Semper I

Semper I
Written by:	Alex Gansa & Howard Gordon
Directed by:	Michael Cuesta
Production number:	1WAH03
Running time:	50 minutes
Original airdate:	October 23, 2011

DON'T LEAVE ME! ALL ALONE! IN THE RAIN - Brody for Carrie

Semper I is the fourth episode of Season 1 of Homeland. It aired on October 23, 2011.

Synopsis[]

Carrie's surveillance warrant nears its expiration, making her more desperate. Brody increases his presence in the public eye, but finds more turmoil in his personal life.

Summary[]

Brody is in the midst of a string of public appearances which have made him an extremely popular figure. The Vice President's chief advisor Elizabeth Gaines talks to David Estes. She is interested in possibly recruiting Brody to run for public office but has questions about his mental stability. Brody gets a ride home from Mike after a speech to a graduating class of troops. The conversation turns to Brody and his family. Brody turns hostile and sarcastically thanks Mike for "being there" for his family and for his wife, strongly implying he knows about Mike's affair with Jessica. Brody later starts making veiled comments to Jessica implying the same.

Carrie has one day left before the FISA warrant expires, and still has no solid evidence against Brody, during the month that Carrie Mathison has been obsessively watching him. Mathison asks Saul for an extension on the warrant, but Saul says to focus on the money trail instead and that the surveillance equipment in Brody's house must be removed the first chance she gets. The next day while the Brodys are at church, Carrie, Virgil, and Max enter their house and remove all the cameras and microphones. Carrie takes the opportunity to search Brody's house, and the garage which had no cameras, but finds nothing suspicious.

At Langley, Carrie delivers a briefing where she explains that nine hours after Lynne's death, Latif Bin Walid was seen at a laundromat which is also a known front for a Hawala location. Since then, they have security camera footage of 51 customers entering the laundromat, any of whom could be the recipient of the money transfer via the sold necklace. Their job is to investigate those 51 people. Raqim Faisel, the man who bought the house near the airport along with Aileen Morgan, is on the list. Carrie eventually turns her attention to Raqim when it's learned that he made three recent trips to Pakistan. Carrie, along with analyst Danny Galvez (Hrach Titizian), start looking into his past and agree to surveil him the next day.

Carrie and Danny follow Raqim as he heads home from work. Aileen is home and receives a call from an unknown source, saying "tell him traffic is bad on the Beltway". Aileen immediately runs upstairs and posts an American flag in the window, which is a signal to Raqim to steer clear of the house. Raqim spots the flag and keeps driving. Carrie and Danny continue to follow him for a while, come up empty, and eventually take him off the list of suspects.

The Brodys are hosting a party at their house. Gunshots are heard in the backyard. Everyone runs outside to find that Brody has killed a deer that had wandered into their yard, much to everyone's shock, especially Chris (Jackson Pace) who previously had taken a liking to the deer. Jessica finally unloads all her frustrations on Brody, taking him to task for his carelessly using a weapon and terrifying their children, along with his sexual dysfunctions and overall disturbing behavior since his return. She demands that he seek some kind of counseling.

The next night, Brody tells a relieved Jessica that he's decided to go to a veteran's support group meeting. Carrie, after losing her camera feeds, has resorted to staking out Brody's house; she follows him there. She walks in to the meeting and pretends to bump into him. Brody recognizes her from the CIA debriefing. Carrie acts embarrassed and says she's not supposed to be there. She leaves, but Brody follows her outside. The two have a brief, flirtatious conversation. They form a connection over their mutual wartime experience in the Middle East, and lament how hard it is to talk about with people who weren't there.

Quotes[]

Abu Nazir David, remember him? Two horns, long tail, strong smell of sulfer... I think we found out how he's financing his attack.
—Saul Berenson to David Estes

Carrie, he's now in your rearview mirror. You go in another direction.” — BERENSON, Saul

Not because I was a POW for eight years, but because my face has been plastered all over T.V. for the last three weeks...
—Nick Brody to Mike Faber about him being considered a rock star by the recruits.

Carrie: The guy hasn't broken the speed limit once
Danny: does that make more or less suspicious
Carrie: Makes him boring like shit...

—Carrie Mathison and Danny Glavez as they follow Raquim Faisel

“Besides, I’m better at spilling my guts to total strangers anyway.”- Carrie for Brody

Galvez says something along the lines of "Did you and Estes really..." and Carrie says "yea don't look so surprised" to which Danny replies "There just doesn't seem to be any love lost between you two" and Mathison"I was on the wrong side of that bet".

“You barely sleep, you turn your back on your friends, you scare your children!” - Jessica for Brody

-Maybe we could hold our own private meeting out here, how’s that sound? (Brody)

-It’s tempting. (Carrie)

-Right? (Brody)

Reviews[]

“In television you’re talking about writers all the time, ‘the writers,’ 'my writers,’ but you just cannot overestimate the importance of our directors, especially Michael Cuesta, who worked with Claire and Damian a lot in the pilot establishing what that connection is, talking about what each character’s motivation is. We sat in [the writers’ room], overdid it, ad nauseam, talking about that stuff. And that scene outside the church in the rain was really the culmination of all those discussions, and all the cat-and-mouse that was going on between these two characters. And Michael’s idea was not to do a lot of rehearsal, just to throw them into the situation and see what happened. Michael didn’t direct that particular episode, but he was there, and we talked a lot about it with Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who did direct the episode. And we all just crossed our fingers in hope that something magic would happen, and I think it did.”

"The first time after the pilot when Brody and Carrie crossed paths after a support-group meeting for vets, the show changed because of what happened on-screen between those two actors.” In fact, when he saw the rushes, the chemistry between them made the scene so much better than he could have imagined. “I don’t think we were as committed to some kind of romantic relationship between them until that moment.”–Alex Gansa on Carrie and Brody’s "first meet.”

Cast[]

Starring[]

Guest Starring[]

Co-Starring[]

Annika Boras as Jessica's Friend
Viviana Chavez as Estes Aide
Des Epps as Younger Vet
George Bryant as Discussion Leader

Background information[]

Ratings[]

The original broadcast had 1.1 million viewers which exceeded the rating of the pilot episode.^[1]

Reviews[]

Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A-, and praised the new story arcs and the fleshing out of some of the secondary characters.^[2] Scott Collura of IGN gave an 8.5/10 rating, and said regarding the final scene "Claire Danes and Damian Lewis are great together onscreen, and the show has been building to this moment since the pilot".^[3]

External links[]

Episode page at Showtime
Episode page at IMDb
Episode page at TV.com

Videos[]

Season 1

#101	"Pilot"	#107	"The Weekend"
#102	"Grace"	#108	"Achilles Heel"
#103	"Clean Skin"	#109	"Crossfire"
#104	"Semper I"	#110	"Representative Brody"
#105	"Blind Spot"	#111	"The Vest"
#106	"The Good Soldier"	#112	"Marine One"

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