Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 88 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Famous In a Bad Way
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.06.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Do the credits have even more f-bombs this year? I haven't heard "fuck" this much in a show's opening sequence since Touched By An Angel. Anyway, Dana's doing awesome. Jessica rustles up some cash to get some therapy with Dana, then hears absolutely nothing Dana is saying; back home, crawling out of her skin, Dana sneaks off to have sweet sex with Leo in the institution's bathroom, driving Jessica to distraction.
Next morning, after some patented Jessica freakouts, Dana drags her into the bathroom to explain that she is not crazy, Leo is not crazy, Jessica is not crazy and that in fact the only crazy person is Nicholas Brody, who is a ruiner of lives. It's basically exactly what Jess needs to hear, so when Dana explains the total realness of her suicide attempt, contrasting it with the actual hope and health she is attaining now, Jess finally hears her. Out in the garage, Dana looks through pictures of her young parents for a while before finding and kneeling on Nick's prayer rug, a scene that is intensely beautiful.
Over at the CIA, a laptop discovered at Tin Man's castle requires the help of a green CIA analyst named Fara Sherazi, who is gorgeous young woman who wears a headscarf, all of which is consternating. Some Saul Berenson mean-shouting later, she's on board, and able to trace all the money funding 12/12 to a consortium of NYC banks, and thence almost to a source in the Iranian government. The bankers are shitheads, and of course nobody in our government wants you to be mean to bankers, EVER, so it's at loggerheads...
Until Quinn, who takes the Tin Man very seriously because of the little boy, takes it upon himself to threaten the life of one of the banking team, and they pull through. Saul comes to really appreciate Fara, as she quickly manages to reconcile the whole thing financially, and even finds her way close to figuring out where the money is ultimately going. It's nice to see Saul have fun; even nicer to see him start up a new conspiracy of silence within the CIA.
Which is acting super bullshitty, to the point where even Quinn says he's going to quit after Javadi, thanks to the Carrie storyline, which is a doozy. She shows up at Saul's house, yells at Mira and then goes straight to the reporter who broke the original story about the unnamed CIA agent that boned Nick Brody. She gets on record just enough to mention his innocence, but then Dar Adal's cops show up and commit her to a psych ward.
More manic than she's been in a long time, Carrie of course does herself no favors while she's in there. Quinn doggedly visits over and over to support her, but by the time her competency hearing comes down, Saul has gotten Carrie's dad and sister on his "side," and they try to get her to take her meds. This causes a massive blowout before the hearing can even begin, as every crazy-sounding, paranoid fantasy Carrie could ever have entertained all come true at the same time. The episode ends with a repentant Saul apologizing and trying to explain himself to Carrie, but she's so zoned out on forced Thorazine she can barely even force her mouth to say, "Fuck you, Saul." That's our girl.
So yeah, there's definitely several forces acting at odds at this point, and Saul's position is completely untenable since he's having to work every side of the equation at once. But he knows, and the show knows, that another big win could make the whole thing go away, so if it means imprisoning Carrie with her head for a few months, you can see how easy the call is to make. Just as easily as you can see Quinn drawing the line at exactly that same place.
And the Brodys! I think Dana/Brody Hating is a community recreational activity for people who are too dumb to actually understand the show and I always have, but as a counterpoint to the various ways her story echoes and disrupts the paths of Carrie, Quinn and Saul, I would say she is still a much better central character than her mother ever could be. Her repulsion toward, and yearning for, her father in particular, as Carrie fights her own idealized versions -- of Saul, her own father, her Agency and her country -- make her a fine replacement for the Nick part of the show's usual narrative triangle. What happens when he comes back, though, is anybody's guess. I'm starting to get a little antsy about that.
Next Week: We check in with Nick, who is in trouble deep and looking for religious solace; Carrie and Saul need to find their way back to each other when a new player enters the game
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Hearings regarding the 12/12 bombing at Langley have caused a rift, thanks to Dar Adal's meddling and Carrie's increasing paranoia, in what's left of the team. The Senate Committee, seeming largely unimpressed by the multiperson takedown operation Saul and Quinn put together -- and privy to ever more confidential, damaging info thanks to the Mole and/or Leak -- decided to strike at the heart of the matter, probing Saul on record for details about Carrie's relationship to Brody, Brody's relationship to the CIA, and Carrie's own relationship with stability. The patterns she sees in this behavior, and that of others at the gutted Agency, led her to cause a scene at an informal, celebratory brunch that has undermined her credibility. Maybe forever.
SAUL'S HOUSE
Mira: "Oh good, it's Carrie Mathison. Looking bonkers, headed up my driveway."
Carrie: "Where the fuck is Saul?"
Mira: "He's not here, he's meeting a new analyst or something. He's at work. You should go to work. You should go to work, and do normal work things at work."
Carrie: "I don't feel like it! I feel like running all over the place and acting nuts!"
Mira: "That's definitely an option that is available to you, but I wonder if we might..."
Carrie: "Whatever. By the way, Saul sold me down the river on TV, and I am going on a rampage. Starting now, ending never. So tell him I stopped by, and also thanks."
CIA
Saul and Quinn talk about the unhelpful laptop Quinn retrieved from the Tin Man, a gorgeous young lady named Fara shows up. Everybody is a little wriggly around her because she's wearing a headscarf, or maybe because she looks like she's about nineteen years old. (No, it is because they are secretly racist and feel bad about it, so then that makes them resent her more, which they feel bad about, and so on.)
Quinn: "Well, I hope that there is good information somewhere on this laptop, because I killed a little kid getting it."
Fara: "Hi, I'm Fara. Please stop staring at my gorgeous face and my headscarf."
Them: "No."
Fara: "We gonna have a problem, bitches?"
Quinn: "No, but like, do you even lift? How long have you been here at the CIA?"
Fara: "Literally a week."
Quinn: "Oh my God, only a week?"
Fara: "Yeah, I'm a forensic accountant and computer hacker? It's not like I'm gonna need combat experience."