Carrie starts to piece together this season’s mystery, but she’ll need an old friend’s help to do so.
Warning: Full spoilers below.
After the revelation last week that Berlin Station Chief Allison is a traitor who ordered Carrie’s assassination and also likely (since confirmed) was behind the destruction of General Youssef’s plane, thus squashing Saul’s Syrian regime-change plan, this episode of Homeland delves into how Allison feels about these acts. And it turns out, she doesn’t feel so good!
Which I’m glad about, because we certainly don’t need an out and out Evil Person here, especially as we’re still fairly early in the season. Allison can be seen as a dark reflection of Carrie, a possibly good person who went bad at some point. Maybe she’s a double agent who rose up through the spy-agency ranks in Russia just as Carrie did in the U.S. Either way, she was seemingly a student of Saul’s at one point, but whereas Carrie and Saul developed a daughter/father relationship, Allison got much closer physically, if not emotionally, to her old mentor and current boss. (Although, yes, there was that super-creepy instance in Season 1 where Carrie put the moves on Saul in a moment of desperation. Yuk.) Allison has ascended to a high-ranking position in the CIA, the same level that Carrie had achieved before she left the agency, and just as we’ve seen Carrie do some pretty nasty stuff, so has Allison.
That’s not to say Carrie would kill a colleague or blow up a plane with an innocent family onboard, but who knows what pushed Allison to this point? I hope that we get to that answer as this season proceeds, and “Better Call Saul” at least sets her up as having some depth. She’s obviously distraught when she sees the photo of “dead” Carrie, despite having been the one to order her murder (which she freely admits here). Is she upset at the sight of her friend’s “body” or at the prospect of what would happen if Saul finds out? Yes, there’s a slight indication of a smirk when she leaves Saul and Dar Adal on the tarmac after the bombing, but we also get the sense that she’s in way over her head in this situation — no matter how smooth an operator she may be — and that she’s being manipulated by that Russian baddie (who’s pretty over-the-top evil and needs a little fleshing out himself) Russian contact. Miranda Otto, who plays Allison, brings a good balance of vulnerability, mystery, and, sure, mustache-twirling to the role.
Meanwhile, Saul is being played by Allison and doesn’t know it, as is Dar. Even Dar! I always thought he was unplayable, and who knows — perhaps that may still turn out to be true, and he’ll turn the tables on her. “I actually convinced myself we were going to change the world,” Saul tells her. Does Saul suspect Allison? What was that whole exchange between them about outside his hotel? He was hard to read this week, though Allison and her Russian buddies certainly are manipulating him during a moment of weakness. And even while he’s being set up to think his old Israeli colleague (they go back together to a time “when they were young and idealistic”) is responsible for the bombing, Dar is being made to think that Saul is colluding with the Israeli. What a mess!
The notion of Saul’s potential betrayal obviously pains Dar, which I welcome since F. Murray Abraham has always been very under-utilized on Homeland. He feels compelled to put “eyes and ears” on Saul, but it hurts him to do so.
And Carrie, with the help of Astrid — who is kind of awesome — is finally piecing together the plot against her (despite that wig she’s got on). This brings her into contact with Laura the reporter, but ultimately she realizes she needs Saul’s help to get access to the leaked documents which started this whole thing. There’s something in those documents, she theorizes, that the Russians don’t want her to see. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until next week to get the full Saul/Carrie reunion, as they only had time for a quick quip at the end of this episode. But the band is getting back together (hopefully)!
Well, minus Quinn, who rather than recover from his bullet wound TV-style in a matter of 24 hours is actually going through some difficulty. (And losing like a Johnny Depp/A Nightmare on Elm Street level of blood!) Carrie’s boyfriend (ex?) Jonas is called back to help on this front in a textbook Carrie move — she’s been missing for days as far as he knows, and she only thinks to contact him now — but it’s not enough for Quinn. He actually drags himself out of his safe house on a suicide mission intended to protect Carrie; that’s Quinn’s version of sending her a dozen roses. But he has the misfortune of running into a very, very persistent and way too nice bystander who certainly is up to no good. Quinn, you might have to kill that guy and everybody he knows…
Some notes:
- Astrid gets some good lines this week: “Nice wig. Very retro” and “How did he get dead” stand out.
- It turns out Homeland takes place in the future of April, 2016. (Check Numan’s computer screen.)
- O.K., so Mira filed for divorce. Now we know. Bummer.
- Numan’s viral video message has turned him into something of a celebrated figure, hasn’t it?
- I want Ingrid’s boss to help solve the bigger mysteries of this season. He seems really good at that!
- I should’ve mentioned this last week, but Carrie got over being off her meds really easily between episodes three and four, didn’t she?
Homeland continues to maintain a steady pace this season as it portions out answers to some mysteries while building tension and posing new questions, all the while mostly avoiding the crazy and over-the-top antics that has been the show’s weakness in the past. Allison became much more interesting this week, and the promise of a full-fledged Carrie/Saul reunion in the next episode is exciting.
