‘Auf wiedersehen, which means till we see each other again, which will be really soon’
Welcome back to Homeland HQ. It’s about two years since the attack on the embassy in Islamabad, and Carrie is in an all-new city – Berlin, where’s she’s working as head of security for a German billionaire. She’s also got a hunky new boyfriend – not Quinn. She’s biking Baby Brody to kindergarten, going to church and trying to stay out of the CIA’s way. Which of course, doesn’t last very long.
Homeland did a pretty good job of moving on from its Brody problem in season four; recalibrating after the loss of a central character with such a strong “is he/isn’t he” question at its heart was always going to be tricky, but after the frustrations of the Venezuela jaunt, it felt like it was back on track, even if that track was a more straight-up spy thriller than the original proposition.
Now that Carrie is out of the CIA, and the show’s other great characters – Quinn and Saul – are still there, it will be interesting to see how the writers use them in season five. New players Allison Carr (Miranda Otto) and Otto Düring (Sebastian Koch) get off to a good start; Laura (Sarah Sokolovic) the righteous journalist at the Düring Foundation less so. But Homeland’s strength is in the long-standing relationships – you want to see Carrie and Saul together as much as she evidently does. Carrie practically stalks Saul in the CIA’s Berlin office, popping out from a stairwell for a frosty encounter. “You’re being naive and stupid,” Saul tells her. “Something you never were before.” Harsh. Can’t be long before she runs into Quinn; will that be any less awkward?
As soon as Carrie says her little auf wiedersehen to Baby Brody … well, we know that means, don’t we? It’ll be a while before we see Carrie wearing balloon animals on her head again.
‘What strategy? Tell me what the strategy is. I’ll tell you if it’s working’
Quinn delivers a totally cutting “fire me” briefing to the CIA bosses. He cuts to the core of the complicated western approach to Syria with two solutions. The first: that only a massive investment of money and people will come anywhere close to bringing peace to Syria and beyond. His other alternative? “Hit reset. Pound Raqqa into a parking lot.”
Saul claims he didn’t know that Quinn was planning on going quite so far “off-book”; Dar Adal doesn’t seem too bothered. With Homeland choosing to engage with current affairs that are so volatile, it’s going to be fascinating to see where they are planning on taking the characters this time.
‘He’s attacking us’
Elsewhere, the hackers of Club King George find themselves in a showdown with the CIA. What they uncover is a proper Wikileaks-style scoop: the US spying illicitly for Germany. It’s one those daft cyber-war scenes where they need so much power they’re forced to turn off the cameras on their illicit webcam business to keep their hack going. Soon Carrie gets CIA-shamed by Laura, who wants to publish the story and be damned. Carrie is not convinced it’s legit – but her standoff with Carr in the Berlin CIA office only serves to prove to her what it’s like being outside of the loop. There aren’t too many favours when you’re ex-CIA unless you want to keep spying.
‘Don’t worry. Be on time. this is Germany’
Carrie’s boss Düring asks her to use her CIA contacts to find a way to safely visit a refugee camp on the Lebanon-Syria border. He’s a philanthropist (apparently), who wants to write a big cheque to help, and has a plan to convince some of his other loaded pals to chip in. Which they’ll only do if he goes himself.
After a quick bit of extreme rendition from Hezbollah’s Berlin contact (one of Abu Nazir’s team as it turns out), Carrie gets a call: “The council invites Otto Düring … as our honoured guest.”
Notes and queries
“I’m not atoning. I’m just trying to do good work,” says Carrie.
“He’s a martyr in paradise, and I’m stuck here.” Quinn is getting the best lines so far even if he looks totally shell-shocked. It’s as if Homeland has outsourced Carrie’s angst to him for this opener.
“A word of advice, retards: when you declare yourself a cyber caliphate check your passwords …” Charming.
Carrie’s boss Otto Düring is played by Sebastian Koch – so great in The Lives of Others. Do we trust Düring’s motives or is there a bit more to his mission? And would his friends really not chip in without him going to Syria in person?
“I have asked you respectfully for safe passage; You are obliged to take my message to the council!” Is Carrie drawing on some kind of traditional sanctuary request here?
Do Quinn and Saul ever get tired of walking past each other in the street and pretending they don’t know each other?
“You can take the girl out of the CIA …” Carrie is getting flak from both sides here; how do we feel about her being a free agent like this?
“You keep us from our homeland.” Nice flip of the show’s title in this line from Abu Nazir’s man.
In case you missed it today, here’s a handy Homeland quiz.
