Homeland - Season 3 Finale - Recap: The Plan Is A Success

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There are some who would argue it was a stretch for Brody to survive season one, and a similar array of viewers were outright furious over the implausibility of his survival in season two. And so it's only natural to expect that Brody will somehow, miraculously, escape the Grim Reaper yet again, particularly once he relates to Carrie (Claire Danes) the story of how the doctor in Caracas compared him to a cockroach, "unkillable" and bringing death and destruction to everyone around him. But it's that moment that pretty much seals Brody's fate, in terms of strict foreshadowing. It's too on-the-nose to be anything other than a clear harbinger of his demise. The reason I mention this is because while the finales of seasons one and two ask us to fear for Brody's life and to expect the worse, I didn't feel as though "The Star" ever expected us to truly believe that Brody would make it out of the episode alive. The first half plays as a long, grim march to the gallows: Brody is dead, but his body (and Carrie) just don't know it yet.

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But I'm burying the lede a bit. "The Star" kicks off with a killer setpiece, as Brody attempts to cover up the crime scene after murdering Akbari, and then proceeds to escape the building, attempting to appear inconspicuous yet also trying to proceed as quickly as possible. There are some great teases, such as when a guard stops him, only for Brody to realize it's because he's leaving the building without removing his visitor's pass. Much of the terror here is from whether or not Brody can escape before Akbari's body is discovered, yet his pace is so languorous it's difficult to believe he'd actually get out in time. But he manages to make it to his escort vehicle and through the gate just before Akbari's body is found. Brody pulls a gun he palmed from Akbari's office, and forces his driver to speed away to safety, just as the guards are giving chase. Brody escapes, ditches the driver, and meets up with Carrie to head to the safehouse and await extraction, and Carrie is the only one with any kind of optimism whatsoever, as Brody looks out the window with a listless expression and, poignantly, speculates that his father would have been ashamed of all that's happened.

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Once alone in the safehouse, Carrie reveals she's pregnant, and it comes only as a result of an argument in which Brody tries to get Carrie to see that he's no marine, that he's incapable of being redeemed for the things he's done. He observes that it's a pretty twisted world they live in where killing one person redeems a man for killing another. But Carrie doesn't see it that way. She truly believes Brody is different, that he isn't some unsalvageable villain. While Brody has never thought of the future ("I never thought I'd make it this far"), Carrie states that she thinks about it all the time. She's a dreamer, and it's that naivete that makes it all the more crushing when the inevitable happens, especially since it seemed like Carrie finally got Brody to feel some measure of hope towards the end (after telling him that she felt she was put on this Earth to meet him, which he believes is the only sane thing he's heard out here).

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The dilemma of the first half of the episode isn't just in whether or not Brody will escape the building and meet up with Carrie, but in whether or not Saul (Mandy Patinkin) will authorize an extraction for Brody, or succumb to pressure to give up Brody in order to keep Javadi (Shaun Toub) in play. It seems touch-and-go initially, but Saul is a man of his word and authorizes Brody's extraction. However, it all goes to hell when Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham) sells him out to Lockhart (Tracy Letts), who goes over Saul's head and contacts the president. The president gives the order to have Javadi capture Brody, since it's better for the agency to have him in Iranian custody. Carrie can only watch in horror as Javadi's men take Brody away, and it isn't long before Carrie is meeting with Javadi and learning that the man she loves has been sentenced to death by public hanging. Javadi attempts to console a mortified Carrie. "The plan is a success," he says. "You and Brody pulled it off." Carrie, fighting back tears, responds, "Not if he dies." To which Javadi potently declares, "More so if he dies."

What follows is an examination of Carrie's personality by Javadi, her love of Brody and the lengths to which she'll go to preserve that love. As he tries to talk her out of despairing over Brody's loss, Javadi in some ways assumes the voice of Alex Gansa and the creative forces behind Homeland: in essence, the series is explaining why Brody has to die, and why this is the only way his story could have ended, as if refuting the hopeful audience who insists there has to be some other way. It's not even the only conversation like this that Carrie has, either. Carrie has scenes with Javadi, Lockhart, even Brody himself, all towards the purpose of convincing her of the truth about the man Brody was, and why this had to be his end. Yet Carrie clings to her belief in Brody to the end. But we'll get to that in a bit...

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Carrie has one last phone call with the imprisoned Brody, who has made his peace with what's to come. Carrie tries to inspire a last bit of hope, but Brody insists that not only is it over, he wants it to be over. In her desperation to have him back, Carrie has failed to see just how taxed Brody has become by years of torturous living. His rare moments of happiness with Carrie aren't enough to dull the edges of all he's experienced, from the moment he was captured a decade ago, to this point where he's once again staring death in the face. Anyone would be exhausted from all that death-dodging, of all the torn loyalties and second-guessing, of all the hateful denouncements from family and loved one. It's any wonder Brody didn't give up sooner. He's a strong man, but even Brody has his limits.

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Brody requests that Carrie not come to his hanging, but she isn't exactly a stickler for following orders, so she attends the execution, which is a gruesome public spectacle. Brody is denounced by those in attendance, and is spit upon by Akbari's widow, before having the noose placed around his neck. The rope is attached to a crane that slowly lifts Brody from the ground and up into the air, slowly choking the life out of him. It's a brutal death, as Brody is denied the quick release of a broken neck from the traditional drop-down method of hanging, and instead is given a death in increments. Carrie calls out to Brody and tries to climb the fence to see him eye-to-eye, but she's slapped off of the fence by a guard's baton. It's at this moment, seeing Carrie imperiled, that Brody gets a little fight back in him. But it isn't enough to stop the inevitable. His body goes limp, and Carrie leaves the scene, having watched Nicholas Brody die. It's a watershed moment in Homeland history, as this has arguably been the one moment the series has been building to from the start. Even from the beginning of Homeland, Nicholas Brody has been a figure marked for death, and whom death has followed even in moments of escape and survival. This really did feel like a culmination for his journey, and for Carrie's.

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With Brody dead, the rest of the episode is a peculiar denouement for the characters in his orbit, as we flashforward four months: Saul is retired after achieving the impossible, and lives peacefully abroad with Mira (Sarita Choudhury), only returning to Washington for a dedication ceremony for a memorial in honor of those killed in the Langley Bombing. It's here that he has a lovely heart-to-heart with Carrie, whom Director Lockhart has just appointed to a highly-coveted post in Istanbul. But even her moment with Saul is dwarfed by the drama brewing with her baby, as she struggles to decide whether she wants to keep the child or not. Carrie states again and again just how utterly terrified she is to be a mother, but her sister and father insist that the baby (which they know will be a girl) will ground her and focus her in a way nothing else has before. But she resolves to give the child up for adoption, at which point, her father offers to take the child in, and the Mathison clan is split regarding the child, as Carrie is eight months along and she doesn't feel any kind of attachment, all she feels is sadness. She tells Quinn (Rupert Friend) that she wanted the child in order to have some piece of Brody, but now she's not so sure why she's even considering keeping it. But Peter urges her to cling to the child, however, as he knows all-too-well what it's like to mess up parenthood. So it looks like the series is looking to keep a Brody in the picture, in some form or fashion. If nothing else, it should be interesting to see if/how motherhood changes Carrie, as she's grown static in some ways.

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For instance, even after his death, so much about Carrie's character is Brody-centric. She asks Lockhart about possibly including Brody and giving him a star on the memorial among the victims of the Langley Bombing, but Lockhart refuses, again making a meta observation about just the kind of person Brody was. Carrie agrees never to bring up the subject again, but the episode ends with her clinging to the idea of Brody she's erected in her mind: she takes out a sharpie and draws a star among the other stars on the memorial. She's made up her mind that Brody is a hero who died in service of his country, and while she's not wrong about the facts, it's clear that there's a bit of idealization and hero worship involved in how she views the late father of her child. To this end, I wonder just how different she'd really be in a Homeland without Brody. I suppose we'll see in Season 4.

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Nicholas Brody is dead and Homeland might actually be better off for it, as it opens up several new story possibilities that don't involve the anchor of the Carrie/Brody romance, which had a way of dragging every other storyline in its path to distraction, no matter how big or small. Sure, it's a shame to lose the incredible chemistry between Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, but Brody pretty much had to die. It was simply something set in stone from the very beginning of Homeland. And as far as ends go, this was as good as any. "The Star" isn't a perfect season finale, but I'd argue it's an indelibly strong one, as Homeland closes out its season with its strongest episode of 2013. I honestly don't know where Homeland goes from here, but I'm more than open to sticking around to find out.