This week, a confrontation between Saul and Dar Adal continued to fester, while Quinn got some answers, and Carrie…well, Carrie was in this episode for a little bit, though she didn’t do a whole lot of anything.
The episode kicks off with an episode of the Alex Jones clone, a guy named Brett O’Keefe, who has ex-military members on his show to criticize President elect Keane and her son. A man named Rudy wants to bail on O’Keefe’s show, but he convinces Rudy to stay on and describe the day Keane’s son died. Rudy then intimates that Keane’s son was running away when he was shot, and that he wasn’t a hero. I’m sure this is going to go over very well.
Saul goes to a soup kitchen to meet with Javadi, and the two don’t exchange much intel, but do let each other know to watch their respective back. Saul then visits Carrie, who is in the throes of depression in Franny’s room, and asks for her help. To foster some goodwill (no pun intended), he takes Carrie to the foster house where Franny is to show that she’s safe and happy.
He then asks her to get Javadi a meeting with President elect Keane, and tells her what he knows about Nafisi and the Iran deal. Carrie then briefs Saul on her dalliances with Dar Adal, Sekou Bah, and Agent Conlin, and reveals to Saul that she wasn’t sure if he was working with Dar and could be trusted.
Quinn and Astrid walk through the woods, and Quinn opens up about his condition and how he’s feeling. After they return to the house, Astrid goes for a run and leaves Quinn alone. He proceeds to snoop around the house, ands finds a manila envelope containing some cash, his meds, and a passport. In the car, he finds a gun, which he unloads and chucks the bullets into the lake.
The pair go into town for some grocery shopping, and Quinn sees the man who confronted him at the apartment complex across the street from Carrie’s at the store, chatting with Astrid. He then sees him entering a seedy motel with his provisions from the store. Upon their return to the lakehouse, he asks her some questions about why she’s here and whose house they’re staying in. Unsatisfied by her actions, Quinn punches her in the gut, storms out, and drives to the motel, where he begins a stakeout.
Carrie picks Javadi up from the soup kitchen (interrupting a compelling game of checkers), and takes him to Keane. On the way, Javadi discusses Saul and the line of their work with Carrie. Javadi then reveals he lied to Saul about the nuclear plan, and that Iran is in fact pursuing a parallel program in North Korea. Keane leaves in anger, despite the pleading of both Saul and Carrie. Javadi then reveals he cut a deal with Dar Adal for his safety.
Dar and O’Keefe then view a helmet video taken of the operation that killed Keane, which reveals that he wasn’t in fact running away, but was running to help the soldiers under his command. They then view a propaganda video with some of the clips from the earlier video, and the helmet video included ends before his acts of bravery are included. This is more than a bit fucked up more my tastes.
At the motel, the man from the apartment shows back up. Quinn ambushes him with a tire iron, and drags him into the room…only to find out it’s someone else. He returns to the lake house looking for Astrid, who is more than a bit pissed off at him and ready to leave.
After they make up, a sniper (apartment man! For real this time!) takes a shot at Quinn through the window. He only gets grazed, but Astrid goes to the car for the gun (which you’ll remember Quinn unloaded earlier). She takes aim at the sniper, nothing happens, and she gets shot. He finishes her off to Quinn’s dismay, and goes after Quinn, eventually chasing him down to the lake and seemingly shooting him into the water. Quinn eventually resurfaces after he disappears, and man, he’s gonna be pissed off.
Okay, so here’s where we are.
-Saul’s top asset is actually Dar’s top asset, and Saul (and Carrie, now) is pissed off about that.
-Dar is the puppetmaster of O’Keefe’s awful radio show.
-Keane is really in a bad spot, as two of her national security advisers came up empty in their attempts to prove the Iranian nuclear deal wasn’t being cheated on. This is what Dar was hoping for the whole time.
-Astrid’s dead, Quinn’s about to go on a rampage, and the man in the apartment is now his mortal enemy. We also still don’t know his name or how he’s tied to anything, but he clearly is.
The Quinn storyline seemed like the priority this week, and it was definitely pushed in a serious direction with his Dar-appointed keeper getting picked off by someone who is apparently one of Dar’s cronies. If Quinn finds out apartment man is tied to Dar, he’s going to blow a gasket. But is Dar the one who gave the order to have Quinn (and Astrid, I guess) killed, or did apartment man go rogue?
I’m still not enamored with the Carrie storyline, and it seems like she’s on the backburner right now. She knows not to bother Franny at the foster home (who knows if she’ll actually listen, though), she’s not involved in the major plot lines (Dar vs Keane, anything involving Quinn since his disappearance), and seems like a tangential character at this point.
That brings me to Saul, who has been iced out of nearly every job he’s ever had, and a confrontation with Dar has been slowly building up for quite awhile. Will we finally get there? It seems like this is finally the season where the shit hits the fan, and there’s no clear answer as to who will remain standing.
