HOMELAND 2-4  ['New Car Smell'] recaplet by Jacob Clifton

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me
Absolutely everything changes that you can think of.


After an adorably slow reveal from Saul regarding the nature of Brody's confessional video, Estes authorizes an operation involving Nick's kryptonite -- Carrie Mathison, whose employment at the CIA is edging back towards probable now that last season's entire finale is proving to be one giant mistake on his part -- but led by a new guy, the enigmatic and oddly proportioned yet supernaturally beautiful analyst Peter Quinn. He's been Estes's favorite for a while on the homefront -- even Carrie forms an instant bond with him, because he is interesting and weird and neurologically atypical and very, very good at his job. Oh, and also on the team are Virgil and Max! I never thought we'd see those dudes again! Nice.

But before we get into the operation, which is almost the entire episode: Dana sasses the Vice President gorgeously yes and in his own West Drawing Room library or whatever, which pushes Finn all the way into being adorably in love. He takes her on a midnight jaunt up the Washington Monument and lays one on her, leading to one of the coolest and most charmingly authentic scenes in what I may in the future claim -- in retrospect, once the dazzle has worn off -- as the best episode of this entire show.  yes and yes.

Carrie spooking Nick into running to his handler, then, involves running into him outside of Langley, and you immediately see what's coalescing here: It's the old hunger game, Real Or Not Real, where they are both running into an old lover and "running into an old lover." Carrie gets a call from Nick so she meets him at the hotel bar. He's operating and not operating on Roya's orders; she's operating and not operating on Quinn's; they're both authentically happy for a pretext to see each other after their run-in earlier. It's dizzying and wonderful and a little overwhelming. Nick strikes a little too deep with questions about her ECT treatments. She drops her smile just long enough shows resentment her brow creases on No when he asks, Was it terrible? for him to make her, and he bounces.  Saul and Quinn back at HQ don't entirely buy this like spiritual connection they have, so -- against all evidence we have ever seen on this program, ever -- they second-guess her feelings on this and tell her to come back in, despite her protestations that he'll somehow signal his people. Can you guess what her ass does next? Yeah, you got it. Right on up to his hotel room, playing the nookie card until her resentment rises from her gut and suddenly, radically -- I mean, you couldn't guess this next bit -- scrubbing the mission entirely, Carrie's off getting him to admit that he's an Al-Qaeda agent on tape, and admitting she was fully in love with him the entire time, and calling him a traitor to his country and his family, and telling him to fuck off for making her go crazy.

So: What is left of the show you remember at this point? Because my God, do I love the one we're watching now.