The Star

The Star
Written by:	Alex Gansa & Meredith Stiehm
Directed by:	Lesli Linka Glatter
Production number:	3WAH12
Running time:	60 minutes
Original airdate:	December 15, 2013
Viewers (millions):	2.38

The Star is the season finale of Season 3 of Homeland. It aired on December 15, 2013.

Synopsis

Security forces close in on Carrie and Brody. As Saul plans a last ditch rescue operation, Brody struggles to find redemption.

Episode guide

Having just killed Akbari, Brody steals Akbari's pistol and calmly walks out of the building. He is picked up by the driver who took him there. Brody forces the driver out of the car at gunpoint. He goes to meet Carrie and they drive to a safe house about a hundred miles away.

Majid Javadi confirms that Akbari is dead but suggests that Saul abandon Carrie and Brody because their capture would increase Javadi's chances of getting Akbari's job. Javadi promises that he would get Carrie out afterwards. Saul refuses and proceeds to organize an extraction involving the military and several helicopters. Dar Adal betrays him and informs Senator Lockhart, who quickly gets the president's agreement to take command of the CIA, even though his time in the job is not for another 11 hours. Lockhart calls off the extraction and gives the safe house's location to Javadi, whose troops go there, albeit with orders to leave Carrie.

At the safe house, Carrie tells Brody about her pregnancy and Brody starts to feel confident about his road ahead. Brody and Carrie leave the house when they hear their rescue helicopter, not knowing it is false sound being generated by a loudspeaker. Brody is immediately seized by Iranian military forces and Carrie screams as she is left behind.

Brody is given a speedy trial and sentenced to be hanged publicly. Mathison is not sure how to help Nicholas. Though undisturbed by the notion of being executed while he waits, he tells her that he has accepted his fate. That he really wants to die, because Brody sees the world as a cruel place. Carrie attends, pushing her way through the crowd to reach the chain link fence surrounding the execution zone, having mourned that entire day. She looks on, devastated, then climbs the fence and calls his name loudly so Brody knows she is there.

Four months pass. Carrie has chosen not to have an abortion because she "wanted a part" of Brody, who is the father. She tells Quinn that she is afraid of motherhood; however, he encourages her to keep the baby. Lockhart has a meeting with Carrie where he promotes her to station chief in Istanbul. Not only is Istanbul the most prestigious station, Carrie has become the youngest station chief in CIA history. Carrie asks whether, at the upcoming CIA memorial, Brody might be given a star alongside the fallen agents, but Lockhart refuses because Brody was not a CIA employee and the director does not believe that an erstwhile would-be terrorist merits such an honor. Meeting later her sister and father, Carrie tells them she plans to give the baby up but her father offers to adopt the child.

Saul is fired after Lockhart took office and went to work in the private sector, paid much more money. He gets an invitation to attend the upcoming CIA memorial. He speaks with Dar Adal and Carrie after seeing them again, and conveys he still prefers the CIA over private industry. Later that night, hours after the memorial, Carrie walks through the CIA's halls, approaches the memorial wall, and furtively draws a star in memory of Brody with a marker pen.

Quotes

“I was born in the desert ... That’s where my old man was stationed ... At least he isn’t around anymore. I’m the son that broke his heart.” -Brody to Carrie, on the drive over to the safe house
“Mathison: I'm pregnant. Nicholas : What? Mathison: I'm four months pregnant. From our time at the lake. Nicholas: Carrie, Jesus. Mathison: As if things couldn't get more complicated, right? Nicholas: You should've said something... Mathison: Well, I'm saying it now. Nicholas : Hey. Mathison: Don't. Nicholas : Hey, hey. Mathison: Look, I don't know what happens back home either, kind of a life we have or we don't have, whether it's together or apart, but there will be a life. And I'm not sorry about that. Not for one single second. Because I happen to believe one of the reasons I was put on this earth was for our paths to cross. And, yeah, I know how crazy that sounds. Nicholas : Are you through yet? Mathison: No. [pauses] Mathison: Yes. Nicholas : 'Cause I don't think that sounds crazy at all. I think it sounds like the only sane fucking thing left to hold onto. Mathison: Well, okay then.” - Carrie to Brody at the safe house, after she tells him she’s pregnant
“Fucking pussies, all of ya.” -Saul to Senator Lockhart and company after Lockhart authorizes Brody’s capture to Javadi
“Why would anyone do that to themselves? Why would you? And I think I know now. It was always about [Brody]. That’s what you care about. Maybe the only thing. Who Brody is, that’s for Allah to know. But what he did, that’s undeniable. It was astonishing ... Everyone sees him in your eyes now. Saul. The president. Lockhart. Even me.” - Javadi to Carrie, on the day of Brody’s execution
“No one’s judging [Brody]. I’m just not memorializing him on the walls outside the building.” -Lockhart to Carrie, after he rejects her request to commemorate him with a star at Langley
“It took me this far for me to realize that it’s impossible. I can’t be a mother. Because of me. Because of my job. Because of my problems. I’ll be a great station chief. I’ll be obsessed, I’ll be ruthless... all the same reasons I can’t.” -Carrie to Peter Quinn about her doubts on becoming a mother
“Two old-schools coming up.” -Waitress to Saul and Dar Adal at a smoky diner, a scene that looked straight out of the 1950s
“You’re not leaving her like your mother did to you.” - Carrie’s dad, emotional after Carrie admits she’s scared to be a mother
“I want it to be over.” -Brody

Comments

“The Star” begins with another of those “Homeland” sequences where you have to nod and smile and mutter, “Just go with it” for it to make any damn sense at all, as Brody somehow walks out of Akbari’s office while his secretary and bodyguards are all on a simultaneous coffee break and makes it practically to the outer gate of the most secure complex in all of Iran before somebody notices that he murdered the head honcho. Previously, “Homeland” has presented a version of Iran so dangerous, intractable and impenetrable that Saul would have to resort to this crazy plan to make any headway.

In addition, it’s the second episode in a row that skips over some of the most potentially meaty material: in this case, how the people of Iran, America, and the world react to the latest abrupt, insane turn in the story of Nicholas Brody, who has gone (in the public eye) from presumed killed in action, to rescued war hero, to rookie congressman with an inside track at the vice-presidency, to the heinous terrorist who bombed the CIA, to an international fugitive, to a revered hero in Iran for the aforementioned bombing, to a despised, swiftly-executed assassin whom all Iranians despise. I suppose this is one of many “Homeland” threads it’s best not to pull on too much, but it was only last week that he was being cheered in the streets of Tehran while Americans were appalled. Javadi(*) tells Carrie that now everyone sees Brody through her eyes, but I imagine it’s more that most people are confused as all get out by this guy. Was there any public statement as to why he killed Akbari? Has he just been written off as a mercurial, equal-opportunity murderer? - ALAN SEPINWALL

(*) During the stretch of the episode where Brody and Carrie are trying to get out of the country together, why does no one mention the very real and very dangerous possibility that Brody would be tortured while in custody, and reveal who it was who assigned him to commit this crime, and what role Javadi has in all of this? For that matter, what on earth is Carrie doing telling the soldiers to call her pal Javadi to fix things?

Ruined: Nicholas Brody's Death

The decision to kill off one of the two best characters was a misinformed one. Part of what made the first three seasons so great was the presence of the radicalized Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis). His interactions with CIA agent Carrie Mathison were amazing. She was doing her best to bring him down yet she couldn't help but grow emotionally attached to him.

Sadly, in the third season, he was sacrificed to give viewers a shocking death. Shocking indeed as he was hanged from a crane courtesy of a death sentence in Iran. Movie and TV deaths can make the plot even better, but Damian Lewis was too good as Brody (he won an Emmy) and the void he left was alwsays felt.

Scenes deleted

Season 3 deleted scene - Brody's name is cleared

Cast

Main Cast

Guest Starring

Co-Starring

Jack Solomon as David Weissman
Caroline Renfro as Anchor
Gezell Fleming as Waitress
Amal Essaqr as Bahar
Anas el Akil as Security Guard
Younes Bouab as IRGC Commander

Note

Although credited, Morena Baccarin, Jackson Pace and Morgan Saylor do not appear in this episode

Videos

Season 3

#301	"Tin Man Is Down"	#307	"Gerontion"
#302	"Uh... Oh... Ah..."	#308	"A Red Wheelbarrow"
#303	"Tower of David"	#309	"One Last Thing"
#304	"Game On"	#310	"Good Night"
#305	"The Yoga Play"	#311	"Big Man in Tehran"
#306	"Still Positive"	#312	"The Star"