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The spec op dwarves who rebuilt Brody take him to the Iraq border so he can seek asylum in Iran, kill this General guy to help Javadi's career, and then get back out again -- but between surprise gridlock, a random mine, and a very enthusiastic border patrol on the Iraq side, the crossing becomes complicated to the point of impossibility.
Peter Quinn starts the hour with an apology to Carrie for shooting her that time, and then mentions that he found out she was 15 weeks pregnant in the hospital after he shot her, and wonders if maybe she should be, like, cognizant of that or act like it matters at all. Carrie is firmly against treating her pregnancy as though it is actually occurring, and presumably takes thirty-four pregnancy tests over the course of the day.
Saul's shaking like a leaf and chomping on his lucky gum (Blackjack) the whole time, although Quinn and Scott Ryan are their usual calming selves with Carrie. Even Senator Lockhart shows up, acting seriously cool (by relative standards) and cheering the whole thing on. Then starts the constant death.
Random road congestion means an alternate route, so the dwarves pretend they're having car trouble while Langley figures out a better one; this draws the interest of some very intense Iraq police, who points guns in everybody's situation and eventually see Brody's face, which means the dwarves go into kill-craze mode on those guys. This sends Brody into a PTSD moment from which only the strong sexy arms of the dwarves can pull him back.
So they do that, and wipe the blood off his face, but before you can say "Rider Up," the Texas dwarf injures his leg when their truck runs over a mine and blows up in half. I would say that at this point they are Fucked Level: "Mostly." So Brody heroically saves the Texas dwarf and they all huddle together for hugs. Then a patrol gets interesting in what blew up, and decide to shoot at them just in case.
At this point the Chief of Staff decides that he wants to Hellstrike the whole mission, with the cover story being that Al-Qaeda was trying to smuggle Nick Brody into Iran, so they had to be blown up. Carrie is not down with this plan, but thanks to Nick it doesn't need to go down that way. They all decide to scrap the mission and get everybody home.
But Carrie recruited Brody too hard and too correctly, so there is no way he's giving up this shot at redemption. Even when Carrie reminds him that he's now off-book and has no sanction or extraction team, he just kind of says YOLO and that he counts on Carrie to get him out of situations like when you assassinate the third most important person in the Iranian military without a real clear goal after that. She acts like she hates this but she totally loves it.
So with everybody yelling at him -- and acting surprised that he's being crazy, when "being crazy" is like his only deal -- Nick and the best dwarf (Yousef) make it across the border, and right into the arms of the Iranian military. While Carrie is pressuring Fara to put her Tehran family in danger to help support Brody, and Yousef's getting ready to be tortured however long it takes Nick to get the job done, Majid Javadi shows up and takes Brody into his custody as the Langley Bomber. Then, JUST TO BE A DICK, he shoots Yousef through the head.
Which is not only horrible and decreases the amount of beauty in the world, but also puts Nick Brody into a crazy place, Yousef and AZ -- among all the dwarves -- were kind of his Issa this time around of being Frankenstein-ed into a new person. So now one of them has no leg, and the other one just got his head blown off. Just once I would like to see more of the charming side of Javadi and less of the "sudden inexplicable brutality" side of Javadi.
week: Lockhart is done being cool again, and I guess VP Walden presents as a form of Brody's crazy? That makes sense. He has already gotten to be crazy about everything else, we're probably right at Walden. But then maybe Nick will kill the guy and Carrie can do the thing and get him out of there alive and then everybody at the CIA will have a pizza party because terrorism is over now, and Carrie's monster baby will be totally fine and they will have a lovely wedding and Saul will give her away and Quinn is the ring bearer and they vow to have and to hold and to make good choices together for a long time to come.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Quinn shot Carrie for totally valid reasons, while Saul was off retrieving her crazy boyfriend from his limbo of heroin and not having any other problems or a personality of any kind. Now, we have a week to put him back together into a Marine, and ship him off to Tehran under Majid Javadi's custody, so he can assassinate the head of the Revolutionary Guard and then -- dubiously -- get extracted again. Carrie supports the mission, Dana supports anything that gets Nick the hell out of her life, and the rest of the team honestly seems to think he might come back from this one. Meanwhile, Fara has family back in Iran that would not love the fact that she's working for the CIA, and she's been feeling weird ever since that honor killing the other day.
QUINN
Quinn: "First of all, how is your shoulder that I shot you in?"
Carrie: "I have the unmitigated gall to be bitchy about that. I have got some nerve."
Quinn: "No surprises there. Hey listen, about your pregnancy you're ignoring..."
Carrie: "So what? You don't know my life. You don't know my life, so what? So what?"
Quinn: "So maybe you should stop pounding your chest at me, Jenny Jones? Or stop getting shot and doing drugs and having anonymous sex, and act like a pregnant person? Or even just start with acting like a person, of any stripe?"
Carrie: "First of all, we have no way of knowing I am pregnant. I will need at least sixty more pregnancy tests to be sure about that."
Quinn: "You don't have to be a part of this mission. This walking-Brody-across thing."
Carrie: "Why, because he's the father of this webfooted child growing inside me, with its extra toes and those gills on its extra toes? Guess what, maybe he isn't. Maybe I have no way of knowing which hot redheaded guy actually did the deed. I have slept with them all."
Quinn: "That's one coping strategy. But I mean like, listen, have you ever been objective about anything in your entire life?"
Carrie: "Besides my own well-being? Because I am a cold motherfucker when it comes to how I am treated."
Quinn: "Specifically about Nicholas Bro..."
Carrie: "-- Oh! No. No, I see what you mean. Absolutely not, are you kidding me?"
KILO
Meanwhile, those Special Forces dwarves are having a great time with their pet duckling Brody, who has been turned into basically a person under their watch. The Texan one who acted like he wanted to sleep with Carrie is named Aziz, AZ, or today Kilo-Alpha. The even hotter one with the sad eyes, Yousef Turani, is today called Kilo-Bravo. Brody is just The Passenger, or sometimes Jarhead. Because his head is like a jar of mixed ingredients that has been shaken up many times? Yes, but also because of the Marine that he used to be, and is now pretending to be. Wants to stop wanting to be.
AZ: "This goat is delicious! It helps when you relax the goat before you cut his throat. We leave that to our fellow dwarf, Modarres. Sucker of goats, just like the legendary chupacabra."
Modarres: "I don't actually blow goats, that's just some of our trademark blue humor we have in the armed forces."
Brody: "Like the goat, I am relaxed by your conviviality. I am doing something with beads. It is kind of pretty here. The golden hour, they call it. I hope we do not die."
Turani: "Those are some good, normal thoughts. Keep it up."
ZERO
Ryan: "That was cool how they didn't die all the way across Kurdistan, right? At nightfall, they'll drive him to this border, give him cover across to that checkpoint on the Iran side, and then go to the extraction point and wait. Because Brody is totally getting out of there alive."
Carrie: "Did you just make a scary face over a flashlight when you said that?"
CHIEF OF STAFF
Are drinking tiny tea out of tiny tea cups in his tiny Chief of Staff office, chattin' about this and that, but mostly this.
Dar Adal: "Nothing is going to go wrong so it is fine. And if it does go wrong, we will take care of it."
Higgins: "Did you just make a scary face over a flashlight when you said that?"
Dar Adal: "Don't worry about it. All he has to do is walk from A to B, and beg asylum. Javadi will take care of the rest."
Higgins: "The POTUS is going to have my ass at the end of this, I just know it."
KILO
Turani: "Do all Marines turn their socks inside-out, and if so, is this related to a Marine deity of some kind?"
Brody: "No, it's because it feels nice. Makes you a new man. See? I did it and now normalcy courses through my veins."
Zero: "This is Ryan Scott or Scott Ryan, whichever one my name is, doing a comms check while you eat your sucked-on goat meat. Kilo-Alpha, do you read."
AZ: "Signal strength ten."
Zero: "Kilo-Bravo?"
Turani: "Also me."
Zero: "So hey, is You Know Who acting normal?"
Bravo: "Almost, Zero! Allllll-most."
Zero: "Good job you guys."
ZERO
Carrie: "What is it going to be like at the border?"
Zero: "Here are some pictures of some dudes. Eight guys plus a sergeant at the barracks, and a roadside guard hut with two guys at all times, automatics."
Tech: "They are all very bored, hungry conscripts. They care about things like being hungry and needing batteries."
Carrie: "Good thing we're not underestimating them."
Zero: "Fair point, but why do you think he has the entire Show White regiment with him? Because I don't take this seriously enough? Maybe you should take your monster baby out for a smoke break if you can't handle this shit."
KILO
Bravo: "Okay buddy, tell me your whole story one more time."
After the bombing, Brody was left a car near the base by Nazir's network. He crossed into Canada, shaved his head, and walked to the Bay Of Fundy, where he took a boat to Nova Scotia, where there was a guy with ties to Kuwaiti-Canadian terrorist Amer El-Maati, who put him in a shipping container to Colombia. Then Hezbollah mercs took him to Venezuela, where he boarded a state oil-company plane to Iraq, and an Al-Qaeda cell got him through Kurdistan -- a troubled set of provinces along the Iran/Iraq border that nonetheless represent some of the only truly good stuff we ever accomplished in our twelve years of war against Hussein -- and that's what we are doing right now. So, kind of true in parts, but not at all true altogether: Enough to hang.
The sun goes down and the night-vision transmissions come up. Carrie looks at him, night-vision green in negative, a green-white splotch where his face would be. Stringing beads, and stories.
Do you remember how long ago it was, when this was all she had? When this was all she'd ever had. She climbed into the walls of his house, into his bed, with just some shitty cameras, like this, and mics that never even caught his secret. Learned his breath, and his heartbeat. Terrified of him, terrified for him. Fell in love because she couldn't look away; couldn't look away, because she was in love.
KILO
Saul nervously, bitchily, demands more Black Jack gum out of his secretary, and she assures him she's got plenty. Enough to last the night.
Bravo: "Did you write a letter home? To say goodbye?"
Brody: "You'd know if I did, wouldn't you?"
Bravo: "You could have arranged it with the blonde, your CIA friend..."
Brody: "She's the only one left to say goodbye to."
Saul comes into the mission room, finally; he knows better than to touch her, but he sits, near enough she can feel him. "Feel like I'm in Vegas betting the mortgage," he says. Neither of them smiles.
Zero's happy when the drone comes up, but then it doesn't say anything. Just snow. The operator resets it. It's called a Reaper, it used to be called a Predator B but now it's a Reaper. Reaper 1.
Lady: "All being well, shouldn't be more than a couple minutes."
Carrie: "All being well?! Nobody's going anywhere until that drone's..."
Saul: "Peanut, it's for us. It's for visual. Remember we talked about how the football players can't hear you yelling at them through the TV? It's like that. Staring at Brody from multiple directions won't make him die less. If anything, the opposite. All not being well, I mean... You're gonna get a bunch of angles on that. Meanwhile, they're actually there and they have night-vision and phones. They're good."
KILO
Brody prays. It was always the best thing about him. Maybe the only thing, for a little while. Watching him against the setting sun, you can see how people can live there. It's transcendent.
Then they head toward the border, and soon enough come up against a traffic jam. In practically the middle of nowhere. Actually, no: A straight line from Tehran to Tel Aviv is less than three quarters of the distance between Austin and LA, and almost half of that is Texas. I'd prefer to think it's the Texan in me -- rather than the racist -- that wants to ascribe a lot of Middle East BS to the narcissism of small differences. Living in Texas -- the America of America -- means having the privilege to believe that sectarian violence, ethnic cleansing and systematic oppression are pretty shitty, dumb ways to go about doing things. Plus you got those traffic jams.
AZ: "So the deal is, these foreign gas trucks come through by night, and pay off the local officials with free gas. In the middle of oil fields, you got cops and military and anybody who can threaten them into it. We're still a mile out."
Zero: "I see it. Wait for now."
AZ: "Okay, we're going to just pull over and look like we're having car trouble. Langley will send us an alternate route."
Zero: "If the drone ever resets."
Brody: "Oh my God, how long are we sitting here? No offense but I am going to freak out on you."
AZ: "You are worse than my kids. Chill."
Brody: "I most certainly will not."
ZERO
Reaper Lady: "Reaper's back. Repositioning now."
Zero: "Kilo-Alpha, Zero. Drone is back online. Scouting your route. Wait out."
Carrie: "Smells like the '70s. Lucky Black Jack?"
Saul: "In fists and handfuls. You want some?"
Carrie: "...Tastes like the '70s, too."
Saul: "That's what makes it lucky. I used to chew this before drones or satphones or Hellfire missiles. It was just you, the night time, nerves and Black Jack. Yum."
KILO
A truck pulls up, and AZ tells Brody to act like he's sleeping: Don't move, keep your head down, keep your famous busted face hidden. Bravo radios Zero that local cops have just rolled up on AZ, and everybody gets super tense. Specifically the Kurdish police, who have 101 reasons to not fuck around. After a good deal of fast-talk from all the dwarves -- Carrie translating, brittle, chomping the shit out of her gum now -- the Kurds are not convinced, and just as Brody is melting down they start demanding to search the truck.
Quinn: "Say the word, Kilo-Alpha."
Carrie: "Word?"
Quinn: "Good Night. They should say Good Night, before the cops spot him."
Carrie: "Like Shazam?"
Quinn: "Basically. Watch."
They scream at AZ, and eventually one pushes Brody's face up with his rifle. He won't turn, won't look into the light; when he finally does, AZ says Good Night and stabs his cop in the gut. The rest of the dwarves snipe the other two, and then the whole team carries the bodies out into the desert. Brody and Carrie shake; he's got blood all over his face, and he's gone. Brody sets out across the dunes, eyes gone feral, and AZ eventually drops him, shoving him against a boulder.
AZ: "You went from catatonic to sixty pretty fucking quick."
Brody: "I cannot do this. There are some things I can do but I am afraid getting dudes shot to my face is a thing I cannot do. And if I can't do it here, with you lovely dwarves protecting me, how in fuck am I supposed to do it on my own?"
He's always been on his own.
AZ: "Are you scared? Are you really and truly fucking scared?"
Brody: "You know, I really am. That is accurate."
AZ: "Good. Me too. I have seen a lot of people die, and I shit myself every time they say they're hauling me out. But we're here now, and you know what? If you don't snap the hell out of this freakout you're indulging, we will all die. Doc and Sneezy and Sleepy and all of us. They are good men. You're a good man. Do you want to die?"
Brody: "That is kind of the point."
AZ: "No, you tell me you're going to be okay. It's not the end of the road for you. I need you to verbally tell me this. Focus your eyes and open up that tiny little mouth and sing."
Brody: "I'm okay. I will be okay. I am okay."
Zero: "...We good?"
AZ: "Zero, Kilo-Alpha. Passenger got carsick, threw up, the end. Ready to roll."
Carrie: "I'm sorry, carsick? Do they not realize they're on a secure sat link and they can cut the bullshit?"
AZ: "First of all, you are the person we are protecting. Second of all, he's okay."
He looks Nick right in the eye. "Fuckin-A he's gonna be okay. Wipe the blood off your face."
They treat him like a man and he remembers how to be one. These beautiful dwarves. They proceed to the alternate crossing from the drone, and everybody breathes.
CHIEF OF STAFF
Higgins: "Soooo we just killed three Iraqi police officers? That's what just happened?"
Dar Adal: "Kurdish, technically, but yeah. I say POTUS doesn't need to hear about this."
Higgins: "Okay I just need to chill for one second and talk to the Joint Special Ops Commander. He always calms me down. Plus, he is a total hunk."
Dar Adal: "Cool and while you're doing that, I'll text Zero so they know the dwarf boss is coming their way."
Quinn: "General Pfister and fucking Lockhart just showed up."
Carrie: "His name is seriously General Pfister?"
Quinn: "Yeah but he's mesmerizing to look at. Like if David Petraeus was a sexy ghost."
Saul: "Senator, General. How lovely and not weird to see you."
Lockhart: "The White House..."
Saul: "I know, they told me you were coming. I already know everything. There is nothing you can tell me that I don't already know. I am a spy."
Lockhart: "Ahem. The White House sent the General and I to advise and observe."
Saul: "Respectively?"
Lockhart: "Ugh, yes. I will behave myself. Now look, I know this is supposed to be swift and silent and bloodless..."
Saul: "It certainly is. Or was, I guess."
Lockhart: "...And that you're playing Brody in, I even know that. And look, I am trying to be cruel. Whichever way this falls out -- bold stroke of genius, or simply a stroke -- I am going to inherit it. I have been thinking a lot about this, and I've decided that I can't do anything about it, so I am not going to be a dick anymore."
Saul: "General, why don't you head on in and check on your boys. I have to have stern words with this one."
Lockhart: "Saul, I'm serious. I wish you every success, because I have to. And also I am happy to be here to watch it fail or not fail."
Saul: "Did you not promise me breathing room?"
Lockhart: "First of all, I promised you several extra weeks with my job. Which I gave you. But think of it this way. Aren't you glad Higgins called us? Over POTUS, or the National Security Advisor, or..."
Saul: "Higgins is so up your butt all the time. I don't get it. But in this case, it works in my favor, so okay. Plus if he starts acting up, Dar Adal will sit on him."
They head inside, and Zero Ryan Scott Ryan is just saying, "Copy that, copy" into the phone. Who even knows who's on the other end? An identical agent named Scott Ryan Scott, also saying "Copy." That is what I like to imagine. I love him so much; it's so weird because on Good Wife he was always so... Soft is the wrong word, and pejorative, but he wasn't this. This guy is scary. On the other show he was just sort of charming and a little mean, but not like he could break you over his knee. More by using hurtful, oddly timed words. This guy, though, he just really likes missions and making sure they go perfectly, and if they don't, well, maybe he goes to a special private room and breaks things with his bare hands until he feels better.
Lockhart: "Ms. Mathison."
Carrie: "Senator."
Lockhart: "How's your shoulder?"
Carrie: "Fucking already with this? Like you just walked in, bro!"
Lockhart: "Well, blame Saul like I do. It simples things up real quick. Now, by way of this 'flattery' thing I've heard humans do sometimes..."
Carrie: "Just let it end. Just get to the end of it and have it be over..."
Lockhart: "You must be one hell of a sales... person... To get Brody to do this."
Carrie: "Yeah, here at the Agency we call that recruiting. I'm sure you'll get to that chapter in your three-ring binder eventually. Fucker."
Lockhart: "OH MY GOD I AM TRYING TO BE NICE! FINALLY! YOU PEOPLE ARE THE WORST!"
KILO
Is now just 1.5 km from the border: A swallow stream, 12 yards across.
AZ: "I'm gonna drive you right up to it. We're all gonna be watching you. With guns, but also with love. You go across that river, up to that treeline, then go north three miles, back to that original checkpoint. Boom, Iran. Marivan's like twenty minutes from the border, and then it's just 400 miles to Tehran when they come get you."
Brody: "Okay I am going to go pee and also freak out. No offense because I absolutely could listen to you talk all day, no problem."
Zero: "Kilo-Alpha, Drone Lady says there are two Iraqi Army hummers three clicks south? No big deal but also kind of a big deal, so stay frosty, Sodapop."
AZ: "Okay, forget everything I just said. You guys, cover us from here."
Brody: "I am still peeing! But you can keep talking forever."
They drive through the night, just Kilo-Alpha and his little buddy the Jarhead, keeping it together, feeling very weird. Every jounce and bump, Brody gets a little more nervous; AZ tries every trick he can think of, while navigating the dunes and boulders.
AZ: "Ready? Steady?"
Brody: "Absolutely. Or also, possibly not at all."
AZ: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"
Brody: "I don't remember."
AZ: "Bullshit! Everybody remembers."
Brody: "First of all, that little boy never had a chance and nobody even mourned him, so who knows. That little boy is long fucking gone. And second of all, you don't have to manage me. It is well past time for me to be in the zone."
AZ: "Sorry for being such a compassionate and tender individual. I didn't realize we had a bad-ass over here."
Brody: "Okay so fine. What did you want to be? I'm assuming your life has a recognizable narrative shape. Actually looks like a life, instead of just a junk drawer."
AZ: "As a matter of fact, I grew up in Texas which explains why I am catnip given human form. I wanted to be a bullrider!"
Brody: "And?"
AZ: "So I did. But one day I had a long conversation with my nuts, and they said..."
The truck hits something, ticking, clicking; it blows up beneath and around them.
ZERO
The radio and everything turn to static, and Carrie jumps out of her skin. The Chin dances like nobody's watching. Nobody knows what is happening, and Ryan keeps calling for Kilo-Alpha, but there's no response.
Turani: "Zero, Kilo-Bravo. Alpha hit something. Like a mine or an IED. Are we nicked?"
Drone Lady: "No hostiles so far. Wait, the Iraqi patrol from before just got interested..."
CHIEF OF STAFF
Higgins: "Dude I gotta call POTUS now."
Dar Adal: "You may not."
Higgins: "We're talking about an international incident! It's fine when it's Kurds, but this is the Iraq Army. The literal one!"
Dar Adal: "Michael, I will sit on you. That was not an idle threat. Now keep a cool head, and take great care not to panic."
Higgins: "We gotta do something. We should... Call Iraq, maybe."
Dar Adal: "Dear Iraq. Please turn your Hummers around so they don't see the CIA team we forgot to tell you about. Love, Some War Criminals."
Higgins: "Wait, I have a vastly shittier, crazier idea."
ZERO
Turani: "One click out from Alpha."
Reaper: "Okay but be advised that Iraqi patrol is coming directly for you. No pressure."
Dar Adal lets Higgins Skype them with his crazy idea. When Lockhart hears the White House is calling, he readies his smuggest face, because he doesn't seem to ever remember that Higgins likes Saul just a tiny bit more.
Saul: "Great, Mike. What is it?"
Higgins: "That drone has four Hellfire missiles on it, yes?"
General JSOC: "You want to engage the patrol?"
Higgins: "No, you dreamboat. I want to blow up the Al-Qaeda cell smuggling America's most wanted terrorist into Iran. Then it's okay if we kill all the Iraqis we want, because freedom."
Carrie: "Right away I see some problems with this idea."
Higgins: "If Snow White and the dwarves are dead, it's a great idea!"
Carrie: "I know so many curse words today! Let me say all of them really loud."
The Bear, verbatim: "Bite your lip Carrie bite it hard."
She runs away to say more f-bombs and FUs and the s-word, hair swinging while she thinks of swears to say.
Higgins: "So what, they're like a minute out?"
Saul: "Higgins, I think you're a champ and I hate to do this in front of your crush, the JSOC Commander General Pfister, but no way am I ordering a strike on our own men. That is the kind of shit Waldens and Esteses do. I am not a Walden, and neither are you. I am hanging up now."
Higgins: "You can't embarrass me like that in front of Pfister! I am your biggest cheerleader and also I had an idea!"
Saul: "I know but I am old and very confused by technology so goodbye."
Drone Lady: "That was baller, sir. Also, the blur that is I think Brody is carrying the blur that would thus be Kilo-Alpha away from the blown-up truck, so good call."
Carrie: "Thank goodness! I hope AZ kept his sexy voice. And also his legs. Just kidding, obviously I don't care about that man or his legs. I just hope that the skeleton on which used to hang the skin of my one true love is still up and around, ready to do some assassinating."
As much as I hate to admit it, when I saw how bad of shape AZ was in, my first thought was, "At least it was the second-best one." Because voice aside, I'd be awfully sad if Kilo-Bravo got hurt. AZ might love Brody the most, or at least a proper amount, but Yousef Turani loves us all. He is like a superhero that makes jokes about goat-blowjobs, which is the best kind of superhero to get when you really need one. I would hate to lose such a good American during a trying time such as this episode, I thought to myself. And I am here to tell you that it never pays -- spoiler alert, Ms. Mathison -- to think like that.
KILO
AZ: "My dumb old leg is gone. Grab the phone so I can tell Turani about my leg."
Turani: "Kilo-Alpha, Bravo. Where exactly are you?"
Brody: "In that bombed-out building near the identical bombed-out building, which is close to a truck that just blew up. So far nobody is shooting at us, but we are down at least one leg."
Carrie and Saul are like, "Jesus, we've really done it this time. Maybe Lockhart is right and we just don't know how to put our toys away before we break them. I am so grateful to be wearing clean clothes and socks right now, aren't you? Also legs."
Turani: "Okay I will be there in exactly one minute, over."
Brody: "You should get snipers in position and I will treat him for shock and stop him from bleeding and don't forget to follow our exact route so you don't also drop dead or lose your legs."
Turani: "Thanks for ordering me around, you lunatic. Over and out."
Meanwhile Carrie does this very manic head move that eloquently states several things about what is going on with her, such as she hasn't heard Brody be very effective in quite a while so that's nice he can still be a person instead of just pieces, and also that's exactly what she would do if somehow she were in this position, and did everybody see how functional and competent her boyfriend is being, but also, still, mostly: Thank God.
AZ: "[One hundred horrible sounds. Even a perfect voice can do perfectly awful things, if you are acting.]"
Brody: "Um, focus on your kids. Also not dying, primarily that, but also kids."
AZ: "I don't have kids. I just talked about my kids all the time to make you feel like more of a man. Give me a cigarette."
Brody: "Oh, I love you so much. Here you go, buddy. Also some morphine in the leg."
True to his word, Kilo-Bravo pulls up just as Nick's wrapping his body around Aziz, lengthwise, like a mother. The shakes from the shock, and the little-kid register his voice keeps sliding into.
AZ: "Guess I fucked up, T."
Turani: "Beer's on you, then."
They roll him onto a makeshift stretcher, all the dwarves like pallbearers, and before they get to the truck, that damned patrol shows up and starts shooting.
Turani: "Zero, Kilo-Bravo! Contact! Automatic fire from the south, platoon or possible company strength..."
ZERO
Saul: "If we could not turn this into a huge deal, that would be great."
Zero: "Okay so suppressive return fire only. Don't kill them, just make them go away."
Turani: "Did you know that AZ is dying? We need him out of here, in a minute."
Tech: "Also, that won't work anyway. The Iraqi callsigns are requesting artillery."
Quinn: "Huh. Where are our helicopters?"
Drone Lady: "Like eight minutes."
Saul: "General? If you could stop competing with Quinn for most male model in the room long enough to give us some advice?"
Pfister: "I don't think eight minutes works, due to everybody dying. I guess we could level with Iraq..."
Saul: "We don't have that kind of time either. Plus, Lockhart would have my nuts."
So the choices are... Nope, there are no choices. They have to fight their way back to the Bravo truck and then go 5 km to a secure LZ. Carrie and Saul reluctantly agree, and turn the whole thing over to JSOC: "The intelligence operation is over. It's a military one now."
The General tells his dwarves they're withdrawing, under Hellfires, and they start to obey. Quinn and Carrie give Saul some space, to mourn -- for his very last good thing, for 12/12/12, for Langley and Brody and everybody that will never be avenged, for the hate he could have ended forever -- but you know Lockhart doesn't comprehend any of that. He's trying to be nice, see.
Lockhart: "Saul. It was just bad luck. I'm sorry. I was a believer toward the end."
Saul: "I can't even tell if you're fucking with me. My fists still want to punch your face for the whole of your shitty life, but right now you seem really sincere, so it's just super confusing."
Carrie: "You know what, we still have Javadi. We don't have a high-profile terrorist to get him up the ladder, but that was frankly bonus. Phase II doesn't matter, mister."
Saul: "I guess that's true. I guess we still do have Javadi."
But Brody's name will never be cleared, now. He'll die, or come home, and he'll be the same Nick Brody from a year ago, the former Sergeant. The man who loved America so much he had to kill it. Phase II mattered a shit-ton more than she's saying; the fact that she's saying it at all, right now, knowing her as we do, speaks incredibly of her. Or maybe she's just holding onto the pieces she can grab, too.
Saul runs, out to the elevator. He waits for it to come and, all alone, he rests one hand on the wall, exhausted. The whole world on his back, pushing down. Just for a second.
KILO
Brody: "You know what? Actually I'm not going with you."
Turani: "WTF? Yeah, you are. Stop being weird."
Brody: "No. Look how close we are to the border. I will just walk across it."
Turani: "That's not the mission, Jarhead. I'm fucking ordering you to fucking move out."
Brody: "I am not going to, though. I am already dead. If I turn around I'm already dead."
Turani: "Zero-Alpha, Kilo-Bravo. Passenger refuses to withdraw and I'm out of time. Please advise?"
Pfister: "Do not leave anyone behind."
Turani: "You are beautiful but you are not helpful! We're under heavy fire! Casualty's priority one! Passenger is non-fucking-compliant! Give me an actual order!"
Carrie: "Give me the phone. I will fix this."
Quinn: "General, for real. If AZ's out and Turani's not doing it, she's the only one who can talk him down. Maybe she always was."
Pfister: "Put his crazy ass on the line, then."
Carrie: "Brody? Brody? Brody, can you hear me? Hey, Brody?"
Brody: "Oh my goodness! Carrie, they are trying to abort the mission!"
Carrie: "I know! But you know why? It's because you have an entire platoon plus artillery strikes coming at you. Also, you're basically murdering Aziz while you dick around."
Brody: "I know but whatever! I want to do the mission! Because I have to! I'm only 300 yards from the border! That is three football fields, it's fine."
Carrie: "Iraq Army platoon. Artillery. AZ."
Brody: "I don't care, I'm doin' it."
Carrie: "You understand that if you cross into Iran now, you're completely on your own. It's a Hail Mary."
Brody: "That's literally what this is. I don't have any other options. This doesn't have a second try to it. Come on, you know that."
Carrie: "I don't, actually. What I do know is that if Quinn were there he'd shoot you through the shoulder right now, because you are doing the exact same Carrie shit I did two weeks ago."
Brody: "It's funny that nobody really felt the need to point out what a fucking pregnant bitch retard I am for doing it, though. Funny how that works out, gender-wise."
Carrie: "Stop and think this through. You have no sanction, no support on the ground, and no extraction plan. You'll die over there!"
Brody: "Wrong, Carrie. You're gonna get me home."
Carrie: "That is some bullshit to put on me! For reasons on top of the normal reasons that would already make it unacceptable!"
Brody: "I have faith. You'll find a way. See you on the other side."
Then it's just bullets, and fear, and rockets, and chaos. She listens as a rocket crushes the building they're in, and he goes deaf. Sets off running, through the nightmare. Drops and rolls, keeps running; when he hits the trees, Turani calls in the Hellfire, and then you can't even see what's going on from the satellites. It's all just bright. And then he's gone. Kilo moves out, as the Hellfires start firing.
All except for Turani, who nursed Nicholas back to health. Who put him together, first his body and then his soul, when rougher men stood ready to tear it apart. He sends the rest of Kilo to the LZ, Aziz still quietly groaning, all cursing the stubborn snipers that think they're untouchable, and levels his eyes on Nick: This strong, hollow man. This little duckling, with his downy duckling hair and his scared eyes and his hands that could kill a man, and have. This fragile thing, that would follow you anywhere.
Turani: "I can buy you 30 seconds to cross that border, and get to those trees. I start firing, you start running, and if you stop I will fucking shoot you myself. Any questions? Good. Count of three."
On three, they stand up, and spots hit them from every angle. Whatever the border was, wherever they crossed it, they've been nabbed now. All the running runs out of them.
ZERO
The Iraqi callsigns will give them the story in fits and starts, bits and chunks, with Carrie Mathison translating to the room faster than she can hear herself: How AZ's stable and flying out to the carrier group. How Iran (Iran, not Iraq? Yes.) has two prisoners, from the fight: One seeking asylum, the other just a man who helped. How Saul's still in the game, after all.
Quinn smiles at her, but knows not to touch. She runs to give Saul the news; her face is composed, jittery, like she's playing out a movie she's writing as she plays it. Like the sparks inside her body are fighting to find a way out, before she cracks. "I'll be damned," he says; she basks in it.
BRAVO
Turani: "So these guys, they treat anybody coming over the border like they're Israeli agents. They have to."
Brody: "Yeah."
Turani: "So I'm gonna be getting tortured."
Brody: "Yeah."
Turani: "Can you tell me what that's like? I've never been a POW before, what can I expect?"
"Expect to break." He's sorry to say it; sorrier when Bravo starts to shiver.
Turani: "How long did you hold out?"
Brody: "That's the first thing that goes. Maybe seven days? Long enough for my guys to change their frequencies and plans. I don't know. That was several Nicks ago. I've been broken much more soundly since then. Lots more pieces."
Turani: "Then I hope I can give you seven days, too."
Seven days, for the Passenger. For the duckling to save the world.
FARA
Carrie takes a few breaths, watching her most frequently berated coworker zip some stuff into an attaché, and then proceeds in.
Carrie: "Can I sit?"
Fara: "Sure! Thanks for being nice to me for once."
Carrie: "So you know what, you're very special. You're one of the only people in this whole building full of secrets who knows Javadi's an asset for the Agency."
Fara: "I didn't tell anybody! Jesus already!"
Carrie: "I know, kiddo. What I'm saying is, according to Saul that wouldn't even have happened without you."
Fara: "He exaggerates. But thanks."
Carrie: "Thing is, there's a Phase II that just started. It involves an asset whose life depends on us extracting him, at just the right moment. And see, our extraction plan just went up in smoke. Along with at least one leg."
Fara: "Sorry about that."
Carrie: "Yeah, and so I was thinking..."
Fara: "Oh. This is the part where you break your toys, just like Saul."
Carrie: "Yeah, pretty much. So you've got an uncle in Tehran?"
Fara: "Nope. Stop."
Carrie: "Just hear me out."
Her father's brother -- her sweet, terrified, lonely father's brother -- belongs to a moderate opposition group. No bombs or rocks or anything, just fervent feeling.
Fara: "First of all, like you would ever consider pulling this shit on your own family."
Carrie: "You clearly do not know me very well. I have already risked the wellbeing of my lover, his daughter, and whatever cursed thing is currently growing in my womb. I have been drugged up, detoxed, institutionalized, made a laughingstock, called a whore, I got shot in the shoulder a minute ago... I sell my stupid sister out constantly. I would do that for my country just as easy as for drugs. No question."
Fara: "Okay but still."
Carrie: "All we need is a place to meet, in Tehran. A ... de facto safe house."
Fara: "When Saul does this shit to you, is he this obvious about it?"
Carrie: "You want obvious? Fara, we have a brother agent in the field, soon to be in mortal danger. Don't we owe him every chance to get out alive?"
Good Lord, Carrie Mathison. But I kind of love it because if she were getting this pitch cold, that's exactly the kind of language that would sway her. Just like she didn't hate Martin Donovan until he made fun of America, and still can't even stand the idea of Andrew Lockhart: She could resist you right up until the moment you called this anonymous asset her "brother," and no further.
It was always the best thing about her. Maybe the only thing, for a little while.
BRAVO
When Majid Javadi arrives to take Nick back to Tehran, he has a lot of resentment stored up -- toward the CIA, toward the pickle he's in, toward Americans, toward everybody -- and I guess that's part of it.
Part of it is that he's a beast that walks like a man, of course; that he was broken in the wrong way and it made him weak, self-protecting, content to simply survive. Afraid to be a man. I guess that's probably the part that actually does it: The part that's left when hope is gone; when love and trust become just mistakes for stupider people to make. The part that keeps his craven body alive, by being a bigger monster than the shapes he sees at night. The cruel part, the sneaky, spider part of him.
What grew, when grace was gone, in poor Majid Javadi: The part that knows -- the moment before the bullet hits Yousef Turani's skull, and his duckling drops to the floor in anguish -- exactly what he's taking away.
"Expect to break," he said. He does.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Homeland, Hostages, and Masters Of Sex for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook.