The penultimate episode of Homeland seasons is when all of the dominoes are set into place, only to be knocked over in the finale. In season one, Brody got his explosive vest in episode 11. In season two, Abu Nazir was killed. In season three, Brody bludgeons Akbari to death. In season four, Carrie sees Dar in the car with Haqqani right before Quinn is about to detonate the bomb to take Haqqani out. In season five, Saul and Carrie realize that Allison is working against them.
And then, there’s season six. I think the main takeaway from this season’s eleventh episode will be “oh shit, we learned just what the hell the goal of the disinformation plan was”. What was that goal? Good question! Let us begin…
This week, we kick off right where we left off last week in the attic across the street from Apartment Man. Quinn explains what happened to Carrie (including his theories about Apartment Man and the Sekou Bah conspiracy), and reveals he knows she caused his condition. Carrie tries to talk him out of murder. It doesn’t go so well. This results in Quinn doing a monkey impression before collapsing.
Saul makes his way through a protest outside of the President elect’s hotel headquarters, where she’s giving a speech defending her son and denouncing the video. It goes as well as expected, with one reporter asking her if she knew about the Secretary of Defense nominee withdrawing his name and another asking about a petition to remove her son’s body from Arlington. The press conference gets eerily quiet when a reporter asks if she’ll resign. She meets with Saul, who promises to explain more about the video’s origins.
Carrie and Quinn have a tearful goodbye when Quinn leaves to follow Apartment Man’s crack team of commandos.
Max is still in holding at the Brett O’Keefe sock puppet farm (which we later learn is called Onyx). O’Keefe and Dar interrogate Max and don’t learn much of anything. Dar also gives him a “do you know who I am?” during the conversation before Max lawyers up. That always ends well!
Keane, Dar, Rob, and the Solicitor General are having a conversation about what to do about Onyx and Dar, when an aide gets a call from O’Keefe taking responsibility for the video and asking her to make an appearance on his show. Everyone but Saul thinks that’s a ridiculous premise, but Saul disagrees and cites his experience with foreign regime changes as to what’s going on. Keane agrees with Saul.
Carrie uses the hidden key (in the same place?) at the staging house to get in. The alarm isn’t on (which should be a HUGE WARNING SIGN), and as she’s looking around, she finds the van in the garage. As Carrie is looking at the whiteboard, Apartment Man jumps her from behind. She fights him off with her elbows and a pair of chopsticks before Quinn bursts in, shoots Apartment Man in the leg, and pistol whips his face into ground beef.
A security guard at Onyx brings Quinn lunch. There’s a keycard on the tray, and Max makes his way out of Onyx (not so stealthily). As soon as he’s outside, he’s dragged into a black work van that looks suspiciously like the one that was used a few episodes ago to drag Quinn out of the hospital in the black of night.
Carrie and Quinn talk about the murder, and Quinn doesn’t seem to want immunity. Quinn reveals that Apartment Man killed Astrid and everything that happened at the cabin. Him and Carrie continue their discussion about the aftermath of Quinn’s stroke, and he claims that he’s “always been this way”. Man. That’s deep.
Keane shows up at O’Keefe’s studio, and we’re ready to roll.
Max is dragged into a random building where Dar is hanging out in a server room. This is ridiculous. Dar reveals that Quinn is developing an “online presence” lately, and Max confesses that doesn’t sound like Quinn at all. Dar wants Max to hack into O’Keefe’s computer, which he can’t do, but does claim he can access an off-site backup.
During the interview between O’Keefe and Keane, things quickly turn testy when he immediately plays the slanderous video. Keane brings up the one and a half million comments in the first minute of the video’s release, and brings up the creation of bots in the Office of Policy Coordination. She then accuses O’Keefe of being funded by the government (which is true!) and threatens to prosecute him. O’Keefe then takes a call from a “random” caller who responds to Keane with ad hominem attacks before she ends the interview.
The Solicitor General shows up at the staging house to meet Carrie (who reveals Apartment Man’s ID name was “portius belli”, which roughly translates to “gateway to war”, if my five years of Latin is on point) and takes a look at all of the evidence in the staging house.
Keane and Saul ride back to the motel in her motorcade, where protesters are lined up everywhere. Keane gets freaked out when things start turning violent outside.
Back at the staging house, Carrie and Quinn talk about his immunity deal and look at some of the information erased from the whiteboard. Carrie determines the crew that was in the house is going to strike somewhere on the East Coast from some of the time codes on the board, and she deduces that they’re going after Keane. Carrie calls Rob, who blows her off to deal with security issues amid “reinforcements” arriving at the hotel. The FBI agents cut open the lock on the garage, and a bomb goes off.
Max digs into O’Keefe’s creation of Quinn’s online persona, and finds out that he’s become preoccupied with Keane. Dar quickly realizes what’s going to happen.
So this is getting intense. The end goal of the disinformation campaign against Keane isn’t her resignation, but her death…at the hands of Quinn, who has no idea about what’s going on. Though if Dar really was so clueless about all of this, why did he hide Quinn at the lakehouse for his “protection”? That would make sense if he was complicit, but if he wasn’t (as this episode made him out to be), where’s the logic in that?
There isn’t much else to say, aside from that. Carrie is still not going to let go of Quinn, no matter what he says or does. Quinn has seemingly forgiven Carrie after their (very brief) fight and realized she truly does care about him. Max and Dar are working together (zuh?!) because Dar is scared about what may happen to Quinn.
And then there’s poor President elect Keane, who can’t win. If she stays silent, she’s attacked for being a coward. If she holds a press conference, the press is less than welcoming towards her. If she goes on a batshit insane radio show, her dead son is slandered. At this point, it would probably be best for her sanity if she *does* step down…but of course, that would be criticized as well.
One other thing – this show has gotten way too on the nose, which was exemplified when O’Keefe broke out the word “deplorable”. Gee, I wonder what actual politician that was referring to?! Homeland has done a good job this season of drawing parallels to the world we’re living in without being so blatant.
