The Brodys and Waldens get invited to this horse farm in Virginia... Wait, back up. Quinn's okay. Repeat, Peter Quinn is going to be okay.
So the Brodys and Waldens get invited to this horse farm in Virginia for a fundraiser that's nominally for Walden's presidential campaign, but really is for cheering on Nick Brody for VP and eventual President. Brody knows damn well he's not gonna make it another eight years, and the unabashed man-adoration (and creepy rubbernecking from some of his dumber admirers) makes him extremely uncomfortable about how he's in actuality a traitor and a sumbitch.
The pressure is all too much, especially after Mike's gossip last week forces him to tell Jessica he killed Tom Walker, and he eventually kind of loses it on Carrie and Quinn because he is out of his depth and nobody will tell him anything, and Roya always yells at him, and he feels very impotent.
Carrie's solution: Get him to bone her in this random field on the farm. Brody's response: Very nearly an unqualified yes, until he realizes that not even Carrie can be sure whether she's manipulating him. It is a beautiful, complicated, sexy, depressing, bewildering, miserable, wonderful, magnificent mess as usual. He finds his true peace in the property's swimming pool, meaning he's fresh and ready for yet more bullshit when Jessica tells him about how their daughter killed a lady and the Waldens want to cover it up.
Finn takes off in a towncar somewhere, because he knows his parents will probably end up killing the whole Brody family if they fuck up the dynasty, but dumb ol' cornpone Jessica and Dana get uppity about "the right thing to do" and act like poor people, and then Brody decides to take a stand and drags Dana off to the police. At which point David Estes -- who is there purely in case Brody goes off the rails in some way, which is obvious because he's the only black person at the entire thing -- calls Carrie, who steps in to tell him that if he does this and alienates the Waldens, he'll lose his entire immunity deal. So now Dana has Carrie just randomly popping up in her life, and assumes this is her father being a smooth criminal politico, and she's just fucking had it too. Everybody has just had it.
Meanwhile, Saul spends the entire episode at some supermax prison playing out its themes in counterpoint with Aileen Morgan, that mild-mannered jetsetter terrorist from last season that he had the wonderful road trip with. Things have not, let's say, gone splendidly for her since then -- like, she's gone Gollum blind and tends to throw her shit at you. Her only price for info on El Mysterioso, a cell with a window, takes most of the episode to obtain -- during which time he wines and dines her and they remember that they are actually pretty cool as friends -- so that by the time Peter realizes she's given up random fake El Mysterioso in return, she's managed to commit suicide using just the ingredients of a Lunchables and some ingenuity.
Saul cries for the terrorist Aileen, but not too much, and Carrie cries because she is in love with Brody, or is she, and but you know who is not crying? Peter Quinn, because he is doing just great with that GSW through the abdomen and he's back on the job. Oh, he has the coloration of Bill Compton at the moment and he did flash Carrie his wang like a psycho or a sleepwalking grandpa, but mostly, he is doing great. Which I think we can all agree is a relief.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Finn and Dana ran over an old lady, blaming it on Obama and her own low self-esteem. Brody finally came around to admitting that his Al-Qaeda handler is a world-reknowned journalist, who is now under total surveillance all the time. Peter Quinn got blowed the fuck up by the Tailor's replacement, who is now also in possession of a Big Box of Something Terrorists Like.
EVEN MORE PREVIOUSLY
Saul arrested/made friends with Aileen Crazypants, an American sleeper agent whose biography is like a mad mashup of every other character on the show. Their relationship kind of mirrors Nick and Carrie's, even down to the Weekend/road trip they spent together getting into each other's heads.
SOME PARK IN DC THAT IS PROBABLY FAMOUS
Roya, she look rough.
Brody: "Oh hey! Check out my cute friendly smile for strangers... Oh, it's you, here on my jogging route, looking rough. Back to my normal intense face. What's going on, famous lady?"
Roya: "Well, since you killed the Tailor and one of our fake-SWAT guys in Gettysburg died, you get to now be even more in charge of stuff. Part of it is your job performance -- we trust you implicitly even though not once in a season and a half have you done anything right, ever -- but largely it is because you are the only American war hero slash Congressman we currently own. One does as one must, and in this case that means putting your brutal incompetence and shattered personality to as much work as possible."
Brody: "Are you sure about that? It doesn't really add up. Also, I am kind of freaked out because of how six Feds are dead. I guess when I became a terrorist and traitor to my country I didn't think about how there might one day be consequences."
Roya: "Anyway, you need to meet El Mysterioso -- and not snap his neck -- and also, whatever the big Nazir Op is for this season, it's going down very soon."
Brody: "Soon like the bombing that knocked Carrie's crazy loose? Or the time I nearly killed the entire government using wear apparel?"
Roya: "If I told you, it would only inform your decisions. Now enjoy your horse fundraiser with Walden, and if he says you swing, you swing. Keep that creep happy."
SUPERMAX
Guard: "Jacob always said Aileen was shithouse crazy, and nobody believed him, but we have Gitmo'd her into being crazy. She throws feces."
Saul: "What? I found her to be a delightful young woman, that whole time she was lying straight to my face and also was in Al Qaeda."
Aileen, she look rough.
Aileen: "Can we talk about this upstairs? Somewhere with a window?"
Saul: "What's wrong with right here?"
Aileen: "Literally everything."
UPSTAIRS
Saul: "So I gather being in terrorist detainment is somewhat unpleasant?"
Aileen: "Yeah, I feel real sorry for myself."
Saul: "Maybe don't be a terrorist? Just a thought."
Aileen: "But surely I deserve some basic compassion."
Saul: "Yeah, of course you deserve that. But basic compassion is basic, it doesn't come with fucking croissants. You gross old witch."
Just kidding, he's super nice to her. Saul and his crazy ladies, you know. I just kind of hate the idea of feeling sorry for yourself after you get put in jail for being a terrorist. Like, if you eat the burger you have to go for the jog, you know? They're so intense and secretive, cliquish really, and you really have to get in with them, and the reason for that is not the fun part like blowing shit up and code names. The reason being a terrorist is so intense is because you are also signing on for this part, the part where you get caught or die. So buck the fuck up, you big baby. Blood in, blood out.
Saul: "Hey, you've got nothing to lose and you're out of your mind and a traitor to your country, so I have no reason not to trust you."
Aileen: "Are you sure?"
Saul: "This show wouldn't exist without me letting Carrie do whatever fucked up thing she feels like doing no matter how many times I get burned, so yeah."
Aileen: "Well, I am certainly going to lie to you and do crazy sad stuff to you."
Saul: "Can you tell me who this cute mystery guy is?"
Aileen: "I can, but I'm going to need several hoops first of all and then I'm going to need you to jump through all of them."
Saul: "I can see no reason why you wouldn't be in charge of saying how things are going to go here."
Aileen: "Yeah, I deserve it for being so great. Also, that warden's a real piece of shit."
Saul: "I'm so sorry! Let me go make an elaborate picnic for just we two."
Aileen: "Are you jerking me around or do you actually like me?"
Saul: "That is actually the title of this show in several overseas markets."
HOSPITAL
The Mighty Quinn: "I just like to stretch and kick and punch! I am adorable!"
Carrie: "Get back in bed, you little shit."
Quinn: "No! I flash my penis at you!"
Carrie: "That is so cute I can't stand it."
Quinn: "Why is Roya back talking about Walden, what is it about that guy?"
Carrie: "I don't know. Remember Galvez?"
Quinn: "No, nobody remembers Galvez, he wasn't really a character on this show."
Carrie: "Well, he's about to die."
Quinn: "That's kind of sad, but also kind of not a big deal."
Carrie: "Okay, the box that El Mysterioso took out of the Tailor's shop did not leave any radioactivity behind, so it wasn't a dirty bomb. Kind of a bummer, actually. But we do think now that it is enough C-4 to level an embassy or a synagogue, depending on how shitty Abu Nazir feels like being today."
Quinn: "And the only thing we have going on is that Saul is going to go see that crazy bitch Aileen? That is a clown scenario, bro."
Carrie: "It is a metaphor. He's like the Carrie and Aileen is like the Nick."
Quinn: "And they are sitting in a tree? I better get out of this hospital. Team Quinn ain't for shit without Quinn on the Team."
Carrie: "I was thinking it probably was one of those abdominal gunshot wounds that isn't a huge deal, like they have on TV."
Quinn: "My cute little scrunched-up face will be even more scrunched up this week, though, so that you know I got shot. It's the little things."
DRIVING AROUND IN CARS WITH BRODYS
Everybody is in a car being driven to the horse farm for their horse farm party. Lots of different cars, so various Brodys and others can have lots of intense conversations in cars.
Chris: "You could really get injured riding a horse."
Nobody: "You have a valid reason for being in this scene, thanks for offering that very relevant warning."
Chris: "Po-po popped Dookie down by the vacants."
Dana: "You know that old lady we killed that I am supposed to be super chill about?"
Finn: "Oh Christ, what now."
Dana: "I went to her funeral. There was like twelve bucks in the collection plate."
Finn: "Oh, can we fix this by throwing money at it? Because I am cool with that."
Dana: "No, I was thinking it would be better if we fuck everything up for everybody and just blab it out, like I am wont to do."
Finn: "Do you realize that my father could easily have you killed? And it would look like an accident? And nobody would even know except me? And I don't care?"
Dana: "I'm just giving you a heads up that I will probably do it. And when I do, I will do it in the most inconvenient possible way. Just trust me, okay?"
Finn: "Fine, we can tell our parents. I'd rather not have your blurting habit hanging over my head all season."
Dana: "In this episode?"
Finn: "Yeah, maybe."
Dana: "Oh that wasn't really a question. More like a gentle warning. A notification."
Jessica: "Tell me about your career path, it is all that consoles me."
Nick: "Well, my new competition for Vice President is a woman. So that sucks."
Jessica: "I don't like women, really."
Nick: "Did you have Mike Faber over again last episode, like you do in every episode?"
Jessica: "How did you know?"
Nick: "That little boy who lives in our house told me."
Jessica: "Yeah, he came over. Yeah, he told me yet more fucked up things about you. By the by, did you by any chance kill Tom Walker?"
Nick: "I sure did, actually! Thanks for asking. I shot him clean through the forehead."
Jessica, verbatim: "What the fuck, Brody?"
Nick, verbatim: "I know. I know. But look, Tom lost his way. He just... he just went through too many things, and he couldn't get right again..."
Nick stares into space and thinks about how literally everything on this show is a metaphor for how fucked up he is. Quite a burden when you think about it.
HORSE PARTY
White Guys: "[White guy stuff.]"
Groundskeeper Basil: (Grumbles a fair bit, but God knows this place would fall apart without him. He's getting on in years. We may just sell the place when he's gone, it's like the heart of it would just drop out. Let some other family take over this horse party farm. Some other Basil can keep the grounds, for them.)
Rex Henning: "I own this horse farm and I am a super rich, super white guy. My name is Rex Henning. That is not a joke, it is the reality."
Cynthia: "Jessica, how nice to see you. I love indoctrinating you with my mean-girl shit."
Walden: "Brody, how nice to see you. Same."
Nick: "Before anybody asks, no this giant hole through my hand was not put there by the Cutest Boy In The Whole CIA stabbing me with a giant knife for no real reason."
White Guys: "I can't wait to drink some lemonade! And then later, hunt the homeless for sport."
Nick: "I have to make a quick call, first. To somebody you don't need to know who."
Carrie: "Brody! I was just thinking about you. Literally any time of day or night, that would be true. I am always having just thought about you."
Nick: "Carrie, why does my wife know that I killed Tom Walker? It makes me angry!"
Carrie: "I don't know, I know that Mike Faber is being unrealistically perceptive about it, but Saul scared the piss out of him last week so..."
Nick: "Part of watching this show has to do with wondering how long it will be until I have to kill Mike Faber, isn't it. Always that vague feeling."
Carrie: "All I know is, I have nothing of import or at all helpful to say to you."
Nick: "That also makes me mad! Everything makes me mad! Roya is being real sketchy, even for a terrorist, and now you're being all sketchy, even for a Carrie..."
Estes: "-- And I'm here also, just to make you feel even crazier."
Nick: "I don't need a babysitter!"
Estes: "Kind of you do, though. If you really think about it."
Nick: "...Fair enough."
Groundskeeper Basil: "But who watches the watchmen? Ol' Keeper Basil, and a cannier one you won't see. I've got my eye on ye."
THE SHOP/TEAM QUINN
Carrie: "He's in a right mood, guv'nor."
Quinn: "What do your impeccable instincts/bipolar powers/obsession with him tell you?"
Carrie: "He doesn't feel like he has any control right now. I guess I shou..."
Quinn: "This plan involves making out with him. I know it."
Carrie: "I think over time as we work together more you will notice a certain pattern where all of my plans do eventually involve making out with Nick Brody."
Quinn: "Whatever to his feelings and his empowerment and self-esteem. That guy's a double agent and a member of Al Qaeda. I hope things suck for him at least a little bit, to be honest. I hope his life, at the very least, is a succession of Maalox moments."
Carrie: "A Succession Of Maalox Moments is actually the title of this show in certain overseas markets."
SUPERMAX
As reported, the Warden is a dickish tool for no reason. I love/hate that obstructionist martinet or micromanaging character in stories like this where they have so little power that they're into these mind games and the clock is ticking and these dicks have no concept that you, the viewer, are freaking out because stuff needs to get done. It's such a fun trope. Plus, this guy actually points out that Saul Berenson looks like a traveling hobo, which thank you. All I want is a hug from Saul Berenson but at the same time it's like, the man smells like pastrami. You know that about him.
Anyway, Saul eventually exhausts his bag of manipulative tricks and must resort to having the Attorney General's office call this dickweed and tell him to get all of Aileen's hoops in order. I mean, what she wants on the show is a room with a view, a window, because blah blah, but that's a thematic red herring where you think you're being led to some poetic deal about freedom and then they pull the rug out and you realize the window never meant anything. Nothing means anything. Aileen is a crazy a-hole, Saul is a chump, this show is depressing, the end. It's expertly wrought, how they do it, but there's no way to duplicate the effect in this recap, so: Hoops. Jumping through 'em.
FABER
Carrie goes to visit Mike Faber, I guess to get girlfriend points but also because what's scarier than Saul Berenson and David Estes staring at you both at once? Carrie Mathison getting all twitchy, that's what. So that's nice and it's the only thing she really does in this episode, it's a Carrie-lite episode, all she really does is get twitchy with various dudes in various locations. But sadly this is also the part where the perfect acting score that Claire Danes has been working on earning for her entire actual life maybe comes into real peril. The script does Danes a real disservice this week, to be frank. If you can imagine Clai... No, if you can imagine anybody pulling off this line, you let me know.
"There is a terrorist event on the horizon. Nick Brody is essential to our plan for stopping it. So if we weren't clear enough the first time, let me drive it home again. Cease and fucking desist, understood?"
That last line especially does nobody any favors, because it sounds like what a little kid thinks spies talk like. Not even Harrison Ford could pull that off. Not even Rhona Mitra. But a person who will never seem natural or believable saying that horrible line is named Claire Danes. Not even Carrie Mathison, were she real, could pull it off.
Mike: "Oh, I didn't realize it was about terrorism. That wasn't made clear to me dozens of times. But on the other hand, you are scarier than an entire army of Sauls, so."
Carrie: "I am crazy is why."
Mike: "How crazy? Demonstrate it for me."
Carrie: "Okay, how about I am psychic and I know that you and Jessica are in love and that's what's driving this whole thing?"
Mike: "Wow, how did you do that?"
Carrie: "By bugging her house and listening to everything that happened there for about six weeks without sleeping or eating until eventually I lost my goddamn mind. Not important, what's important is that if you play your cards right, we could split them up and then we get to have them. So we're kind of on the same team. The team of ruining a marriage."
POOLSIDE
A strange lady in a pink twinset, who is real dumb, also has a weird thing going on where she gets off on how Brody was in a hole for eight years. Like, the degradation turns her on. And I don't mean the physical stuff, not the shame or the where did you pee stuff even, but like the actual spiritual degradation and existential misery of being slowly broken down and indoctrinated. That is some level shit, lady.
Weird Lady: "They broke your bones? That's crazy. And sexy."
Weird Lady: "What else did they do? Tell me real slow."
Weird Lady: "Did you ever just want to kill yourself? If so, how. Using what implements. Describe the scene in vivid detail. As I masturbate."
Chris: "Dad, you wanna go swimming?"
Brody: "Literally anything, I want to do. If you finished that sentence with 'in barbecue sauce' I would still say yes."
Weird Lady: "Take off your shirt real slow so I can look at all your scars all over your body from where you were tortured and infected and lost all sense of yourself or your identity and became a strange no-place, no-person that they then formed like clay according to their own dark designs. Yeah, do it, baby."
I hate you, Weird Lady. You are not allowed to look at Nick Brody like that. Also, be a better person, okay?
Rex Henning: "I'm with Jacob on this one. That was fucking gross."
Groundskeeper Basil: "Aye. When I am king, mayhap, she will be first against the wall."
SECRET MEETING
Walden: "I'm the Vice President! I feel like yelling at you about Gettysburg!"
Estes: "Okay, go for it. As the head of the CIA I totally have time for your ego bullshit. Also being the only black person in a hundred-mile radius."
Walden: "I don't even know how almost blown up I have been in the past, so my shitty mean emotions about this are even more obnoxious!"
Estes: "The important thing is that Peter Quinn is okay."
Walden: "Oooh I bet his little face is so scrunched up this week!"
Estes: "He's like a goddamned angel walking around right here on earth, sir."
Walden: "But grumpy, too! That's a huge part of what makes him so darling is that he's so grumpy!"
SUPERMAX
Saul: "That warden really is a bastard! I guess dealing with insane traitors and monsters such as yourself all day can really grind you down."
Aileen: "I don't know whether or not to trust you. Or maybe I am just dicking with you. Either way. You can't ever really know people, not really. It's the greatest misery of being alive."
Saul: "I have so missed our little talks."
Not me, brother. She's really appealing, like charismatic; she's great to watch. Which just makes her more offensive for existing. Actually, there's an amazing exchange in this part that I just remembered:
Aileen: "I'm not getting fucked over on this!"
Saul: "No. You're not. You have my word."
(One hundred intense vibes.)
Aileen: "Sorry. I want to trust you..."
Saul: "Then you should."
Aileen: "I'm sorry I've become this person. But I have."
I felt pretty bad for her, for a minute there. I guess I'm just not comfortable with that kind of degradation, I don't like to think of it. I am the opposite of Weird Lady. Being so self-absorbed and finding myself so endlessly fascinating, the idea of losing the self in that way is like, scarier than "Flowers For Algernon" even. My brain just shuts it down before it goes anywhere. But that also means her being that honest -- "I am unlikeable and crazy now; it is sad and embarrassing to be myself" -- I have no defenses for that. Poor gross bitch Aileen. You know? Poor little shit-flinging monster.
STABLES
Rex Henning: "My name is still that. Do you like horses?"
Brody: "Oh no, I was just staring. I have a huge staring problem."
Rex Henning: "Let me tell you a long rich-people story about a horse. Then I will veer suddenly, take a hard left into the Mekong Delta, and everything will get super weird. That's how 'Nam vets do it."
Brody: "I didn't notice that you were so turned off by Weird Lady."
Rex Henning: "They don't get it, and they will never get it. So whatever. I wish classier people would come to my horse parties, but it turns out that the unbelievably wealthy can sometimes act a little entitled. Like, who knew."
Brody: "I like how you blurt true things out and don't even give a shit. It reminds me of my daughter."
Rex Henning: "I think VP Walden is a jackass."
Brody: "See, like that. Also, what?"
Rex Henning: "I am throwing him this party but secretly it is for you. I want you to be the President of 2020."
Brody: "That's hilarious. I will most certainly have been blown to smithereens by then, probably by my own hand. Do not waste your money on me."
Rex Henning: "I kind of love you, though. After a manly, cowboy fashion."
Brody: "That is cool with me because I love you back, but not the other thing."
Rex Henning: "You can't stop me from wishing."
Brody: "That's true enough. I wish I was a better man. I wish I was the man you want me to be. I would settle for being as good a man as you."
Groundskeeper Basil: "Were ol' Keeper Basil a wishin' man, I'd wish for ten fine horses, and a golden ring for my bride."
Rex Henning: "You're so humble, Nick Brody!"
Brody: "That is not what I am being right now, no."
Ring-ring.
Carrie: "I have a plan. It involves making out with you. Come to the titular Clearing behind those stables so that I can empower you. Bring your boner."
THE CLEARING, ASAP
Carrie: "I scared Mike Faber. It was kind of mortifying to watch, but it got the job done. Until week, when he starts pokin' around again I'm sure."
Nick: "I don't even have time to be stressed out about that anymore. I just had a talk with a cowboy. He thought I was a good guy. It made me want to barf."
Carrie: "Did it also make you want to make out?"
They make out. Nick fucks everything up, like stat.
Nick: "Hey, is this for real?"
Carrie: "I don't know."
Nick: "Are you just handling me? You Keeping me close?"
Carrie: "Brody, I don't know."
I love that. Even Carrie is mystified by Carrie. Shit, I don't know. Kind of?
Carrie: "...I don't want you to feel used."
Nick: "You know what, I do feel used. And played, and lied to. But I also feel good. Two minutes with you, and I feel good. How do you pull that off?"
Somehow, and I can't see it anywhere in the words, but somehow in there he managed to call her a slut. I remember distinctly that he implied she is a big old whore in that little speech. But I'll be damned where it went, now that I'm looking at it in print. Acting. Actually both of them, in this scene, are on fire. No: Electrified. Like their hands have an agenda their brains don't even really know about yet. Like sideways gravity shoving them together.
Although I think the answer to the question of why he feels good when he's with her is that she does not judge him, she's the one that sees all the parts and down to the real sick shit and that she knew he was going to kill her up in that hotel room, she fell in love with him when she was the only person that knew he was a terrorist, and she still doesn't care about any of that, because he makes her feel good too. It means that he is universally loved by someone, which feels good, but also means that her moral character is slipshod enough that she wouldn't have a leg to stand on if she did decide to judge him.
People get real cagey when you start talking about why people are with the people that they're with, because that can go gross on you so fast, but that's part of it: You want the person you think you deserve. And for different reasons, both Nick and Carrie love about each other a very sad thing, which is that they are kind of the Worst. If you told me you were dating a member of Al Qaeda, I don't know that I would be able to restrain myself from giving you a pep talk about your worth as a person and as a romantic prospect. You know what I'm saying? If you said to me, "Hey, I think I'm going to start dating my stalker," there would be several conversational detours before arriving at, "You should leave your wife if you're going to do that." Possibly you would not come away from either conversation with the feeling that I was being a supportive friend.
Groundskeeper Basil: "You'n want to clear the Clearing now, mum. They be runnin' the homeless soon, on their white stallions, in their fine red coats. Hear ye a bugle, ye best to keep t'the shadows r'the thicket, for the hounds, once the blood is on 'em, they couldn't tell thee from their rightful prey. Mind me, aye?"
Carrie: "...Aye."
HORSE PARTY
Finn goes from table to table, chugging everybody's backwashed champagne. It's a neat image or idea, not too gross if you don't think about it, but also I'd think you could just steal a bottle. You're the VP's son, man.
Dana: "Gross, why are you doing that?"
Finn: "I'm thinking about how probably we should tell our big secret. Even though it's only been two episodes, somehow to the people at home it seems like we ran over that lady a million years ago."
Dana: "Okay, let's go tell them."
Finn: "Wait, just kidding. We can't do it at this horse party."
Dana: "Then why were you... You know what, fuck it. Grab your panties and let's go tell 'em."
Somehow they get into a mean girl hair-puller about it, which immediately draws Jessica and Cynthia to them like a mean girl magnet.
Dana: "I think this world of Quaker schools and double-standard justice is bullshit!"
Finn: "And I have a realistic understanding of the way things work for people like us. Maybe don't question my understanding of what it's like to be rich and famous since you've only been rich and famous for like one minute?"
Jessica: "Dana, I thought we talked about you sucking up to everybody all the time just like Mommy. I don't want Cynthia to see you fighting with her son!"
Cynthia: "And the boy knows what it will get."
Dana: "Shut up, you old bitches. We murdered someone."
Jessica: "..."
Finn: "..."
Dana: "..."
Cynthia: "Grab your panties and get inside. We're about to have a war council."
INSIDE
Cynthia: "Oh, you just hit-and-runned some old immigrant? I thought it was something serious. Jessica, why are you wasting my fucking time with this. I could be schmoozing right now."
She sends the kids away -- correctly noting that Finn is drunk, in a chillingly icy WASP way -- and turns her lamps full up, focusing them on Jessica.
Jessica: "So I guess we call the po-po and our lawyers and..."
Cynthia: "The fuck you say. We deal with this Eyes Wide Shut style. You may not know this, but I was actually the agent in charge of staging Marilyn Monroe's fake sui... Not relevant. The point is, shut up and let me handle this because you're been rich and powerful for about one minute."
Jessica: "I dunno, I think maybe we should put on our best overalls and do some stupid cornpone thing that will ruin the government and become the only news cycle for the month, wrecking everyone's career that is at this party and..."
Cynthia: "You realize I could have you killed, right? And nobody would know it wasn't an accident except me."
Jessica: "I do realize that, but I'm too stupid to care right now."
SUPERMAX
Quinn: "Sorry, the attorney general is what?"
Saul: "At his kid's school play. It's a real fucking laugh-a-minute farce, over here at terrorist prison."
Quinn: "Well, the second she tells you the name and secret origin of El Mysterioso, I will send in SWAT guys. And they are real SWAT guys, this time. Not fake terrorist ones."
Saul: "Should you be out of bed?"
Quinn: "I am being aided by Beautiful Max, The Incompetent Mute."
Saul: "Oh my God that is the best thing I've ever heard. Quinn and Max? Oh my God, I have to hang up now before I scream. That is too fuckin' cute."
SUPERQUAX
Max: "Max am beautiful. Max am incompetent. But Max am no mute. Max talk good talk."
Quinn: "Okay, little guy. Simmer."
SUPERMAX
Saul: "As promised, a romantic picnic for just we two."
Aileen: "I still can't tell if you're dicking with me. But on the true tip, I have Gollum blindness and cannot read this wine bottle. Would you mind giving me your reading glasses?"
Saul: "Yes, here you are. Note that they are made of actual glass, like I am Benjamin Franklin over here."
Aileen: "Did your wife leave you yet?"
Saul: "Yeah, I moved to Lebanon after she moved to Mumbai, which is why I was there at the beginning of the season."
Aileen: "Do you have like a real firm handle on geography? Because Mumbai and Beirut are..."
Saul: "By the time I figured that out, the paperwork had already gone through."
Aileen: "Well, I'm real sorry about all that. I guess it was only a matter of time before your wife noticed that you live like an eight-year-old boy or a raccoon."
Guard: "The attorney general sent us this fax! We had to find our fax machine and plug it in and remember how to work it, but we got the fax! Aileen, you now have a window!"
Aileen: "Oh, great. El Mysterioso, his real name is Mohammed Al Ghamdi. He's been in the States about a year. Last I heard, he lives in Newark, somewhere near Military Park. He's gun crazy! If he sees you coming, he'll shoot you like crazy!"
Saul: "I cannot wait to tell Quinn all of this. His little face will just light up."
Saul leaves Aileen in the conference room and the guard takes away her picnic. But not the spectacles made of real glass, those he does not take away.
THE CLEAR
I guess the hardest part about being a lie -- even though there's not anything deeper that he's obscuring, so I guess it's not a lie exactly -- I guess the hardest part about being a deconstructed entity would have to be the sheer time you put in. Nick Brody is an animal who has taken the form of a man and crept into the city while everyone was asleep.
That means that every social interaction involves shifting shape in some way, to appear the way the person wants you to appear. And his job, the job of Being Nick Brody All The Time, involves a lot of social interaction. Talking. Smiling. Nodding. Listening. Hearing. Empathizing. All the language. All the languages: The language of a body, of Weird Lady tilting her pelvis forward when she saw the first hint of the scars across his body. You have to remember so much, if you want your disguise to keep working.
Somewhere in the mansion they're all gathered, all the rich old white men that run our world, making their plans. Every one of them wants so many things, from so many people. You have to smile, and nod, and listen. They won't let you just be a beast.
So while they are up there, Nick Brody has come down to the swimming pool, all alone, in the quiet. The only man on earth, for a second. The only beast. He slips into the water. It is a prayer, but it is also a shout. One animal, wrapped in the arms of the world. In her silence.
Here's the thing Carrie still doesn't get about him, or really about Islam. What brings him to Islam; what makes it the right choice for Nick Brody. It's not that he wants power, it's not that he wants control. It's that he is breaking under those things. The responsibility of being a man, of being a beast -- the power he already has, the control he already wields --is so heavy that it terrifies him. Abu Nazir magnified it until it was all he could see, in that tiny room. He was God in that tiny room. And it burned his hands. And when Nazir took that away again, it was a balm. To just be someone else's beast.
UPSTAIRS
Walden: "I fucking hate our child. I hate your womb that bore it."
Cynthia: "Would that we had drowned it."
Walden: "It seems terrified of me, is that true?"
Cynthia: "You're a psycho, so."
Walden: "Well, Estes is going to cover it up with the po-po, so we're good. Does Brody know yet? He's always doing something annoying."
Cynthia: "Get this, his dumb bitch wife was like, talking about the po-po and lawyers and shit like that. Like this is an episode of Law & Order. Like we're poor people."
Walden: "Did you shut her up, or do we have to kill her?"
Cynthia: "I told her to shut up, I got pretty scary on her. But I don't know. She's pretty dumb. We may have to pop her, down by the vacants."
DOWNSTAIRS
Jessica: "You know how our daughter is a worthless piece of crap?"
Brody: "Well, I kinda like her but I know what you're talking about."
Jessica: "So she killed a dude, or something. And now Cynthia is being mean to me about it. She says I can't go wading into this with the po-po, because that's not evil enough and we have to be more evil, she says. Does that sound right to you?"
Brody: "We are about to get so fucking naïve and obnoxious on their asses."
Finn has packed his shit and will be taking the towncar far, far away from the shitstorm of lies that is about to unfurl. Dana has no concept whatsoever of what is going on.
Dana: "Finn! I'm sorry if you got grounded."
Finn: "You know why I tried to date you? Because you're an idiot about this stuff. It's so nice to think that one innocent person exists in Washington that doesn't know what a fixer is or how easily things can disappear."
Dana: "I have a moral problem with whatever you're talking about that I don't actually understand."
Finn: "I know. Your self-righteousness is just one more thing that makes you so loveably stupid. I will miss your pronouncements, I think, most of all."
Dana: "Here are several more."
CIGAR PARTY
Um, all the old white men weren't acting old or white enough, so they sent their wimmins to bed and are now crowded into a tiny room drinking white people scotch and smoking white people cigars and acting all stupid and boring like only captains of industry can do.
Old White Guy: "How is your money? Mine is doing just okay."
Old White Guy: "I didn't earn it, I inherited it. Then I paid for a guy to find every tax loophole possible. And yet somehow still I'm so retardely unaware of my own privilege that I can actually have a problem with the estate tax. I'm like, Why shouldn't wealth accumulate to itself unhindered? How else can we retain our hegemony?"
Old White Guy: "I don't like people that aren't like us, very much. More people should be like us, and then I would like them. That would be a lucky break for those guys, to be liked by me."
Old White Guy: "It's so important for me to put my dick in things that I sometimes take a pill to convince my dick that it's wrong about not wanting to be put in everything all the time. It's like a little performance I'm doing, that nobody will ever see or care about."
Old White Guy: "I think it's unfair that other people think things are unfair. I think the word 'racist' is every bit as hateful as actual racist words."
David Estes: "Sometimes I could literally just open fire on you assholes."
Rex Henning gives a long, adoring blowjob/speech about Nick Brody that doesn't even give a shit about pretending to be about Walden, but Walden doesn't seem to mind.
Walden: "Can I talk to you for a minute? It's about our disgusting children."
Brody: "Yeah, I think we should act like human beings and report the fact that our children killed a woman and didn't tell anybody for like a week. I think that's pretty clear-cut."
Walden: "But is it though?"
Brody: "...Wait, isn't it?"
Walden: "It isn't. Why should those jerks ruin our careers? You heard Rex Henning's blowjob just now, right? You're pretty awesome."
Brody: "So you're not really considering a woman as your running partner?"
Walden: "What am I, gay?"
TEAM QUINN
Has located Mohammed Al Ghamdi, 31 Sussex Ave., north side of the street, freestanding, one story. There are so many guys in SWAT gear and Peter Quinn is being so Peter Quinn right now. I wish he was commanding an elite team of silent killers at like all times.
Wait, that isn't El Mysterioso! What are you telling me, that Aileen Crazypants was just jerking Saul around? That she wasn't suddenly interested in helping the American running dogs bring down her cult/terrorist cell? You gotta be shitting me. Surely people can change for the better while they're being systematically tortured by the same system they were trying to take apart. Surely that's a sensible thing that probably happens all the time, right?
Mohammed: "I am chubby and not El Mysterioso at all, but I seem like a decent chap..."
Quinn: "Don't move! Don't do anything weird! I am arresting you! You are SWATted."
Mohammed: "I'm a musician. You know, like Coldplay?"
Quinn: "...Wait, what? That was a fucked up thing to say, mister. Why did you even say that?"
Quinn: "Dear Saul. You are a chump. Love Quinn."
Saul: "Dear Quinn, she is Gollum blind and you should never trust those. Love Saul."
Quinn: "Dear Saul, this person is a grad student or maybe a member of Coldplay? I do not want to do anything with him. I want to just leave him alone. Love, Quinn."
Saul: "Dear Quinn. Somehow I just realized that Aileen is committing suicide. Later. Love, Saul."
Aileen: "Dear Cruel World. Thanks for giving me these spectacles from olden times, the better to kill myself with. I can't say that you will miss me, because I am a crazy bitch, but at least that shit about the window didn't turn out super gay like you thought it would. Love and but mostly hate, Aileen."
Cruel World: "Dear Aileen. Please cram it. No love, Earth."
Saul: "WHY? WHY? WHY?"
Aileen, dying: "Don't ask me why I do things. Who even cares."
Saul: "Well, I guess at least you didn't screw up the window thing and make a metaphor or something..."
Aileen, verbatim: "I just spent the day by the window. A whole day. Light, sun, a view... Best last day I could have."
Saul: "You are such a little asshole! I can't believe that your last act on earth is making this all stupid like that."
I mean, mic drop. You gotta give it up for Aileen, that was some quality trolling.
So does the metaphor go all the way? She made him feel good; she apologized for being the person she'd become. Tom Walker just lost his way, Nick said. Just couldn't get himself back together in time, and then he came apart. No pool deep or quiet or still enough; no clearing wide enough or far enough away.
Aileen Margaret Morgan was a beast in the shape of a woman, who crept into the city when our backs were turned. And we kicked her and we beat her and we starved her and we blinded her and then, in the end, we were enraged by the thing she had become. We were shocked, at all the pain she was in. At the shape she'd finally arrived at, when she was done changing shape. At the ugly thing we made.
DOWNSTAIRS
Dana: "Hey Dad. Heard any good jokes lately?"
Nick: "Let's go."
Dana: "Go where?"
Nick: "Po-po."
Dana: "Oh, thank God. Somebody with a moral compass."
Nick: "Nope. Just don't like feeling jerked around, and this is the one way I can reassert power over everybody that also feels like a good ethical choice."
Walden: "Dear David Estes. Get your boy in line. Love, Da Veep."
Estes: "Dear Walden, I am on it. What is this dude's issue. Love, David."
TEAM QUINN
Quinn: "Hey, ya big old bear. Don't take it so rough. Crazy desperate miserable people do crazy desperate miserable things."
Saul: "Crazy Desperate Miserable People Doing Crazy Desperate Miserable Things is actually the title of this show in certain overseas markets."
Quinn: "Well, do you want me to wrap my arms around you or put my scrunchy little face in your face?"
Saul: "Very much those things. How is Galvez?"
Quinn: "Still dyin'."
Saul: "Even for how grumpy you are, that's a little cold."
Quinn: "Sorry. Actually if he dies I will probably cry for like a day. I love Galvez and I'm just playin' it cool. Whistling in the dark."
Saul: "That is the cutest thing I have ever heard."
DC METRO PO-PO STATION
Dana: "Why the fuck is Crazy Carrie hanging out at this very specific po-po?"
Nick: "Oh, do you remember her from the time she went bugshit on our lawn and made you call me so I didn't blow up the government?"
Dana: "Yeah, that day sort of does stick out in my memory."
Nick: "Anyway, I don't know why she's here but I'm going to go yell at her, okay?"
Dana: "That would certainly help."
Nick: "Carrie, I know I made out with you earlier in that clearing and then brutally walked away before we could fully make love, but that is no reason to loiter at the po-po. This is Brody business."
Carrie: "No, this is cease and fucking desist business."
Nick: "What does that mean when you say that?"
Carrie: "If you report this, you'll alienate Walden. And your handler and your cult leader both want you buddied up with him, for nefarious reasons, and therefore your immunity is off if you do this. Po-po is a no-go. Sorry."
Dana: "...What's up, whore?"
Nick: "Get back in the car."
Dana: "Why, so you can talk more to this whore?"
Carrie: "Helllooo Dana, it's me, your Aunt Carrie! We met one time on your lawn. I was going batshit crazy at the time and the po-po actually tackled me, I don't know if you remember that but..."
Dana: "Both of y'all can get to fuck."
Carrie: "Honey, please don't be mad at your Daddy. I realize I'm only your stepmother..."
Nick: "-- No."
Carrie: "I know I'm not your stepmother yet..."
Nick: "-- Still no."
Dana: "Both of you can go to hell. I already know how this ends, with me not walking in there and just crawling inside my guilt like the stinking steaming belly of a tauntaun, and you here with blood on your hands and cheating on mom, and then you become Vice President and we are all bastards, forever. And can I just say, go fuck yourself."
She runs off, all high and mighty, and for lack of anything or anybody better to abuse, the beast that walks like a man starts yelling at Carrie. And she takes it. And the reason she takes is that, while she's not the stepmother yet, she sure as shit knows Dana better than either of her parents. And the disconnect between the things Carrie knows about the Brodys and the things that would occur to them, a lot of stuff can fall into that gap. In fact, it could create the illusion of love itself.
Being absolutely known, down to your core, is what love feels like. So what happens when a person actually knows you that well for real? When it's not just a feeling, I mean, but an actual fact. Not a metaphor. Nick Brody has died and been born, now, several times. Down in that hole, he died, and came out just nothing. Just a no-place, no-person. Built over it. And then again, when Issa died. Died, reborn as a cleansing fire. And when he got back here, back into Jessica's house and in her arms, that was another birth. And Carrie has been with him, literally without stopping, since that day. Wouldn't that feel an awful lot like being loved?
That's the beast that crept in.
WEEK
Quinn somehow manages to be shocked by Carrie's latest plan to stop Nick Brody from freaking the fuck out, presumably because it involves making out with him. Dana turns to "an unlikely source" for comfort, which I presume is Peter Quinn because what could possibly be more comforting than Peter Quinn grousing at you, but maybe Dana will do the brilliant, sick-ass move of treating Mike Faber like her real dad. That's probably what I would do, because I am kind of a sociopath, but dang how crazy would that be. A geometric progression of more and more people have conversations about Tom Walker that don't go anywhere until the whole world is just people having conversations about Tom Walker that don't go anywhere and Carrie's just like, Cease and fucking desist, you guys!. Oh, and Basil's favorite mare throws a shoe.
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.