Brody's back! It's all Brody, all the time on tonight's Homeland (with a little bit of Carrie mixed in) and while it's actually a very dark and kind of depressing episode, I'm tempted to call it the best of the season for one simple reason: ZERO Dana! Hallelujah for that.
We start off in Caracas, Venezuela, as a a gang of mercenaries awaits a car that speeds up and delivers a half dead (and newly baldheaded) Brody over to them, who they promptly take to a darkened safe house to "operate" on his bullet wound. He's bleeding out all over the table as a guy who's acting as the doctor shoots him up with heroin for the pain and removes the bullet in a very careful fashion. We see a little boy helping with the surgery and a young girl named Esme, who turns out to be the daughter of the group's leader, El Nino. As Brody recovers, the "doctor" (whose name I didn't get but that's what I'll call him), wonders out loud to El Nino why they'd save the life of an American fugitive with a $10 million dollar bounty on his head, who's wanted dead or alive. So I guess that establishes that they know who he is.
Brody continues to be treated with heroin by Esme as he wanders in and out of consciousness, and then we see him wake up on a bed in a bright room after some time has passed. Esme helps him to stand up as he looks out at the city and is told he's in Caracas by El Nino, who also tells him he's "home." Brody rejects further heroin treatments and wonders where his wallet and passport are. Brody also asks why El Nino's helping him and El Nino name drops Carrie before walking off. Esme shaves Brody's head for him and helps him wander through the building, using a cane, where he sees all the drug addicts and degenerates inhabiting this "Tower of David," as the doctor calls it. He goes back to the doctor to get his wound cleaned out while the doctor explains the squatters in the building- it turns out the doctor is a pedophile and the little boy at his side an obvious victim. Brody is understandably disturbed and wants to get out of this place.
More time passes as he gets his strength back by jogging around the tower, and Esme takes him up to the roof to meet her dad and his gang. They give Brody back his wallet and then murder the guy who stole it in front of him, which freaks Brody out even further. Brody sets off to leave, but on his way out of the courtyard is stopped by the crew again, who inform him this is his permanent home now, as their prisoner. He asks if Carrie knows he's there, which El Nino denies and sends him back to his room. More time passes again, and Brody is now camped out on his bed while the doctor and the kid come in to give him his daily dose of heroin, which Brody again attempts to reject, as we see his how bad his veins now look.
Finally we cut to Carrie in therapy back at the psych ward, attempting to convince her own doctor that she's improving, having gotten back on her meds. She tries to get the doc to tell Saul she's better, but he refuses. Carrie's been committed for three weeks now, and is trying to tell the guy what he wants to hear, but as usual, her temper runs short and she yells at him, getting herself in trouble and no closer to gaining visitation privileges.
Brody's now back at the Tower, attempting to escape again, and this time he tries to get Esme to help him. She agrees to do it and helps sneak him out of the building and on his way to a nearby mosque, where Brody's convinced he'll be taken in. When they get there she begs him to take her with him, but Brody can't do it and apologizes frantically as he leaves her on the street. That Brody, he's just a magnet for troubled women, isn't he?
Carrie is now in what looks like recreation time at the hospital, building a house out of popsicle sticks and losing her patience in the process. She bangs her head against a mirror in the bathroom out of frustration, another move that gets her in trouble, but this time with the nice nurse Abby, who likes Carrie and reluctantly agrees to help her make contact with Saul if he comes in to see her. When Carrie thinks he has shown up, Abby takes her down to the lobby, but it turns out to be a lawyer, who's there to talk to her about getting out.
Brody is seemingly taken in by the imam, but later while he's in the shower, the police burst in and drag him away, as the imam tells him he's not a muslim but a terrorist. At the last minute though, the mercenaries shoot their way in and kill everyone in the room, including the imam and his wife, giving Brody back his clothes and taking him once again as their prisoner. This time though, El Nino throws Brody in a cell, telling him for the final time that he's never leaving and no one will ever come for him, Carrie included. Brody accepts defeat passively now, but tells the doctor he can't take being in a cell, which reminds him of Iraq. That means he surrenders to the heroin as well, as the only coping mechanism to help him forget his present condition.
The lawyer tells Carrie he's there to help her, but she doesn't buy it, believing him to be working for the other side somehow, and trying to get her to turn on the CIA. She says she'd rather die in the hospital and storms back inside. We last see her cowering on the floor in a corner, as both Brody and Carrie seemingly succumb to their respective, imprisoned fates.
Well, that was certainly a pleasant hour, wasn't it? As thrilled as I was to see Brody again (and not to see an ounce of Dana), this was a very dark and moody episode, and the season overall has been much the same way. I'll be happy when the plot kicks into high gear frankly, in order to get a respite from all the suffering. Rumor has it Brody is actually in less than half the episodes this season, so I hope you enjoyed this one, folks, because it could be quite a while until we see him again. My biggest question now is if they're going to integrate him back into the show somehow, or will they finally just kill him off? There are those that think he ought to be dispensed with, so the show can become a 24-style terror fighting thriller completely, but I think there are just as many (if not more) who really want him around and watch the show at least in part, because of him.
I personally think he ought to stick around, because the idea of Carrie, Saul, and the CIA versus various bad guys just seems to me like a generic crime fighting show that's been done before, while Brody provides intrigue and a new angle at least. But I guess we'll find out sooner or later what route the writers prefer to take. Until next week, everyone.
