Homeland 2.11

[selenak]

Okay, Brody is toast. Leaving his family by mutual agreement with Jessica as in Carrie's dreams, showing up at her doorstep, declaring his love? He's dead. Though I don't think Quinn will be the one to kill him; my guess is that Carrie will manage to foil the CIA assassination attempt, only for what-was-his-name-again, the Marine who would not let go of Walker's death and correctly suspected Brody of it and managed to convince Mike, to shoot him. Note: Mike was told the Brody-did-it-for-the-CIA cover story. Not damm-I-can't-remember-his-name-right-now, whom we haven't seen for a while. Not only would this fit with the scene where a bitter and self loathing Brody lashed out at what's his name and said about Walker "he broke, he betrayed us, he deserved to die", thus condemning himself, but it would fit with Walker having been the first person Brody killed (twice) as part of his breaking, and the price for his second chance, so to speak. You heard it here first.

In other news, this episode was surprisingly unsurprising for this show, in that what one would expect to happen, happened exactly: Carrie being the one to bring down Nazir (with FBI fire power, but still), Estes moving on Saul and then giving the order to kill Brody. We got a brief detour from the expected where Roya was the first time Carrie's interrogation and knack for empathy with her targets don't work - since Carrie is almost always right with her guesses, it's important that she's shown not to be infallible now and then, and in this episode she fails twice (while being right about the big one, Nasir), with poor wrongly accused Galvez (ouch!) and with Roya. Still, it would have felt wrong for Roya, who's come across as a cool customer and very firmly convinced of her cause, to be swayed by Carrie and suddenly be a woman overwhwelmed by Nasir's charisma but with her heart in the right place, so I was hoping for it not to be the case, and it was not; meaning: 'twas still what I hoped/expected, even in a detour.

BTW, I can't remember anymore: did Galvez being a Muslim come up last season or was this new information?

Carrie's reaction to dead Nasir felt right and was well played by Claire Danes; as felt Brody's, complete with lone tear.

So, current state of speculation: Brody's toast, did I mention that? Carrie is not. Next season will probably be, at least early on, Carrie versus Estes, unless of course Brody dies early enough in the finale for Carrie and/or Saul to use a copy of his original confession tape (with its details on the drone strike, and presumably not just Walden's but also Estes' involvement in same) as leverage. But I don't quite see how, given that Estes just went to a great deal of trouble to establish Saul's lack of credibility, and Carrie could easily be painted as one crazy ex-employee the CIA never formally reinstated. Even if there should be proof that Estes' ordered Brody killed (say, Quinn has a last minute change of heart and switches sides; remember, I don't think it will be Quinn who kills Brody), it won't make much difference, because Estes can always pull the "murderous terrorist" card.

More speculation: Roya might know about Nasir's alternate plan to kill Walden. If she for whatever reason (gets broken, feels vengeful towards Brody) tells her interrogator, then Estes & Quinn will know not only that Nasir succeeded with this but that Carrie covered for Brody by not telling them anything about it. As if they need any more ammunition against her...

Bring on next week!