Episode Summary: Nicholas Brody drives away with Carrie Mathison without any word as to why he had stopped for her, and asked her to get in the car with him. Carrie begins to wonder. Although Brody says nothing of the purpose of their jaunt, he does confide to Carrie of his wife’s extramarital affair. The two end up drinking and playing billiards in a dodgy bar. One of the patrons takes notice of Carrie, and makes a pass at her. Carrie notices the tattoo on the man’s arm, and recognizes it as the mark of White Nationalists. She begins to taunt the man for his racist beliefs, and the white supremacist becomes upset at her. Sensing that a confrontation is brewing, Brody arrives to check on Carrie who continues to deride the man. The white supremacist attacks Carrie, but Brody defends her leaving the man on his knees. The man, however, calls for his friends prompting Brody and Carrie to flee. The brawl proved to be quite an adventure, which yielded laughs from both of them. Enjoying their impromptu escapade, Carrie suggests continuing it in her family’s cabin.Continue reading...
Noticing her father’s absence, Dana Brody confronts her mother about it. Jessica Brody, although unaware of her husband’s escapade, assumes that he had decided to take a weekend away. This, the two believe, was the consequence of Brody finding out about Jessica’s relationship with Mike. Jessica argues that she had thought herself a widow. Dana, however, finds her excuse deplorable not only for taking up an affair with her father’s best friend, but also for the thought that her mother had given up on her father. Jessica prohibits Dana from leaving the house for the whole weekend as punishment for her rude behavior towards her.
Aileen Morgan manages to reach Beaumont, Texas, and buys a ticket for the next bus that leaves for Mexico. She is unaware that the C.I.A. was able to track her every move, and is already at her heels. Saul Berenson apprises David Estes of their findings. Knowing that Abu Nazir’s men were responsible for the murder of Raquim Faisel, Saul believes that Aileen will turn against the terrorist. He requests that he personally bring Aileen to the C.I.A. Saul’s strategy is to get the young woman to talk to him on the drive back from Mexico using her grief as the catalyst to turn against Abu Nazir. The bus arrives in Mexico. A team of heavily armed police officers confronts Aileen as soon as she disembarked the bus. A conciliatory Saul arrives, and identifies himself as the person tasked to drive her back to the United States. Given a choice between the rash Mexican police officers and Saul, Aileen chooses to go with Saul. Saul informs her that the drive to McLean, Virginia will take at least twenty-five hours. He is to turn her over to the F.B.I. that is anxious to get her incarcerated as a terrorist, a privileged, wealthy American to boot. Saul presents himself as a refuge, and a better option to the interrogation she will endure under the F.B.I.’s hands. Aileen remains silent.
Saul informs her that the people whom she thought were her allies had turned against her, and were responsible for the murder of Faisel. Soon he asks her why she and Faisel bought the house by the airport. Moreover, since the authorities have uncovered the house deeming it unusable for their plan, he asks her what the alternative is. Saul informs her that he can help her, and for the very first time since she joined him in his car, Aileen utters a word. Saul appears delighted that the young woman had spoken at last albeit it was a curse directed at him. He continues with his knowledge of her background. He imagines her as a young girl, the daughter of a rich oilman living in a luxurious walled compound. Outside of their plush neighborhood lies, the destitute creating a stark contrast to the world within the wall. Saul believes that Faisel was one of the underprivileged, and that is where he and Aileen met. Saul appears to have slowly, but effectively broken the wall Aileen built between them when she concurs that she indeed met Faisel in Saudi Arabia when they were kids. Moreover, she remembers riding Faisel’s horse. Saul, however, goes too far when he asks her if she loved him then. Aileen raises the wall she keeps, and reverts to her previous reticent self.
Carrie and Brody arrive at the cabin; both are inebriated. Unable to find the spare key to the cabin, Carrie calls her sister for help. Her worried sister reminds her that she was to pick up her medication that day, Carrie, however, could not fetch it until Monday creating more concern on Maggie who makes herself available in case Carrie finds herself in trouble. Carrie learns that the key is inside the old stove. She asks Brody to wait outside and enters the cabin alone in order to load a revolver with bullets. She comes back outside, and finds Brody looking at a star. She takes the opportunity to bring up Brody’s deceit on the polygraph test, and learns that lying is a skill he learned in order to save his life. This made Carrie ask about how Brody managed to resist cooperating with the terrorists despite a barrage of torture they inflicted upon him. Brody evades the question, confessing not wanting to discuss it. The lovers enter the cabin, and make love instead.
Both wake up with a hangover, and swear not to do anymore drinking that day. Both come to their senses, and Brody informs Carrie that he should return home. She agrees, but begins to tell him of the adventure she and her sister used to take when they were children, hiking in the woods to the waterfall, pretending they were Lewis and Clark. The two embark on the same adventure, and takes a hike in the woods towards the waterfall. Brody asks Carrie about Baghdad remembering her story about attending support group meetings. She informs him that her translator was hung from a bridge right before her eyes, and that she was powerless having been pinned down. Brody confides of the difficulty of not having someone to talk about his ordeal not even his wife. He believes that Jessica could not understand that he is now a different man. Moreover, he confides of his inability to make love to his wife, something that he does not have any difficulty with when he is with Carrie. He tells her that he finds peace when he is with her. She tells him that he has the same effect on her.
Dana, prohibited from leaving the house, invites her friends over instead. They indulge on alcohol and illegal drugs. Soon, one of her friends gets bored, and suggests that they go to the quarry. Dana, however, reminds them of her punishment, and tries to keep them from leaving by changing the music. She makes her way inside the house, and runs into the glass door so hard that it shatters. Intoxicated and high on drugs, Dana whose arm received numerous cuts from the shards of glass feels nothing. With Brody away, Jessica runs to Mike for help with the broken glass door, and for watching Chris while she is at the hospital with her daughter. She returns to the house from the emergency room where Dana received nineteen stitches for her wounds. With the upheaval at home, Jessica desires for her life to be simple again. However, her attraction towards Mike and allowing herself to fall for him despite her husband’s return proves to be a complication. Dana, precocious despite her asinine behavior, underlines the problem, and takes it upon herself to tell Mike to stay away from her family to give way for her father.
Saul stops at Munford, Tennessee to have dinner. He tries to open up a conversation with Aileen once again with him speaking about Graceland seeing that they are nearing Memphis. Aileen breaks her silence, and speaks of her father’s belief that Elvis was the devil. Saul shares Hoover’s belief that Elvis was a national security threat. Aileen tells him that she has not spoken with her father in a very long time, a fact Saul confesses to know having been in contact with the young woman’s father. Saul relays her father’s concern causing Aileen to divulge a little bit more about her. She believes that her father’s only concern is what his friends will think when they learn that her daughter has taken a poor, brown Saudi as her lover not to mention her involvement in the impending terrorist attack. Saul tells her of the gravity of her situation of how it could lead to her execution. Seeing Saul’s concern, she starts to wonder of his presence and role in her arrest. Saul explains that he thought that they would understand each other with him experiencing the same isolation growing up. Aileen once again begins to open up at the mention of Faisel. She speaks of finding good outside the walled compound, and in riding the horse with him. However, all this changed as soon as her father found out about his friendship with the poor, local, brown boy. Saul goes too far when he asks about Faisel being the reason for her having been sent away to boarding school. Aileen is once again on the defensive. He, however, manages to insert the fact that he had married a brown girl in an attempt to draw a connection between him and the unlikely terrorist.
Brody foregoes his original plan of heading back home. The lovers prepare dinner, and having vowed not to end up drunk abstains from opening up a bottle of wine. Things become slightly awkward between the two now that they are sober. They, however, find that they still enjoy each other’s company, and that they still are attracted to each other. They skip dinner, and for the very first time since they began their affair, Carrie and Brody make love fully conscious of their actions. They fall asleep, but Brody’s shuddering and calling on Issa wakes her. Brody is clearly having a nightmare where he is frantically searching for someone named Issa. He wakes in a panic, but Carrie’s comforting words soothe him.
Morning came, and Saul stops at a shack in Calliope, Indiana. This was where Saul grew up, and the shack was the makeshift synagogue where they used to pray for the synagogue was three hours away from their town. Saul confides of having been brought up by religious parents who gave him strict orders not to assimilate. Being an obedient son, Saul abided by his parents’ rules, but grew hateful of them. Saul wanted to be a normal kid, but his faithful abidance of his religion made him strange and isolated. He knew what made him the man he is now, but he confides to Aileen that he is unsure of her path to becoming a terrorist. He does share his belief that she became one, because she fell in love with a boy who ironically died in the hands of her cohorts. They resume their drive towards Virginia, and are near Washington D.C. Aileen begins to ask about Saul’s troubles at home, and he answers truthfully that the love of his life has decided to leave him. She then asks about Raquim, and is brought close to tears at the thought of his corpse in a morgue in Ohio denied a Muslim burial. She is brought to tears when Saul informs her that Raquim will be buried in a potter’s field if no one claims him. Saul arrives in Wyatt, West Virginia, and immediately calls David to inform him that he was able to strike a deal with Aileen. He informs David of the urgency of sending someone to the top of the roof of the house under the flight path. As expected, Aileen only knows bits of details about the impending terrorist attack, and that her instructions were to buy the house, and to go about their business until a visitor arrived. She did tell them that the visitor arrived on Monday, but is not aware of his identity. She identified him as an American, and she is currently meeting with a sketch artist for a cartographic sketch of the visitor. According to her, the man did not say a word, and instead immediately went to the roof of the house where he stayed for about an hour.
Brody watches Carrie sleep, and she wakes to find him lovingly watching over her. Carrie begins to think of breakfast, and happens to mention Brody’s brand of tea, Yorkshire Gold. This makes Brody curious about how Carrie knew his preferred tea. Carrie runs out to the get some wood leaving Brody to ponder over her knowing about Yorkshire Gold, and her excuse at learning about it when he ordered tea at Langley. Certain that he did not ask for tea in Langley, Brody confronts Carrie about her spying on him. He then manages to put together bits and pieces of Carrie’s plan starting with their running into each other at his support group to her giving him her number in case he needs a confidant. Trapped in a corner, Carrie confesses of her spying making an excuse that it is her job. When Brody asks her about the grounds that substantiated her surveillance, Carrie finds herself in danger, and tries to get inside the cabin to retrieve the revolver. Brody, however, prevents her. Moreover, he is already in possession of the loaded gun.
With an armed man before her, Carrie informs Brody that she learned from Abu Nazir’s bomb maker that an American prisoner of war had been turned, and that he will carry out an attack upon his return. Brody becomes alarmed upon learning that the C.I.A. suspects him to be a terrorist. He learns that it is only Carrie who thinks this so. He argues that if he truly were the terrorist Carrie thinks him to be then he would have already killed her, but she argues that he will not do so if he is thinking of the long-term plan. Brody puts down the revolver, and allows Carrie to interrogate him even at gunpoint in order to prove his innocence. She asks if he were the one who slipped Afsal Hamid the razor blade, and learns that he did not, but that he wished he had. Moreover, he will be delighted to know if Hamid suffered a slow and agonizing death. She asks him the identity of Issa, and Brody tells her that he was his guard who was nice to him. Brody divulges that he has converted to Islam in answer to her question about his going to his garage so late at night, and so early in the morning. It is in the garage where he prayed. Moreover, the mannerism with his fingers is part of his newfound religion. He developed this habit when he does not have his prayer beads with him. Brody turned to Islam having lived in despair for eight years. He could have turned to any religion given his situation, but Islam was what was accessible. Carrie wonders why their captors killed Walker and not him. She learns Brody was the one who killed Walker. He was given a choice, and he chose his own life. Abu Nazir instructed Brody to beat his friend to death. Otherwise, he will be the one to die. Brody lied to the C.I.A. about meeting Abu Nazir to cover his shame of accepting the terrorist’s comfort, but still denies becoming Nazir’s soldier. Brody confesses that he is not strong-willed enough to become a terrorist or a hero. He shamefully accepted the kindness of his captor, and ended up loving him for it.
Agent Galvez following instructions from David goes up to the roof of the house under the flight path, but does not find any weapons or tools on it. The roof, however, appears to be clean, which leads them to deduce that the man sees the roof as his workspace. Saul instructs Galvez to face the airport in order to ascertain direct, line of sight targets. He then instructs the agent to use his binoculars to look for targets, and they learn that the M-1 Reserve helipad is in the view line of the roof. Moreover, the Marine One landing pad is within the range of an expert sniper, an American military sniper. Saul asks Galvez to send him Sergeant Nicholas Brody’s picture for he plans to show it to Aileen.
Carrie is done with her questioning, but she remains convinced that Brody was the American prisoner of war that was turned. Brody, however, decides to leave daring Carrie to arrest or shoot him if she wants to keep him there. She reluctantly allows Brody to leave. At about the same time, she answers the call from Saul informing her that they were wrong about Brody. The result of the cartographic sketch of the visitor Aileen received in her house showed the face of Corporal Tom Walker. The information Carrie received about an American prisoner of war was correct only it was not Brody. Carrie runs after Brody to apologize for her mistake, and to confess having fallen in love with him. Brody, however, does not accept her apology, and drives away. He leaves Carrie in the cabin in tears. Brody returns home to his wife and children. He later finds himself sitting in the dark weeping.
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