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Saul goes goose-hunting for the weekend with a bunch of entrenched Old White Guy oligarchs, and ends up getting ambushed by Senator Lockhart -- the dickhead from the Carrie Hearings -- who explains that he's been gunning for CIA Director this entire time. Although it's a job Saul never wanted, you can bet it steams his broccoli that a wormy jerk like Lockhart's after it, and ever more so after a bloodbath of a dinner party that seems designed purely for Saul's humiliation. But after Lockhart delivers a gross speech in his own honor about how great he is, Saul raises a clever toast full of threats and heads home... Where he finds Mira, sick of being married to a raccoon-human, hooking up with a hottie from her Mumbai days.
Dana finally figures out that Leo is at worst a psycho who murdered his brother, and at best a troubled teen with an honesty problem, and decides to return home from their sexy boring joyride because loving a liar is what drove her crazy in the first place. Of course, since it's Dana, this is a futile gesture that ultimately means nothing.
At wit's end, Jessica Brody fully shows up at Carrie's house, which is the perfect way to start your first day off your meds again. They have a fairly decent conversation about how Carrie has inspired Jessica to follow her instincts, and that in this case her instincts are telling her Dana is in trouble, and then Carrie -- for about a million reasons, all of them respectable -- agrees to take time off from her busy schedule of being under surveillance by like five different spy agencies to help.
Thus, the Yoga Play, in which burner phones are used to call first the FBI Agent in charge of the Brodys and then Max -- beautiful Max! -- who has to go to a pretend yoga class so she can harass the FBI Agent about how when/if Nick makes contact or returns to the U.S., Dana will be the person he'll talk to, and also that Dana's absence should be taken seriously, and ... that's about it. Moments after Dana decides that Leo is pointless and heads for the hills, the cops show up and take her home.
I'm not sure why this needed a whole episode -- it's a fairly straightforward conversation with a lot of razzmatazz surrounding it -- but it's a fun set of concepts and works well within the episode's structure: Saul bitching at Carrie for endangering the op and showing herself above ground and bringing Quinn onboard as the third person of the team and her guardian angel all serve as perfect counterpoints to his deteriorating marriage and control of the agency, while also demonstrating his complete lack of interest in Nick Brody's family and/or Quinn's qualms about how Carrie might be "a person" who is capable of "getting broken" and other fantasy ideas like that.
And you get to have Quinn running around admiring the shit out of Carrie, and helping her out from a distance, and wearing a variety of outfits and intense looks on that little face of his. So I guess that's enough reason to have this episode -- that, and week is the halfway point of the season and the act, so I guess a little bit of moving the pieces around was to be expected.
In the end, Carrie's instincts tell her that she hasn't been made and Majid Javadi is still going to make contact. And even if she weren't always right about everything, we know she's right about this, because we follow him throughout the episode as he crosses the Vermont border and set up in a safe house where their scary interview is about to take place. So when they come to abduct her, in the middle of the night, it's as scary for Carrie -- and for Quinn, and for everybody -- as it would be if you were actually getting abducted in the middle of the night, since that is what is happening, and we end the episode with Saul relieved to learn his number one asset is now in the hands of the enemy.
Week: A lie detector should prove no great obstacle for Carrie as she tries to work -- and maybe turn? -- Javadi; we learn more about Saul's odd history with the guy; Dana presumably does something, or else nothing, but I'm hoping for Leo to go crazy in some kinda way.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Dana ran off with literally a homicidal, escaped mental patient. She has not yet noticed that she is being dumb, but she will. Senator Andrew Lockhart, a big jerk, is trying to take down the CIA using the last two seasons of the show, while Fara and Saul are hot on the trail of Majid Javadi now that he's headed into the country to meet with Carrie, who has been turned.
VERMONT BORDER
Guard: "So you'll be in the US for three days, that's fun. Did you know you have the same name as an old soccer player?"
Javadi: "Yeah, but I'm in paper products. Not here for soccer. Or certainly terrorism."
Guard: "Are you going to be getting gay married while you're here?"
Javadi: "No, but I am going to get some authentic maple syrup."
Guard: "Those are the main things of Vermont."
BERENSON
Quinn: "Hey, I'm Quinn."
Mira: "That you are, my friend. That you are."
Quinn: "Saul, why are you dressed as a hunter? Is it Halloween this week?"
Saul: "Kind of. I am going duck hunting with the Chief of Staff and half that Senate committee that climbed up my ass two months ago and is only climbing back down out of my ass now to take me duck hunting."
Quinn: "So you totally have to realize you're getting Mean Girled, right?"
Saul: "Raccoons don't have a social structure that allows for cyberbullying."
Mira: "Because I am batting a thousand today, I'm sure that they're going to make his Directorship official. Which will freak him right out, but at least he'll stop whining."
Saul: "Mira, coffee? I need to get super intense and secretive about spy stuff."
Quinn: "Hit me."
Saul: "Okay, you have to follow Carrie, because Iran is following Carrie."
Quinn: "Man, that girl is always gettin' the business."
Saul: "In this case it's because they've turned her."
Quinn: "Not my Carrie! Fuck you."
Saul: "That was this whole season, making them think we'd burned her so they could make her a double agent. Sorry I forgot to tell you but a lot has been going on."
Quinn: "Well it's probably my fault too. Every time I see you discussing financial portfolios with Fara I think about killing myself outta boredom, and I run the other way."
Quinn: "Man, that is cold though! You called her a crazy ho! On TV! And then a month of inpatient care! She was so, so mean to me in there, you have no idea."
Saul: "I know, isn't this hardcore?"
Quinn: "Fuck me. Yeah, it's hardcore. I gotta take a minute."
Saul: "Anyway, two nights ago the Deputy Chief of Iran's Intelligence Directorate took the bait, and I think now he's on his way into the country, so you gotta babysit."
Quinn: "Majid Javadi coming here? That is risky of him. Did you know we live in DC?"
Saul: "I know, which just once again proves how awesome Carrie, and thus this plan, actually are. She demanded that he do this ridiculous thing, and he is actually doing it."
Quinn: "You would think after Nazir they would stop coming directly to our door."
CONDO
Carrie: "On second thought, maybe I won't."
Nervous about her ability to be a double agent and also get interrogated and probably beat up by goons, Carrie decides to get rid of her medication. Not just today's dose, you understand, but literally all of her pills. No turning back. There is a complicated amount of guilt in there, considering she's going crazy on purpose again after just leaving the hospital, but whatever. She knows what must be done.
Although I wonder how she's going to fit Tai Chi and whatever, chamomile tea, into her Zen schedule of alternative therapies, what with being imminently kidnapped and all. Her imaginary doctor, The Internet, would probably be highly displeased.
JAVADI
Flack: "[Farsi.]"
Javadi: "Be cool, bitch! English."
Flack: "Okay, here is your luxury vehicle and some cash. Do you want a gun?"
Javadi: "No, no gun. Just make sure the GPS lady sounds British, I love that."
DANA
Dana and Leo are almost out of money! But Leo's cool with that, because he has a plan: Find a place and a job and never go home. Or commit suicide, whatever.
I think it's important to note that they are listening to Alt-J in this scene, which is exactly the kind of music a couple of annoying troubled teens on the most half-assed Mickey & Mallory road trip of all time would be listening to. Also, this:
Leo: "Get a place, get jobs..."
Dana, scoffing: "Flipping burgers?"
Which reminded me of one of my favorite Maria Bamford jokes, where she's talking about certain American phrases you have to have grown up here to pronounce correctly, and the best one is "Sure I need money, but I'm not gonna work as a fucking [fill in the blank]."
Leo: "Oh, she looks so peaceful, asleep like that. I wish she would never wake up."
Then he almost crashes the car from staring at her, and she yells at him about it. The crazier he gets, the better looking he is. Just like in real life.
THE CONDO
Ding-dong!
Carrie: "Hello? Is that my kidnappers here to kidnap me? Jeez guys, I was getting bored... Oh."
Jessica: "Hi."
Carrie: "Uh, what? Is this a side-effect of going off my meds? Because I did that like an hour ago. What is going on?"
Jessica: "What is going on is, I'm being kind of awesome. I'm sorry for coming to your house -- although in my defense, the last real conversation I had with my husband before he blew up your job was to give him my blessing to be with you -- but I don't know what to do."
Carrie: "Clearly you really don't know what to do, if this is where you ended up."
Jessica: "...Anyways. I mean in some ways it's easier with her on the lam -- no slamming doors, no stomping around in dumb ballet flats, no expensive remodels every time she gets a wild hair and decides to kill herself -- but frankly I'm running out of family members."
Carrie: "I heard. And I agree, it's important that we find her. I care about your family, in a certain way. Did you go to the police? The FBI? Anybody but here?"
Jessica: "Yeah, the police think they're on a joyride and the FBI just laughs at me when I cry at this point. Thing is, Leo is an actual murderer of people he loves..."
Jessica: "Maybe Leo's a psychopath, I don't know. But I don't know what Dana knows."
Carrie: "Don't you think, though, that Dana will figure it out eventually and cut him loose? She's super smart and I super don't want to deal with this right now."
Jessica: "Dana's in love. Who knows what she'll see?"
They stare at that little gem on the floor for a while, in silence, and then Carrie starts literally walking backwards to get away from it. But Jessica's not done being awesome for today, no she is not.
"You tried to help us before. You turned up to my house, and you tried to warn me about Brody, and even though I knew in my heart something was seriously fucking wrong, I didn't listen. But I know something's wrong now."
Which she should have just said to start with, because obviously Carrie is down with your psychic vibes. And with you saying his name, there, in her house, without it hurting. Without it being an indictment or an attack; without it being us vs. you, home vs. whore, in vs. out. Now we are just two women who know what it's like when you don't know the whole story. How humiliating, and terrifying, it is to learn you were in the cold all along.
There are million ways to turn an asset, but the best one is always: "I'm on your side."
THE YOGA PLAY
The Yoga Play goes like this. Well, no. first Carrie pulls out her burner and calls Agent Hall, who's been the FBI person on the Brodys since like the eighth episode of the show but I have zero recollection of. One thing he is not that into is Carrie, because of course not. He hangs up on her without even asking what it's regarding, so then it's time for the Yoga Play.
The Yoga Play goes like this. Carrie calls Max (!) on the burner phone and tells him to answer his phone in ten minutes when she calls him on her mega-tapped phone, and then just say okay to whatever she says, because he doesn't know what the Yoga Play is about.
He's still so sleepy! It's so cute. I wish for more Max, pretty much every week. He is my favorite person who doesn't matter on this show, by far. And now that Blonde Terrorist Chick killed herself, and Hot BBC Reporter is still foaming at the mouth somewhere in Gitmo, and almost everybody on the entire show got blown the hell up last season, there really aren't a lot of those left.
So then Carrie will go to "yoga" at a studio where a lady named Lisa, who resembles Carrie, will attend a class while Max and Virgil pick Carrie up in the alley behind, and then they will have a yoga-class amount of time to run whatever errand she needs to run.
Carrie: "Just when I call, act a little less clueless?"
Max: "Carrie, I'm not 'acting' clueless. I was up all ni... And you're gone."
(Ring-ring!)
Max: "This is Max? I think?"
Carrie: "Ready for yoga this morning? Class starts at ten, buddy!"
The entire intelligence community is simultaneously like, "Codename Latisse is on the move."
PARKING GARAGE
Carrie: "Well, my car's back. So that's goo... QUINN! What the fuck, why are you lurking around? Shouldn't you be quote 'hiding up a tree or something'?"
Quinn: "Is that like the first joke you've ever made? Because it was solid. But no, I'm actually tapping your burner phone, and Max's phone..."
Carrie: "Uh, rude. First of all. And second of all, it's about Dana Brody."
Quinn: "You gonna look for her yourself? Because you have an appointment to get kidnapped."
Carrie: "No, I'm gonna get the FBI to find her. By arranging a complicated shell-game for no reason, risking our operation and Saul's sanity, and then politely asking the FBI to find her. That's it, that's the whole plan. Which by the way also won't matter, since her ass is going to walk out into traffic after buying some Aquafina at a gas station anyway."
Quinn: "By the way, I am now on your team. Both formally, but also emotionally."
Carrie: "Then you should know that nobody I work with ever gets to question my erratic behavior, unless they want the horns. You want the horns, Quinn?"
Quinn: "I'm just saying, you have surveillance all over you. At least two teams from two different countries. And both of them think you have quit the CIA and become a traitor, okay? So you should be acting like a traitor, or else you will be murdered."
Carrie: "That's it. You're gettin' the horns."
Quinn: "Can you not let me talk to the Fed? Look at this face I got. Listen to my soothing voice. Marvel at how I can just call him on the phone, agent to agent, instead of arranging a weird plan that takes all day and has zero net effect. Has it occurred to you that maybe you are a little crazy today?"
Carrie: "YOU'RE CRAZY, I'M NOT THE ONE WHO'S CRAZY."
Quinn: "Whoa, whoa. Girl, I am your biggest, most ardent fan. And I am sorry for being in your vicinity, which you're right, endangers the op."
Carrie: "Okay. And thank you for coming to the hospital. That means an absurd amount to me. It even did at the time, I want you to know that."
Quinn: "As long as we're doing awesome friendship to each other, can I tell you how amazing you are? This with the whole double-agent, mental hospital thing? I mean, that is so fucking bad-ass it redefines what I understand about myself, both as a man and as an American."
Carrie: "Finally! Thank you. Anyway, Max and I have yoga at ten, so..."
Quinn: "You got this, girl!"
LODGE
Saul: "...I already hate this."
Chief of Staff: "But the President wanted you here! So Lockhart can fuck you in the A."
Chief: "Now you know, you have tons of respect in this room for Operation Tin Man."
Saul: "And yet, I still feel dissed all the time."
Chief: "Maybe it's because you're the interim head, so you're personalizing the blowback? Not every criticism of the CIA is directly about you."
Saul: "you'll be telling me not every attack on American soil is a personal insult to Carrie Mathison that she could have prevented. You really don't get how we work at all."
Dickhead Lockhart and the Chief drink some dumb drink and whatever. It's like your one friend that their personality is how much they're all about absinthe, or ouzo. Ugh.
Lockhart: "You ever hunted geese before?"
Saul, verbatim: "No, just spies and traitors."
Lockhart: "Did you really think we were hunting ducks? You guys, Berenson thought it was duck season! You're so fucking retarded, Saul. No offense."
YOGA
Lisa: "You are very lucky I was in town when Max called, or you'd be dealing with Atticus the spin coach. He is a motherfucker, Carrie. You do not want to cross him, or ask to use the back alley entrance. One time I saw a girl drop a towel on the floor and pop it back in the bin, and he made her run suicides out there in the street. For the whole hour!"
Carrie: "Cool thanks be back soon."
Virgil: "I am mad that you called Max, for some reason."
Carrie: "Why? Last time we talked you said secret code things that you couldn't help me."
Virgil: "Technically we have been unwatched for two days, but I don't wanna lose my job, so..."
Carrie: "That's very interesting how you have a life and a career of your own and that you don't stop existing whenever I shut my eyes, but would you mind terribly driving to Bethesda while you bitch and moan at me? This class is just an hour."
Virgil: "There's our girl."
LODGE
Lockhart: "I 'pulled rank' so we could share a goose blind and hang out and be bros."
Saul: "That sounds appalling for sure."
Lockhart: "Do you shoot shotguns? I shoot them regularly. It goes with my magnificent penis."
I have found with video games that, when forced to choose a weapon, I prefer the shotgun. They reward deliberation, and are incredibly destructive, so you don't have to have the same conversation over and over: Just once, perfectly, and you're out and you never have to think about it again. On to the thing. I wish everything in life worked like that, but so far it's just shotguns, so I must remain content. Thus, if I'm not snipin', I'm shotgunnin', which is where my nickname "HomoWithAShotgun" comes from.
HALL
Virgil: "He comes here every day for coffee?"
Carrie: "You'd be surprised how many of us soldier types have a routine."
Virgil: "Okay, keep an eye on the clock. And hey, what is this even about?"
Carrie: "Don't worry about it."
Meanwhile, Javadi eats a sandwich and watches some lady and some kid from his car. Just a quick creeper stop before he goes to the safehouse where he will terrorize Carrie. He drips some sandwich juices on his shirt and he's like, "Ugh." (In Farsi.)
Carrie: "Agent Hall! We need to talk really fast before yoga is over!"
Hall: "You are the worst. You have always been the worst..."
Carrie: "Dana Brody is missing and she..."
Hall: "First of all, why are you not in the nuthouse where you belong..."
Carrie: "Rude."
Hall: "And second of all, who cares? Have you met that girl? Be doing this show a favor."
Carrie: "Okay, how about because she's the only person her dad would talk to? So if and when he comes back, he's going straight to her. And if she's been murdered by a hot crazy boy, then we lose Brody. And who did that? You did that. And I will make sure everybody knows it. Telling government secrets to the wrong people is kind of what I'm all about lately. Or didn't you know that?"
Hall: "We've been monitoring this for weeks, it's just two teenagers running away on a short fuckfest. Romeo + Juliet."
Carrie: "Do you know how that ends? My face goes like..."
Hall: "Don't do it! Don't do it! I give!"
YOGA
Just before Carrie returns, looking sweaty indeed and flouncing off down the road, Quinn sees a guy getting curious, so Quinn does the Hot Dude version of the Yoga Play, which is where you just act adorable and clueless and apologetic and keep acting entitled to whatever you're doing -- obstructing the shit out of a killer spy, in this case -- until the person goes away. The spy is like, "Move your fucking car!" and Quinn's just like, "Do you know where a brother can get a Pinkberry in this town? Damn!" Like, gesturing vaguely toward his phone, and all of Yelp's lies.
Once free, she mouths a silent thanks at him, and then he slinks back into the adorable shadows once more. I wish Quinn would follow me everywhere, lookin' like he does. But on the other hand I cannot reliably say he doesn't, which is just another part of the infinite wonder of Quinn.
GOOSE BLIND
Lockhart: "So you know how I'm friends with the President, and he doesn't even know who you are?"
Saul: "Yep."
Lockhart: "So anyway we were hanging out -- which we do all the time -- and he was like, really worried about the CIA? I mean, if you don't want to talk about it we don't have to, but like I'm really concerned. I don't want people to keep saying how bad you are at your job, you know? It hurts me because we're such good friends."
Saul: "What's your entire point?"
Lockhart: "Well, the spy game is kind of old-school. I mean, look how you failed over and over and over with Brody. Our new thing is, drone strikes! Remember the VP, how he had that weird heart attack and then his funeral exploded? Well, we're thinking we need more of that."
Saul: "So is this you selling me a defense contract to use drones for intelligence, or...?"
Lockhart: "Kind of it is! But less like for spying on people, and more for killing them."
Saul: "But we are the CIA. That is not about killing people, it's about being secretive."
Lockhart: "I think we can do both. And when I'm the Director of the CIA in a minute..."
Saul: "Wait, what?"
Lockhart: "Oops, did I just spill the beans? I'm so bad. No dessert for me! I need to lose four pounds anyway."
Then he goes, "Hey, it's your goose! Take the shot!" but then immediately, before Saul can even cock his gun, he fully shoots the goose himself! What a dick! A dick with an eye for symbolism, granted, but I've found those are the worst kind.
SAFEHOUSE
Dudes: "We're Navid and Aram. Who knows how long we'll be alive."
Javadi: "Thanks for getting this house ready. I need to change my shirt!"
Dudes: "You're fastidious. A well-known trait of terrifying psycho killers."
Javadi: "I'm no Abu Nazir, I can't be living in caves and shit. I jet-set with bankers and jerk off to dead soccer players and run financial scams through the corrupt governments of both Iran and the US."
Dudes: "You're very 2.0."
Javadi: "Speaking of, take me to the interrogation room. Oops, I mean 'interview' room."
GAS STATION
Dana: "Can you give me $40 on that 1989 silver Camry out there with the crazy boy in it?"
TV: "...to please be on the lookout for a 1989 silver Toyota Camry with a crazy boy on it after he escaped from a mental institution with the daughter of fugitive Congressman..."
Dana: "Thanks and can I have this bottle of Aquafina and please don't look at my face and goodbye!"
TV: "...fter he shot his brother Philip in the head in a suicide pact gone wrong..."
Dana: "Oh, brother."
Leo: "You seem... Weird? Rethinking this maybe?"
Dana: "Could you just quickly tell me again about how your brother died?"
Leo: "No, it is a bummer. Get in the car and be sensitive to my areas."
Dana: "No I mean, I need you to describe to me in detail what happened."
Leo: "He died?"
Dana: "Of you shooting him? Because that's what it said on the news."
Leo: "No! Well, kind of."
Dana: "We are breaking up. Right now."
Leo: "You can't just walk off into the..."
Dana: "Leo, we're barely out of the state. We did not do this road trip with conviction. But I'll tell you this. Remember when we said poems and secrets? I recited Coleridge over your brother's grave?"
Leo: "Yeah, that was seriously the worst."
Dana: "But that whole thing was about telling the truth. Everything I said was real. Specifically the parts about how my dad lied to me, and it made me try to kill myself. Does that not indicate that I put a high premium on honesty?"
Leo: "As if you would have busted me out of a mental hospital and run off with me if I told you the truth."
Dana: "I cannot believe I snapchatted my boobs to you."
They holler and yell; it's very dramatic. And in the end, she hops right out onto the street, because she is done, and luckily right then the cars arrive to save her. So was this Carrie's doing -- meaning the Yoga Play actually mattered -- or was this going to happen either way? Who knows... Wait, the FBI put out the bolo, which is why the cars just drove up? So the Yoga Play was actually a good idea, even if the outcome didn’t matter, and this episode makes a bit more sense than I thought. My bad.
LODGE
Quinn's on looking, and Carrie's drinking and freaking out due to being about to be kidnapped, when Saul calls on the burner. She is excited to talk to him! For one second.
Carrie: "Is it just terrible there?"
Saul: "Enough so that I'm about to take it the fuck out on you."
Carrie: "Oh?"
Saul: "Yeah. This Jessica Brody thing makes me want to punch you in the gut. You went to the FBI?"
Carrie: "Saul, I had to!"
Saul: "You most certainly did not have to. You asshole. Do you realize your trail's been lifted? They knocked off five minutes ago."
Carrie: "Uh, okay? Maybe it's go time. Maybe they're sleepy. Maybe Javadi's stuck somewhere..."
Saul: "Or maybe they thought it was weird that you contacted an FBI agent on behalf of Nicholas Brody's fucking daughter?"
Carrie: "I wasn't made. But you are rattling me like whoa."
Saul: "Good! Not because of the mission, just because I'm cranky!"
Quinn is sad, and takes out his earpiece, but he's not going anywhere; Saul heads back to the Oligarch Party, just pissy as all get out. The jazzy music's like, "I've got my pride, I've got my soul, my dignity to hold on to..."
Chief: "So that Lockhart's a dick, huh?"
Saul: "Duh. You know what though, you could have told me."
Chief: "Told you what? Oh, you mean everything. Sorry!"
Lockhart: "If I could give a quick speech from my own bunghole real quick, I just want to say that I am wonderful. And you all are wonderful for thinking I'm wonderful, even though it would be true either way. In summation, I am very proud to be the new Director of the CIA, because Saul is a virgin who can't drive. Thank you."
Saul: "I would like to congratulate Senator Lockhart on being a choad. If he's half as good at leading the Agency as he has been destroying it, we'll be murdering people from the sky within the month. Too bad we all think he's a cunt, so it's going to take a while -- and if he doesn't, it'll prove he's just a political appointee who does what he's told but has no actual reason for existing. Plus if he never wins us over, well, probably Quinn will murder him in his sleep. Unless I get to Javadi -- or you -- before your confirmation, which is also a possibility. To the Senator! Congratulations on making me suddenly want this job I never wanted harder than I've ever wanted anything! Watch your ass, buddy!"
DANA
Chris: "Uh..."
Dana: "I'm fine!"
Jessica: "Uh..."
Dana: "No, seriously. Thank you."
Dana goes to her bedroom to process this latest shitshow, and of course breaks down crying, not least because of the dumbass futility of it all, and the ongoing shame of being herself and at the mercy of the government. Also because boys.
Was it love? She just wanted out. One thing love offers.
She's never felt more like Carrie, and she doesn't even know it.
THE CONDO
Carrie brushes her teeth, while Quinn tries to gauge his level of alertness out in the street. There's a guy messing with his phone outside, you can see it shining. He calls on the burner, and she rushes to it.
Carrie: "Hey."
Quinn: "Surveillance isn't back or anything, I just... Are you okay?"
Carrie: "Nope."
Quinn: "I'm about a hundred yards away."
Carrie: "I'm glad. But I don't entirely like it, either. Being watched by you."
"I'm at a safe distance."
You could hear a pin drop. What a perfect thing to say. Disappointed, she makes one more run at his encouragement -- "you don't agree that I was made, do you?" -- but he can't quite say that, so after some shared silence she says goodnight.
SAUL
Is home early, because that was a fucking massacre. Sadly, Mira wasn't expecting him back tonight, so she's having a candlelit dinner with a hottie from her Mumbai days, Alain. They don't spend a lot of time on the sitcom awkwardness -- he jets upstairs and the pair just sort of shrug because it's too weird -- and Mira takes a second to consider her imperative.
You know, we get so mad when we think the other person is going to get mad, sometimes we don't even notice we're doing it. That imaginary fight in your head preparatory to the actual discussion, sometimes, in the blink of an eye. So there's an edge to the calmness here that is less about his Saul-like opacity and quiet, and more like: Our marriage has barely ever made sense, and you won't even sleep in the same room with me, so do I even have to get preemptively upset? No. This is the logical chain of events when you treat me like something collected, like a toy you want on the shelf but don't ever have to play with. You left our marriage when you turned back into a beast. Everything after that is just us, being friends.
Sucks it had to happen on this day, of all days. Sucks your home got invaded twice today.
MAKE THAT THREE!
Carrie wakes up to the sound of a B&E happening, but unlike Max she needs no time to process what's happening: Only to quash her fear. Take it from Condition Black down to a nice Orange, as they say. An Orange that looks like a Red, because she's not supposed to know -- in her bones, in the sound of the wind, in the flight patterns of birds -- that tonight was gonna be the night. She's supposed to be terrified.
Luckily, she is absolutely terrified, so that works out. I don't imagine it was a light sleep. Maybe the Yoga Play, even, was partly to get her mind off this moment.
There are conjectures -- she could be beaten, raped; she knows the kind of people that are coming for her, and she knows at any time the plan could be blown and she wouldn't even know it until she tasted blood, until the bullet was already in her head -- but there are also certainties:
She is being taken into the custody of the most dangerous man in the world, who has limitless resources and a cool hand; who is not blinded by his pride or his zealotry. Abu Nazir was the Minotaur, the Grendel: This is something worse, the money behind the demagogue. Grendel's Mother, the Minotaur's Father. That's true. It's not pretend, it's not a cool narrative trick. She is being literally kidnapped by literal terrorists.
It's not the whole story, but it's the story, in and of itself. Good reasons -- great reasons -- for sure. But these are the things that are about to happen:
Carrie Mathison is about to turn her coat inside out, and betray her country, and her fellow soldiers, and 219 dead Americans. And Quinn, and Saul. That's what happens, that's the step in the plan: Carrie gives up something precious, without which she will never again be complete.
When she smashed her head into that mirror, nobody could see her. It wasn't the whole story, but it was the story in and of itself: She wasn't putting on an act. The mirror was real, the glass was real, the blood was real, the desperation was real. They strapped her down and drugged her up so much she could hardly see the Bear when he appeared, blurry, and she told him to fuck off because it was too hard, for the moment, to be her.
I get why might be hard to fully wrap one's head around, even if I still don't really understand what's making this season so challenging overall: We have the luxury of story, of saying it isn't real, because we know it's a clever plan but mostly because we know it'll be okay, because it's just a story.
But the deal with spy stories is that the levels get confused, by design, because that's what being a spy is: A story that is also a girl telling a story about a girl telling a story. It's a collapsible wave; you are all these people at once. You are everything you've agreed to be, all of the time, even when you are sleeping -- even when you are fucking -- and that's how the goods are different from the greats. Carrie is great because being multiple people, multiple stories -- and her skill at mediating, collapsing, amending, iterating, multiplying and dividing those stories, those selves -- is exactly who she is. So we get to know she has no reason to be scared, because we've seen a TV show before. But what she has is:
An unnamed CIA analyst with a history of mental health issues committed adultery with the most hated man in the world, went into a mental hospital after he committed mass murder, and is now turning traitor. And every word of this is factually true.
And it all starts with this: You run to the closet safe to get your gun, but before you reach it, they've grabbed you. They move silently, all dressed in black. Efficient, cruel. They force you to strip, investigate every part of your body, stick gloved fingers into your mouth. They don't react when you start to weep, they don't even reply when you begin to beg. They put a bag over your head. You vanish.
QUINN
Mira appears at the foot of the stairs when Saul gets Quinn's call; he doesn't want to talk about their marriage right now but that's because it's happening. It looks the same from down there, though: The bear, turning it off. Going cold and dark. It's not the whole story but it's the story.
Quinn: "I feel like something isn't right, I need to get closer."
Saul: "I wouldn't suggest doing that, Quinn. You're at a safe distance."
It takes a while, the push and pull with Saul, but when he finally gets to the house he sees the drilled-out patio door, the broken glass. The struggle.
Quinn: "They left her clothes, broke her phone. We lost her."
Saul: "No, because we know who's got her. We're back in business."
Quinn: "That's the story but it's not the whole story. She's on her own."
Saul: "She always was."
That's not the whole story either. But tonight, it'll do.
And when Carrie gets to Javadi, to his lie detector and his equipment and his chilling stillness, she'll feel it. Because the first thing he says, when they walk her in and let her breathe, is this: "You're in good shape! Must be all that yoga."
She will look into the face of evil, into the banality of a monstrosity that doesn't even recognize itself, and she won't have to pretend a thing.
It doesn't matter what the real story is. Maybe it never did.
WEEK
Carrie, in the room, and Saul outside it, walk us through both Javadi's past and his present. Halfway through the season means gamechanger, tight-lipped previews mean drama, plus the outside possibility of Javadi's lie detector hilariously thinking Carrie's having a manic episode and/or heart attack.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Homeland, Hostages, Ravenswood, and Masters Of Sex for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.
And it all starts with this: You run to the closet safe to get your gun, but before you reach it, they've grabbed you. They move silently, all dressed in black. Efficient, cruel. They force you to strip, investigate every part of your body, stick gloved fingers into your mouth. They don't react when you start to weep, they don't even reply when you begin to beg. They put a bag over your head. You vanish.
QUINN
Mira appears at the foot of the stairs when Saul gets Quinn's call; he doesn't want to talk about their marriage right now but that's because it's happening. It looks the same from down there, though: The bear, turning it off. Going cold and dark. It's not the whole story but it's the story.
Quinn: "I feel like something isn't right, I need to get closer."
Saul: "I wouldn't suggest doing that, Quinn. You're at a safe distance."
It takes a while, the push and pull with Saul, but when he finally gets to the house he sees the drilled-out patio door, the broken glass. The struggle.
Quinn: "They left her clothes, broke her phone. We lost her."
Saul: "No, because we know who's got her. We're back in business."
Quinn: "That's the story but it's not the whole story. She's on her own."
Saul: "She always was."
That's not the whole story either. But tonight, it'll do.
And when Carrie gets to Javadi, to his lie detector and his equipment and his chilling stillness, she'll feel it. Because the first thing he says, when they walk her in and let her breathe, is this: "You're in good shape! Must be all that yoga."
She will look into the face of evil, into the banality of a monstrosity that doesn't even recognize itself, and she won't have to pretend a thing.
It doesn't matter what the real story is. Maybe it never did.
WEEK
Carrie, in the room, and Saul outside it, walk us through both Javadi's past and his present. Halfway through the season means gamechanger, tight-lipped previews mean drama, plus the outside possibility of Javadi's lie detector hilariously thinking Carrie's having a manic episode and/or heart attack.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Homeland, Hostages, Ravenswood, and Masters Of Sex for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.