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Homeland Review: “A Red Wheelbarrow” (Season 3, Episode 8)

For a moment, just one moment on this week's episode of Homeland, I thought they'd lost it. I thought they'd cracked and decided to go all 24 on us. It was when Fara returned home from sitting in the CIA parking lot for over thirty minutes, and we got to see inside her house for the first time. It was homely, sure, but the typically Middle Eastern (for want of a better term) music playing suddenly made my stomach lurch. I thought maybe the writers had decided to make Fara a terrorist. I thought the only heroic Muslim female on American television was about to be outed as a double agent all along, and I was just about ready to email the editor of this site and let him know that I didn't want to review the show anymore. My finger was hovering over the mouse and everything; no mean feat given the short amount of time it took for that impression to dissipate, when it became clear that Fara - at least for the moment - is no terrorist.

Jason Butler Harner as Paul Franklin and Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in Homeland (Season 3, Episode 08). - Photo: Kent Smith/SHOWTIME - Photo ID: homeland_308_0420.R

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Carrie attempting to ruin the operation was quite baffling and I just didn’t buy it. As much as she wants to identify the bomber and bring him to justice, I don’t think she’d just dive in and jeopardise the operation in such a dunderheaded way. If Quinn hadn’t have shot her at literally the very last moment, I don’t think she’d have had a chance. Franklin was so cold and calculating that he wouldn’t have thought twice about shooting her twice in the head. She was lucky to get away with a shot in the arm.

The fact that she’s pregnant, and had a check-up this episode, casts her shooting in a very different light. I’m guessing the shock of a gunshot combined with such a dramatic fall is enough to cause a miscarriage, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. Carrie didn’t seem too enthusiastic about having the child at all – she pointedly didn’t want to know the sex, saying so in a deliberately nonchalant way – but it seems like her dedication to Brody might just be her only reason to keep the baby. It’s a sad irony that the only reason for keeping the baby might just be the very thing that kills the baby. How this story turns out will determine if Carrie is ultimately a tragic figure swallowed up by the machinations of international terrorism, like Ophelia drowning in the river.

And Brody. Brody Brody Brody. Just what the hell is Saul planning? Is he going to make Brody the interim president of Iran? He’s still strung out in the Tower of David, under the control of El Nino, and looking in a very bad way. Saul’s got nine days to pull off whatever he’s planning, and it seems like he gets bolder every episode. I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to see what happens next on Homeland!

Random Robservations:

  • When Franklin was dissolving the bomber’s body in acid, all I could think of was my Breaking Bad chemistry knowledge. If we learned anything from that show, it’s that bath tubs are no good for dissolving bodies in hydrochloric acid. That’s just basic.
  • Could they have found a bigger guy to check up on Fara? He was like 6″6, 250lb. Was that necessary?
  • So the sniper aiming at Franklin wasn’t allowed to shoot Carrie? Why?
  • Who’s shaving Brody?

 

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