Homeland Season 3 recap: Episode 2 – “Uh … Oo … Aw …”

There was still no sign of Brody (Damian Lewis) in last night’s second episode of Showtime’s Homeland Season 3, but there was no shortage of drama, some of it from Brody’s family who, along with so many others, are still dealing with the events of the explosion at Langley. In fact, last night’s episode — while featuring good doses of Saul (Mandy Patinkin) and Peter (Rupert Friend) — proved to be carried in large part by the female characters of the show. Not only by Dana (Morgan Saylor) and Jessica (Morena Baccarin) Brody, but also by, or course, Carrie Mathsion (Caire Danes) and interesting new recurring character Fara Sherazi (Nazanin Boniadi). It’s more personal drama and interaction in this episode, less suspense, though discoveries do arise that may start leading toward the financiers of the attack.

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At the start of the episode, Fara, a transactions expert with language skills, is brought in to help trace the source of the funding used to finance the Langley blast. Saul and Peter are at first somewhat taken aback that Fara is an Arab, and enters CIA headquarters wearing a headscarf. As she enters, though, we can see by the look on her face the sadness and empathy she feels as she walks past the destruction of the blast site. Saul assigns her to look through laptops seized during the CIA counterstrike operation seen in last week’s episode, and to find something that links back to Iran. It doesn’t take long before Saul’s rage and sadness over the terrorist act, and perhaps an underlying bit of racial profiling on his part, causes him to lash out at Fara, as he tells her that, “You wearing that thing on your head, it’s one big ‘fuck you’ to the people who would have been your co-workers except they perished in blast right out there.” He reaffirms that it’s her right to wear the headscarf, but if she really needs to, she’d better be the best analyst, and had better give him a plan. Before he leaves, even as her eyes are starting to well up a bit with tears out of surprise and perps shame and anger over this event, it becomes clear that Fara is a professional who channels this into her work. As Saul is about to leave, she does propose a plan to him: bring in the people from the bank and ask about wire transfers they conducted in the Middle East. Saul agrees that the two of them will talk to the bankers together, and he leaves as Fara sits down to continue her work, wiping some moistness from her eyes.

After leaving, Saul is informed that Carrie is about to speak to a newspaper reporter to “tell her side of the story” in light of Saul pretty much throwing her under the bus in front of a Senate committee in last week’s episode. Saul quietly gives an okay that this turn of events should be dealt with. As Carrie is about to speak to the reporter, three police officers interrupt their interview and say they have a psychiatric detention order for Carrie. They take her away to a hospital, where she tries to convince a doctor that she is with the CIA, becoming ever more aggressive due to being off her meds and her increasing feeling that those around her are letting her down and abandoning her. Eventually, after hearing about this, Peter comes to visit her in the hospital, and tries to warn Carrie that she needs to be careful. He tells her that things happened before the explosion that she was not aware of, that people were targeted, and he wants her to be safe. Carrie is having none of it, and believes Peter was sent by Saul to threaten her. She angrily screams at him to leave, which he does, dejectedly.

Dana and Jessica Brody have begun therapy at the rehab center from which Dana was released last week. The session we are privy to in this episode doesn’t seem to go overly well, with both mother and daughter saying they are okay, but the issue of Jessica having cleaned up and retiled the bathroom following Dana’s suicide attempt apparently bothering Dana. As Dana and Jessica leave, Jessica spies Leo, the boy she at the clinic she had fallen for before leaving (and with whom she had been sexting after leaving). This seems to spark an idea in her. Later that evening, at home, she runs a bath for herself (with Jessica listening somewhat fearfully, given the circumstances of Dana’s suicide attempt in the tub). When Jessica finally checks on Dana, the tub is empty, and Dana is missing. Dana has actually gone back to the clinic to meet Leo, who helps her sneak into the building after hours. The two have sex in the laundry area, and share some quiet talk afterward, when Dana says, “We’re not defective. It’s everything out there.” While Dana wishes they could just stay there forever, their bliss is interrupted when two employees discover them.

While Carrie is at the hospital, her father and sister go to her place to gather evidence for her upcoming competency hearing. Saul stops by as they are there, and while they initially meet him with mistrust, he tries to convince them that he is actually on Carrie’s side and is doing this for her own safety. When Saul tells them Carrie is off her meds, they seem surprised and concerned. Later, Peter shows up at Carrie’s hearing, even though she makes it clear she’s  not happy about it. When her dad and sister show up, Carrie is upset that they have brought her medication and are worried about her. She realizes that they spoke with Saul, and with a combination of anger and sadness, Carrie believes that everyone close to her has now let her down. As the hearing begins, Carrie is overwhelmed by it all and runs out. Medical personnel grab her and take her away.

Saul and Fara finally meet with the bankers and their lawyers, who are being uncooperative. Saul calls out the head banker on his company’s history of questionable transactions with Iran, then brings out an email from the bank to an Iranian trading company asking them to remove Iranian names to avoid sign of U.S. legal breach in the wake of the bank being asked by the government to stop dealings with the country. Fara jumps into the conversation and shows she will not be intimidated, telling the banker, “Your bank has been trafficking in human misery since the Opium Wars. That’s not an aberration, not a mistake. That’s your business plan.” The banker, not too happy at this calling out, leaves without giving up any information, and Peter, who had entered the room during the conversation, watches the man closely as he departs.

Jessica picks up Dana from the rehab center and tries to talk her out of seeing Leo, wanting her to focus on getting herself better and not jumping into a relationship. When they arrive home, Dana brings her into the bathroom, and points out the scene where she tried to take her life. She tells her mother that when she did that she wasn’t looking for attention, as everyone seems to think she was, but genuinely wanted to end it all. But now, she tells Jessica, she does want to be alive, and the reason for that is Leo. She tells her mother that the night spent with Leo was the happiest she’s been in a long time. Dana also reaffirms that she — and her mother — are not crazy. Dana brings up Brody. “He was a psycho,” she tells her mother, “who did nothing but lie from the minute he set foot in this house, and he ruined our lives.” That being said, though, near the end of the episode, Dana shows some fondness for her father — and her family — from the days before all this, as we see her in the garage looking through old family photos, smiling wistfully on occasion. After the photos, Dana also happens to come across her father’s prayer rug. She gently unfolds it and lay sit on the ground, and gets into a bowing pose that could be a relaxing, yogalike stretch, or one of actual prayer (given the Middle Eastern flair of the music accompanying this scene, I think we may assume the latter). Whether she was trying to connect with her father, or embracing a new part of herself will be seen.

Peter goes to talk with Saul, telling him that he saw Carrie dragged away from her hearing. “She didn’t lose it,” Peter tells Saul. “We did that to her. … I’ll never bail on you in the middle of something, but, I want you to know, what’s going on here is not okay with me. … When this is over, I’m out.”

Saul quickly jumps in, “We’ll see when we get there.” But Peter remains adamant. “I’m telling you now.”

Saul, trying to assume where this is coming from, brings up Peter’s accidental shooting of the child in last week’s episode, reassuring Peter it was a mistake. “Yeah,” answers Peter. “It was my mistake, and I’ll deal with it, but I don’t know what the hell we’re doing. I really don’t.”

That night, Peter tracks the banker to an upscale restaurant. When the man steps outside, Peter confronts him, and we find out that the man Peter shot in Episode 1 (and whose son was an accidental victim, as well) was a colleague of the banker. When Peter mentions that this was a terrible mistake that he “hopes won’t be repeated,” the banker begins to look alarmed, and repeatedly asks Peter who he is. “It’s aggravating, isn’t it, when someone won’t answer your question,” Peter replies, coolly. Peter gives the banker the option of giving up the information they need, or continuing his charade. But he begins to simmer with rage as he warns the man, “I try to be patient with venal shitheads like you, but I can only do it so long.” Peter then walks away, leaving a worried-looking banker.

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Following this, unsurprisingly, the next day, we find that Fara has gotten all the info she needs from the bank to continue to investigation. She tells Saul that the bank did in fact ignore its cease-and-desist order to continue dealing with the Iranian trading company, and that transactions actually increased toward the date of the 12/12 explosion. Fara says they have identified half a dozen associated of Abu Nazir, with the source of the funding pointing to Iran — and not just the country, but inside the government. Fara also noticed that a quarter of the 20% that the bank took off the transactions disappeared. Saul tells her to make it her No. 1 priority to find where this “vanished” money — almost $45 million — went, and tells her to keep it between them, for now.

At the hospital, Carrie is strapped to a gurney and forcibly given medication. As the episode ends, she is in the common area, zoned-out on meds, laying back in a chair, as Saul comes in to visit her. She slowly looks over at him, obviously infuriated but with barely enough energy to yell or scream, instead taking slow, enraged breaths as Saul whispers to her, “Carrie, I am so sorry.”

“Fuck you, Saul,” Carrie spits back from out of her teary, bleary haze.

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Homeland Season 3, Episode 2 photos: Kent Smith/Showtime