Last night’s episode of Homeland begins somewhere deep in Montgomery County, with Majid Javadi interrogating Carrie with a polygraph test. He discovers she has told her colleagues about their meeting. But before he has time to react, she flips the table on him and announces he’s been lured so that he could meet with Saul—-they know that Javadi has stolen millions from his employer, the Iranian government. Javadi responds that Saul is “still, after all these years, putting other peoples live on the line.” Ooh, where does this cruel insight come from?
Oh, Javadi and Saul go way back. Yes, Saul quickly divulges that they are long-time mortal enemies. They were young intelligence officers together in Iran. Then Javadi betrayed Saul in May of 1979, killing four people whom Saul had promised to bring to safety. Saul said there was nothing as bad as seeing “a man I thought I knew become an animal before my eyes.” So it’s revenge! Not quite, says Saul. His revenge was moving Javadi’s wife and son to the West a few months later.
Ah yes, this just-introduced woman will now die, brutally, at the hands of Javadi. With a shotgun and a bottle, he murders both his daughter-in-law and his ex-wife. He leaves a small toddling grandson wailing on a blanket. Carrie and Peter Quinn storm in, hand-cuffing Javadi, cleaning up the mess and leaving the baby. How the children all suffer!
Speaking of suffering children: Dana has decided to change her name because she can’t bear to be a Brody anymore. Jess reluctantly agrees, but puts up a protest when Dana announces she’s moving out to live with a friend. Dana makes it clear that living as her father’s daughter was impossible. Jess runs after her, with some money. Dana tries to refuse, saying she wants to do this on her own. Jess says, “You don’t have to use it, just take it.” Just like a mother’s love.
Who else might know a mother’s love on Homeland? Well, something weird happened with Carrie in her bathroom, as usual. She took out a pregnancy test, peed on it, saw the little cross. Ahh! Carrie’s pregnant. Who’s the father? Is it the man she met in the tequila aisle of a liquor store? This is crazy. Well, not so crazy compared to what happens next: Carrie opens a drawer and carefully places this stick next to dozens of other sticks, all bearing little crosses, too. So: Hoarding trumps pregnancy as the weirdest thing to happen in Carrie’s bathroom this week.
All is also unwell at Chez Berenson. Saul’s lovely wife Mira is teetering on the edge of an affair, but she says he just emotionally detaches. And at work, Senator Lockhart is sauntering around the CIA, looking to dismantle Saul’s position as he prepares to take over and clean up the mess he says the agency has become.
At the end of the episode, Carrie and Peter bring Jivadi to meet with Saul. These longtime mortal enemies, who by now have had a good 40 minutes to establish lots of mortal enemy tension, stare at each other for a heated moment until Saul unleashes his fist in Jivadi’s face. Why bother with all these hours of international spycraft when a good old punch suffices?