Ok, well, first off, I have no idea what's going on with that episode title (somebody tell me if you figured that out based on what actually happened in this episode), but tonight was a split one in terms of quality for me. On the one hand, this was a tour-de-force for Claire Danes, as Carrie was off her meds and out of her mind (which is pretty much my favorite kind of Carrie), but on the other hand, half this episode could have been renamed The Dana Brody Show. Why? I have no earthly clue. One can only hope the excessive amounts of Dana we've gotten so far prove to be the most we'll see of her all season, and they're just getting it out of the way at the beginning. That's probably too much to hope for, but my fingers are crossed anyway.
It opens tonight with Carrie busting into Saul's house, yelling at Nira and understandably upset about the hearing last week, where he turned on her publicly. And as I said before, Danes is in top form tonight, clearly unstable and visibly disturbed, but she's so great at this manic behavior that it's always entertaining to watch. Saul isn't home though, so Carrie leaves even angrier, as we see Saul and Quinn at the office, greeting a new agent who happens to be a Muslim woman wearing a veil, which seems to upset them a little bit. It turns out this new financial analyst, Fara, is there to look into the transactions of a bank tied to the Langley terrorists, but she's only worked there for eight days, which disturbs Quinn. And you don't want to disturb Quinn, believe me. He'll shoot you in the blink of an eye.
Adal meets up with Saul in the hallway to tell him Carrie has lost it and scheduled an interview with a newspaper to tell her side of the story, which we then see her doing, and kinda freaking out the reporter while doing it. She again starts to say Brody was innocent and she was the one who was right all along, but the police show up with a psychiatric detention order and Carrie is dismayed when she realizes Saul's had her committed to stop her from talking to the press.
Great, now the first part of Dana's way, WAY too big of a subplot this episode. Jess and Dana are in a counseling session, bickering about how they're coping with Dana being home, and as they check out Dana sees her boyfriend (whose name is apparently Leo and who looks like the most standard cardboard cutout of a CW teen you could imagine) and they silently mouth to each other "I miss you," as I roll my eyes and contemplate fast-forwarding through all of Dana's scenes tonight. But alas, for recapping purposes, I can't do it.
Carrie's now in the psychiatric ward in a hospital dressing gown, and actively denying to a doctor that she needs to be there, while tacitly admitting that she's stopped taking her meds and babbling on about her theories and why everyone in the CIA is against her. These scenes are mostly for us to see Claire Danes in her full bipolar disorder acting glory and she once again delivers as she doesn't help herself in front the doc who clearly thinks she's nuts.
Now we get kind of a weird scene where Saul redresses Fara for having the gall to wear her veil around the place where the attack happened, and when did Saul get so islamophobic? I mean, geez, he makes this poor woman cry. But she does give him some useful info about the bankers coming in for a meeting. Sometimes there is an occasional anti-muslim sentiment on this show that I've spotted before and that's kind of annoying, since we're obviously supposed to identify with the CIA. But, yeah, it really shouldn't have to be said that not every Muslim is a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer, and how the director of the CIA can not understand that, I don't know.
Dana's at home, annoyed with her mom's attention, so she hides in the bathroom before running away to see Leo, and then Quinn comes to visit Carrie in the psych ward, telling her she can't spill agency stuff to the press, but Carrie isn't having it, thinking Saul sent him and now clearly becoming (rightly) paranoid that everyone's out to get her. She sends him off in a huff and sits on her bed cross-legged in defeat.
Jess finds out Dana's taken off, and we see she ran back to the rehab facility to meet up with Leo in the laundry room for a midnight tryst, and I really couldn't care less, so back to Carrie (not to mention Morgan Saylor still looks too young to be doing sex scenes so this stuff seems inappropriate on another level too). Saul comes over to Carrie's house to tell her dad and her sister Maggie that even though he's the one who had her committed, they need to get Carrie back on her meds in order for her to get better. They seem to buy it, so it looks like Saul is succeeding in turning everyone in Carrie's life against her.
Ugh. The morning after with Dana and Leo, blah, blah, blah, some pillow talk, Dana's happy and doesn't think she's crazy, then they're caught by the staff of course. When Jess picks her up, Dana lectures her on not understanding and when they get home, she pulls her into the bathroom to tell her she really did want to kill herself but not anymore because of Leo (how touching- WHO CARES?) and that the only person who was really crazy was Brody, who was also a liar who ruined their lives. But Dana's happy now, because she wants to live, etc. which is too bad for the audience, but maybe this story is wrapping up now? I hope? Please?
Carrie's having a psychiatric hearing, for which Quinn kindly shows up to be a character witness, but when her dad and Maggie get there, they try to tell her to get back on her meds, which of course reveals to Carrie that Saul's gotten to them too. This makes Carrie decide to bolt from the hearing and she's then dragged away kicking and screaming and unfortunately looking ever more like a genuine mental patient as it happens. Quinn is once again in this episode, disturbed by what he sees.
At the meeting with Saul, Fara, and the bankers, it pretty much goes nowhere, as they refuse to give up any info on their clients and Fara even tries to prove herself by stepping up and lecturing them on their responsibility in the attacks, but no dice, and the guys walk out of the room. Quinn, who snuck in in the middle of this to watch the whole thing, is, you got it, disturbed. He then goes to Saul to inform him that he doesn't like what they've done to Carrie and doesn't like what's going on with guys they're targeting, but Saul thinks he's mostly upset about the kid he killed last week. He says he is, but that it's his problem, and he just wants to let him know that once this operation's over he's out, no matter if it's successful or not. Saul seems to accept this as Quinn leaves, but he leaves to confront one of the bankers leaving a restaurant to tell him he knows he was lying in that meeting and basically threatens him to cooperate if he doesn't want to become a target of his. Then he walks away casually, and if badass Quinn can make at least one appearance every episode, I'm pretty much good with it. He's too cool.
Of course the intimidation works and Fara has now gotten some info from them that leads to Iran and specifically the Iranian government, but what exactly the plot is that Saul's working on is not revealed yet, so we don't quite know what this is all leading up to. Meanwhile, as Saul makes progress on whatever it is he's doing, Carrie's being strapped to a gurney and force-fed her meds intravenously, which is always difficult and sad to watch, while Dana (crap, I thought we were done with her tonight) looks at old family pictures of her dad and then takes out his muslim prayer rug and kneels over it with her head in her hands. Last scene of the night is Carrie on the couch in the TV room of the hospital, completely zombified as Saul finally comes to see her, and as he kneels down to whisper how sorry he is for this, Carrie musters up the energy to whisper back "fuck you," as she turns away from him slowly and with all her might.
That's a pretty powerful ending to another somewhat low-key episode, but I like all the character stuff going on with Saul and Carrie this season, and even Quinn to some extent. But man, oh man, SO MUCH Dana! I don't know why they're doing this, she's a dead weight on the show and unfortunately she just seems to be getting a bigger and bigger part, but the question remains, why? I don't know. No one cares about anything that happens to her, so this is all just filler. The good news is, it looks like Brody is finally back next week, and hopefully that will replace the endless amounts of Dana that we seem to be getting in place of him, so thank god for that. Until next Sunday everybody!
