Homeland - From A to B and Back Again - Review:"Burned"

It’s in this week’s Homeland, where finally, Carrie’s behavior may be justifiable, may be explained because it yields results, concrete results. Because her methods, as unorthodox as they are, as immoral, the way she backs down for nothing, for no one, it yields results, and in “From A to B and Back Again” Carrie finally managed to get into Aayan’s head enough to be able to put her plan into motion. All the portions of this episode that lacked the thrill, the uncertainty and that could be predicted if you just listened carefully, for me, were all was forgiven with the intense, surprising, uncensored and crude, last fifteen minutes of the episode.

The Aayan and Carrie storyline, for the last couple of episodes, have been slowing the pace of the show down, and it was time for something to happen, and boy did it happen. The beginning of the episode, with Carrie quizzing Aayan about his “new identity” in the comfort of the bedroom, strongly brought out the feeling of wrongness in what she’s doing, because it’s obvious he’s really fond of her, and he doesn’t know any better. It was clear she managed to gain his trust in “About a Boy,” and this introduction only fortified this feeling, as I watched it unfold with unease. He's getting cozy, too cozy and it's been a couple of days, which means it's make it or break it.

Carrie’s in charge; and things can only go so far when you're on your own. She needs a team, some people willing to their job, no questions, no comments, no judgement, and that’s just not Quinn nor Farah, or at least in this episode it wasn’t. Quinn’s still pissed about the surveillance operation that didn’t go as planned, but really he’s just pissed because Carrie’s having sex with the kid, instead of him. Farah, is back on her high horse again, and the verbal sparring between her and Carrie bring her to Hefty Bag duty. Since Quinn’s out of the question for the operation, she enrolls the help of the people that actually work for her at the station, they finally get in on the real action, I’m really starting to like John.

The plan is quite simple. They need to scare Aayan enough that he’ll go running to his uncle for help and the operation is a go, when Aayan decides to go get the last of his belongings at the college. He sees an intimidating looking man at the exit, and that’s the first part of the plan, when he runs after him, getting him into panic mode. The second part of the plan consists of faking a break in and a struggle with Carrie, to which her people fully committed, even landing her a bloody nose (revenge, much?). As she’s dumped into the van, they’ve marvelously succeeded because the kid is almost peeing his pants. Aayan’s on the run, and with Carrie gone, his friends alienated, he has no one left to go other than his uncle.

Aayan’s journey, the scenery, the landscapes, mixed with the title, I can’t be the only one to get a “Hobbit” feeling out of it, or maybe I am, because I know the title is in fact a reference to a philosophy book. The culminate point of the episode, the climax, when Aayan finally gets to his uncle, and a drone strike does sound too easy, even without the moral implication of burning, not figuratively, the asset, so the drone strike isn’t going to happen. They’re seconds away from calling the order, and Quinn has realised, just a couple of minutes ago, that Saul was missing; of course he was going to get dragged out of the car.

While the others are working on the Aayan situation, and Quinn’s brooding, he’s working on the Ghasi situation, and the Saul of it all. Farhad Ghasi did not land into Johannesburg like Saul had said he would, that should have rung more bells than it did, it’s not the kind of thing Saul screws up. It was only about 40 minutes into the episode, that freaking CIA trained spies finally realised Saul did not board the plane to Washington, to realise that he was missing.

The moment Akhani pulled out his gun and shot his nephew happened so fast, I wasn’t expected that. I can’t be the only one that jumped in my seat. “Holy F*ck” is right Quinn, holy f*ck. Denis, he really pulled through on this one, managed to undo this whole operation with one simple question. But the holy f*ck moment was probably Carrie going all psycho, wanting to bomb Saul. She’s crying her operation, and nothing else, this outrage can’t be mistaken for actual feelings for the boy, because a couple minutes before, she was willing to kill him in the drone strike, but Saul? She just can’t handle being burned, and that’s exactly what Akhani did, he used Saul, killed Aayan, and with that he mocked her, he outsmarted her, and that she can’t take. Carrie on a personal vendetta should be fun to watch next week.

But really, bombing Saul, and putting him out of his misery would be the human thing to do, right? Because they have no way of getting back to him, not in the mountains, not in Taliban country. He’ll be lost forever, probably tortured. Is this why the hesitation from Quinn about which truck to follow?

This episode closed the Aayan chapter, and gave the characters a new found purpose, the one of rescuing Saul which should be thrilling and emotionally nerve-racking. I've never really cared about what would happen to Aayan, but with Saul, they will easily be getting the heart strings from me.


Any thoughts on what's going to happen to Saul?