The previous episode of Homeland ended not with a whimper but a bang when the "Medina Medley" van driven by Sekou Bah exploded on a busy Manhattan street. In the same episode, Peter Quinn tracked a shadowy stranger to the Medina van parking lot. While watching news coverage of the incident, Quinn notices the Medina marking in the wreckage. Before he can connect the dots for Carrie, she is called by her coworker, attorney Hashem, who reveals that Sekou was the van driver and implores her to go to the lad's home where the FBI is interrogating his mother and sister. Carrie asks Quinn to babysit until the nanny comes, a decision she will regret but which makes for high octane drama.
We predicted Quinn would be in the thick of the action. He was a physical and emotional wreck in opening episodes, but his keen instincts gradually returned as he monitored the stranger stalking Carrie's home and tracked him to the parking lot. We imagined that he would soon be joining Carrie to solve this unfolding mystery and dispense with the wrongdoers.
Not quite – or not quite yet. Only Quinn could escalate a simple babysitting chore into a full-blown hostage crisis. The media portrays Sekou as a suicide bomber and learns Carrie was involved in his release. Soon reporters are ringing her doorbell and demonstrators are throwing rocks at the house. Quinn fires his gun and wounds a rock thrower, which leads to police SWAT teams swarming outside, believing they are dealing with a hostage crisis since Quinn has confined the nanny and Carrie's daughter in the basement for their safety.
Carrie returns home and ultimately convinces the police commander to let her talk to Quinn, but the SWAT team bursts in and takes our hero into custody. At the end of the episode, Carrie finds Quinn's phone and is shocked to find photos of the mysterious stranger and the Medina Medley vans. She now realizes Quinn was not as paranoid as he seemed.
The Sekou Bah plot, with its hint of a staged bombing to discredit a young Muslim, now starts to converge with the parallel storyline of the President-elect. After the bombing, President-elect Keane is whisked away by her secret service detail from New York to a safe house, without her chief of staff, without a phone or access to a TV to monitor news of the incident. Her only contact with a U.S. Government official turns out to be Dar Adal, who shows up at the undisclosed location and almost gleefully informs her that former CIA officer Carrie Mathison was involved in Sekou's defense. Dar provides her with a phone to call White House officials, but when she tries to call her chief of staff, she's told he's not on the list. The President-elect goes to see the woman in charge of the safehouse, only to find the lady has a TV and is watching a Rush Limbaugh clone ranting about the incoming President's soft stance on terrorism. This is Hillary Clinton's right wing conspiracy in the extreme — PEOTUS Keane is a prisoner, held incommunicado thanks to CIA black ops chief Dar and other forces in the government opposed to her foreign policy stand.
Dar's conspiracy may hit a snag. The master schemer meets Saul at the airport, and on the drive back, Saul tells him he believes the entire Dubai operation was an Israeli charade. Remember that brief scene in an earlier episode where Saul finds a crumpled cigarette pack in an Israeli safehouse, the same brand smoked by the Iranian financier he has just met? Saul tells Dar the room was only for video monitoring of his meeting, and the Iranian was never in it – unless, of course, he was given his script there by the Mossad beforehand. Saul then advises he is awaiting confirmation about Iran's possible violation of the nuclear agreement and reveals he also met his source, Iranian Guards chief Majid Javadi. Dar doesn't utter a word but looks troubled – Javadi might provide facts that conflict with his hype of the Iranian nuclear threat and frustrate his plot to undermine the incoming President.
Nailed it: After the terrorist attack, FBI agent Conlin insists that Carrie reveal to him the source of the tape recording she used to secure Sekou's release. Carrie approaches her former colleague who she asked for the information, assuming he was the one who sent it to her inside a bouquet of flowers. He denies sending it and tells Carrie that he fully reported her approach. So far this season, this gentleman is the only U.S. Government employee who doesn't ignore regulations or violate the law.
Failed it: The conspiracy against President-elect Keane becomes more implausible in this episode. The Secret Service would certainly spirit her away to a safe house after a presumed terrorist attack, but it stretches credulity that they would deny her access to her staff, a phone, and a television. Moreover, of all the officials who would contact her in this crisis, the CIA's chief of so-called "black" operations would be far down the list – unless, of course, he is the mastermind of a government-wide conspiracy against the incoming President and supported by the current commander-in-chief. Unless this cabal intends to assassinate President-elect Keane, she will be conducting some serious house cleaning once she takes office.
