Homeland Review: “Tower Of David” (Season 3, Episode 3)

There is a small ray of hope for Brody, however – Esme. Carefully straddling that line between a Dana (thankfully absent from this episode) substitute and a Carrie substitute (will he love her, or make love to her?), she provides him companionship and recuperation in the beginning, and goes on to aid his escape at the end. That she’s El Nino’s daughter may complicate matters, and I have an inkling that such a plot point may well prove too delicious to ignore, and that she’ll definitely become very important to Brody, as long as he is in Venezuela.

Not that he led her on, at all. He makes it perfectly clear to her as he is attempting to find sanctuary in a mosque that she absolutely cannot go with him. Whether he means into the mosque, or into the US, or both, is never fully established. I guess his love life is complicated enough, with Carrie and Jessica vying for attention. The last thing he needs is the Venezuelan daughter of a psychotic mercenary.

A word on El Nino – at first, he seems relatively kind. Well, not kind, more… I don’t know. He’s handy with a gun, but seems to genuinely want to make Brody better. What I really enjoyed was how quickly his character changed from helpful but slightly intimidating ally to control freak. He is completely single-minded, focused, and obviously playing a much bigger game – why not just hand in Brody to the police, and get a hefty slice of that $10million reward, as he repeatedly threatens to do? And (again), how does he know Carrie? Could he be disgraced ex-CIA? An ex-partner? An old “asset”?

Talking of Carrie and “assets,” she gets a few small but important scenes this episode. It all centres around a visitor she doesn’t know the name of at first, but he eventually outs himself as being from a law firm whose name she recognizes, and tells her that he’s “on her side.” Something clicks in Carrie, and she becomes convinced that she’s being recruited. But by whom? Who is trying to recruit Carrie? Could this have anything to do with Venezuela? In Homeland, all roads apparently lead to Venezuela.

I’m not enjoying Homeland. There, I said it. I’ll watch it, and write both authoritatively and sexily about it, but it’s no longer compulsive viewing. I’d have liked Brody to have died this episode to be honest – it would have been a ballsy move, but maybe that’s what this show needs. A real kick up the ass. Brody overdoses on heroin, and dies in a Venezuelan squat. It’s not much bleaker than the ending “Tower of David” gives us, actually, and would definitely provide closure. If it all ends with Brody and Carrie riding off into the sunset, I think we’ll all be very unhappy.

Random Robservations:

• Anybody else cry out when the elderly couple got shot? And did they really have to shoot that lady in the ass? Come on, guys. You’re heartless mercenaries, I get it, but have some respect.
• Damn, Caracas is doing a hell of a trade in short-sleeved hoodies. So clean as well! Brody’s rocking that weight lifter chic.
• There’s no way they could have forseen it, but the whole Venezuela/CIA thing feels very current, what with Edward Snowden’s revelations about the extent of NSA spying and the Venezuelan offer of sanctuary, tying in with the Julian Assange situation as well.