After many months, Homeland is at last back for its third season, and hopefully this year it can veer a little closer to the line of plausibility (although I tend to give this show a lot of leeway on points like that, since it thrives on over the top dramatics, and unlike many people, I think it has since the first season).
We open on a shirtless Peter Quinn back in action and building what looks to be some kind of explosive device while holed up in a dark and dank apartment, but we don't yet get to see what it's for. First off, if it's true that we're going to get less Brody this year, Quinn's not a bad replacement, as I really thought Rupert Friend was great in this part last season and I'm glad to see him back (and shirtless to boot).
Now we see Carrie in front of a congressional committee, being grilled on the events of last season, which serves to recap for the audience anything we might have forgotten from nearly a year ago now. But we find out in the show's universe it's only been 58 days since the CIA attack that led to a worldwide manhunt for Brody, and Carrie now faces questions about Abu Nazir and doubts about her role on the task force after she'd been fired in the first place. Carrie is upset (her token cry-face makes its first appearance), and says she'll never forgive herself for what happened.
Saul, now director of the CIA, and Dar Adal, the retired black ops specialist we met last season played by F. Murray Abraham, are strolling the halls into work, where Adal is telling Saul to go ahead and publicly throw Carrie under the bus for the whole Brody catastrophe, because they're being punished for letting the attack happen. Saul is reluctant, but then a guy comes running up to them to inform Saul the operation with Quinn is a go.
Back at the hearing Carrie is questioned about Brody and asked directly if the CIA offered him immunity, even producing the Department of Justice memo that proves they did. Carrie is shocked they got their hands on the memo and all she can do is deny it, but when asked why the CIA was so cozy with a known traitor in their midst, she blurts out that he didn't do it. The chairman asks her what it is she's smoking (lol) and rather than say "love" and look even more ridiculous, Carrie just sits in silence while her lawyer shuts her up and calls for a recess. In the hallway, the lawyer tells her not to defend Brody in public because she loses credibility and that she's got to lie to Congress about that memo in order to cover for the CIA. When Carrie takes off, we see the piece of paper she was scribbling on and uh-oh, the Carrie map of crazy is back, with all kinds of links and circles and theories scrawled all over it, presumably making her lawyer even more concerned. Carrie then yells at Saul over the phone about the memo leak, telling him to find out whoever did it.
Great, out first Dana moment of the new season, just the story I've been waiting for all year. Sigh. Well, let's get it over with. Dana's in some kind of support group for troubled teens, flirting with a boy and promising she's going to get her life together, and then we see Jess with the the head of this facility, explaining that Dana's in here because she slit her wrists in the bathtub after Brody took off. Jess complains that she now has no money or insurance, having lost her military benefits, and the guy lectures her for being a bad mother for having missed Dana's suicide attempt in the first place. We see Dana making out with the guy from the group before she and Jess leave for home and are swarmed by the press as they flee to the car.
Saul's now at an intelligence meeting concerning the operation in question this episode, which targets 6 people connected to the Langley attacks, and explains about a new Iranian mastermind known as "The Magician," (I'm guessing the possible new Big Bad of the season?). There's some pushback from the National Security Advisor about Brody not being one of the targets, but Saul is still unsure about the whole operation. Adul later scolds him for being wishy-washy in front of the team and tells him Carrie's blowing it in front of Congress, but Saul just wants to know who's leaking documents and seems to suspect it's Adul.
Back at Carrie's house, her dad is staring at her new and improved Wall of Crazy, with Brody at the center and all possible links and sightings to him covering the wall, and when Carrie comes in she explains that she's been tracking him ever since he left. Her dad figures out that she's off her meds and has been for some time, but Carrie says she medicating herself in other ways, with things like exercise and alcohol (not exactly the perfect regimen for bipolar disorder). Dad's worried, but Carrie is convinced she missed the attack because she wasn't totally herself and wants to be at her best (intelligence-wise that is, I guess she's not concerned about behavioral antics).
Dana is welcomed home by Jess's mom who we've never met (I don't think, was she in the pilot?) and Chris, who's grown about a foot since we last saw him and is now taller than everyone in the house. Dana slinks off to her room in order to (and this is priceless) text naked pictures of herself to the guy back at the rehab. I don't know why the writers of this show are obsessed with Dana's love life, but I can guarantee you that no one in the audience could possibly care less about this kid and her boyfriends. That element on this show remains utterly mystifying.
Saul is talking now to his wife Nira, who's returned to him in the wake of the attack, telling her he doesn't feel right about ordering outright assassinations, saying that's not what spies do, but Nira wants to talk about their marriage, wondering why they're still sleeping in separate rooms after two months. Hmm, that is a good question. But Saul has no answer to that either, saying he just wants to do what feels right and as she leaves the room he continues to look contemplative (this entire episode Saul has pretty much been nothing but contemplative).
The next day we're back with Carrie at the hearing, where she's retracting her statements from the day before and now being questioned about her whereabouts for 14 hours after the bomb went off. Carrie says she was knocked out in the bathroom the whole time (lol), and the chairman finds that, understandably, hard to believe, telling her he has a source that saw her leave with Brody. Carrie refuses to answer so the chairman holds her in contempt, telling her he's going to find out what she's hiding.
Saul stares at the still empty crater where the bomb hit from an office window and gives his final word to Adul to greenlight the op ("take 'em all"). We then cut to Quinn in Venezuela on his motorbike, following two dudes in a black car. He turns the explosive device on when he gets right next to the vehicle, but stops short when he sees there's a kid in the car with the target. Meanwhile, at CIA headquarters, everyone is monitoring the operation via screens at the 6 locations when Quinn calls in to say he had to abort. Saul says they have to get all 6 at once or the op's off (don't get why- I think I'm with Adul when he says 5 ot of 6 ain't bad, but I'm guessing it's so some suspense will be created for this scene), and gives Quinn ten minutes to get the target somehow. So badass Quinn jumps a fence into the guy's mansion and pretty much kills everyone that he encounters as he makes his way into the house and all the way to the dude's office, killing the target on sight and collecting all the data in the room. Man, this guy's efficiency dwarfs Carrie's in spades. Unfortunately he hears another noise and when he shoots at it he realizes he just accidentally killed the kid he went out of his way to avoid earlier. Crap. Quinn looks bummed, but honestly not too broken up as he calls in to confirm the kill, and as we see from Langley, the rest of the operation seems to go smoothly.
Meanwhile, Carrie's buying lots of liquor (and I mean LOTS) at the store and is immediately attracted to a Brody lookalike she sees in the aisle next to her. Of course, the next scene we see is her fucking him on the stairs of her house, which is kind of amusing actually- even though she's nuts, one of my favorite parts of the show is watching her go over the top and Claire Danes just does it so well that it always entertains.
Ugh, a Brody family dinner scene. Jess is saying she needs a job and is trying to get accounting work in an office, but Grandma buts in and starts badmouthing Brody for leaving them like this with no government benefits. Dana tries to break the ice by telling a bad joke, but the whole scene is stupid and pointless, frankly.
The next morning Carrie's dad calls her with news from today's paper- though her name is left out, her entire affair with Brody has been leaked to the press (the weirdest thing about this is they got the story from the print media- I mean seriously, what news breaks in actual newspapers these days?) Carrie is furious and bursts into Saul's lunch at a restaurant with Adul and some other guys, screaming at everyone, accusing Adul of leaking the story and telling Saul to go fuck himself before being dragged out of the restaurant in hysterics. Crazy Carrie is back everyone! Adul denies it to Saul and is especially firm about it, so Saul seems to believe him.
The last Dana scene of the night is her in her bedroom, receiving shirtless pics from her boyfriend, but when she walks into the hallway she hears Jess and Grandma arguing, with Grandma telling Jess her suicide attempt was just a cry for attention and if she really wanted to kill herself she'd be dead. If only.
Saul's now at the hearing in front of Congress, which Carrie's watching on TV, and he informs everyone about the successful CIA strike in response to the attack on Langley, but the chairman isn't that impressed, saying they didn't kill anyone directly responsible for the attack. He then asks Saul to comment on the Carrie/Brody thing, which Saul refuses to do, saying it's a "flawed" report- but then he proceeds to throw Carrie under the bus after all, outing her as unstable, bipolar, saying that she hid her condition from him, and that she also hid the affair. Carrie watches in incredulity, and though the cry-face makes an even bigger return here, her acting is also great as shock, disbelief and betrayal sinks in one by one across her face.
That's the end of the premiere, and overall it was a fairly quiet, contemplative episode that explored the emotional consequences to the fallout from last season, and for that I did like it (the Dana stuff notwithstanding). I'm curious about where the season's headed and of course when Brody's going to make his big return, which I'm sure is coming, but it seems to be good start so far. See you next week folks!
