Homeland season five, episode three – Super Powers

The Drone Queen heads down a Mathison-shaped rabbit hole this week as she tries to work out who put the hit out on her in the only way she knows how

‘I’ve already gone off them. Three days ago.’

Just three weeks in, and Homeland is throwing the Drone Queen off the deep end. After learning that the car bomb in Beirut last week was actually meant for her and not her new boss, Düring, Carrie decides to take herself off lithium and open her mind (as she sees it) to stare into her own personal abyss and work out who’d like to kill her.

As she puts it in a frank chat with new boyfriend Jonas in a nice deserted cafe, going off her meds to embrace her bipolar condition “can be scary as hell – but also exhilarating” when she catches a window of “crazy energy” where she’s lucid and great at her job. “I took down an insurgent network in Iraq and stopped an attack on the state department in DC,” she claims, although you’d probably find a lot of Homeland viewers who’d take exception with that analysis of her skills.

She does at least have the presence of mind to pack Baby Brody off to the States before embarking on this rogue mission into her darkest recesses. As she explains to Jonas, she’s hoping to construct a timeline, from Beirut to Baghdad, to build an enemies list. Who had the means and opportunity, and who could actually pull it off? As she stares at the faces of the dead, from Aayan to Abu Nazir, it’s like a greatest-hits list to find out who’s put a hit on her.

Of course, what this means in practice is that she’s holed up for four days, barely eating, snorting crushed-up caffeine pills, taking a break for some energetic nookie (“Did I mention the sex is better, too?”), and then pounding the vodka when she’s driven Jonas away.

She’s soon sitting in the middle of the room with 167 names staring back at her from the inside of a photo-montage mandala. Hope she’s got a loyalty card from Berlin’s Snappy Snaps.

‘My grandfather was a big-time Nazi’

Saul and Düring’s exchange is particularly testy. “One must always distinguish between legitimate revolt against occupation and outright terrorism,” Otto reminds Saul. “Is firing rockets against civilian targets legitimate, in your opinion?” replies Saul, conveniently forgetting that time that Carrie earned her “Drone Queen” reputation. “Nothing has made the world more dangerous than the foreign policy of the United States,” fires back Düring. And Homeland is nothing if not a show that likes to have it as many ways as possible, with Saul and Dar also cooking up a mission to oust Assad; the closer the writers take us to real-world scenarios, the harder it is to work out what they’re actually trying to say. What would they do if anything major really happened?

‘Call me Numan’

It felt like “Numan” was a pseudonym, some kind of 80s electro homage perhaps, when he gave freedom-fighting journalist Laura his name – until the hacker’s sneaky buddy from Club King George also called him that. Still, at least Numan got to pull off a good diversion with his fire-alarm trick, and to leave Laura hanging with a proper spy exchange: “How can I reach you?” “You can’t,” he replies. Numan has handed over the rest of documents to Laura, but that won’t stop his buddy from trying to cash in on them. Would anyone in the spy game really think the chance to buy some “top-secret, American” data would be a convincing offer?

‘Hey Carrie’

Instead of Brody, it’s Aayan who appears in a vision: “Turn you into fucking smoke!” Meanwhile, Quinn is making his play, tracking Jonas’s son Stefan, bundling him into a van, and faking his arrest. Is this a new low for Quinn, kidnapping a kid to force the call to Jonas to track Carrie? The one time Carrie’s “crazy energy” does seem to be of some use is when she instantly assumes that the kidnapping has been staged – time to leave her newly decorated spy hole.

‘If you aim to kill, don’t miss.’

So … Allison and Saul. What are we to make of this week’s other bombshell? During office hours, they’ve been trying to find ways to throw each other under the CIA bus; and we now find out that, after hours, they’re cosying up in bed. Which is not the most unconvincing twist Homeland has ever tried to pull.

But what’s weird is that we’ve seen them shouting at each other in the Berlin office when they’ve been alone, presumably in private – why didn’t we get a hint of the depth of their relationship there? It’s like they were keeping it secret from us, which made it all a bit less surprising and a bit more, well … inconsistent. Or is Saul so paranoid he thinks Dar is spying on them at work? Was Allison’s underhand move to stab Saul in the back by going over Saul’s head to Dar actually part of a covert plan to cover up their romance? It does feel like it’s been going on for a while (there’s a “not tonight Josephine” moment) but still … Anyhow, luckily, Saul targets an alternate sacrifice, and Ambassador Scott is the next candidate under the bus.

Saul’s line about aiming to kill could also apply to the ending in the woods this week as Carrie pulls the trigger on Quinn. Good old bulletproof vests … this show could do without a Quinn-shaped hole right now.

Notes & queries

There’s an interesting interview in Variety with showrunner Alex Gansa about the storyline, who had this to say about the episode:

“Carrie’s on-again off-again relationship with her medication is one of her lifetime struggles, as it is for many people who actually suffer from bipolar disease. We choose to dramatise that struggle now and again, when it feels appropriate to the story and important for the development of the character.”

What is it with TV shows and people covering the walls with pictures? There was another loopy mood board on The Returned on Friday.

“Misplayed? You’re in a forgiving mood.” Dar and Saul make weird Skype buddies.

Quinn is hanging out in a club called Crackers! Perhaps it means something a bit different in Berlin …

“I’m not a brain reader.” Jonas does have his moments.

“I’m not a statesman, I’m a spy.” Saul might be veering wildly from his nice-guy routine of earlier seasons, but he does at leat seem to have a strong sense of self.

If Jonas background-checked Carrie for Otto, didn’t any of her rogue tendencies get flagged up? Does he know how much she loves jazz?

“You can’t atone for that much blood.” “I figured it out. It’s all of them, avenging angels.” Claire Danes is very good at selling lines like this, as well as her nasty rants at Jonas: “I am crystal fucking clear. I’m not a moron!”

If you’re wondering what a “hand-held stingray” is that Quinn is looking for, here’s an explanation.

“I know it sounds sketchy…” Understatement of the week.

“Caffeine is caffeine. I could make you a really strong cup of coffee.” Jonas is nothing if not practical.

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