Brody finds a payphone! (Showtime)

These questions regard last night’s episode of Showtime’s Homeland. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from SUNDAY’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.
1. The only personal item in Quinn's bare-bones apartment is a copy of Great Expectations in which he keeps a picture of his newborn son, John Jr. There is a character named John in Great Expectations: Mr. Wemmick, the man with "a post-office of a mouth" who serves as the go-between for Pip and his lawyer, Jaggers. How may Quinn be comparing himself (John Sr.) to Wemmick here? What other similarities might he see between his current situation and the plot of the Dickens novel?

The most obvious comparison between Quinn and Wemmick, besides the aforementioned "go-between" status, would be that they both go by their last names, as a way of protecting themselves against the world. (That's why his baby's mamma waits for Saul to give John X a last name and isn't forthcoming with one.)

Additionally, Wemmick builds himself a replica of a castle with a moat to live in to protect himself from the outside world; Quinn lives in a secure fortress of solitude and apparently spends more money on security measures devices than decor.

Wemmick's split personality is revealed with his love for his fiancé, which humanizes him in Pip's eyes. The only link Quinn has to the outside world is the mother of his son and his child.

So even while we hate Quinn for trying to kill Brody, we must remember what Pip says of Wemmick, "there were twin Wemmicks and this was the wrong one."

2. The title of the episode, "Two Hats," refers to Quinn's two jobs (analyst/assassin), but several characters conspicuously wear hats over the course of the episode: Nazir, Quinn, Quinn's real boss (F. Murray Abraham!) and, of course, the oft-behatted Saul. We have many expressions involving hats in English beyond the titular one: we do something at the drop of one, talk through one, keep things under one, etc. Which of these or other idiomatic hats are evoked by the characters' various chapeaux?

It struck me watching this episode how the writers have finally found a use for Mike, who now wears "two hats": He is both a source of comfort/security for Jess and the Brodys, and is the apparent go-between for the CIA and the family. (How good is he laying down the law as Dana's new daddy? So good!)
"Keep it under your hat" could be the alternate name for this entire series, while "I'll eat my hat" is usually what I find myself saying in regards to the realism of Homeland. As in: "If it turns out that Carrie is the last person to know that Estes and Quinn have a hit out on Brody, I'll eat my hat." I've eaten several hats this season, BTW.

3. It is clear from Estes comments and Quinn's actions that CIA brass still considers Brody a terrorist and a threat. In light of the two details that Brody apparently chooses to leave out of the retelling of his abduction--Nazir thanking him for saving his life in Beirut, and the two of them praying together--how justified is such a judgment? Has Homeland tipped its hand, or do we still not know where Brody's true allegiances lie?

Ah, nope. We know where Brody's true alliance lies at this point: With Carrie and his family and the good ole' U.S. of A. Of the two things he leaves off his confession, Carrie knows about one of them (that Brody is a secret Muslim), and the second one seems more like one of those lapses that she would forgive him for once Brody becomes "a hero." We don't even know why the CIA would plan on killing Brody once Abu Nazir is dead, or why Brody's life is contingent on Nazir staying alive...a plot device that will inevitably lead Carrie into letting Nazir escape so Brody can live.

4. What is the significance of Nazir's CIA code name "Sandman"? Reference at least two of the following in your answer: "Mr. Sandman" by the Chordettes, "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, "The Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffmann, the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, the Spider-Man villain The Sandman.
1. In many of the Spider-Man continuums, William Baker/Flint Marko commits some criminal act in order for his daughter, Suzie, to live a better life, and in doing so sacrifices his life for hers. While Isa ended up dying, it was the impetus for Abu Nazir to wage a more personal war on American soil.

2. The Chordettes sing: "Give him a pair of eyes with a come-hither gleam, Give him a lonely heart like Pagliacci":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX45pYvxDiA
In the Italian opera Pagliacci, the titular character is the iconic "sad clown" who sings to his audience that actors have feelings too. When his wife Nedda is unfaithful to him, he kills her. One could say that "Mr. Sandman" (in this case Nazir) created a "dream" for Carrie much in the style of the song; he has an unfaithful wife, and is constantly trying to convince Carrie and the CIA that he, too, is a human being. ("Do you believe me?" Brody asks Carrie. "Because that's the only thing I care about.") Although, unfortunately, Damien Lewis does not have "wavy hair like Liberace."

5. These days Carrie seems to be holding it together slightly better with each passing episode. On a scale from one to electroconvulsive therapy, how far off the deep end will she fall if the CIA succeeds in killing Brody off?

It depends on how you define "crazy." We saw what would happen if Carrie believes Brody is dead in the beginning of this episode ... she handles it with remarkable professionalism. However, if she knew Estes and Quinn were behind it, it wouldn't take much for her to go all vigilante on the CIA and start taking them out, one by one. Is that crazy? Maybe, but if Brody was gone, I doubt I'd watch the show either, which could effectively lead to them canceling the series and "killing" all the characters.

Brody's like a bird, he wants to fly away (Showtime)

These questions regard last night’s episode of Showtime’s Homeland. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from SUNDAY’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. The episode's title refers to Carrie's metaphorical desire to fly off with Brody, Dana's emotional flight from Brody, and Roya physically flying off ... with Brody. It's also what I thought that Nelly Furtado's song "I'm Like a Bird" was called for a really, really long time. Using "I'm Like a Bird," Lenny Kravitz's "Fly Away," and that Christian spiritual "I'll Fly Away" sung by Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss on the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack for reference, pick out one line from each lyric to apply to Carrie, Dana, and Abu Nazir, respectively.

Now these are some lyrically complex songs we've got here. Oh! Oh! Oh! Yeah! Well, ok.

Carrie: "When the shadows of this life has gone" ("I'll Fly Away.")
http://youtu.be/sdRdqp4N3Jw
This gospel song about yearning for heaven is actually based on a prison work song. And while Brody is the one facing actual prison bars here, Carrie shows us yet again in this episode just how helpless she is when it comes to him. She may have the excuse that she is protecting an important asset, but she is also waiting there in the dark, spying on the man she loves with another woman. Like Dana in this episode, even if she tells the truth, she'll still feel like she is trapped in the shadows.

Dana: "I don't know where my soul is, I don't know where my home is" ("I'm Like a Bird").
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roPQ_M3yJTA
Pretty self-explanatory. I love that the writers keep finding ways of making Dana her father's Jiminy Cricket. She tells the dead woman's mother she wasn't driving but she was in the car, and the woman replies that it's the exact same thing. The real crime in a hit and run isn't the hitting, it's the running. Don't you wish, just once, someone would answer one of Brody's similar moral evasions with the same no-bullshit klaxon?

Nazir: "I'd fly above the trees / Over the seas in all degrees / To anywhere I please" ("Fly Away").
http://youtu.be/EvuL5jyCHOw
Seriously, can this dude just go wherever he wants? He's the most wanted man in the world, supposedly. Imagine if we ended up catching Bin Laden somewhere in the U.S. Impossible, right? But I guess the best surveillance equipment in the world is stymied when a guy shaves off his beard. Wait til they get Nazir a pair of Clark Kent glasses, he could probably walk right up to Estes and ask for a cigarette. Or a job.

2. An anti-pattern is a software/design/business term that applies to a pattern that is repeated as a norm, despite resulting in more negative effects than positive. In order to be an antipattern, a pattern must contain these two elements:
a) Some repeated pattern of action, process or structure that initially appears to be beneficial, but ultimately produces more bad consequences than beneficial results, and
b) An alternative solution exists that is clearly documented, proven in actual practice and repeatable.
Can you identify five antipatterns that the characters in Homeland acted upon this week?

1. Dana somehow continues to think that she can punish her dad by avoiding him, when that is exactly what he needs right now.
2. Jessica somehow continues to think that arguing logically with Brody will get her anywhere.
3. Quinn persists in believing that just letting Carrie do her insane thing will have terrible results, which it never once has.
4. The CIA continues to think it is smarter than Roya/Nazir and their operation.
5. Mike Faber continues to be Mike Faber.

3. Imagine that you are a parent and this is the first episode of Homeland. You only recorded it on your VHS because your teenaged child tells you that you "really should watch this show," because it will "be right up your alley." After watching "I'll Fly Away," what would you think your son or daughter was trying to tell you?

That I should get out of the Stone Age and get myself a DVR? Honestly, if this were the first episode of Homeland, even with the "previouslies," I would have been totally lost. Without the background on Brody's captivity, his involvement in the conspiracy and his getting caught, none of his or Carrie's actions would make a lick of sense. He'd just be a squirrely cheating husband who neglects his daughter so he can play kinky spy games with his CIA girlfriend. I'd suspect my kid thought I was a depraved sicko who was ruining my family. Incidentally, my dad (like the rest of America) loves Homeland, and in his opinion, anyone who throws over Morena Baccarin for Claire Danes must be—to paraphrase Brody—even crazier than everyone thinks he is.

4. The first season saw Jessica changing hairstyles as often as a mood ring, and with the same purpose. Now that she's settled on her "wife of a congressman 'do," we see Abu Nazir is back, sans his iconic beard. Combined with Saul's subtle facial hair fluctuations per episode, develop a theory about the relationship between a character's follicle choices and their emotional/mental state.

On the contrary, as the scene with the vaguely antisemitic warden last episode shows, hair here is mostly about how people want to present themselves. As with anyone who puts on a show for the public, this may be masking underlying issues: Jessica's changing hair stopped after she gave her big public speech, i.e. both when she became a public figure and when she realized she was never going to be able to count on Brody. In this light, the purpose of Nazir's beard-cutting is twofold: yes, he needed to avoid being seen, but more than that, he needed to convince Brody that he would do anything--including violating his own religious principles--for his cause. His bare chin is itself a rebuke, because that is how Nazir rolls. Roya shouts and threatens, but Nazir just looks at you like he's disappointed and you fall in line. The show has finally pushed toward its logical conclusion: pitting Carrie's manipulation of Brody ("If you're a hero, maybe this will all go away") against Nazir's ("If you make this all go away, you'll finally be a true hero.")

5. They say craziness is defined by doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Would that make Quinn, Saul, and David Estes more or less insane than Crazy Carrie, who can at least be counted on to do something original each week? Why or why not?

Maybe I'm the crazy one, because I persist in believing that the CIA knows what it is doing, in some larger sense. Despite Saul's terrible grimace, female agents are, in fact, trained to use sex to keep assets in line. They may know that Carrie is lying about her feelings, but so far she has given them nothing but results. Quinn is crazy like a fox. When he says "make only one pass," he knows Carrie will buck authority and go for it, because that is what he really wants. He also knows that his order may restrain her somewhat, not to mention giving him plausible deniability. As for Carrie, when Brody tells her she is crazier than everyone says, it is during one of the sanest moments she has yet had on the show. She is straight up playing off Brody's emotions—his feelings for her, certainly, but even more for himself and his own heroic self-image—to get him back on track. Right now, she isn't coming off as an insane person at all, just someone who knowingly fell in love with the wrong man. Brody, on the other hand, is finally about nine-tenths of the way to totally nutbar.

"Hi, I'm Carrie." (Showtime)

These questions regard last night's episode of Showtime’s Homeland. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from SUNDAY’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. Even for a show about espionage, this episode was unusually concerned with the seen and the hidden (Quinn disrobing in front of Carrie; Aileen asking for a window, talking about the light, needing reading glasses; Brody hiding his scars from eager watchers). What did this episode allow us to see/understand that was previously hidden?

I'm pretty sure this one was just a set-up. Two words: Quinn ass.

2. Quinn seems to say what Carrie is thinking several times, most notably "Brody is everything." Chart the likelihood that Quinn has actually died and is now just a Tyler Durden-esque outgrowth of Carrie's subconscious.
I'd say these two were Tyler Durden-esque, but that would assume one of them was the manifestation of the other's nihilistic tendencies. In fact, Quinn and Carrie are the opposite of Tyler Durden: Instead of being one person split between his desires and society's demands, these two think exactly alike. They both run around like they are all id and superego but no ego. I mean, was it any coincidence that Carrie saw how cray-cray it looks when you wake up from being exploded in a terrorist attack and your first instinct is to pull out the I.V.s and go back in the field? Neither of them have any control over their impulses except where they draw their own moral lines. If this was another kind of show, they'd be superheroes. Like Batman. Or super villains. Like Bane. No, the Joker. No, Bane. I'm going to stick with Bane.

3. The Talmudic rabbis claimed that every line in the bible could be interpreted in four distinct ways. How many different levels of meaning are present at once in Carrie's conversation with Mike? (E.g., "I hope you get what you want.") How many of these levels is Carrie aware of?
Okay, Saul.
1. Agent Mathison: This is the Carrie that's relating to Mike as a professional; a member of the C.I.A. telling him to "back off" his investigations into Brody because it potentially jeopardizes their entire mission. (Hence, "I hope you get what you want" could actually be seen as somewhat of a threat. As in "I hope you get what you want, but don't go around trying to get it to happen because we will disappear you so fast your assistant's head will spin.")

2. Compassionate Carrie: This is the one that Carrie pulls out of her sleeve and uses on Brody a lot when it's convenient. She allows Mike to see that she's in a similar situation as he is, without revealing that he's part of the reason why she's in that position. (Hence, "I hope you get what you want ... because I too, want someone who desires me but is unable to be with me because of familial obligations.")

3. Crazy Carrie: The next layer on the cake is the Carrie we all know and love, the one who only understands the world through Brody-filters. (Hence, "I hope you get what you want because that means I'll get Brody and then you and Jessica can move far, far away, and while I don't hope you die because someone needs to take care of Dana--who I will reintroduce myself to later in the episode like I'm Jack Donaghy's avian-boned fiance on that season of 30 Rock--I will not want her to be part of our lives. The younger one, maybe.")

4. Off her meds mental patient: Here is the one who is about two blue pills away from causing another 9/11 because she's about to tell this guy Mike the world's shittiest-kept secret. (Hence ... exactly above, but she says it out loud, and then gets all crazy-eyed.)

4. By this point it has become clear that Carrie is using her real feelings for Brody in part to control him, and Brody explicitly acknowledges that he knows this. How does this map onto Homeland's increasingly obvious methods of manipulating its audience?
Oh, I love the idea that this is the writers' way of tackling the issue of government transparency in foreign relations. "Look, when one of us asks another one of us if we are just manipulating each other, and our answer is 'I don't know,' that's our way of telling you that we are definitely manipulating you. And just as Brody 'likes' being manipulated by Carrie (which, by the way, keep it in the bedroom you guys!), you too have come to love of us despite of ... nay, because of ... all this fantastical bullshit we keep throwing your way." Note: This only refers to white people.

5. Once again, Carrie's incompetence ends up looking like competence, while Saul's professionalism ends up making him look like a buffoon. If you were Mandy Patinkin, how would you feel about what the writers have done with your character? How about if you were Bill Hader?
Er ... I'm not really sure what you are referring to here. Carrie was actually quite competent (and surprisingly compliant with the C.I.A.) this week. Saul was not being professional; he let himself be emotionally manipulated by a desperate woman, per usual. So: competent?
http://youtu.be/G2y8Sx4B2Sk

"The Expendables" (Showtime)

These questions regard the second season premiere of Showtime’s Homeland. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from SUNDAY’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. Imagine Coleridge and Wordsworth were reanimated to watch an episode of Homeland. For the sake of argument, let's say that they also have the same amount of knowledge about the modern world and its government infrastructures (not to mention cars, light bulbs, etc.) as you do.  Walk the two men who came up with the term "Suspension of Disbelief" through last night's episode, and explain to them how we've bastardized their literary idea to apply to almost every scenario in the show. Be specific.

Ok, Sammy, you know how when you were writing, it was deeply unfashionable to write stories about vampires and superheroes and stuff? And so you had to come up with this idea that modern audiences could still get real, human ideas, emotions and situations from fantastic stories through a willing suspension of disbelief? (And then your pal Bill, he was going to come at it from the other side, and show the spiritual and the unbelievable and the weird in ordinary situations?) Well, here's the thing: vampires are just everywhere now. No, really. Like the height and the depth of all storytelling. Your concept worked too well. Modern audiences don't like stories about real people doing real things; we find them boring, even when there are spies and terrorists and explosions. A tense drama about the CIA simply isn't enough. To keep today's watchers enthralled, they need to believe in the unbelievable, whether it be the CIA trusting just two guys (I love Virgil and Max, but c'mon) to tail the most important lead the entire agency has, but twenty dudes to go through the accounting books of a dead tailor, or Brody hiding and then revealing (sort of) his murder of the tailor for no real reason but narrative convenience, or Roya Hammad miraculously revealing important intel other than the important intel that Brody was fishing for, or Dana miraculously happening to find the right hospital ward and recognizing the woman Finn hit despite the fact that she only saw her for a split second flying into the windshield, or Carrie not blinking an eye when Brody tells her that he is using the CIA as cover to save his marriage, or Brody thinking admitting this to a woman who clearly has feelings for him, is clearly mentally unstable, and clearly could get him executed for treason if she wanted is somehow a good idea ... Enough to drive you back to laudanum, amirite?

2. When Carrie reaches to squeeze Brody's arm in the car, he grabs her hand and sneers, "What is this? Sex? Understanding? And if that doesn't work, then what?" Implying that Carrie's physical intimacy is just another technique to gain his trust. Yet the final scene, it's Brody who reaches for Carrie's hand when she breaks down over the men she lost at Gettysburg...men that he possibly was responsible for killing, had he signaled to Roya that the C.I.A. was planning a raid on the tailor's shop. Was Brody trying to tell Carrie not to trust his lies, or being sincere? Is there a difference anymore?

It is associations like this that crystallize for me just why, despite all of the unlikeliness enumerated in my last answer, the bond between Brody and Carrie is one of the most interesting and complex relationships that I have seen depicted in any narrative medium. Because there are layers of their doubt and distrust in there, but in both of these situations, we know (approximately) the truth. Yes, Carrie is manipulating Brody, and he is right in saying that her touch is part of that manipulation, but that doesn't make it insincere. Quite the opposite: Carrie is manipulating herself too, deploying her real feelings for Brody to get what she and the CIA need. When she tells Saul that her eyes are open, she is telling the truth, but Saul shouldn't have been reassured. When she touches Brody, it is real. And until the second of these two scenes, we do not know whether Brody knows this, or he thinks it is all just manipulation. But when he sees her really wild and scared and full of doubt, he knows. That hand he offers her is a revision of his previous accusation, not a hint that he is lying. We may not know where his loyalties now lie, but we know he didn't signal Roya.

It's a good rule of thumb (pun intended) on this show: when you want to know what is really valuable to Brody, watch his hands. He raises them over his head to pray, uses them to bury his friend and his Koran, touches Carrie's hand.

3. Dear TeenCosmo:
I broke up with my high school boyfriend of one season to start dating a much more sophisticated guy. We've only officially been "going steady" for two episodes, and while I think he really likes me, he's starting to pressure me into stuff I'm not comfortable with, like lying about his hit-and-run that ended up killing (?) this woman. Now he doesn't want to talk in school anymore, and I feel like we're growing apart. Is there anything I can do to win him back/relieve this unrelenting guilt over being an accessory to manslaughter?

Dear Lost in NoVa,

It appears you have become entangled in a television subplot that often besets teenagers when their lives seem to be going well and writers fear that audiences may forget about them or lose interest. This is a tragic error. Nothing will make us care about you less than becoming the template of an afterschool special. On a show about international intrigue, you are fast becoming a sad footnote. But all is not lost. Now you are wild-eyed and guilty, with none of that remorseless subterfuge at which your father has become so proficient. Forget your new boy, forget what he did, but nurse your inchoate suffering until it causes you do something really interesting, like, you know, out your dad as a Muslim again--maybe on national television this time? Or just start dabbling in super-outre stuff, like explosives. I may know some people you can talk to.

4. On a scale of "One of the Gosselin children" to "Police partner last day before retirement," how expendable is Mike right now? What about Quinn? The other Brody child who isn't Dana?

Obviously Chris is the most expendable character on the show, except maybe magical disappearing ex-boyfriend Xander. I know this because I am only about 40 percent sure his name is even Chris. Why did the show even bother having the Brodys have two kids? Mike's "investigation" is obviously stupid and can't go anywhere except back to Jessica (or getting himself killed); he serves an important purpose, though, because without him to serve as an escape hatch, ready and willing to jump with her into his flashy car and take off, Jessica would just be harried and helpless, rather than a loose cannon Brody has to keep strapping back down. But Quinn, suddenly he is the engine running Homeland's entire plot. Even before the camera showed him, bloody but alive, rather than dead like every other CIA agent in the tailor shop, you knew he would be found alive. In part because why get an actor of Rupert Friend's caliber to do only three episodes, but also because without him it just becomes the Brody and Carrie show, with occasional avuncular commentary by Saul's eyebrows.

5.¿Es verdad? "Los blancos amor Homeland."

¿por qué?

Si, es verdad. El mucho grande cuestion es por que los non-blancos no amor Homeland como mucho.

Ok, I can't sustain this even in my pidgin Bloombito Spanglish, but I do have to wonder why they decided to made this such a white show in the first place. With Galvez's death, the writers have now killed off one of only two non-terrorist nonwhites on the show. When you really take a look at it it is pretty remarkable: Sure, Dana and Finn's school is some Quaker sanctuary for the kids of the elite, but _man_ is that place white. As is the CIA, aside from Estes. At least last season Saul had a wife who was a minority, but now she's out of the picture. For all of the complexity of the themes here, the "us against them" mentality comes into sharp focus when looking at it this way. When Brody was a Caucasian Talibani it was at least unique, but If he really has turned, now we just have a blonde woman and the palest man in Congress fighting the conveniently dark-skinned terrorists.

Bonus Question

Who is the scariest terrorist: Abu Nazir, Jafar, or the Riddler?

I'm going to give the edge to Jafar, because I once heard that they patterned his face after that of Nancy Reagan.

Brody doth protest too much (Showtime)

These questions regard the second season premiere of Showtime’s Homeland. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from SUNDAY’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. The title of this episode is "Q&A," and it is primarily taken up by an interrogation sequence. Compare this interrogation with one of the many famous scenes of interrogation in literature or film (e.g. King Lear, The Birthday Party, Marathon Man). How does Quinn/Carrie's line of questioning line up against the classics?

Obviously, the good cop/bad cop interrogation trope is one of the most famous tv/movie techniques used, and this episode did it extremely well. How does it stack up to other versions of this idea? Well, I feel like if you combine these two clips, you get last night's episode:

http://youtu.be/ky8BkclMXBY
2. When Carrie gives Brody water, she makes him dependent on her, bringing it up to his mouth, even though she is just about to unlock his cuffs. We've seen this same manipulative technique before, with Nazir. Does Carrie acknowledge this similarity? Conversely, when Quinn mentions that Nazir tortured Brody with electricity, it calls to mind Carrie's ECT, for which Brody is indirectly to blame. How do these echoes influence our understanding and appreciation of the interrogation scenes?
We saw how Carrie reacted to the ECT question the first time: I think Quinn's whole plan was to manipulate Carrie into feeling those ole' Brody-obsessive feelings. When Quinn brings it up, it's not to bristle her, it's to remind her that Brody and her share the same traumas. When Quinn stabs Brody, Carrie doesn't come in as the "Good Cop," because she would never be able to fake something like that, especially after harboring so much rage against him. He was stabbed, and Carrie went into overdrive. Her reflexes were maternal, protective. (Hence the water thing.) He was physically vulnerable, but could still withstand interrogation techniques. What his Abu Nazir brainwash couldn't clean out entirely was real compassion. The "I've been there, and I know who you are, and I love you anyway" that Carrie brought to the table.

3. Various events work out very conveniently in this episode. Rank the following in order from most to least likely: 1) Just when he needs to play "bad cop," Quinn has the best "good cop" he could ask for, preloaded and ready to go; 2) Dana's boyfriend Xander disappears in a puff of offscreen smoke, leaving the road open for Finn; 3) Brody suddenly finds himself able to tell Jessica (a version of) the truth when she demands it outright; 4) after being almost entirely absent for the entire season, Chris returns for long enough to remind us that the Brodys have a son, right before Nick admits that he thought of Aysa as his own child; 5) Brody's chief of staff is too dumb to ask Estes too many questions.

1.) Xander: High school boyfriends evaporate all the time. Sometimes they are run over by the VP's son. Sometimes they are abducted and held in a CIA torture camp. Sometimes they go up to cabins and have a double-crossed affair. You know, shit happens.

2.) Brody tells Jessica he works for the CIA: It's almost weird that he didn't try that line earlier ... he could have explained away the Carrie affair that much easier. And it's not like Jessica can check in with her contacts at Langley to make sure he's not lying.

3.) Quinn having Carrie as an interrogator: Well, that's not a coincidence. Carrie is the only reason anyone was even paying attention to Brody. She shot, tagged, and bagged that son of a bitch. The only thing that's unlikely is that Quinn happens to read people so well that he knew that his tricks would work. He's basically Abu Nazir using Carrie as Aysa.

4) Brody's chief of staff being a dumbass: Well, is he dumb, or scared shitless? When the CIA tells you that your boss is in trouble and hints that you might be next, you don't ask questions. Though he is dumb enough to seem as equally scared of Jessica as Estes. Grow a pair, you know.

5.) Chris showing back up: The most unlikely of the bunch, but only because they seem to have replaced Chris with a much older actor, who actually seemed to age as the episode progressed.

4. Dana ducks involuntarily when Finn drives his car under a low overhang. This reaction is known as an "escape reflex" or more specifically, a "withdrawal reflex." How do other characters display reflexes that might be characterized as "escape" or "withdrawal"?
1.) Brody flinching when Carrie tries to touch his hand.

2.) Dana completely shutting down mentally after the car accident.

3.) Mike. Mike is Jessica's escape reflex, especially since he doesn't have enough of a personality to be a person.

4. VP's son turning from a three-dimensional character into every stereotype of a hit-and-run perp. "LEAVE THE BODY! OH MAN, MY DAD IS GOING TO KILL ME! DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" Shit is so hackneyed.

5. In this episode, the word "monster" is thrown around a bit. Was this Homeland's version of a Halloween episode? (Questions to consider: Why is Brody still hiding two murders after being given immunity? Is it possible that, like Walker before him, Aysa is still alive?)
Well, Aysa isn't alive ... Brody carried his body out of the rubble and had it shrouded. I know he "saw" Walker die too, but kid would have to be a pretty good actor to fake being dead in front of Brody for a couple of days. The monster analogy is interesting, because it's actually Brody and Carrie who are the archetypal "monster" figures: She's like an emotional vampire, and he's like Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Dead-Eyed Neck-Snapper.