Homeland Season 2 Episode 6 Review - A Gettysburg Address

The spy game resumed this week, but with Brody now working for the CIA. Last week's intense and emotional episode saw the former marine agree to help the intelligence agency so that his family life could be maintained. But some members of the CIA are not quite as trusting of the congressman as Carrie, as Brody discovers that playing the double agent is a very dangerous game.

The Conversation

The best help Brody's given them so far is pointing out Roya Hammad as one of Nazir's confidantes. The exciting opening sequence sees Virgil and Max snooping on the journalist as she meets up with a mysterious associate. Their strategic discussion by a public water fountain drowns out their dialogue, and Virgil is subsequently unsuccessful when pursuing the mystery man on the DC metro.

Carrie is worried about who the man might be, saying that they need to, "bring Brody in, see if he can identify the guy". But the other CIA members are still not sure about trusting the former marine. Quinn is reluctant to rely on their turned terrorist, calling Brody, "a pathological liar". But Carrie defends Brody noting that, "We made a deal with him, it's in his best interests to help us".

And so with Carrie's persuasion Brody's brought into the fold. He soon realises how difficult it's going to be stuck in between the CIA and al-Qaeda. Carrie asks him to meet with Roya in order to find information, but a worried Brody declares, "I can't just walk up to her and ask her who the guys is". Its refreshing to see the tables turned, and the CIA now asking Brody to lie to the enemy, but he knows that they'll be far more severe consequences if he's discovered this time. As he noted when under interrogation last week, the majority of Nazir's contacts have met a sticky end.

Stonewalled

Brody himself is responsible for the deaths of the tailor and Tom Walker, with his friends getting increasingly close to the truth with the latter. Mike and Lauder visit the tunnel where Walker's corpse was found, and immediately become suspicious of the murder. Lauder notes, "I wouldn't step a foot in here at night except with somebody I knew and trusted". Their probing takes them all the way up to the highest ranks of the CIA, with Estes himself telling Mike to back off. He continues to investigate anyway, and discovers the gun and missing bullet to implicate Brody in Walker's death. Now that Mike is aware of this disturbing deceit, it'll be interesting to see if he will confront Brody about his actions.

A&E

One person struggling to come to terms with her actions is Dana. She bunks school in order to go to the hospital and find the hit and run victim from the night before. A subplot that has felt extremely underdeveloped so far, Dana's guilty voyage to the hospital is terribly contrived and sentimental. Not only does she somehow managed to find the patient in labyrinthine hospital, but also hears from the woman's daughter that the accident looks likely to prove fatal. She confides to Dana, "Some idiots hit her in a car that took off". Dana has been portrayed in the show as Brody's moral conscience; her call to her dad convincing him not to blow himself up at the end of last season. Therefore its fair to expect her to be guilty over what happened, but her storyline has descended into melodrama where the polarised reactions between Dana and Finn to the hit and run incident have been wildly overblown.

"Don't you lie to me"

Unfortunately that's not the most ridiculous element of this lacklustre episode. Quinn and the other intelligence bods are rooting around the tailor's shop after a perturbed Roya told Brody that they might find something. But before Quinn can uncover anything a squad of black-clad storm troopers burst in and annihilate the agents, before taking from the shop an ominous metal box. The shocking turn of events seems out of place in the episode and doesn't make much sense in the wider storyline. If Nazir is so powerful that he has these mercenary death squads available, why did he send Brody on his own to deal with the tailor in the first place?

It's a real shame, because up until now the show had done a really good job of scrutinising the characters, and providing us with Carrie and Brody's personal struggles. This week the character studies were put on the backburner, with the terrorist goons appearing to turn up at the end just to push the plot forward. Carrie breaks down in front of Brody, angry at first for what she feels is another betrayal. She is left shell-shocked after her colleagues have been killed, with Brody realising now the horrors that could come to his family if Nazir ever finds out that he has switched sides.

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