Clean

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It's been like an hour since we took down the Roya offensive, with only Nazir left out in the cold, so of course he immediately manages to crash into Carrie's car and abduct her. Saul, already downhearted after an unhelpful breakfast meeting with Dar Adal and a mean little screaming fight with David Estes, spends the day running around wondering if Carrie's finally gotten herself killed and trying to figure out Quinn's angle. (Quinn, for his part, spends the day with his shirt unbuttoned down to here.)

Jessica and Mike giggle about how they're adulterers, while Finn tries to reconnect with Dana (who is on fire this week) and Nick chills with son Chris. At least, until Abu Nazir invites him to Facetime with tied-up damsel Carrie, and offers him his assignment. Turns out VP Walden has a Pacemaker installed, and one of Nazir's guys can kill him with it if Nick just sneaks into his home office and gets the serial number.

Carrie and Nazir spend the hour chatting about terrorism, philosophy, mental illness, and which one of them loves Nick Brody more. (Not a joke. This is actually a conversation they have.) It's intriguing to see a show actually try and explain terrorism, and I'd say they do a good job, but what do I know. Nazir reiterates that he's intending to die this season, on which whole concept Carrie calls bullshit in a pretty compelling way.

But the really intense part is that Abu Nazir has no idea he's looking at his archenemy, so instead of treating her like a James Bond villain should, he treats her like just some random hot girl that Nick would commit terrorism for. Which is basically the opposite of who Carrie and Nick actually are to each other -- or who she and Nazir are to each other, for that matter -- which means his sexist assumptions are just this one time probably a good thing. The last thing you want is for Nazir to realize that Carrie is about a thousand times more capable, and infinity times more crazy, than the Brody he's already got.

Thanks to Saul, we're reminded of the fact that Estes and Walden are both implicated in the drone attack that killed Issa -- which Saul thinks is reason enough to have Quinn on the team, ready to take out Nick when it's time so they won't be embarrassed -- and this (plus the thing about the defense contracts for Israel's bunkerbuster) comes back into play when Brody swears to help Nazir if he lets Carrie go. So he does, and he does, and the bottom line is that poor old Brody at least gets to stare into Walden's eyes as he kills him. It's maybe the worst thing Brody's done so far, but for sure it is also the best thing he has done so far.

For whatever reason, somebody high up has the balls to take Saul into custody in the episode's final moments, which means the only person who could even pretend to talk sense into Carrie is gone by the time she... Abruptly ceases her escape, picks up a lead pipe, and heads back into the warehouse she just escaped so she can beat Abu Nazir's ass.

Oh, Carrie. Cheers on underscoring that you are nobody's damsel, and cheers for your sticktoitiveness now that your most hugest quarry is within reach? But jeers for once again also underscoring that you are an insane person. We all agree you have supernatural powers, you don't have to actually engage in fisticuffs with Abu Nazir to prove it.

Week: Team Quinn interrogates Roya Hammad, Carrie survives somehow but loses Nazir, and everybody remembers there's been a mole this entire time. Two episodes left, with Nazir at large as usual. I predict by this time week, he will be standing in the lobby of the CIA itself chatting up the security guards and flashing gang signs as Estes and Saul tear around in circles with their eyes closed, screaming "Marco! Marco!"

Want more? The full recap starts right below!

PREVIOUSLY

Almost unqualified success! Except that, for some reason, all these dummies thought Abu Nazir would actually be at their big crackdown -- maybe because his dumb ass is wandering the Maryland countryside when he should be on the other side of Earth -- which is bad for Carrie (and about to get badder) but good for Nick Brody, since it turns out Peter Quinn is even more amazing than scientific standards could measure and, in fact, is on this show to put a bullet in Brody once we catch Nazir. Why? Because David Estes and VP Walden are to blame for the drone strike that killed Issa and a bunch of other little kids and only Brody and Nazir know that. (Also, because Nick Brody is a crazy person and a member of Al-Qaeda and his body is a registered weapon and he demonstrates weekly that he cannot be trusted in any way.)

In other news, apparently people still use Blackberries and apparently they don't Skype and apparently this plus the perfect reception that all cellphones on all television shows always get except when it serves the plot has tipped certain viewers off to the fact that this show is not actually a documentary about the American intelligence community.

But I'll tell you this: There is no louder fan of a show than one who is two years late and just caught up with it on DVD. Whether they're horrible Community/Firefly types yelling at you about "their" show long after it matters (and who refused to watch it when their enthusiasm might have made a difference) or horrible Mad Men types who can't wait to tell you that the show has jumped the shark this season (a.k.a. the first season they are actually watching), the volume is the same. And the intention is the same: To label themselves as a person who is in on it and thus has an interesting opinion about it.

They have to talk louder, because they know in their hearts that their opinions carry less weight, because they didn't pick up on the buzz before the rest of America did or the Emmys or whatever the hell it was that finally convinced them that maybe whatever show we're talking about was worth trying out. And then, lo and behold, America actually got something right. So now it's a waiting game before you get to be the first person to call bullshit, because that proves you're ahead of the curve. And apparently this episode provided that -- the glorious Emperor's New Clothes moment -- for just about the whole middle third of the bell curve this week.

The whole thing is stupid, the whole thing happens with literally every TV show and the only difference is how loud and mobbed it gets, which bears a direct proportion to how big the buzz gets. It has nothing to do with actual critique or criticism, and everything to do with self-labeling.

(And maybe -- just maybe, just a little bit -- with relief that you're not so dumb for hating the entire Brody Family half of the show or finding it boring, because you are here for guns and romance and spycraft and people saying swears and not for the actual show, which are both reasons that are actually why it's critically acclaimed and why you heard everybody talking about it in the first place, that you now have the crowd's permission to sniff at, because it's finally tipped over.)

Don't get me wrong, it's a crappy episode. Maybe the worst one of the entire series, which sucks: There shouldn't be any crappy episodes, of any series. There's no good reason for that. But you can say that without it meaning anything particularly epic beyond that, because anything else is oversimplifying, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the show.

The second this show actually started coming up at the dinner table or the bar, I felt my stomach start to cramp, because I knew what would come : The dorky internet hipster race to be the first person to be over it, the first person to pause their TiVo at the exact apex of Fonzie's jump and say, "I have won." And if you don't understand why that entire mindset pisses me off more than anything on this planet, you really haven't been paying attention.

WALTER'S WAFFLES

Saul: "Dar Adal, my creepy old friend played by F. Murray Abraham. I knew I'd find you here having waffles for lunch. It's Wacky Waffle Thursday, after all. The day you eat breakfast like its lunch!"
Dar Adal: "Being a black-bag assassin means that, as I get older, I like to know I can count on certain things."
Saul: "I went to your house. No longer your house."
Dar Adal: "No point anymore. I have to move, constantly. I miss the Cold War."
Saul: "What an 'old-school TV spy' thing to say!"
Dar Adal: "I miss the rules. Soviets didn't shoot us, we didn't shoot them. But this bunch?"
Saul: "Thought you retired."
Dar Adal: "We all try that. Doesn't work. Spies aren't humans anymore."

Saul: "So yeah, speaking of that. Peter Quinn. Don't fuck with me, either. You got on the #7 bus and had a nice long talk with him last night around eight."

Dar Adal: "Who's asking, just you?"
Saul: "Always."
Dar Adal: "Yeah, he's one of mine."
Saul: "But how come? Why make a killer of men the leader of a quote 'straight-up intelligence operation?'"
Dar Adal: "He didn't say. He just said Dar Adal, send me the cutest most scrunchy-faced, awesomest person you've got, who is good at leading teams and also at killing men. Wearing multiple hats, as it were. It is for a secret reason. So I did. But maybe, just to fuck with you because I am a very bad man, maybe it was because he doesn't trust you."

Saul: "Not trust me? All I do is let Carrie Mathison constantly fuck everything up for everyone in the entire universe -- why wouldn't he trust me?"
Dar Adal: "This is the answer but I don't know if you'll understand it because it is in code, but understand that I am not really changing the subject when I say, You've always been afraid to get your hands dirty."
Saul: "You were right, I completely missed the clue of what you just said, you old so-and-so!"
Dar Adal: "How do you survive, Saul? I... Really, it's amazing."
Saul: "I, too, am amazed by my continued survival. Later, douche."

SAFEHOUSE

Jessica: "I guess we should wonder where Brody is, since the whole thing ended hours ago."
Mike: "I guess so too, but mostly I want to giggle about how we fucked!"
Jessica: "That is my main thing too."

Brody enters, infecting the room with scowls.

Brody: "Hey, guys. Hey, Mike. Thanks for 'helping out.'"
Mike: "No problem?"
Brody: "No, I 'mean' it. I really 'appreciate' your help with 'my' family."

Chris: "Dad! Daddy! Are you a spy now?"
Brody: "No, just a Congressman still."
Chris: "Aw, nuts."

Dana: "I guess hi or whatever."
Brody: "Always a pleasure."

Jessica: "So do we get to go home now, or...?"
Brody: "Not quite yet. 'Good thing' Mike was here to 'help,' though, huh?"
Jessica, amazingly: "Yeah. He helped all right. Helped me out nice and good, motherfucker."
Brody: "So there's that."
Jessica: "Yep. Me and Mike, you and Carrie. Three assholes and a Marine."

Brody: "Right, so Dana probably told you about Carrie and me working together. And you probably remember that I lied to your face about that. And also you can now blame Carrie for me cockblocking Dana from going to the cops about the thing, which you'll probably enjoy holding against me. And then of course Mike was here all night, so..."

Jessica: "That is the long and the short of it, my friend."
(Ring-ring!)
Jessica: "...Yep. Saw that comin'. Go ahead, answer it. I am feeling pretty copacetic about shit this morning. Frankly if you're willing to look the other way while I continue fucking my real boyfriend, you can do whatever weird PTSD sex shit with Carrie you want. It was more the iniquity of the situation than anything else."

CARRIE'S CAR

Carrie: "Hey!"
Nick: "Hey!"
Carrie: "So listen, the Attorney General is totally down to honor our agreement with you, but -- as you know -- there's some housekeeping..."
Nick: "Right. Quit Congress and also pass on the VP spot. Which is going to cause, like, a furor, so... I guess I just tell the press it's about focusing on my family or something?"
Carrie: "Fuck that! Uh, I mean, sure. How is your wonderful family? Did my creepy Mike Faber trick work?"
Nick: "Yeah, but no. I mean, I don't know."
Carrie: "Well, you can all go home soon. Or they can, and you and I can run away together forever and ever now that you've practically ended this entire TV series with your helpful Roya Hammad information. Assuming something doesn't happen in the like five minutes, I mean."
Nick: "It will be interesting to see if we're still dating once I get off the hook for treason. It will also be interesting to see if I am still in Al-Qaeda."

Carrie turns on the radio, flips the channels and starts having one of her Jazz Freakouts. But before she can even get started, Abu Nazir drives into the side of her car and abducts her.

And I guess if you were under the impression that this show is about Nick Brody, then that's pretty fucked up: How can Carrie Mathison become a damsel in distress, even for one episode? That's so misogynist!

Except this isn't really a story about Nick Brody, it's a story about Carrie Mathison.

It's like... okay, boys against this wall and girls against this wall. If you're standing on the Boys' side of the gym, look across and you're watching a woman get abused and you're watching a man overcome obstacles to save her. And the funny thing about this week's episode is that, even if you're a woman, for certain structural reasons you might find yourself standing against the Boys' wall. So if we could all cross the gym for a minute and stand where Carrie's standing, what do we see?

The protagonist of the show, abducted by her greatest enemy. Claustrophobic, tied up: Every spy's worst nightmare. Abject, at the hands of a man she hates so much -- as a figurehead, sure, but also as a murderer and a terrorist himself -- that it drove her mad. The only person she is more obsessed with than Nick Brody, with nobody to help her and no way to survive and nowhere to turn and time ticking away on her meds, back in the car. Her personal worst nightmare, coming true. And the only person she can trust, she doesn't actually trust. And the only way he can think to save her is to damn them both to treason. Very heroic.

The only person with any kind of gendered agenda at all in what's about to happen is Nazir, because he doesn't understand that he has captured his greatest enemy since she's just a woman -- he's not holding Carrie hostage, he's holding Nick hostage; Carrie's just the bait -- and, of course, the viewer who thinks that this is a story about Nick Brody, fighting for the woman he loves.

But he isn't and she isn't. And he doesn't, not really. And we're not standing on his side of the gym, because this is not a story about him. It's a very good show in that he's a real person -- just like his wife, just like his daughter -- but in this case, it's not about him.

The fact that Carrie's onscreen for about five total minutes, I acknowledge, makes this an easier trap to fall into than usual and I think that is where a lot of the backlash is coming from: not that she's the damsel, but that she's only onscreen in this way for the entire episode. But I don't feel like watching an hour of Carrie tied to a pipe, leaking blood and snot. So I'm willing to just use my imagination to fill in those blanks, without leaving her side. Because she makes that shit count first of all, and because it is a very shitty feminism that says nothing bad can ever happen to a woman in a story. It is a very dangerous thing to demand that, from the world.

BRIEFING RM

Estes gives everybody a second to applaud themselves for taking down Roya's cell before returning to the fact that Nazir is still around. Peter Quinn is, as ever, in a state of virile wariness.

Virgil: "So he's one of Dar Adal's? That's creepy."
Saul: "I know, I need to talk to David about it."
Virgil: "That is going to go horribly."

Saul: "David! Hey, I talked to Dar Adal, a man that doesn't exist, and he told me that you requisitioned Quinn from him? I hate to be a bother and ask you a redundant question, but who the fuck is this guy and why is he in my thing?"

Estes: "None of your business, Berenson."
Saul: "Really? Because I think he's in place to kill Brody for knowing that you and Walden ordered a drone strike against a madrassa full of kids."
Estes: "What an implication!"
Saul: "I'm not implying anything. I am saying quite openly that you have done super shady shit to cover this up in the past and it fits with Peter Quinn's mandate and also the clues of Dar Adal."

Estes freaks the fuck out; like, he goes bouncing around the hall yelling cusses. Always a good plan when you want to show that you are not up to anything.

Quinn: "Am I interrupting? With my shirt buttoned only up to my clavicle, in what some might call a devil-may-care, bad-boy fashion?"
Saul & David: "Certainly not, Quinn. Certainly you are not interrupting. That color looks amazing on you. What can we do, what do you need right now?"
Quinn: "Um, Carrie just got randomly smashed into and nobody knows where she is."
Saul: "I'm on it!"

Estes: "Uh, Saul knows who you are and why you are here."
Quinn: "I suppose it was inevitable. I could only be super subtle about it for so long."
Estes: "I swear I could just hang out with you in this hallway forever. You make me feel so safe."

SAFEHOUSE

Chris and Brody play Hearts, because this episode is about hearts.

Major Joy: "You guys? Secret Service wants to bring Finn Walden over here."
Dana: "Yeah, he keeps calling me. He seems like a real damn mess, actually."
Nick: "Could we maybe try to put out like one fire today?"
Dana: "Yeah, fine. Whatever."
(Ring-ring!)
Jessica: "Hang on, I'm trying to decide whether to be pissy about this... no, go for it."

Nazir Facetimes Brody with some classic "tied-up Carrie" footage and Brody is like, "Let me just step outside so I can take this call." You know how it is when Nick Brody is trying to "be casual"? Like, with the serial killer smile and crazy eyes and shaking and sweating and general freakiness of him? So: That. Out to the hall, past the guards, into a random apartment.

Brody: "This is the first I'm hearing about Carrie's abduction by you, mister. Explain!"
Nazir: "Well it's pretty simple. You sold out Roya and got all my dudes killed. Including Fake Me. So now you are in big troubs, Little Nikita."

Brody: "I don't wanna be a terrorist anymore!"
Nazir: "Yeah, no. I get that. Got that memo. But see, I'm going to kill this lady."
Brody: "Let me talk to her!"
Nazir: "No, honey. What you're gonna do is go find Walden's pacemaker packaging and give me the serial number of it, which my one guy will then hack and kill our cyborg Vice President from the inside. And I totally swear that's the last thing. Until the thing."

Chris Brody: "Dad, can we finish playing cards?"
Nick Brody: "NO! FUCK OFF! DADDY IS BUSY!"
Chris Brody, Eternally: Is dejected.

Brody: "Hey, random official guy, is the VP around?"
Carrington: "He's having a creepy meeting with the Israeli ambassador about some creepy things he told you he was done doing."
Brody: "Cool, I'm headed over there. Can you keep him there if they finish up first?"
Carrington: "Sure, I have nothing better to do."

CARRIE

Needs to do a lot of acting while tied to a pipe and with a gag in her mouth. So she does.

THE SCENE OF THE ACCIDENT

Saul: "Well, she's not in this empty car... but her phone is, which is weird considering there are cops everywhere."
Virgil: "She's not in any hospitals. And the witnesses are bullshit, like, one guy says he saw a lady running away, and another guy says Abu Nazir dragged her into another car..."
Saul: "There are cameras everywhere in this neighborhood, get the cops to let us know."
Virgil, verbatim: "Our computers will run a search."
Saul: "Sure. Man, we fucked this up. Carrie off the leash, wandering around unprotected. I guess something was bound to happen. Maybe he's going to use her as a hostage to get out of the country."
Virgil: "But then wouldn't he have called us? Or somebody?"
Saul: "Good point. I'm going to call Brody on her phone and see what happens."

Brody: "What happens is, I freak out! I mean, hey. Carrie? Did you somehow manage to call me?"
Saul: "No, it's me. Listen, did you know Carrie got kidnapped?"
Brody: "No? I'm gonna say no."
Saul: "You're the last call on her phone. What did you chat about?"
Brody: "Resigning from Congress. Her plan to make my wife commit adultery. The usual. I'll let you know if she calls!"

Major Joy, quietly and to herself: "You are the twitchiest motherfucker in the galaxy. I'm gonna be so glad when I can get back to babysitting Carrie Mathison. She is so cool."

SAFEHOUSE - ROOFTOP POOL

Dana, awesomely verbatim: "Turns out my dad is like a superspy, and terrorists want to kill him or some shit."
Finn: "That's so crazy. But back to being teenagers, how come you don't answer my texts?"
Dana: "I'm going to keep making this face I make until you tell me what you want."
Finn: "Every morning I wake up and for a few brief seconds..."
(Bleep-bloop. No thank you.)
Finn: "...Anyway, I kind of miss you because you're the only person my age who understands what it's like to have killed that lady."
Dana: "Did you know your dad would swoop into action and buy everybody off and cover everything up and all that?"
Finn: "Did I what? Dana I literally looked you in the eye and told you exactly that."
Dana: "Yeah, I remember. Man, the world is a vampire."
Finn: "Up on top of the Washington Monument was pretty nice, though."
Dana: "I liked you. We liked each other. We had feelings. But we ran over those feelings and just drove away and didn't tell anybody for a week. And now those feelings are dead. Dead just like that lady who we did those things to also."

TEAM QUINN

The funny thing about this is how they're spies? Looking for Carrie Mathison, like, they don't even have to get special equipment. Everything is already set up. They actually have an entire office set up just to fix this problem. Everything's even already plugged in and turned on and booted up, the whole nine. I don't know, that just tickles me for some reason.

The only thing missing, in fact, from Team Quinn: Operation Where's Carrie Off To is their secret weapon, Carrie. Like how you need your glasses to find your glasses, but you don't have your glasses. You know?

Saul: "For the most wanted person on Earth, it sure was easy to find a picture of him buying Funyuns at this random convenience store five blocks from the place he snatched her."
Galvez: "I am on this show!"
Quinn: "Galvez, I have been very worried about you. My face scrunched up like whoa. Get back in bed or I will put you over my tiny back and carry you there myself. Put you back to bed with my cool hand on your forehead, and soft little sleepytime kisses."

Galvez: "That sounds literally like what Heaven must be like. But no. For I am super worried about Carrie and I want to help!"
Saul: "So we have a mole... and you're Muslim... and that's like the only trait you have... hmm. How racist should this show get, I wonder. I'm thinking all the way. Guys?"

TORTURE CENTRAL

Carrie, up to the point, has spent the episode trying to get like one random lawnmower blade or something where she can reach it, pregnantly hauling herself up by the almost-snapping wrists to stand up, grunting and moaning and chewing her gag. It was pretty awful; at one point he came back and knocked her over and tied her feet together so she couldn't do that shit anymore; even with half of it obscured, she's still making some wildly Carrie faces. Eventually though, he comes back with water.

Abu Nazir: "Hey! I need you looking alert and terrified, not drowsy and spaced out."
Carrie: "I don't want your fucking water. And also, this is how you brainwashed my boyfriend. A lot of pain, a little love. I've read the manual, fucko."
Abu Nazir: "Oh no, I don't care what you think. You do not matter. The worst part about this is that I'm not torturing you or treating you like an asset or anything. You don't even get to be a spy in this movie -- you're just some white bitch."
Carrie: "Also like I'm so sure he can just waltz into the Naval Observatory* and get you the serial number of the machine inside our Vice President's cyborg body."
Abu Nazir: "Are you sure? Because I've seen this show and he does that shit every week. Nobody ever walks in on him, or asks why he looks like he's about to barf and diarrhea and pass out all at the same time, or anything like that. It's going to be fine."

*(That's where that is? I learn something new every week. Between this show and Fallout 3 I'm starting to think I could get around DC without even a map.)

Abu Nazir: "Anyway, in my narrative he does it to save you."
Carrie: "First of all, he is about this close to freaking out. And second of all, you're gonna kill me anyway. He knows that, and we are cool about it. We have a spy understanding."
Abu Nazir: "At least he'll try, I think."
Carrie: "He's smarter than you think, jerk."

Abu Nazir stares at her, like he's seeing her for the first time.

Abu Nazir: "Whoa, you love him too? We have things in common?"

Carrie: "We have shit in common. Love is barely even the right word for what I him."
Abu Nazir: "Shh, woman. Grown-up talking. Now, do you know what Lima Syndrome is? It's like the opposite of Stockholm Syndrome, it's kind of barely even the right word for what I him."

I broke into his soul while he was away, and moved things around, made a place to live there. I put little cameras everywhere, so I could watch him all the time, from inside. Little microphones, so that I could hear his heart beating. I knew him, better than he knows himself. Maybe better than I know myself. And at the end of doing all that, I realized I'd been infected. I moved into him and he moved into me. What exists between us now is unbreakable. It does not have words. It is like a promise, without words. Like a prayer, but you don't sing it.

And we're going away together. Someday soon, we're leaving all of you behind. Do you know, when I got him away from all of you and I had him to myself, we prayed together. He didn't tell anybody. He came back to you all and told you everything was fine. But he didn't tell you we prayed together or how we cried for our son. It was too special -- too quiet and wordless -- for him to share. I love him. I hate him and I don't trust him and he has hurt me a thousand times, more deeply than you can imagine. But I love him. I took him apart, and I put him together. That is what love does. It happened to me, too.

Carrie: "Too close. Too fuckin' close, motherfucker. You're never getting out of America alive."
Abu Nazir: "I know. It's fine."
Carrie: "Bullshit it's fine. I don't buy that when you guys say that."
Abu Nazir: "Because you can't imagine it. Believing that there are things larger than you. This is war. I'm a soldier."
Carrie: "Uh, you're a terrorist. There used to be rules."

Abu Nazir: "Imagine you are sitting down to dinner with your wife and children. Out of the sky, as if thrown by an angry god, a drone strike hits and destroys all of them. Who is the terrorist?"
Carrie: "Oh, is it storytime? It's the last day of Ramadan. A young man enters a Shia village, pushing a cart full of candy and toys. He waits in the school playground for all the children to gather. Then he reaches back and flips a switch..."
Abu Nazir: "You fight with what you have."

Carrie: "What you 'have' are perversions of the Prophet's teachings. What you have are children you turn into bombs."
Abu Nazir: "I'm a piece of a machine. Generations might suffer and die before we get where we're going. Can you say the same?"
Carrie: "Sure, whatever it takes."

"With your pension plans and organic foods, your beach houses and sports clubs? Do you have the perseverance, the tenacity, the faith? Because we do. You can bomb us, starve us, occupy our holy places, but we will never lose our faith. We carry God in our hearts, our souls. To die is to join Him. It may take a century, two centuries, three centuries, but we will exterminate you."

Carrie: "Yeah. Because you are a terrorist."

(But he's not wrong, bro.)

NAVAL OBSERVATORY

After going for a four-in-hand knot, like he's a fucking farmer or something and not a Congressman, Brody heads on in. He has many very, very long moments as he shakily, pale-facedly, handshakingly makes his way to the VP's home office, before he says goodbye to the Ambassador. He makes some weak jokes, tosses out some weak smiles, touches like every possible surface in the room with his sweaty fingertips, finally finds the thing and goes looking for this giant brass magnifying glass to read the thing. This conversation goes on for about your entire life:

Nazir: "Nicholas, give me the number and I'll let Carrie go."
Brody: "Let Carrie go and I'll give you the number."
Nazir: "But I don't trust you! Give me the number first."
Brody: "But I don't trust you! Let Carrie go first."

How do you earn a breakout from this classic situation? Issa, obviously.

Nick's Point: "I wouldn't swear on Issa unless I meant it, which you know. That's how you brainwashed me in the first place. And also though, you know that I would love it if Walden dropped dead of a heart attack. Not only because of Issa, but because the guy is seriously the worst. He should die for Issa alone, but also I can't handle the fact that he is going to be the President, because that is going to ruin the world. Every reason I have for joining Al-Qaeda is still true and still on the table, whether or not you're pissed off at me right now."

At this point Nick is making so many insane faces and doing so many odd tics and quirks and things, I mean it's so grotesque that I sort of had to watch through my fingers, but somebody online noted that the way Nazir keeps making him swear on Issa's immortal soul, over and over, and there's this one microsecond where Nick just entirely leaves the room for a second, just goes totally vacant and so maybe there is another thing going on right now, like maybe he's being "activated" or something. (Trigger warning!)

I don't know. I don't know what all they get up to these days. You can't have a childhood filled with Chris Claremont comics and not, somewhere in your mind, believe that possibly this is a thing that happens to people, this post-hypnotic mind control thing, where somebody shows you a Queen of Diamonds or plays Frankie Goes To Hollywood and suddenly you're murdering the Prime Minister of Malaysia at a fashion show.

Either way, Carries leaves and Nick gives Nazir the code thing. And either way, Carrie hears him give Nazir the code thing. So, what's going through her head? Happy to be alive for a second, maybe. But also wondering what the fuck is going on with her boyfriend that he just totally committed murder, maybe a bunch of different capital offenses -- just now I had to stop myself in the middle of googling "is it treason to murder the vice president" in various configurations, because I don't want to go to Guantanamo Bay just for googling things or I could tell you for sure -- and the fact that she's implicated. Right? Like, just the fact that he gave this number, presuming it's the real one -- and nobody making the fucked up faces he's making could also be lying at the same time -- means she has to put his narrow ginger ass fully in jail. Right? Something to think about as she's tearing off down the road.

Anyway, that's when Walden walks in. Looking like a jerkwater assclown, as per.

Walden: "Oh hey buddy, what's up buddy, ner ner ner. This'll be yours one day, huh huh huh."
Brody: "How'd it go with Ambassador Elon?"
Walden: "Another week or so, my defense contract cronies will give him the bunker buster that Israel needs to take out Iran's last nuclear enrichment plant, at Natanz."
Brody: "And here I thought that went the way of my wife's military family endowment or whatever."
Walden: "It was not a thing, but now it's a thing again. Unbeknownst to me, the perfect thing to make you feel pretty okay about what's about to happen."

Walden: "And just to make things worse, I want to remind you about my friendship with David Estes by mentioning how you helped him take down Nazir's network in that parking lot (this very morning just a couple hours ago, when that happened, if you can believe it). How'd you keep your spycraft so secret?"
Brody, projectile vomiting while tap dancing: "It's my cool head under pressure, sir."
Walden: "Man, you are one heavily exploitable show pony. Marine Fights Terrorists At Home As Well As Abroad. I am going to market the shit out of you for my own interests."

Brody: "Actually, that's why I'm here. To break up with you. It's for my family or something."
Walden: "Fuck your family. This is actually important. Are you telling me the Vice Presidency isn't a big deal? Because I will put you over my knee, saying that shit to the current VP."

Nick seems a little disheartened, but no worries? Because this whole time, a hacker kid in some biotech place has been hacking into Walden's cyborg heart software and turned out the lights. No more paces will be made today.

Brody: "You doin' okay? You look a little about to die."
Walden: "I am fine! What was I saying? Oh yeah, fuck your family..."
Brody: "No, just you. Fuck only merely you. It's not about my family. My family is 100% dickheads and anonymous little boys. I am breaking up with you for me. Because you are gross, and I am so tired of hanging out with gross people for gross reasons. I want to feel clean again."
Walden: "Must... keep... stiff upper lip. Must not... let on... heart attacks... so emasculating, in an unforeseen way..."

"Also, you are awful. I hate your policies, I hate your politics, I hate your bitch wife, I hate your creepy murdering backwash-drinking son, I hate your friends except for that cowboy guy, I hate your clothes and I hate your White Guy Activities and I hate golf. And I hate that you have ever been in a position to shape the country that I loved so much I was willing to die for it. I hate that you have poisoned that for me. I hate that you took that away and that I'll never get it back. I hate you for making me a crazy broken tainted ugly animal who will never be clean again."

Walden: "But... my... medical needs!"
Brody: "No, sir. That's just a bad ticker you got there. You broke my heart."
Walden: "Medical... Attention... What is even happening right now..."
Brody: "Right now? I'm killing you, bro. I am looking you in the eye while I fucking kill you."

I can't... the best thing about this show, most shows, the thing critical theory has been excited about since like The Sopranos, is the idea that you don't have to love the leads anymore. That we've moved beyond -- shippers aside -- that need to identify, we've matured past that in our television and can now watch TV about people who are either complex and gray or just straight-up awful.

And for Guy Shows especially I find that difficult, like, I don't watch shows about meth or biker gangs or cops, because A) I wouldn't want those people in my house so why would I invite them in through the TV screen and B) I don't actually believe people are shitty, so it's not that fun to watch imaginary people be shitty, because what are you learning? An untrue thing that feels like a true thing and also feels terrible. But I feel like I'm worth more than that, like, if I'm going to take the time to have the experience, it should not be one that makes me feel less human or that other people are less human. I don't talk about this a whole lot, but I'll watch those Syfy dramas all damn day rather than whatever -- Haven and Being Human and Alphas and Warehouse 13, those ones -- because they ring truer than these kinds of shows to me, as I have experienced life so far. They do things that are not realistic, but what they say is much closer to the truth, to me.

Mostly when I think about this subject at all, it's to be weirded out that, say, Nancy Botwin still has to be likeable, because I do think it's because she is a woman, and that's fucked up to me. Same way we write off Carrie for being crazy, like that's a story we've already heard and talk about how complex Brody is instead, instead of looking at the scarier fact that Carrie is the same exact archetype as he is: A savior of the world, who got broken and burnt in the process. The woman responsible for 9/11, who spends every second on the edge of going crazy with the thought that she won't make up for her crimes before she loses herself, and the man who loves America so much he has to destroy it.

Having said all that, I do feel generally warm toward Nick Brody. He's a trooper, he's got a lot on his plate. He's trying really hard. You know? I can dig that. Who among us has not accidentally joined a cult or terrorist organization at some point, I'm not gonna judge. But man, times like this? I love the terrorist in him. The Caprica Six in there, that shines every now and then. The part (of Nick, but also of the whole situation) that Abu Nazir is entirely right about. The burning part that says justice is a holy thing and that he can burn up to a crisp if he wants to -- if he feels like it, God can just come walking into the room and take over his body.

It's the only time he feels like a singular entity, instead of just a pile of broken junk walking around like it's people. To me, I mean. And definitely to Abu Nazir, because it's why he takes his Issa stuff that seriously. Maybe even to Nick too, come to think of it. I just know that it is scary, and that it is very, very beautiful.

(And also why every new fact we learn about the Mighty Quinn makes me love him even more, because that is a dude who has filed off every single thing that is not the one main thing. It's fun to joke about Quinn, but he's had this on the table since the beginning.)

ESCAPE

Carrie flags down a trucker and then mugs the trucker and then walks away so his screaming at her that she is a crazy person doesn't interrupt her telephone call she's making with the phone she just mugged from him.

Carrie: "Saul, guess who? So, Abu Nazir is in an abandoned mill over here."
Saul: "Over here where?"
Carrie: "Sir? Sir! Stop yelling at me about your phone and tell me where we are."
(He does, nonplussed. Carrie will get some shit done.)
Carrie: "Highway 50, east of Chantilly."
Saul: "Okay. Do not fuck up, do not go anywhere, stay where you are. I am serious. Stand exactly where you are, and wait patiently for extraction, like a professional."
Carrie: "Saul, of course I am going to do that."

The whole of Team Quinn lays out a giant paper map on a table and starts looking for Chantilly -- like you would do, in 2012, if you were in the CIA, and had futuristic spy technology literally crammed everywhere in the whole room that you are currently in -- and she hands the guy his phone with a sincere apology and settles in to wait quietly -- like a professional -- for extraction.

NAVAL OBSERVATORY

Brody waits until Walden is absolutely fucking dead, and then finally gets to express all his pent-up stress and terror he's been so good about keeping under wraps when he runs screaming out into the building about how he needs a medic for the Vice President.

CIA

Saul's on his way into that main place with all the metal detectors, when some earphone guys -- always scary -- grab him and redirect him upstairs.

Saul, verbatim: "What for? I'm on my way to catch a terrorist!"
Earphone Guys: "We don't care. We are gigantic and you are an old raccoon with malnutrition. Don't make it weird."

Saul: Makes it weird.

AFTER APPROX 5 SECONDS

Carrie gets bored! Heads on back to the warehouse she just escaped from moments before, at the cost of our Vice President's life. Picks up a lead pipe like she's in a video game. Finds the darkest, scariest, creakiest metal door, behind which is just darkness and heads the fuck on in there. None of which is a surprise, at all. But it's a weird, utterly resonant image to go out on, after such an intense episode of watching somebody else running around in such bright places.

We come back to the center of the story, to a labyrinth with a demon inside, and remember what every day looks like to Carrie:

Just this dark hungry room, in the middle of nowhere. Just a tiny girl, walking in without even a gun. To take down the monster that's hunted her nightly -- for more than a decade -- so she can finally be clean again. A darkness she doesn't have to avoid; a darkness she can jump into, gleefully. On fire.

Just a warrior looking for the end of her story, so she can rest.

WEEK

Abu Nazir? Gets away. The mole? Suddenly they remember there's a mole. The VP? That should be amazing. I predict that Nick Brody will literally turn himself inside-out with nervous energy, and just be guts with a redhead on the inside for a while. The Brodys? I hope they get to go home. I also hope Jessica gets to fuck Mike Faber for eleven hours, because I'm still not quite sure she's gotten hers. And the Mighty Quinn, maybe he undoes another button. Maybe that's a thing that happens. It's more likely than Carrie Mathison finding peace any time soon.

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 in October at Tor.com.

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