no reason."
Carrie: "Fine, get the fuck out of this car. And you better have that phone I gave you. And you better not be texting any hoes on it. Because I will be checking."
ESTES
Saul: "You must be Mike Faber? I understand you had questions about Tom Walker's death, a year ago."
Mike: "Yikes. Um, yeah. I have a friend here, a Glenn Peterson?"
Saul: "Glenn passed your request for information onto me. This is how it works. Now, follow me to a regular old office in this regular old building, and sit in a regular chair for me."
Mike: "Is it a chair where I will die?"
Saul: "Maybe. David Estes will stare at you until you wish you do."
Estes: "Do you remember? We've met."
Mike: "Yeah, when Brody came back to life and you made me turn him into public relations machinery."
Estes: "I think you'll recall it more as a discussion between two colleagues and future friends, regarding a beloved mutual acquaintance and what might be best for him and for his family and his country and the universe."
Mike: "I am going to die here."
Estes: "Now, I hear that you've been making inquiries into Thomas Walker's death. Curious little kittycat, aren't you? Aren't you, Mike Faber?"
Mike: "Nothing I need a GS-15 like yourself to answer. I'm sure you have other more pressing matt..."
Estes: "-- No, I'm good. Sit your ass down."
Estes: "Here's the thing about Tom Walker. I have no answers for you."
Mike: "Really? Because the cop told me..."
Estes: "We did take over, but so far nothing has turned up."
Mike: "So I'm being stonewalled."
Saul: "I wouldn't say that. Meaning you will not be saying that."
Mike: "Because I think it was a co-conspir..."
So Scary Saul: "You're being told by fellow intelligence officers, respectfully at this point, not to pursue your unauthorized freelance investigation into a matter of national security. Nod your head if you understand."
Oh hey, did you guys know Saul is a stone-cold spy in the CIA? I keep forgetting that. It's one thing when he's waltzing through Hezbollah TSA with a secret compartment, but a whole other one where he's coiled in the corner just quietly making Mike Faber, a Real American Hero, shit himself completely. Oh, man. For a back-burner storyline they have to check in with every episode even though nothing is happening, some stuff just sure did happen.
WATCHING ROYA
Brody: "Roya, hey! I need to talk about secret stuff with you in this bugged hallway!"
Roya: "You stupid bitch. Follow protocol."
Brody: "No, this is important. You know how I'm fucking Carr..."
(Carrie: "Making LOVE.")
Brody: "Well, here is a big lie about all that. Does that freak you out or make you say any names of mysterious people?"
Roya: "Hezbollah, you say. Interesting. Hey, what is with the giant knife-hole through your hand? You're in Congress, not the owner of a seaside tavern."
Brody: "I was doing home improvements, to improve my home."
Roya notes a Congressman coming over and using his phone in this very public hallway, so they both just stand there awkwardly forever.
Roya: "..."
Brody: "..."
Carrie: "Why aren't they talking? We lost audio we lost audio"
Virgil: "No, they're just not talking. Paranoia. You know, because of how they are terrorists."
Carrie: "I wish he would say something."
Roya: "FBI Forensics randomly went into the Tailor's shop after two weeks of just sitting around. Do you have any idea why they'd know they could just walk in today?"
Brody: "No, you're thinking of vampires. Will they find anything?"
Roya: "It's possible. The guy was a sleeper agent who made suicide bombs for a living. But for the purposes of this episode's final shot, I'm going to say it in a way that clearly is meant to set up the Big Box of Something the bad guys are going to find."
SCHOOL
Finn: "Dana, why are you avoiding me?"
Dana: "Because you're a sociopath?"
Finn: "Allow me to demonstrate just how right you are, by whining about how my dad will be like, so mad at me. Just for killing some stupid lady."
Dana: "Yeah, well, I went to the hospital and made it perfectly clear that I was involved, so suck on that."
Finn: "Uh, here are some death threats for you. Am I being dramatic, or do I mean it? Am I merely immature about consequences and might come to care about this lady's death when it becomes real to me? Am I so entitled and gross and self-centered that I honestly don't? Does my abusive father abuse me so much that I have reason to be actually this afraid? There are so many ways I could go, and you won't know which one until I snap."
Dana: "Right back atcha, baby."
GETTYSBURG
Quinn: "Carrie, I'm sorry I was so snippy earlier."
Carrie: "No prob. Listen, Roya knows you're there, so..."
Quinn: "That's kind of scary. But you know what's really scary? The lack of luck we're having up in here!"
Carrie: "No, what's really scary is that Roya knows you're there, which means everybody knows you're there, which means you are about to get your ass blown to hell."
Quinn: "You should see all these receipts!"
Carrie: "I'm thinking more like a nuke in a hideyhole or something, based on the way she said it. It was with an incredibly portentous tone."
Quinn: "Oh, so this is another Carrie Hunch?"
Carrie: "I said she used a portentous tone, Quinn. God."
Quinn: "Yeah, well I'll be sure to look out for that. I'm so fucking sure there would be a bomb here, in the place a sleeper agent used for making bombs."
Quinn: "Don't tell Carrie this but I trust her implicitly, especially her intuition. Girl says we're about to be invaded and there's a nuke lying around, by God I'm gonna..."
Galvez: "I'll call for backup. I hope they get here in time."
Quinn: "Yeah, and that we're able to identify them on sight so they don't murder us all before we notice the difference."
THE GARAGE
Chris: "What are you even looking for in here? Also, I still sometimes forget that you're not my actual dad."
Mike: "I lent your dad a something, and now I need to find it."
Chris: "Good luck! Mom says it's like the wreck of the Hesperus in here, but I don't know what that means."
Mike: "It means your mom's an asshole, Chris."
GETTYSBURG
Just as Mike is locating the ammo that Nick shot Tom with, Peter Quinn is dowsing with his magical forehead and finds a secret panel in the wall, like where a portentous bomb would go.
Galvez: "A SWAT team is coming from the FBI, but like in an hour. State Troopers will be here before then."
Quinn: "Thank God. We are so about to die."
Galvez: "What's this all about, sir?"
Quinn: "There was this portentous tone, you see... Hey, I heard a weird sound. Probably just the SWAT team coming in to save us from the..."
Then there is a massacre and everybody dies and it is scary and horrible and messy. The fake SWAT guys cut a hole in the wall that Quinn was interrogating, and bring out a Big Box of Something Scary. So good for Quinn, that he was right about that. And good for Carrie, because she was right as usual about two things at once. But on the other hand -- because isn't this always the way -- everybody is dead and Quinn is bleeding out very quickly on the floor as the fake SWAT team -- led by Mystery Man -- takes away the box. Who will call for help? Who will save my Quinn? He doesn't look like he's in any shape to make a call right now.
GARAGE
Jessica: "Mike, what are you doing in the garage!? If you find my husband's Koran I'll be so embarrassed, socially."
Mike: "I need to talk to you about something. Like, you know how Lauder is always drunk and neat-looking and on crutches all the time? Well, he said some stuff about Brody..."
Jessica: "He was drunk. Obviously. It's like his main thing."
Mike: "Yeah, but like the Holy Fool in most great literature, he is not wrong. He has Falstaffed us into a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of our nation's government. So I just found his ammo and confirmed that he killed Tom Walker..."
Jessica: "That does explain some shit."
Mike: "I'm worried about you -- even the kids, is how much I love you -- and I'm worried about Brody. Slash hoping he goes nuts and/or is incarcerated, and we can finally be together."
Jessica: "Me too. The only drawback to being with you is that Nick Brody would be free to be with Carrie Mathison in turn, which might just fucking kill me. No amount of happiness is worth that."
Mike: "So we're agreed. Brody was the second part of Tom Walker's plan, and then killed Tom himself. And so he is crazy and getting crazier."
Jessica: "Ah, but also he is working for the CIA. Don't tell anybody, okay?"
Mike: "Uh, that does not pass the bullshit test on any level."
Jessica: "I feel like you telling the truth is threatening to my marriage! Please leave."
CONGRESS
Betsy: "Strange intense lady, why are you storming my boss's office?"
Carrie: "I am a constituent with some urgent business."
Brody: "Both technically true. You're learning to talk the Nick Brody way. Betsy, you can go home. This is the lady I'm having a fake affair with. You're probably going to be dealing with even more bullshit, like twice as much, from here on out. FYI."
Carrie: "So did you know?"
Brody: "Huh?"
Carrie: "Did you know!? I got seven casualties in Gettysburg..."
Brody: "Use your words, Mathison. What's going on?"
Carrie: "Answer the question! Have you been lying to me? When you talked to Roya..."
Brody: "Your idea, mind..."
Carrie: "-- You clearly told her something, or flagged a warning signal, or..."
Brody: "No, girl. I didn't do anything."
He touches her, because she is losing her shit, and their positions reverse. Their polarity. He pulls her into her arms, shushing her and promising he didn't lie to her, that he doesn't know anything about Gettysburg or what just went down or what happened to Peter Quinn or who the Man is and why he took the Box, or anything. Just holds her while she cries, because now we are: In a room with no floor. The whole time it was certainties, conflicting tessellate certainties to be sure, but at least it was real: He was a terrorist or he was not. She loved him or she did not. There were no in-between states.
But the downside to jumping is having jumped, and now that there are only certainties, they could rip you apart. Just in their polarity. It's not that she doesn't know whether to trust him, it's that she does and does not by turns. Peel off enough layers and the thing's gonna bleed. What if you hit rock bottom, the only place you can stand, and then the second you breathed, it fell out from underneath you? What if you knew you would be spending the rest of your life that way?
Maybe that's a definition for love, too. But maybe it's also just a definition for danger. Can you imagine a way for this story to end well? I don't want it to end at all, but I can't see it ending well for these hapless, broken motherfuckers. One of those Shakespearian comedy finales, where everybody marries the right person finally. Or one of those Shakespearian tragedies, where every gun you shoot ends up pointed back at yourself. Either way, it's no longer time for the back-to-back, or the side-to-side. They have to look each other in the eye.
But hey, her eyes are open. Right?
WEEK
Team Quinn pulls itself together, and we find out what's in the Box. A Virginia horse farm plays host to a surprising turn in the hit and run story, as the Waldens and Brodys possibly get even closer. Most exciting, though, Saul pays a visit to good old crazypants sleeper agent Aileen Morgan. God, wonder what she's been up to? Does she know about Tumblr? I think she'd really enjoy Tumblr.
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. An essay on the Texas of Friday Night Lights is available free this week from BenBella's SmartPop series, and a novelette, "The Commonplace Book," appeared recently on Tor.com.