Homeland – “A Red Wheelbarrow”

Season Three, Episode Eight

Grade: B-

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Everyone’s story keeps on moving forward in Homeland, and for the most part it’s good. The Javadi plan is the big picture that Saul is in charge of, but the little pieces involved almost fall apart. Saul and Mira are trying to salvage their marriage, and Carrie’s 13 weeks pregnant and is advised to take things easy at her job (I chuckled when Carrie rolled her eyes with the “that’s impossible” expression). But it wouldn’t be Homeland without a mountain of glitches along the way.

First, the immediate plot-line where Carrie is meeting with Franklin to expose the person who exploded the bomb (and possibly constructed) at the Langley bombing. Everything goes according to plan and just as it looks like Brody would be exonerated, Franklin is seen holding a gun with intention to kill the bomber hiding in his hotel room. Naturally (in crazy Carrie world) she abondons the mission, disregards her orders and attempts to stop the assassination. This would ruin everything the CIA has been working on for months and reveal the play with Javadi. But Carrie doesn’t care because she wants nothing more than to have Brody return to her as a free man.

I mean, come on now! I get how Carrie’s bi-polar and how she’s been dealing with a lot of craziness throughout the series, but without even blinking her eyes she decides that it’s worth ruining the entire mission? Why do they even keep Carrie involved if she keeps pulling these stunts. After repeated warnings, Quinn shoots Carrie in the shoulder and Franklin kills the bomber. So on top of taking lithium, drinking heavily, and being as a stressful job, Carrie puts the baby through the trauma of almost being shot. Yeah, Carrie’s got issues.

I wonder how Saul would’ve reacted to Carrie’s shenanigans. Instead he was too busy traveling to Caracas where he pays $10 million for Brody. The look Brody gives Saul when he sees him is priceless. But more importantly, what’s the play here? What could Saul possibly want or need Brody for? Is it related to the Javadi plan? You just know that Carrie is not going to like Saul going behind her back like this, though I’m sure Saul isn’t going to be happy when he hears that Carrie almost blew their cover and had to be freaking shot to be stopped.

One small element about the episode that I did like was the inside look of Fara’s home and the reason why she hasn’t told her ailing father that she works for the CIA. But after she misses two days of work, she gets a visit by an agent who reminds her that she has work to do. The conversation is overheard by her father and we discover the family still has ties to Tehran and if her identity is revealed then those family members’ lives are in danger. This was indeed a great little bit of information to share about Fara. She’s a new agent and it makes sense that she feels the way she does, and how she’s already getting sick with the way things are being run. It’s believable, much more than when Quinn wanted to quit.

For the most part, there are more good things that are happening that outweigh the bad, the bad being Carrie’s pregnancy. Seriously, is anyone interested in that at all? But Homeland has presented us with many questions that need to be answered, and it’s something worth sticking with for the time being. Can Saul really pull this off? Homeland seems to paint this portrait of Super-Saul, the pure CIA agent who is always right. They could really knock him down a handful of pegs if this all blows up in his face, that is if Carrie doesn’t ruin it for him.