Warning: Spoiler Alert
The Showtime Original Series “Homeland,” presented, a lean, tight, a fast-paced episode in their sixth episode of the season, it also radically changed the season’s dynamic in the process, besides giving us a further look into the competence or the inability to think clearly in times of crisis. We got a glimpse of just how evil, a traitorous character could get and further proof that Carrie Mathison, while an exemplary agent, lacks the skill-set of a CIA Station Chief. While watching her seemingly perfect plan fall apart, Mathison fell apart as well, almost sacrificing her mentor and former Director of the Agency Saul Berenson, until Peter Quinn brought her to her senses.
One could accurately describe CIA Agent Carrie Mathison, as an agent that does whatever it takes to complete the mission she’s assigned to. However to achieve that, Carrie’s made some questionable moral choices, some of which have hurt her, or her cause rather than help it. In the show’s first season she engaged in an affair with a married man, that she believed was a traitor to our country. Her assessment was accurate, however she arranged a way to clear the slate for him and planned to run away with him and start a new life. That fell apart as the second season concluded, when Intelligence officials named Nick Brody as the prime suspect in the bombing of the CIA headquarters and he began a life on the run.
This season Mathison manipulated a naïve medical student, Aayan Ibrahim, the nephew of Pakistani terrorist Haissam Haqqani by seducing him and the young man revealed that his Uncle’s alive, after the CIA believed he got killed in an airstrike on a family wedding. Ibrahim, felt nothing but shame after their first twist, but then got addicted to the forbidden fruit and Mathison played him like a violin. This episode began with the couple in bed as Carrie quizzes Aayan about his new identity, that he’ll use once he gets to London. As the test concluded, she game him a new passport and money and said they’d leave that night.
The next few seconds prove critical to the episode, but in reality doesn’t make much sense. The move that triggers the rest of the plan into action’s a decision the med student makes, that Carrie could only hope would occur, Ibrahim tells her that he needs to go back to his University to collect his belongings. If Aayan stayed in the safe-house, Mathison couldn’t implement the rest of her plan, a move that struck me as little more than wishing on a wing and a prayer.
Although she had luck on her side in that instance, she’s unaware of a high-placed mole, attempting to get himself off the hook with the ISI, as United States’ Ambassador Martha Boyd’s husband Dennis, starts watching the Station Chief and her associates around the clock. In the last episode breaking into her apartment, he discovered her stash of meds that keep her Bi-Polar condition in check, he uncovers far more important information in this installment.
Carrie’s alienated two of the people she counts on the most over the last few episodes, Peter Quinn and Fara Sherazi. She tries to enlist Quinn’s help in the day’s operation, but his anger and resentment, convince her he’s not the right man for the job, so she gives the assignment to her assistant John Redmond. Her encounter with Fara, begins just as rocky and Mathison reacts by spewing out all her frustration with the mission on the young woman whose completed each task assigned to her. Calmly, but firmly, Fara tells Carrie not to treat her like the enemy, because this mission’s on because of the footwork Sherazi did and her discovery that Haqqani’s alive. Chastened, Carrie asks her to head to the safe-house and get rid of every scrap of evidence that Mathison and Aayan were there. Dennis Boyd, eavesdrops on the conversation and follows Fara out of the building.
Quinn gets reports that Farad Ghazi, wasn’t on the plane to South Africa, that Berenson alerted him to in the previous episode. Ghazi’s the man the ISI hired to manipulate and manage the supposedly spontaneous riot and subsequent pummeling to death of Sandy Bachman and didn’t board the flight to South Africa. Instead he set up the kidnapping of Berenson for the ISI, as the former CIA Director got assaulted in the airport’s men’s room and injected with a drug that knocked him out. Quinn, unaware of the danger Saul’s in tells the analyst to attempt to contact Saul and find out what he knows.
Aayan’s in his dorm room packing his stuff, when his girlfriend Kiran walks in and asks where he’s going and he tells her to London. She asks why he didn’t tell her and blames Kiran’s father, who got him kicked out of the University, when he reported Ibrahim stole drugs. She asks him to take her with him twice, the second time we can see he no longer cares for her and she see’s it as well. When she finds out the “journalist’s” a woman, she asks if he’s in love with her and he responds she doesn’t know.
As Aayan’s about to leave his dorm, he sees a big imposing guy who appears to be an ISI operative waiting for him. He sneaks out the back-way and gets a jump on the other man, he then hides in a building and the guy runs past it, thinking Ibrahim’s still in the crowd. He makes it back to the safe-house and tells Carrie the story and she says that the development’s very bad and they’ll have to push back the departure. But the medical student has another idea.
He says his Uncle Haissam can provide him safe passage to Afghanistan and he can fly to London from there. Carrie tells him it’s too dangerous, but suddenly the man who followed Aayan and several others, break into the safe-house and attack the pair. Mathison gives the medical student his passport and money and screams run, he eludes his attackers, by climbing onto the roof, then jumping down to the street behind the house, he watches from the shadows as the men carry a struggling Mathison and put her in a van and drive off. That’s when we find out the attackers were CIA operatives and the whole attack was nothing more than a ruse to scare Ibrahim into running to his Uncle. But how could Carrie be certain, that Aayan would want to leave the safe house before heading to London.
Fara heads to the safe-house and gathers three Hefty-bags worth of belongings and puts them near the front door, she then covers a broken window pane with cardboard and masking tape. When she does we see Dennis Boyd outside the house. When Fara gets ready to leave, she fails to notice Aayan’s family photographs scattered on the floor, with the bag containing them on its side. She doesn’t get suspicious that the cardboard, covering the window pane’s been pushed inward, but it’s obvious Boyd came in and rifled through the bags.
Dennis then sets up a meeting with Nasneem, his ISI contact at an al fresco café across from the safe-house then informs her about the former operation and gives her some pictures of Ibrahim, which makes her smile broadly. After telling Boyd he has a gift, she excuses her quick exit as she needs to relay the information immediately.
Tech genius Max, loaded a tracking chip into Aayan’s passport, so they’re able to follow him on his journey, they watch him board a bus that will take him to a town near one of his Uncle’s training camps. He encounters trouble with a soldier questioning his passport at a check-point, but bribes the soldier to allow him to proceed. He then gets back on the bus and for the first time in weeks the young man smiles broadly as he recognizes the spot he and his Uncle spent many hours at when he was a child.
Quinn gets a message from the analyst that Saul never boarded his plane and Peter realizes something terribly wrong’s in play. He heads down to where Carrie and the others are monitoring the situation and tells her Berenson’s missing. Seconds later, Haissam Haqqani arrives at the spot his nephew’s at, telling the young man he should never have come there. He then asks if his American girlfriend’s aware that he’s there and Ibrahim attempts to play dumb. Right then Haqqani signals to an aide and they drag a bound man out of the car, we immediately realize it’s Saul. The Uncle asks Aayan if he knows this man and the young man truthfully says he doesn’t. Haqqani tells his nephew there’s an American drone over their heads ready to take them out, because of Ibrahim’s actions. He kisses him on the lips, thanks him for the meds and shoots him between the eyes. Carrie screams to her operatives to take the shot, but Quinn screams Saul’s there, she repeats the orders screaming again, but Peter tells them they have the former CIA Director with them and they can’t fire. Mathison looks Quinn in the eyes, realizing he’s right but she’s filled with contempt. She heads to her office, pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, then in a fit of fury knocks everything off her desk with one sweeping motion.
The Story Continues Next Sunday at 9:00 pm on Showtime.
