There as a laugh out loud scene between Saul and the Supermax warden when Saul visited Aileen, the girl he drove back from Mexico in Season One. There’s an imminent terror attack and a small man with a lot of power in a very limited space who is using that power by insulting someone he’s jealous of by way of his facial hair. The sad part of the entire situation was I really felt for Aileen, just as I did when we first met her.  She was a stupid girl who got caught up like so any Americans do, in the heat of the moment. Things are so different now, and even she doesn’t like who she has become. I’ve often wondered if I would be able to survive in a position like hers, and I guess I have my answer. I never saw it coming.

It’s almost comical watching Brody come apart at the seams. He appears to forget that his actions have placed him into the middle of this nightmare. Yes, he was brainwashed and used, but others have resisted. He didn’t. He was caught and his price is to play double agent. He’s still dealing with the effects of his absence by way of Mike Faber. Apparently Mike didn’t get the message when he was carted in front of the big guys to stop digging into Tom’s murder.

Frankly, when that conversation was taking place I didn’t know what they were trying to tell him, and I had the benefit of knowing all the pieces of intelligence. How was he supposed to know just what they were dealing with? In comes Carrie. She is so good. She was the perfect person to talk with him about Brody. “In case it wasn’t clear enough the first time, and it should have been, cease and f*cking desist. ” She was kind enough to lay the cards on the table about a terrorist event on the horizon. Why they glossed that over earlier was a grave error on the part of the men who spoke with him. Carrie rarely glosses. That’s why she’s such a bad ass.

“Two minutes with you and I feel good. How do you pull that off?” That’s what Brody said when he and Carrie met and made out in the clearing behind the benefactor’s house where the big campaign shindig was being held. I’ve said it before, they ignite the screen. Danes is such an incredible actress that we’re still not sure. Does she still have feelings for him, or doesn’t she? Is she playing him? Of course she might enjoy their trysts, but does that mean she still has feelings for him beyond the case? I have no idea and I love that mystery. She looks so conflicted when he’s around, especially when they do something like kiss, but other times, like at the precinct, there is no question she’s all business.

Jessica and Dana discovered the new world they’re in is full of deception and there isn’t a way around it. Brody finally thought he found his one way to assert himself, by taking responsibility with Dana for the hit and run accident. How he thought anyone would let him walk through that door is beyond me, but you had to admire his determination. Anybody else would have been happy to have the political machine behind them to protect their daughter, but not the Brodys. Even Nicholas Brody, proven terrorist and murderer himself, somehow felt a better man helping his daughter atone for her sins when he didn’t atone for his. The moral dilemmas alone presented on Homeland are enough to cause an aneurysm.

Another thing of note was Peter Quinn checking himself out of the hospital. He and Carrie are comrades now, not longer at odds as to whether trust is an issue. I like how easily the pieces fit together when someone takes one for the team. He’s downing a lot of painkillers, and I just pray they leave it at that. There doesn’t need to be an addiction warning on every drama on television. We get it. Some people overdo. By the way, nice ass, Quinn.

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The entire Brody family is gasping for air at this point. We’ll cover three of them and start with Jess. At this point, she has the best chance to make it out alive. Like a normal scorned wife, she spotted the red flag on Brody’s CIA interaction by questioning his involvement with the nut, Carrie. Brody told an old lie, that Carrie had been tossed out of the CIA after everything they had been through. Eh, it was a half truth. She was somewhat appeased. Enter her own old flame Mike Faber, charging Brody with the death of their pal, Tom Walker. All evidence points to him, and if the CIA thought taking him aside would shut him up, it did just the opposite. Jess will be really confused going forward.

Dana’s decision to take a walk on the wild side with the Vice President’s son Finn thrust her face first into her own horror film, entitled “I Know What You Did Last Night,” but without any of the fun guest stars. I really didn’t think she was stupid, but her family has been in the forefront of the news for the last year. It’s only a matter of time before someone, most likely the daughter of the deceased woman, pieces together that an important teenager was lingering anxiously at the deathbed of her mother. If Brody’s traitorous behavior and, oh, murderous ways didn’t get him kicked out of congress, this will surely do the trick.

This brings us to Nicholas Brody himself. Having no choice but to take the deal to work with the CIA and Carrie in particular, he started his new assignment by trying to identify a mystery man thought to be Hezbollah. He didn’t know who he was, but figured out pretty quickly that he might have been recruited to replace the tailor in Gettysburg who was inadvertently impaled while trying to escape Brody’s clutches weeks earlier.  Oh what tangled webs we weave!

There were some great moments regarding Carrie’s technique with Brody and how she’s getting information from him. Peter Quinn lambasted her for offering up that she’d like Brody to leave his wife, while Carrie jabbed back that it produced results that his knife through the hand routine did not. It was flinchingly obvious Carrie was using her past with Brody as a tactic when she was in the car with him, asking that he speak with his female Nazir contact, by inching her arm up his arm to his shoulder the more pressing her request became. Brody calling her on it and stepping out of the car was well played, especially because it got to him.

As Peter Quinn and some other agents rifled through the tailor’s business in search of the “something” Brody’s contact said might be found, a crew of SWAT looking men stormed the joint, shooting all, sawing into the wall and escaping with an elongated box hidden inside it. Quinn may or may not have made it out alive, depending upon how many people were there with him.

At her wits end, Carrie went to Brody’s congressional office demanding to know what he said to make it happen, even though she knew he had nothing to do with it. The thing with Carrie and Brody is they know when they are telling the truth and when they are lying. It’s part of their game and why they can work together. She knew he was a traitor and a terrorist, but she still fell in love with all of the other things Brody was, because as she has said, he is a good man. That’s what makes Homeland so compelling. To prove my point, when she broke down, instead of getting angry and pushing her and her accusations away, he used on her the same tactics she had earlier on him. He reached for her, and they touched. We may never understand their connection, but it is electric.

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On the latest episode of Homeland, “Q&A,” Brody found himself in very familiar circumstances, being questioned and turned from the inside out. But the person who turned him, who delivered the following quote and asked the question was Carrie Mathison, CIA agent and a woman, oddly enough, in love with Nicholas Brody, terrorist.

“I know that you think that he was kind to you, that he saved you. But the truth is, he systematically pulled you apart, Brody piece by piece, until there was nothing left but pain. And then he relieved the pain and he put you back together again as someone else. He gave you a boy to love, and then that other monster, Walden, took that boy away. Between the two of them, they made your life a misery. Wouldn’t it be a relief to stop lying?”

Carrie was talking to Brody about Abu Nazir, the man who held Brody captive for eight years and turned him from a loving husband and father into a terrorist willing to do anything against his homeland, even if it meant hurting those he loved.

Claire Danes and Damian Lewis were cast perfectly in their roles on Homeland. Kudos to the casting director. I have no idea how they knew going into it that scenes like these would be so important to the telling of their tale, but the story of Carrie and Brody, their personal pain and systematic destruction, one at the hands of bipolar disorder and the other at the hands of a seasoned terrorist are what drive Homeland to such amazing levels of entertainment.

Not only the acting, but the filming, directing, editing and lighting were all done to perfection. I fully expect to see this episode on the list of nominees under many categories for the next eligible Emmy period. The season isn’t half over. Frankly, I expect many more episodes of Homeland to follow suit.

While Brody was being questioned by new the new agent, Peter, he was brought to fits of tears and rage and then brutally stabbed in the hand as the agent attempted to get answers. As Carrie watched on via closed circuit camera, Brody’s hand pinned to the table, she stormed into the interrogation room and took over. It was time to test everything they had been through together, to discover any truth buried in the games they played.

When Carrie put into words was Abu Nazir did to Brody, he was stunned. Brody is not a stupid man, but a brainwashed man. To hear it put so plainly, and by someone he was once so close to did the trick. She invoked the names of his wife and children, Jess, Dana and Chris. As we know, Carrie’s feelings for Brody were, and most likely still are, genuine. The care she showed by bringing forth his family as a way to get him out of his zone of lies showed great character on her part.  As Carrie, teary-eyed, called Brody a good man, reached across the table and held his hand, despite everything that was at stake, I realized I was witnessing one of the most brilliant moments of television I’ve witnessed in years.

Carrie succeed in bringing Brody back to his Homeland. At least for now, he’s going to work with the CIA to gain information from Abu Nazir about his terrorist activities. I suspect this will not only bring Carrie and Brody closer, but will put them in far more danger than they were in when Brody was hiding his own terrorist behavior from everyone he loves. Brody is going to need a lot of hand holding to keep him from inadvertently showing his to Nazir.

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