| New Car Smell | ||||
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| Written by: | Meredith Stiehm | |||
| Directed by: | Jeremy Podeswa | |||
| Production number: | 2WAH04 | |||
| Running time: | 49 minutes | |||
| Original airdate: | October 21, 2012 | |||
| Viewers (millions): | 1.75 | |||
New Car Smell is the fourth episode of Season 2 of Homeland. It aired on October 21, 2012.
Synopsis[]
Following a debrief from Saul, a stunned Estes authorizes a covert operation to investigate Intel recovered in Beirut. Brody, still reeling from his misadventures with the bomb maker, gets another shock when he runs into Carrie.
Episode guide[]
Saul shows the video of Brody's confession to Estes. Saul and Estes agree to spy on Brody for the time being, in hopes of getting information on what al-Qaeda is plotting. They don't tell anyone else in the CIA, other than analyst Peter Quinn, who Estes insists be in charge of the operation. Cameras are set up to watch Brody at the Rayburn House Office Building and his phones are tapped. Virgil and Max are tasked with following Brody when he is outside of the surveillance areas. Carrie and Quinn clash at first; Carrie is surprised an analyst she never met is running things.
Brody attempts to apologize to Jessica for his actions but Jessica demands an explanation. Brody says he wants to tell her, but he can't. Jessica gives him an ultimatum: tell her "something true" about what he's been up to, or sleep somewhere else. Brody just walks away. Quinn's team is able to get a feed to the security cameras at the Ashford Hotel where Brody ends up staying.
Quinn asks Carrie to run into Brody, in order to get Brody paranoid and hopefully compel him to make contact with his handler. Carrie meets a surprised Brody outside of Langley. She hints she is back with the CIA in some capacity. Brody is spooked after the encounter. He speaks with Roya Hammad, and tells her Carrie is back with the CIA and that it must have something to do with him. Roya is not so sure, suggesting Carrie may have just been brought back in to pursue Abu Nazir.
Lauder shows up at the Brodys' house, ranting about Brody and refusing to leave until Brody gets home. Jessica, wanting to get him out of the house, calls Brody, who doesn't answer. When Brody finally calls back an hour later, Jessica angrily tells him she needed him an hour ago and that Mike is helping her out instead. Mike drives Lauder home and they discuss Brody. Both agree Brody is clearly no longer the same guy since he came back. They speculate that Brody and Walker were always a team, and may have been working together for someone, possibly the CIA, on the day Walker shot Elizabeth Gaines.
As he shows her some of the "perks" of being the Vice President's son, Finn takes Dana inside the Washington Monument while it is closed for renovations. While they admire the view of D.C., Dana and Finn start to kiss, but Dana cuts it short, saying she needs to talk to Xander before going any further.
Brody, in the bar of the hotel, calls Carrie and invites her to have a drink and "bury the hatchet". Encouraged by Quinn, Carrie goes to the bar, and they have a pleasant conversation. Brody admits he's on the outs with his wife. They discuss Carrie's road to recovery and about how she's now hot on the trail of Abu Nazir. They part ways, and Saul and Quinn congratulate Carrie on a job well done. However, Carrie is dissatisfied, certain Brody is on to her due to a brief moment of anger she showed in the conversation. Quinn disagrees, and orders Carrie to come back to headquarters.
Carrie instead goes up to Brody's hotel room. She immediately blows her cover, proudly telling Brody she knows who he is, running down everything he's been guilty of, and finally calling him a traitor and a terrorist. Quinn and Saul, watching in disbelief, immediately dispatch their men to apprehend Brody. Carrie struggles to hold back tears as she watches Brody get taken away.
Comments[]
In the early seasons, Carrie used sex and alcohol to self-medicate.
But her bipolar disorder is not what attracts her to Brody.
She swallows; she came this close to vomiting, or punching him. He built his life so perfectly, so carefully, that nobody should have seen in. And she did, and she wormed her black little heart in there and tore it apart. He had total power, complete mastery over his life, his home, his mission, and she walked in and ripped it apart without even caring. She saw so clearly that it burned. And in the end, he was able to turn it around, cage her up in doubt, and say, “I am the one in control here.” And it nearly killed her.
There’s so much relief in it. Watching their bodies unfold from under the weight of it. It’s the first conversation they’ve ever had, these two. These two lonely people, alone in this room. His face, that cold still face, comes alive. Sex, and rage, and murder, and hatred. It does tricks you never knew it could do. It curls like a fist. He is so much smarter than you ever knew, that’s the part that scared me the most; his eyes glitter like diamonds and you can see him there, clearly, for the first time. This is the man Carrie woke up tonight, this monster. This is the man Carrie loved, sight unseen.
Trivia[]
- It's that bit in s02e04 where Carrie 'bumps into' Brody at the CIA again, and they see each other through the narrow gap between two signs. Definitely a subtle visual reference to the scene from Romeo and Juliet... Romeo and Juliet scene and Homeland scene
- “Oh yeah, the scene where Carrie (Clair Danes) comes to meet Brody (Damian Lewis) at the bar at his hotel.” - Jarvis Holliday
Quinn said he was an analyst...spent 6 years at Langley and 4 years on the Venezuela desk.
- Carrie: "The cartels?"
- Quinn: "Like that."
He ever worked the Venezuela desk like he told Carrie in their introductions? Was he lying?
Yes, he was lying. He’s never been an analyst. He was recruited by Dar Adal and trained in black ops, which is what he did before Estes brought him onto the Brody operation in S2.
It was a cover story as he didn’t want to reveal the nature of his role as black ops operative in the Brody operation. But he chose wisely because the CIA has been involved in Venezuela since the 1950s. For instance it’s widely thought that the CIA was involved in the 2002 coup d'etat against Chavez in Venezuela (x and x).
The CIA also has a long history of dealing with the drug cartels in South America. In 1989, the then CIA station chief in Venezuela met with an attache of the Drug Enforcement Agency in Caracas, asking her to allow hundreds of pounds of cocaine to be shipped to the U.S. through Venezuela. The stated purpose of the scheme was to help one of the Venezuelan general’s agents win the confidence of Colombia’s drug lords. It helped the CIA and the DEA gather crucial information about the cartel’s methods. (x).
So either way - coup-related or in drug cartel-operations - there would have been plenty of work for an operative like Quinn in these clandestine operations.
Quotes[]
- In Quinn's first scene, Max walks into the room and says: "sweet hardware".
- Virgil says: "Yep, CIA has the best shit."
- Why don’t you answer some questions for me, Peter... - Carrie
- When Brody asks her: “Was it [her ECT] terrible?”
- In that moment, her eyes narrow for a split second before Carrie puts her mask on and says: "No, truthfully you don’t even feel it!"
- Quinn - how many times do you have to tell her?
- Saul - a lot!
- "Ok, not friends" - Brody
- Brody: I like you, Carrie.
- Carrie loudly tell him: "I loved you!" before Brody is getting arrested in the hotel room.
- Carrie says to Brody: "If only the circumstances had been wildly different. You're a disgrace to your nation, Sergeant Nicholas Brody. You're a traitor and a terrorist. And now it's time you pay for that."
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
- Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison
- Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody
- Morena Baccarin as Jessica Brody
- David Harewood as David Estes
- Diego Klattenhoff as Mike Faber
- Jackson Pace as Chris Brody
- Morgan Saylor as Dana Brody
- Mandy Patinkin as Saul Berenson
- David Marciano as Virgil
- Navid Negahban as Abu Nazir (Credit only)
- Jamey Sheridan as William Walden
Guest Starring[]
- Zuleikha Robinson as Roya Hammad
- Timothée Chalamet as Finn Walden
- Maury Sterling as Max
- Marc Menchaca as Lauder Wakefield
- Rupert Friend as Peter Quinn
Co-Starring[]
- Taylor Kowalski as Xander
- DeAngelo Harris as Kenny Estes
- Asif Taj as Rashid
- Lucius Baston as Paris
- Allie McCulloch as Betsy
- Debra Terry as Susan
- Cal Johnson as Navy Seal 1
- Scott Puckett as Navy Seal 2
Videos[]
| Season 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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