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After watching Carrie and Brody spend another weekend at her mother's cabin, Quinn decides that Brody's a pretty okay guy after all, and decides as the guy is praying that he doesn't feel like being Estes's assassin anymore. So he heads back to D.C. and, all spooklike, appears in the shadows of David's bedroom with an ultimatum: Lay off this guy, who has played fair the entire time (as far as Quinn knows) and whose death will destroy Carrie Mathison once again -- or else the new Bad Guy he's hunting will be David Estes. His face in this part, I don't have to tell you: Fabulously scrunched up.
Realizing that when you pay for the best, you get the best and therefore his life is in terrible danger, David lets Saul go, calls off the hit, redacts his report on Saul's misbehavior, and eventually seems set to offer Carrie a job as a Station Chief, the youngest on record. (The Wikipedia entry you get with "CIA Station Chief" is one of the weirder articles I've ever seen on Wikipedia, but the sense I get is that it's regional command to the same degree as a journalist might be on the regional desk somewhere, or you would be the head of an embassy?) Anyway none of this matters, as it turns out.
After a serious "look at your life" talking-to from Saul, Carrie immediately demonstrates classiness when she and Brody sneak out of Walden's funeral -- the guy they killed, a fact they are still keeping secret -- so they can fool around upstairs at Langley somewhere. Carrie decides to pick Brody over the CIA -- because she knows she can only really focus on the CIA while she's doing CIA, and the CIA is not actually her boyfriend, and she would like a boyfriend and for his name to be Nick Brody -- but this also does not matter.
Because while they are up there making out, and Saul's off commending Abu Nazir to his rest off the coast in international waters, some other dissident group, or so it would seem -- with access to his suicide video and his car and a shit-ton of explosives -- uses Brody's car to BLOW UP THE ENTIRE CIA.
Gone are Cynthia and Finn Walden, gone is David Estes. 200 dead, in all. Jessica and the Brody kids are fine, although Nick's parting words to Mike Faber about being the man of the house (a total class move!) and his confession to Dana about having been formerly a suicide bomber take on a freaky perspective once the baddies release that suicide tape.
Carrie has her brains knocked around in the blast and spends some time assuming that Nick Brody has just blown up the entire CIA and thus probably should get shot, but eventually they chill out and she loads him up with cash, new identity and the rest of it. So, lots of flirting with this "Murphy Brown lied to us" stuff about how she must choose between her job and her terrorist, which never actually becomes that at all, sidestepping it in a really neat way. Nick's presumed dead, so his suicide tape is mostly just further embarrassment for his family, but yeah: Way to toss 'em a romantic obstruction that not even Carrie's delusions can carry us over.
As Saul is learning that he's just been King Ralph'd to the top of the food chain, and getting ready to welcome his wife back from overseas, Carrie and Brody are all set to escape to Newfoundland when Brody realizes she's tricking him and in fact will be pulling the Ol' Carrie Switcharoo on him so she can go back and clear his name and they can finally be together. In the season's final moments, having said goodbye to the love of her life, she surprises Saul in the act of saying prayers for the 200 dead, and for herself in absentia. And the smile of the Bear in this moment, the last image of the season, I would say, is worth easily six to eight Saul Hugs.
So what do we think? All day long I've been so antsy. I decided the smartest thing they could do is make a list of everything that you might think would happen, like five possible outcomes, and then actually do the third one, and but with elements of the first one and the opposite of the fourth one. You know what I mean? Just make it believable enough that the only people left bitching are the people who would bitch no matter what, while still making it not incredibly obvious. And I would say yes, they accomplished at least that. While sparing Quinn, no less.
While it felt long, it also felt like a lot was happening, and anything that seemed initially problematic was either undercut or reversed by the thing that happened, by design, so there's not a lot to worry with. If last season was the season of Surveillance, and this season was the season of Celebrity, they've taken out enough of the CIA infrastructure and secrets -- not to mention the Brody Family infrastructure, and secrets -- that season could really be whatever it wants to be: Jessica and Mike crumbling under the pressure of being the Brodys without Brody; Carrie battling all kinds of new CIA dickhead authorities; Brody having Nova Scotia problems for like three episodes; the whole thing. Quinn, though. Lots of Quinn. That's definitely necessary.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Carrie may or may not be in love with Nick Brody, and may or may not be aware of it. Nick Brody killed the Vice President in part to save her from Abu Nazir, her mortal enemy, whom she has since vanquished. (She's the only one that knows about that part, and it's causing her a bit of an itch.) Walden's accomplice in black ops, David Estes, has ordered Peter Quinn to assassinate Brody, now that he's helped them get Nazir. (Saul's the only one that knows about that part, and it's causing him to get railroaded by Estes.)
But to that, Carrie Mathison was a person who thought life was a bicycle, that if you stopped moving you'd fall right off. For our first year with her, she leaned a little too far left and fell over. This year, she's leaned a little right. But her forward vector never stopped. Sometimes this desire to put the world between us and ourselves, the inability to be alone with silence, takes the form of heroism.
Every martyr is first and foremost a terrorist. A dissident on hunger strike is just another kind of hunger artist. And like any terrorist, the martyr is gifted with an illness that says what we symbolize is more important than who we are. That humility's best expression is in self-abnegation: A beautiful thing, but not the most beautiful possible thing. To make up for letting 9/11 happen, she set up a system by which this natural tendency -- to go and go, to never stop, ever fall over -- could masquerade as heroism. And like the martyr, the end result was a good thing. Lives saved.
I think regardless of what it is Carrie dedicates her life to, it's still a pretty bad thing to do so. We are a lot larger than we can really comprehend; we have it in us to contain not just multitudes but fundamental opposites. This entire show is crammed full with people who have -- you can't name more than three who haven't -- shaved off the contradictory parts of themselves and become razors, one thing only, always moving forward. Sharks, in the quiet. It is a very beautiful thing but it is not a very healthy thing.
"You gave it up to me," Nick will say. "Completely." And she'll know he's right. But before that, Saul will say, "You're throwing your life away," and she'll say no: She's just not giving it away. Saul is one thing only, and his love for Carrie comes out of the idea that they are the same. And he's right. But because she's giving up herself to something he can't, it looks like they are not the same. It looks ugly to him. He fights it like an addict fights recovery, striking blindly at her softest places because can't stand the change in vector: Her madness is only acceptable as long as it's useful; her self-abnegation is only positive so long as he can understand it.
It looks ugly to us because we don't like women and we don't like it when Carrie acts like a woman. We like her to run around with a gun and be smarter than everybody in the room, which are good things because they are things men do. Even when she's a raving lunatic. But tie her up and beat her, like any spy can expect to be tied up and beaten if caught, let her sell out for anything else, and we strike out blindly, like addicts: At the show's producers, at the writing, at the plot, at the whole season. For some reason we think giving it up to her madness is acceptable, while giving it up to her passion is sickening.
Either way, she's giving away something she should be holding onto. Either way, she's putting somebody else between herself and the silence. But this is how she's survived, longer than we've known her: You can observe a particle's position, x, or its momentum, p. What it is, or where it's going. But never both, and never for very long. This is the way everything in the universe works, and it is the way Carrie Mathison works because the bike cannot fall over. We can't see both because Carrie literally cannot see both, turn around look at the life she's made, or the world will end. Again.
THE CABIN
Nick: "Man, remember last time we were here? That was some psychosexual nonsense."
Carrie: "And now we're just people, basically. Careful with my wrists, they're still chafed from that time your terrorist cell leader tied me up and beat me and you killed the VP."
Estes: "Hey, you wonderful son of a gun. Did you kill Brody yet?"
Quinn: "No because they keep making out."
Estes: "I don't get how she can keep having sex with him. Doesn't she know we need to kill him to cover my ass?"
Quinn: "I myself am a deadbeat dad who lives in scarier circumstances than even Saul Berenson. I am not here to judge."
Estes: "Just shoot him, okay?"
Carrie: "Do something with these tangerines while I cook a meal for us. Like we're people."
Nick: Juggles them, adorably.
Carrie: "When you smile like a normal human being it is kind of revolting. Maybe you should practice in the mirror before you take that out on the road."
Nick: "Hey look, I found a gun! It's from when we were going to murder each other that time. Remember? You thought I was a terrorist but you fucked me anyway?"
Carrie: "I do so enjoy our little chats. We should probably stay busy. Let's go on a walk."
Carrie: "This cabin is from my mom's family. My mom disappeared the day I left for college."
Nick: "What a sad story to just tell a person."
Carrie: "Get ready, because I'm about to segue into pointing out that my bipolar mental illness is going to make life unbearable from time to time, just like my dad's did."
Nick: "Uh, you clearly have not been married to Jessica Brody before if you think I can't handle it. They have medicines for this, yes?"
Carrie: "Yeah, I've been on lithium all season, it's why I haven't done anything super weird. Except for like everything I do."
Nick: "Do you think your mom will show up in Season Three?"
Carrie: "Probably. Let's talk about it for a long, long time."
LANGLEY
Guard: "I brought you milk, but no emotional relief."
Saul: "I do not like being on this side of the interrogation. It's an entirely different thing to live in a hole like a raccoon, when it is not the hole I have chosen."
Guard: "Stop being freaky and maybe they will let you out."
Saul: "I am not being freaky, I am being right. There is actually a plan to kill Congressman Brody. It is actually happening right now. You are going to feel so dumb later."
Guard: "I feel pretty dumb right now, actually, but I'm in the military so I'm going to keep doing what I'm supposed to be doing, instead of whatever crazy thing you want me to do."
CABIN
Nick: "Let's joke about how my life has no purpose."
Carrie: "That is a fun joke! Just kidding, it is depressing that you are a national hero and yet also the enemy. Let's instead talk about how we are in love."
Nick: "If I'm not a Congressman show pony, and I can't be in the Marines anymore because of how I'm a terrorist, then my options are limited. I could be a teacher, or build a house. Mostly I would like to be a good person."
Carrie: "The thing is, you actually are a pretty good person. Nobody's the villain of their movie. You even made a decent show of having good reasons for being a terrorist. I wouldn't worry about that so much."
Carrie: "Well, my life also has no purpose, since I can't be in the CIA anymore."
Nick: "How is that true at all? It's like the main thing of this episode but it makes no sense."
Carrie: "It is emotionally true, if not factually true, because I can only be one thing at a time. Either you are my boyfriend, or the CIA is my boyfriend. I cannot be my own boyfriend, like a regular person, or I will lose my shit. Also, Abu Nazir is dead, which has been my main thing for a few years now..."
Nick: "-- Um, like have they even asked you to come be back in the CIA?"
Carrie: "You interrupted me. I mean, that was a very bipolar thing to say, sorry. What I meant to say was, I love the CIA, but I also love..."
Nick: "We are not there yet. I have not even told Mike Faber he can have my family."
Carrie: "...Being with you. That's what I was gonna say, God. Get over yourself."
Nick: "It is very nice in this cabin for five minutes. But the rest of it, I don't know."
Carrie: "It's true. You are a terrorist and I am a nutcase. Which either means we will be happy together forever, our missing pieces filling in each other's horrible holes, or we'll collapse in upon ourselves like a dying star."
Nick: "I promise not to be scared of your mental illness. It's only fair, since you don't seem to mind that I am a terrorist."
Carrie: "That's where you're wrong, mister. I am scared to death of you."
Nick: "Probably we are going to be fine."
Carrie: "Instead of facing the incredibly compromised situation we have put ourselves in, let's have some normal sex."
Quinn: "Do these two ever quit with this? I am getting so bored of not killing this dude."
MORNING
Nick: "I think probably we're going to be okay."
Carrie: "Good morning! I was thinking the same thing."
Nick: "Well, we're both trustworthy individuals. I bet we're right."
They share an incredibly painful, incredibly lovely moment of considering the concept of happiness and that it's possible to be happy; Carrie goes out for croissants and Nick apologizes to God for waiting this whole time to say prayers, then goes out into a lovely glen on the property with his prayer rug and says his prayers.
Quinn thinks very hard about killing him, since he promised Estes he would do it the second Carrie went into town for croissants and her Latisse prescription, but then doesn't do it. Why not? Because you can see a person's momentum or you can see their position, but never both at the same time. Quinn sees Brody on his knees, praying, and he looks very small. Whether or not he entirely intended to stab Nick through the hand that day, he saw what happened : He saw Carrie break him apart and put him back together. He was there when Nick freaked out on Roya, and he was there when Carrie fucked his pieces back into human shape.
He came to trust Nick the same way he came to trust Carrie, through sheer pragmatism: Everything they ever said came true, all the way down the line. Nick may be a terrorist, and Carrie may be a nutcase, but that doesn't change the fact that their promises and guesses and secrets and admissions always worked out in the end.
What Carrie was to Brody, last year, is what Quinn has become to them. He has crawled into bed with them, and listened to them telling secrets. He is not impressed by love, but he knows what honesty looks like. And now, with this prayer, he knows another secret that not even Carrie gets to know. I wanted it to be a transcendent moment in which Nick's communion with God showed Quinn they were the same, but I don't know if it got that far. I just know that when we are alone, that is when we are unafraid. It's how Carrie fell in love, too.
ESTES
David goes home after a long day of CIA things, a long day of waiting for the last loop to get closed on his war crimes, and is unpleasantly surprised at the uncommon visitor, the tiny man with the scrunched-up face, sitting in the corner of his bedroom. He does not jump for joy to discover Peter Quinn waiting in his bedroom because he is sick inside.
Quinn: "Here's the thing. Walden's dead, and Brody's leaving Congress. So there's no actual threat to the nation, there."
Estes: "Are you a CIA analyst? Because I'm pretty sure you're a dirty killer man."
Quinn: "You bet your ass I am. So listen up. Everything he ever said was true."
Estes: "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."
Quinn: "And then you have Carrie, who has ridden her bicycle all the way to saving the world. Two people that seem very compromised, but in fact are good folks."
Estes: "Your emotions make me want to vomit."
Quinn: "These are not emotions. They are true facts about the situation. Carrie is an asset to the CIA and to our country. Fact. Taking out Brody would be taking out two assets because she would fall apart like before, and never be reassembled. Fact. Which means that you are the only person who wants him dead, even though it works against your agency, which works against the country."
Estes: "Fine. I'll just have somebody else kill him, pussy."
Quinn: "No, you will leave him alone. Or I will murder you. Because you are a killer of little kids, and now you're covering your ass by getting rid of two people who just saved the world."
Estes: "Okay, but I'm going to act petty about it for the rest of my life."
Quinn: "Spoiler alert, that will not be very long. In fact, the whole point of this black-ops storyline turns out to be just this one moment of me realizing who the bad guy is."
BRODY HM
Jessica, brushing Dana's hair: "What's up, Brody? You doing okay?"
Brody: "It's nice we can just chat like this. Hey, there's a memorial for Walden later..."
Jessica: "I can't be your date to things anymore, Brody."
Brody: "Uh, no. I just need to come get a suit and I don't want you and the kids there, making it weird."
Jessica: "You have become a much more conscientious husband since leaving me."
BAR
Brody is standing outside the bar where Mike is, as he makes this call. Mike's at a bar because Mike's always at a bar. No Lauder. I miss Lauder.
Brody: "Mike, can I buy you a beer? I need to say some things which, in hindsight, will seem a lot more portentous than they actually are."
Mike: "As long as it is a horrible beer that is like the pee of an animal, but watered down until only the slightest urine taste remains."
Brody: "Two Rolling Rocks, please."
Bartender: "Are you positive?"
Mike: "Are you going to yell at me for figuring out that you are a terrorist? Because Estes, the Bear and your girlfriend have all already yelled at me about that."
Nick: "No Mike, actually I just want to say that I love you and that you can have my family. Jessica, Dana, that little boy, they are all your problem now."
Mike: "...Shit. That takes out some of the spice."
Nick: "Did that just sound like me being a suicide bomber? I hope not, because I am actually just being honest with you."
Mike: "Not yet, but it will."
LANGLEY
Estes: "Saul, it has come to my attention that you can go now."
Saul: "Oh, because you killed a Congressman? Because you are a jerk?"
Estes: "Actually no, it's because I am not going to kill Nick. I decided that you are right."
Saul: "That sounds unlikely. Did Quinn show up in your bedroom and be amazing?"
Estes: "I am the boss of everything! And I made up this plan all on my own!"
Saul: "Um, okay. Are you still going to ruin my career?"
Estes: "No! Because then you will tell on me! Um, I mean because I say so!"
BRODY HM
Like last year, Nick sneaks into the house all by his lonesome. Like last year, Dana's creepin' about and finds him. But unlike last year, he is not putting on a suicide vest and acting skittish. Dana finds a way to complain about this and make everything weird.
Dana: "I am depressed and morose about the state of things. Why are you here?"
Nick: "I am going to a ceremony for Finn Walden's dead father."
Dana: "Will he be there?"
Nick: "Probably. Everyone on the show will be there, and get blown up."
Dana: "Hey, do you remember last year when you were in here putting on a suicide vest?"
Nick: "I kind of do."
Dana: "And then that crazy lady came and told us, and I called you up and told you not to be a terrorist that day?"
Nick: "It's coming back to me now."
Dana: "Because I think she was not being crazy at that moment. Maybe she is not crazy at all, actually. Maybe her being crazy is what keeps her sane."
Nick: "That is a good way to say it. Also, true for many of us. You'll see."
Dana: "So then, were you going to blow up everybody that day?"
Nick: "Well, yes. But I'm cool now."
Dana: "I believe you. But that won't stop me throwing a fit. The world is a vampire and nobody knows anything about anybody. Existentialism arrives early to the privileged and brilliant."
Nick: "I got you a new dad, as per your instructions last week. And you'll eventually calm down once your hormone factory of a teenage body stops telling you true things all the time."
Dana: "We'll see about that. We'll just see."
LANGLEY
Carrie: "Bear, you look remarkably dressed up."
Saul: "I have to be in charge of Nazir's burial at sea. Do you want to come?"
Carrie: "No, I have a date."
Saul: "A date, really."
Carrie: "Yes, to the memorial of the Vice President we ran over and forgot to tell anybody."
Saul: "...Anyway, you'll be the youngest Station Chief in the history of the Agency..."
Carrie: "I don't see Estes making that call."
Saul: "He owes me. I don't want to talk about it, but yes, that's why I've been missing for three days while you were off eating croissants."
Carrie: "Speaking of that, I'm not sure I want a promotion in the CIA."
Saul: "Bitch if you say this is about Brody..."
Carrie: "-- No, no! Kind of. Mostly though, remember how my mental illness was this huge secret the first season because I would lose my CIA job?"
Saul: "Not really. Apparently nobody remembers that."
Carrie: "Well, I'm starting to think that was the right call."
Saul: "But you've been on lithium all season! You haven't busted out the magic markers once."
Carrie: "I was thinking that maybe it's time to be a person."
Saul: "This is about Nick Brody! I knew it!"
Carrie: "It is connected to Nick Brody, but it is not because of Nick Brody. We contain multitudes, even contradictions."
Saul, verbatim: "He's a man who put on a suicide vest, Carrie. That's who he is. That's who he always will be."
Carrie: "Don't you tell me who Nick Brody is. I am the world's foremost expert on Nick Brody."
Saul: "And I am the world's foremost expert on Carrie Mathison. You are acting nuts. Do what I say! Be who I say!"
Carrie: "The thing is that I didn't know until lately about the bicycle and how we are all just one thing all the time on this show. And I think maybe I deserve more than that."
Saul: "Or are you just trading the CIA boyfriend for another boyfriend?"
Carrie: "Maybe I am my own boyfriend?"
Saul: "That's crazy talk."
Carrie: "You chased off your hot wife just like this, what you're telling me to do now. You live like a raccoon. At least Peter Quinn looks hot when he does it."
Saul: "Fine, go fuck terrorists. You don't know a goddamned thing. You're the smartest and the dumbest fucking person I've ever known."
Carrie: "That is the nicest and meanest thing you've ever said. But it's not like it's going to echo in my ears, because this entire conversation is something I have had with myself, several times, over the course of many jazz freakouts."
Saul: "Mostly I am blustering because I feel like you're dumping me for a hotter, younger version. At least before we were both obsessive and crazy about the same thing, so I didn't feel like a chump for always letting you do everything. Now, it just feels like I'm getting burnt."
Carrie: "If you'll excuse me, we both have places to be."
They head to their separate memorials: The King and the Terrorist. The two polar sides of the war that never ends. Carrie and Nick, to say goodbye to a monster that killed in the name of freedom. Saul, to do the same. Both of them Nick's masters. Both of them bastards. Both of them imminently replaceable by the machine.
MEMORIALS
Cynthia: "Nick? Sorry, I'm behind a lot of Xanax here..."
Nick: "That's perfectly fine. I'll walk you to your seat."
Finn: "Tell Dana I said hi, okay?"
Nick and Carrie make faces at each other, as they sit. On a great ship out in the ocean, Saul and a corps watch over Abu Nazir as he's commended to his rest. We don't necessarily mourn, when we should. Death's not just the great equalizer, it's also the best excuse for honesty. When you can think of the world, first with and then without the person, and see the ways the world is worse, or better, with them out of it. In the harsh light of the graveside, everybody tries to be on their best behavior, but you're alone with the silence for so much of it you can't help being just a little too honest with yourself. Funerals are for the living; we speak for the dead. The only time a story makes absolute sense is once it's ended: x=here, p=0.
Estes: "...A man of conviction. A man of principle. It was Bill Walden who coined the phrase Fortress America, who led this Agency out of its darkest hour, and in the process, transformed the very way we defend ourselves here at home. It was Bill Walden who championed a fledgling drone program, which has since degraded Al-Qaeda to the point of irrelevance. And it was Bill Walden who laid the groundwork for the operations that took out Osama Bin Laden and Abu Nazir..."
They're out of the room before he even gets to that part. Upstairs, fumbling. Less guilty than bored. Quinn thinks of himself as a man who kills bad guys, well, Walden was a bad guy. Much is made of the show's approach to flipping over the "terrorist" rock and seeing what's underneath -- how a coating of pro-torture militarism could easily be mistaken for the truth about the show, rather than the compassion it shows to everyone -- but there's nearly an apotheosis of that idea here: Nick and Carrie, the Terrorist and the Analyst, are both guilty for the death of this man, but this man's death is also righteous because he betrayed us all. He wasn't a terrorist, but he wasn't a good guy either: His crimes were sanctioned by a recognized authority, which is the only real difference. Walden's existence depended on terrorists, says David; but Walden too created terrorists by existing.
They came to the memorial to show respect; they leave now because they feel none.
But that's not all there is to a funeral. Because the other side is always true: Life is precious, and life has been lost. As pro forma as it is, to attend the funeral of a monster, it's also a kindness that you do not just to yourself and to the death, but to the world. Saul Berenson stands over Nazir's watery grave, listening to the Prophet's words, who knows what he thinks. Maybe he'd like to sneak off for some nookie, too. But I don't think so. I think he's there because he is strong enough to reach through his anger and his politics and actually mourn a man he hates. To do this kindness before God.
Walden's ceremony is rich with irony, packed to the gills with networking careerists and zoned-out family members and people who don't want to be there. Paying their respects. But on this ship there is none of that. It's efficient, brutal, brightly lit; it is, not by coincidence, much more beautiful than the other one, in its honesty. There are no wives, there are no children, there are no followers or friends: Just Saul Berenson, mute, standing watch while the great devil of our time goes fluttering out over the water.
He looks very, very small.
UPSTAIRS
Carrie: "Okay, fine. I'm leaving the Agency and dedicating myself full-time to this imploding star we've made of ourselves."
Nick: "Neat?"
Carrie: "Why are you making that weird face? Are you happy?"
Nick: "Yes! This is just my face!"
True enough. x=here, so p=unknown. They never quite knew each other's position until she said that, which meant their vectors would figure themselves out. But now his x and her x, she's saying, are the same: Each other. Which means all that can concern them is p, what happens . It was fun talking about being a teacher or builder, but at least with the option of keeping her in place they had one foot on the floor. Now, they're both just fluttering. Come to a coasting stop at a crossroads, that bike's gonna start to wobble.
The separate ceremonies continue. A twinge in the air twists us away from the parallel between the funerals and into another juxtaposition: Death and more death. The ghostly Jigsaw hand of Abu Nazir, of Al Qaeda, still moving pieces around on the board. It's a neat trick. Nazir's last, nasty little gift, woven into the narrative. Nick Brody's car has been pulled around to the front of the building, just outside the ceremony.
Nick and Carrie rush to the window, and then are blown back as it takes out the entire building. Cynthia and Finn Walden, David Estes, everybody but Saul and themselves and Quinn, gone up in an instant. The perfect plan, whose ever it was, to take out the majority of the CIA -- and Walden's cronies, anybody who loved him enough to sit in celebration of his life and deeds -- in one last blast.
AFTER
Carrie wakes up and wonders if, like the last time, the bomb has shaken her brain free of its moorings. She puts the facts together and comes up with betrayal, because it's the most logical conclusion: Brody, the terrorist, who ushered her out of the blast radius with promises of makeouts, whose car was the weapon. Brody who killed the Vice President and said it was all for her. She points at gun at him for a while, and it's scary for everybody.
Brody: "For Christ's sake, Carrie. Listen to me. Look at me. Why would I do this?"
Carrie: "I can't see into your fucking soul, Brody!"
Brody: "Yes. You can."
Just like Dana could, this morning. They say you can't ever really know anybody, because it's exactly the kind of horrible thought you can have that makes everything easier. But they're wrong, because at some point that's not enough. You don't just throw up your hands and say nobody can ever be trusted -- even if you know that to be factually true -- because the world would grind to a halt. At some point you have to drop the Prisoner's Dilemma act and just operate with what you've got.
Brody: "It was Nazir who did this. He played us all from the beginning."
Carrie: "How, by letting himself get killed? That's insane!"
He only looked you in the eye, the one time he actually saw you as a person and not a woman, and told you this exact thing. And you called bullshit, then as now because you can't imagine someone believing in anything that strongly. Not even revenge. The only martyrdom Carrie Mathison can buy is one that takes decades, slowly wearing yourself down to nothing: Why save the world, if you're not there to see what you made?
Why even bother having this conversation, with the man who put on a suicide vest?
Brody: "It was always Walden with him, it was always the CIA. Nazir would've died a thousand deaths to make this day happen."
And how does he know that? How indeed.
Carrie puts it together in a new shape. The horror of him, the man she loves, the fact of his madness, the thing she said yesterday was the thing that terrified her: It's the only thing that brings her comfort now. She can believe he didn't do this because she believes he could do this. She might be the world's foremost expert on Abu Nazir and on Nick Brody, but Nick Brody is an expert in terrorism. In martyrdom. It's enough to bring her to her knees.
But she gets back up again. Always going, always moving forward. Because if it took that much to convince her, how much more would it take to convince the world? The parts of it that are left? Saul's last words were that Nick will always be a terrorist. It's time to disappear.
BRODY HM
It's been a half hour and people still can't figure out what exactly happened. The Cabinet's basically gone. The largest concentration of power in the world just exploded. All that's left is the President, and he's basically grounded at this point. And you know, as iconic as that one shot of Brody staring at the Capitol is -- how many things it meant, over the course of the first season, every time you looked at it -- there's something even more chilling about the big CIA seal, broken and smoking. I would not have thought I would react to seeing the CIA blown up that way. But I guess as scary as the good guys are, it's still less scary than no guys. Which is how it feels.
Jessica can't get through to anywhere, it's just like that other day, and then before you know it, agents are at the door. She asks for a warrant, she asks where Brody is; Mike steps up to the plate and locks arms with her, and the agents beg them to just let 'em do their jobs.
CARRIE TRICKS
Carrie takes him to a storage locker somewhere not great; she can't even work the keys to open it. He's torn between wanting to be helpful and not wanting to agitate her more; he stays quiet and present, while she jangles. Inside there's just a single footlocker, full of cash and identities. It is some impressive spy shit.
Carrie: "A friend, June, will meet us at the border. She'll drive us up to Montreal, where we get onto a fishing boat which takes us up to Newfoundland. From there, we board a freighter which will take us into international waters..."
Brody's amazed. He's never seen her at her best.
THE SCENE
A DOD lady approaches Saul with news, leaving out the part where he's now de facto in charge of the entire everything. There's 200 dead, 27 survivors so far, both lists in the triage tent.
Saul: "Wait, what about Carrie Mathison?"
Lady: "Unaccounted for. But she was here, so..."
Saul: "Presumed dead, don't fucking sugarcoat it. And Nick Brody?"
Lady: "Funny story, he... um... Did this."
In a calmer moment maybe he would accept the facts at face value, but he just got back from a relatively uneventful ceremony, into a burning pit full of the bodies of the very few people he actually knows on this planet. Maybe Brody did this, but no way is Carrie dead too.
"Carrie, it's me. I'm looking for you. Please call me back."
But Carrie's busy, with her precious cargo, and too smart for that. She drives him to a guy named Mike, who sets him up with his own fake identity. They were going to burn their lives down, take them apart, see what the world was like. This is weaponized hope, now. The gratitude you feel when you don't have to be afraid anymore because you've run out of options. Always going forward.
BRODY HM
Agent: "So he doesn't live here? When did he move out?"
Jessica: "Three days ago. It's weird talking about this, you guys."
Agent: "So but why was he here? To pick up a suit?"
Dana: "You guys, he didn't do this."
Everybody: "It's nice that you love your daddy, but..."
Dana: "I don't, especially. And don't ask me how I know, but trust me when I say I know what he looks like when he's going on a suicide run. And that is not how he was rolling this morning."
There's your transcendent moment. It actually somehow reflects retroactive halo on the Quinn part at the top of the hour: Nobody can know anybody else, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong about this. I am speaking for the dead. Not that it would have convinced anybody in particular, but it's nice to see Dana finally get, like, one square inch of certainty to stand on, after two years of fluttering. Which is, of course, when the news starts playing the suicide video.
"People will say I was broken, I was brainwashed. People will say that I was turned into a terrorist, taught to hate my country. I love my country. What I am is a Marine, like my father before me and his father before him. And as a Marine, I swore an oath to defend the United States of America against enemies both foreign and domestic. My action this day is against such domestic enemies..."
Nice while it lasted, I guess. They're all devastated, even Mike. But Jessica reaches down deep into herself and says the truest, strongest thing:
"We need to see this. All of us."
Three days ago she sat in that driveway and said it would be better if they got a soft landing, if he kept the truth to himself. Fly away to Carrie Mathison, who is somehow big enough to hold onto it all. And she was right, three days ago. And things have been nice, since then. Perhaps there would have been time to grieve and adapt and heal. But with the trucks lining up outside, curled live-feed antennae ready to feed on their hearts, it's best to make the quick hard jump to the real shit. They need to see this, because pretty soon they're all going to need that square inch if they're going to survive. Less p, more x:
"...security team, who I know to be liars and war criminals. Responsible for atrocities they were never held accountable for. This is about justice for 82 children whose deaths were never acknowledged, and whose murder is a stain on the soul of this nation..."
With a complete lack of irony, Al Qaeda proudly tosses this obsolete video out in the world like a bomb, grinning into the camera. Cut off one head, a thousand grow back.
"The demise of Al Qaeda is a myth. For every action, there is a reaction. Just as you lay waste to our nation, we lay waste to yours, God willing. And nothing is too great for God."
The new Walden, whoever he is, wherever he is, hears his phone ring. His heart leaps.
THE RUN
Carrie tosses Nick's phone out the window, angling a perfect line of dialogue that slices through every relationship at once:
"The minute you reach out to your family -- the second -- they'll be on us like bloodhounds."
Saul's phone rings, off this line -- Carrie's family -- but it's his family calling: His wife, Mira, terrified for him, ready to come home. Ready to tame him again. And, Carrie's last words ringing in his ears -- balance is possible, you can be human again -- and left all alone without a single soul who loves him or even knows him, he is grateful. When he tells Mira Carrie's dead, you can hear the change in both their voices: It's the first he's hearing of it, too.
CLEARING
Carrie describes their moves -- a fire road a mile from the border, then a twenty-mile hike to a cabin -- in such vivid detail that Brody figures it out instantly. They stand in the cold, and he is just this side of rueful.
Nick: "So. You're not coming, are you?"
Carrie: "See, I was going to? But... I can't now. I mean, I was half-prepared to go with you, right up until we stopped the car. I kind of knew I was going to send you packing, and kind of also thought I would go with you. But looking at it now? No way."
Nick: "I get it."
Carrie: "Which isn't to say we can't be together. Just not today. I have to put civilization back together. I'll feel weird."
Nick: "I'm going to be hunted like a dog, and killed like a dog. Which I deserve. So please don't fuckin'..."
Carrie: "Dude, half the reason I'm doing this is to clear your name. Are you questioning my abilities at this time?"
Nick: "Carrie, you got me to the border. You did more than you needed to do."
Carrie: "Stop using the past tense!"
Nick: "Stories only make sense when they're over. So I can look at you now and say yes. We were in love. You and me, at the bottom of everything else, had love. Crazy beautiful smart scary love. Not mixed up with a bunch of other things, not under cover as something else or providing cover for something else. Real, actual, pure love."
Carrie: "Okay, I'll see you soon!"
Nick: "Whatever works, kid."
She nods, acknowledges, falls apart a little bit. Comes apart, a little bit. That square inch, gone; suddenly fluttering. Out over the water, again. She's given up so many lives today. She shudders.
We're ashamed when we're weak. We are embarrassed by emotion, when it threatens our control. We spend the majority of our time finding other words for it, playing other sides against it, leveraging armies against our need because need makes you weak and you can't be loved if you are weak. To give up the self is to betray the self. That's shameful.
But these are words that posit an observer: This is uncertainty in action. When you're alone, that's when you're unafraid, because nobody is looking. Nick and Carrie won't ever know that Quinn affirmed their connection, or gave it its holy due, or used it as a rhetorical strategy to get Estes to admit his complicity in murder: They weren't there, they didn't know they were being watched; they had only the feeling that we all have, that we are always being watched. That the voice inside your head, watching and laying down judgment, actually means something in the world. Which it does not. They might as well have been alone, for all the disruption Quinn brought to their moment; they might as well have been alone in all the world, telling truths. Accepting them. And they are alone now:
Carrie: "Why do I feel like this?"
Nick: "Because you gave it up. To me."
Carrie, nodding: "Completely."
To give up the self is to betray the self, and that is shameful.
It is also incredibly brave. And it is essential. It runs through the words and veins of anyone who has ever loved, and it is the act of every saint and martyr. To give up the self is the only duty any of us have: Some give to God, some to their children, some for war and some for love. We do ourselves this kindness for the world.
The Bear issues orders -- his first thought is a compassionate one, looking to connect the Congressman's car bomb to the C4 from the tailor's shop, already looking for exoneration in her honor -- and, left alone, says Kaddish. He didn't like everyone here, he didn't much care for Estes or the Waldens, but that's not what it's for. It's not for the dead, it's for the living; we give up our pettiness and grieve because life is precious and life has been lost. We do this kindness for ourselves, and for the world. Or else it would grind to a halt.
However we are broken open, it lets the light in. If we aren't brave enough to do it ourselves, the world has a way of doing it for us. Some give of themselves to love, some to God, some to their children. Today Saul Berenson will do all three: The first time she says his name, he ignores it. The girl whose heart he tried to break, before she died. The girl who tried to tell him love and loss of self were worth it, before he left for a monster's funeral. He ignores her voice because he would come apart if he could hear it. But the second time she names him, he turns around. It breaks him open.
And with a smile, the Bear betrays himself again.
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 fall on Tor.com.