Homeland - Recap: Asset Management
Recap and review of Homeland - Season 3 Episode 8 - A Red Wheelbarrow:
"A Red Wheelbarrow" certainly asks more questions than it answers, which isn't to say there aren't answers to be found here. Homeland essentially solves the Langley Bombing, giving us the fairly nondescript identity of the bomber in question. Yet in the wake of that reveal is a laundry list of other questions with no immediate answers, storylines with no clear or obvious direction. And call me disorganized, but I kind of like that approach. There's a lot we could extrapolate from what happens here, try to piece together the motivations of the characters and the direction of the future storylines, but it seems like there's a lot more happening on a subtextual level. It's the times when Homeland opens itself up to this kind of examination that it proves itself to be most like its season one heyday -- unpredictable, compelling, and ambiguous in seemingly equal measure.
Carrie (Claire Danes) remains on the warpath to clear Brody (Damian Lewis), which means that while she's making considerable headway in the investigation into the Langley Bombing, she often risks blowing the cover on the entire operation. In this instance, it would be easy to say she's obsessed with exonerating Brody because she's 13 weeks pregnant with his child. But I feel Carrie's obsession has more to do with simply being proven right. In many ways, the story of Homeland has been the story of Carrie having to repeatedly prove herself to colleagues, family and superiors. It's created an inferiority complex in Carrie, in which she clings to her beliefs for fear of succumbing to self-doubt. The minute she starts to doubt herself is the minute Carrie inevitably starts to unravel. And so she holds fast to her own private mission, even while it contradicts the CIA mission with which she's been tasked. Case in point, she follows Franklin, the lawyer who put her in contact with Leland Bennett in order to facilitate a meeting with Javadi, in order to ascertain the identity of the Langley Bomber. By meeting with Franklin under her continued guise as a disgraced ex-CIA agent, Carrie is able to plant the idea in Franklin's head that the CIA is on to him and Bennett, and that they're merely one FISA warrant away from ruin. Naturally, the bad guys react by setting up a meeting with the Langley Bomber, who is still in the country, in order to arrange his exfiltration package to get him the hell out of Dodge.
Credit: Showtime
A full CIA team surveils Franklin as he goes to meet at a motel with the Langley Bomber, who turns out to just be some random guy (as surprising a twist, in my opinion, as if it had actually been someone we knew). Quinn (Rupert Friend) keeps an eye on Franklin from the end of his sniper rifle, while Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham) keeps a strike team at bay. Meanwhile, Agent Ryan (Tim Guinee) oversees the operation from the surveillance van. Everything is going smoothly, as they are able to confirm visual on Franklin, and plan to not only keep him in play as an asset, but also learn the identity of the Langley Bomber. But things go awry when Carrie notices Franklin assembling a pistol with a silencer. Franklin has no intentions of getting the bomber safely out of the country -- he's going to just take him out altogether. And so Carrie, who needs the Langley Bomber alive if there's any hope of exonerating Brody, gets out of her car and chases after Franklin, leading to a tense standoff with the CIA. The government needs Franklin to remain in play, but Carrie is placing the entire operation in jeopardy, just so she can exonerate Brody and prove her suspicions right. And so, after repeatedly ignoring requests to stand down, Ryan authorizes Quinn to use force.
Credit: Showtime
And so Quinn does just that, shooting Carrie in the shoulder, after just last week stating to Carrie that he wanted to get out of this whole espionage business altogether. If nothing else, Quinn is a man of duty. Yet he and Carrie feel the same way about the mission, namely that it can't all end up being for nothing. There has to be a point to it, and that point must be preserved. That's an ideology they share, but for different reasons: for Carrie, failure means that the entire effort to exonerate Brody will have been without purpose, whereas Quinn feels that allowing Carrie to blow the investigation will essentially render his espionage in Venezuela pointless -- in essence, he'll have accidentally killed a little boy for nothing, continually haunted by a death that ultimately served no purpose (not that it does now, but at least there was a justification for it before).
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As Carrie writhes on the gurney on her way to the hospital, she learns from Quinn that Franklin has killed the Langley Bomber (the man he even goes so far as to dissolve him with acid in the motel bathtub), destroying the one lead she had towards exonerating the father of her baby. While it's uncertain whether Carrie was ever seriously considering keeping the kid, the inability to clear its father's name has to put serious doubts into her head about whether it makes any sense to keep it. With that said, it's hard to believe the child is long for this world, as Carrie admits to her OB/GYN early in the episode that she took a cocktail of lithium and alcohol after she first learned of the pregnancy. She also doesn't seem to be too enthusiastic about her doctor's recommendation to get off the alcohol and take it easy at work, especially since she's a key figure in a vital operation concerning national security. There's pretty much no way around the stress for her, given how deep she is in the Javadi mission with Saul. In her despair and rage and pain following the gunshot, she asks Quinn where the hell Saul is, as he's conspicuously absent, having disappeared on a mysterious, week-long trip.
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Saul (Mandy Patinkin) has been conducting mysterious business related to the operation that is hard to parse out during the episode. He arranges a meeting with Mike Higgins (William Sadler), the White House Chief of Staff, and Senator Lockhart (Tracy Letts) happens to be present as well. Both men express skepticism that Javadi has truly turned, but Saul insists that Javadi is a man they can trust. In another great "Lockhart gets shut down" moment, Saul has Higgins kick the senator out of the room so they can talk privately, since Lockhart is still nine days away from having the necessary clearance to be present for what they're about to discuss. And so Lockhart is given the heave-ho, at which point Saul lets Higgins in on "phase two" of the extensive Javadi operation: a plot to usher a regime change in Iran, with Javadi in a high-ranking military role, with the possibility of being placed even higher in the Iranian chain of command before it's all said and done. In essence, Javadi would be the highest-placed asset in the history of the Agency, which both interests Higgins and gives him great pause. But there's more to Saul's plan, as we inevitably see. As the episode comes to a close, we learn about the nature of Saul's mysterious trip. He arrives in Caracas, at the Tower of David, with a satchel full of cash, and we know all too well that there's only one thing Saul could possibly be there for. El Nino takes Saul directly to the cell in which a drugged-out, barely-living Nicholas Brody remains. His eyes are bloodshot, his skin pale from drug use and lack of sunlight, and his frame is withered and weakened. The two men share glances, though it's hard to say what either man sees in the other. It's clear Saul has some use for Brody yet to be revealed, but what's brewing behind Brody's gaze? Hatred? Confusion? Catatonia?
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It's a question with no obvious answer right now, and one of the big points of interest is just how Brody factors into Saul's "phase two," and whether Carrie even knows about his involvement (yeah, I'm going to just guess she doesn't). But even with this central mystery being brought to the fore, there are other issues of reasonable interest this week. Mira breaks things off with Alain, who can't seem to take no for an answer when she explains that she's decided to give her marriage another chance. But what seems to be the rage of a jealous boyfriend could be something much more sinister, as we later see Alain planting surveillance devices in the Berenson household, including devices on the home computer. Is he a spy for a foreign agency, tasked with seducing the wife of the acting director of the CIA? If so, you'd think Alain would be able to piece together that Saul isn't exactly a guy who brings his work home with him. Which leaves the alternative, that Alain is just a jealous guy -- a stalker who plans on continuing to see Mira, whether she knows about it or not. And I'm not sure which option is creepier.
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Nor do I know whether Fara (Nazanin Boniadi) should be more afraid of the CIA or of the Iranians back in Tehran. Apparently, Fara has been keeping her job at the CIA a secret from her ailing father, who discovers the truth when a CIA agent comes by their home to threaten Fara after she misses two days of work. She's essentially given a "be at work tomorrow, or else' ultimatum from the agent, and her father hears the whole thing. He launches into a tirade against Fara, saying that they still have family in Tehran who would be hanged if the Iranians learn who Fara is working for. However, Fara rationalizes her work by saying that there was an attack, and she felt an obligation because she's an American. It's a fascinating approach to have a foreign character whose loyalties are so clearly divided, and Boniadi does a remarkable job with the character, as Fara remains one of the more quietly compelling forces of the season.
Credit: Showtime
"A Red Wheelbarrow" keeps up the string of solid episodes, illustrating that Homeland is back on the upswing as we head towards the final four episodes of the season. No, season 3 hasn't been perfect. But the plan for where the show is headed is becoming clear now, and the purpose of (nearly) everything that came before has begun crystallize. That clarity of purpose goes a long way in redeeming even the most questionable elements of the season, such as the Dana Brody stuff, or Carrie's inexplicable pregnancy. And with any luck, the show will reveal a clear purpose in those story elements as well. I still have faith in Homeland and its storytelling prowess, as well as its cast, which is one of the deepest benches of any TV roster at the moment. All the tools are here for a stellar final quarter for season 3. With any luck, the show will deliver on its potential.