“The Weekend” (Season 1 | Episode 7)

WARNING – FULL SPOILERS

Last night’s episode of Homeland continued to twist and exploit the dynamic that exists between Brody and Carrie. Their weekend at the lake began like a quiet romantic break – walking in the woods, cooking together and of course more fooling around in the sack. This fantasy was tremendously shattered by one revealing comment from Carrie about Brody’s brand of tea. Uh-oh.

This was quite a slow burner at first, lots of romance and awkward ‘getting to know you’ conversations, which was a big change in tempo from where things were left after the interrogation. I was surprised Brody didn’t grill Carrie more about her involvement with the polygraph. Questioning Brody about his loyalty to his wife was clearly fed to the interviewer from behind the two-way mirror; surly Brody must have put 2 and 2 together and come up with Carrie. Nevertheless, the story soon shifted up a gear when Carrie put her foot in her mouth. The question is, did Brody know this all along and use it as an opportunity to get the truth from Carrie, or was it simply the case that he didn’t know he was being watched?

The truth about his partner’s death was delivered perfectly by Brody. The Q&A between both characters was one of the best scenes so far in the series. What’s best is that the show isn’t afraid to go after both Carrie and the audience want to know. Normally, this type of one on one would be reserved until at least the penultimate episode, Homeland however decided to bring this forward, letting Carrie completely expose all her suspicions to Brody.

Brody let on about his religious beliefs, his relationship with Nazir and the fact that he was forced to beat his partner to death – wow, that’s more answers than you’d get out of an entire season of LOST. What’s more is it all came out in one conversation. It’s this kind of storytelling that’s built up Homeland’s reputation and what’s definitely won it 2 Golden Globes.  When Brody left his sign off was awesome, “hey Carrie, f*** you”, where there relationship will go from here is anybody’s guess but it doesn’t look like they’ll be jetting off to Disneyland for another weekend away anytime soon.

The episode was basically two individual threads of story, as well as Brody & Carrie’s weekend by the lake we had Saul’s road trip back to Washington. Saul preferred this type of interrogation to the polygraph. At times Aileen must have feared for her life as Saul tried to bore her to death with his past and problems. It was effective though and we learned more about both Saul and Aileen’s back-stories. Aileen was quite the survivalist and gave up the identity of the turned POW, Brody’s former partner Tom Walker.

One huge question that Carrie didn’t ask was, if Walker is still alive and he’s the turned POW then why did Brody say he’d beaten him to death? Hmm, interesting. We’ll have to see what happens when we meet Walker for the first time. His target is supposedly “Reserve M-1”, a helicopter pad within the airport. I’m no militarist but I’m guessing that this is a reserve pad for some pretty significant figures within the government, probably The President himself.

We’re well over the half waypoint of the season now and things are escalating quickly between Brody and Carrie. With Brody knowing her true intentions he can play the game his way, on the other hand, Carrie now has knowledge of Walker’s “murder”, Brody’s Islamic beliefs and his love for Abu Nazir.

Where the two will go from here is going to be exciting to see, so will Saul’s role in all of this. He’s still the biggest puzzle to figure out in the show, last week he wanted out and as soon as he heard about Aileen he was firmly back in the mix. Behind that beard lies one hell of an enigma.

8.5/10

Scene of the Episode | Ask me anything… – Perhaps the best scene that we’ve witness so far, this was well scripted and acted from start to finish. Danes and Lewis really complement each other on screen and show exactly why this new series is worthy of its accolades.

Reviewed by Rich Jepson, cult TV enthusiast and author of 24: Terrorism Through Television.