‘It’s over. We stopped him’
There’s a lot to unpack in this finale, but if you were expecting carnage, mass casualties and Carrie chasing Team Isis around Berlin for an hour, then you were terribly mistaken. The tension built up so expertly in previous episodes dissipates quickly with the swift foiling of the terrorist attack. A combination of Carrie and Qasim take out Bibi before he can release the sarin gas. Qasim lives just long enough for Carrie to thank him for saving Quinn, along with hundreds of U-Bahn passengers. The rest of the jihadis are captured after a shootout. Then we get to the fallout.
‘The last illusion of the illusionless man’
In the best scene of the episode, Saul gets Krupin alone to tell him where things stand. It’s high-stakes espionage poker and, even though the Russian has ice in his veins, Saul knows he can’t stonewall his way out of this one. “Ivan, I say this respectfully, one professional to another: you’re playing a bad hand.”
This much is true, but Ivan can deliver Allison, and Saul would like that particular collar very much. To this end, he dangles the carrot of resettlement in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with witness protection and all the giant slalom he can handle. Krupin is sorely tempted, but he can’t resist twisting the knife over their shared lover.
“You were an easy target, Saul – middle-aged, recently divorced. I knew if you were sleeping with her, you wouldn’t see other things so clearly.”
One professional to another: ouch!
‘The next time you see sky it will be Russian’
Speaking of Allison, the greatest penetration in history finds herself recuperating among some of the worst people in history – human traffickers. Not that her humble surroundings shake her sense of self-importance. “Fuck up my shoulder and I’ll see to it you never practise medicine again,” she tells her doctor, which as pep talks go is certainly one to focus the mind.
Further ignominy follows. She spends three and a half hours in the boot of a car, only to end up riddled with bullets from a CIA team headed by Saul. It looks like Ivan took his offer. While it’s true Homeland has made a specialty of near-death fakeouts, there is no ambiguity about this one. Allison has gone to the great Banana Joe’s in the sky (or maybe somewhere significantly warmer). I always thought she’d squirrel out somehow, but what a terrific season Miranda Otto has had. Allison Carr walks into the Homeland Character Hall of Fame with her head held high and a right attitude on her.
‘Either do exactly as you’re told, or it’s back to where he came from’
As you knew they would, the German secret service comes for Laura and Numan. After the week she’s had, Astrid is not looking to screw around. She knows that a supermax prison doesn’t worry Laura, but the prospect of Numan sent back to Turkey to face execution does. All Laura has to do to make it right is publicly throw the memory of Faisal Marwan under the bus on the same TV show where she made him a cause celebre. As Astrid looks on, Laura announces that Marwan was an integral part of the attack on the Hauptbahnhof. Numan will never know how she saved his life, but it may be the most noble thing she’s ever done.
‘I can’t unhear things I’ve heard, unsee things I’ve seen’
Jonas breaks up with Carrie, making sure he gets a bunkup first, which, to a casual observer, could look callous. It means that she is a free agent both personally and professionally, and unsurprisingly for a woman of Carrie’s calibre, the offers soon come rolling in. Firstly, Saul offers Carrie a roaming brief with the CIA. She can choose her own missions, handpick her own team and have total autonomy. It’s the kind of gig she would have killed for once, but now she wants no part of it. He can talk about the need for “a new paradigm” all he likes, but she’ll continue pretending she’s not that person any more. Saul and Jonas see what she doesn’t. Just like Quinn, there’s always something pulling her back to the darkness.
Then she gets a quite different offer from Düring. He starts by praising her immaculate CV and interview technique. It sounds for all the world like he’s about to make her CEO of her own foundation. Instead it turns out to be his ham-fisted way of asking if she wants to go steady. Carrie is as shocked as we all are.
I have a feeling she’ll go for this. From the show’s point of view it’s a good lever to get Carrie back in the game. If Otto becomes her lover, then he can be threatened, kidnapped or killed, and Carrie will leap back into action to defend or avenge him. From Carrie’s point of view, Otto has watched her at close quarters, seen her in peril, knows the baggage she carries, and still wants in. How many men – never mind handsome billionaire philanthropists – can she say that of?
‘I know now that was a false glimmer’
There is no resurrection for Quinn and the doctors talk about “significant brain damage”. As his beneficiary, Carrie gets a handwritten letter from him. It’s blunt, moving, and not a little bleak. He doesn’t want any dumb speeches from her, nor a star put on the wall like she did for you know who. As we end the show, Quinn’s voice narrates the letter’s final passage as she prepares to euthanise him. “Just think of me as a light on the headlands, a beacon steering you clear of the rocks.” Suddenly sunlight bursts into the room. Carrie stops. And then so does the season.
What are we to make of this? The sunlight might symbolise Quinn’s spirit leaving his body and becoming Carrie’s beacon. There’s an analogue in the earlier scene in the chapel as light envelops Carrie as she digs into her hand wound with her thumb, apparently achieving some kind of brief spiritual ecstasy. Lest we forget, Carrie was raised Catholic, and mortification of the flesh for spiritual purification is a grand Catholic tradition. We began this season with Carrie taking communion in church and we end on a note that seems to have deep spiritual significance for her. Alternatively, the light could indicate hope for Quinn’s miraculous recovery.
Then again, it could just be sunlight.
Notes and queries
- Carrie’s brief prayer over the dying Qasim is Inna Lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un, which means: “We surely belong to Allah, and to Him we shall return.”
- The other prayer in the episode, from the mother in the chapel to her daughter is Ich bin klein. Translation: “I am small. My heart is pure. Nobody may dwell in here but Jesus.”
- If you believe in the power of prayer yourself, then tweet on the show’s official Pray for Quinn hashtag. Until I see the actual death certificate, touch his cold body and watch him cremated, I’ll believe he’s alive.
- I was perturbed that Carrie immediately gave up Dr Hussein’s name to Qasim, under no duress. Fair enough, she thinks he’s conflicted – and Qasim does seem to have joined Isis believing they were mainly concerned with unusually aggressively leafleting campaigns – but if one escaping jihadi overhears her, the good doctor and his family are wormfood.
- “When to scold, when to forgive, when to laugh at her jokes.” This is strikingly intimate from Saul, talking to Krupin about the difficulties of handling an asset.
- “I wasn’t allowed a real life or real love. That was for normal people.” Like the Silver Surfer, Quinn is destined to soar alone.
- To be fair to Krupin, Jackson Hole does look pretty amazing.
- “Just think about the scope and scale of what I’m proposing – the possibilities.” Otto’s got all the slick lines for the ladies, I’ll give him that.
- Dar Adal reveals that they discovered Quinn in a foster home in Baltimore at the age of 16. He was cultivated partly for his street smarts, but also for his looks. This set me thinking how he might fit into The Wire universe – an outsider in the Omar mould seems most likely.
- “What if I need to pee?” Allison’s last words, for the record.
- Intelligence expert Dr Vince Houghton regards Allison’s extrajudicial killing as the “most unrealistic thing that Homeland has done in its five seasons”. I’ll assume he missed Brody holed up in the skyscraper in Caracas.
