My favorite scenes of Homeland has always been the instances where Brody cracks in the facade he so reluctantly wears. His argument with Jessica played to Damian Lewis’ strengths in the teary-eyed explosion of emotions that he is so brilliant in. It seriously never gets old. And when Carrie found him in the corner of the house basically giving up, Lewis showed how he really knows how to work a corner. Sad Brody is sadly a pleasure to watch.
The whole Brody and Roya charade was interesting to watch, but nothing really came out of it. Again, it was predictable, but definitely not boring. Though Roya is a bad guy in the traditional sense, she never really emits any sort of intimidation, making her seem very non-threatening. This works insanely well as it gives her a coy attitude where the viewers are intrigued, but wary. Being a character with no backstory, I see her revealing it once the CIA arrests her – assuming she even gets the chance.
I couldn’t decide whether Dana’s storyline in this episode was heartfelt or annoying. I say heartfelt in response to her well-timed appearance at Mike’s house – a character who is in danger of being completely forgotten about. Her confrontation about his role in their family was well overdue, but better late than never. It was a nice moment and gesture to Mike’s character who will surely find his way back into the fatherly role before Brody returned. To be honest, I’m rooting for him. Brody is slowly loosing his grip on the family man he so wishes he was.
And now we get to annoying. Dana’s visit to the daughter of the woman she “murdered” showed so much promise, but ended up being….awkward. I’m still not sure what it was, but I feel like it was a mixture of so many elements that were wrongly placed. First off, the daughter was insanely annoying. Yes, I understand she just lost her mother, but man if there wasn’t a worse way to act. Her whole “the baby’s not mine” thing was so unnecessary and made the daughter immediately unlikeable. The revelation that she was paid-off wasn’t a terrible decision, but it just made Dana completely useless. Why did we have to go through all that just to be told that Dana won’t tell anyone?
As derivative in story as this episode was, it was still handled with complete perfection. In retrospect, we didn’t get anywhere as the story did not progress whatsoever. There’s still an imminent attack on the U.S. which we know absolutely nothing about. The only thing we did get was that Nazir is presumably in the U.S. planning his next move. These last four episodes of the season will undoubtedly be jam-packed with intense moments that I cannot wait to behold.
