How do you please the CIA, Abu Nazir, the vice president, your wife and your daughter all at once? Answer: You can’t.
Carrie Mathison may not be the most stable of CIA agents, but she’ll certainly need her kid gloves if she plans on keeping Brody on her side. Homeland’s initial appeal certainly came from the stone cold assuredness Sergeant Nicolas Brody radiated in nearly every scene, a far cry from the fragile man he’s become. Brody’s balancing act between working with the CIA, maintaining a bond with Vice President Walden and riding the rollercoaster of family life was in full force on last night’s episode “The Clearing.” The cracks in Brody’s armor are there,and it just seems like a matter of time before he starts to break down.
The episode begins with a coy Brody running into Roya Hammad while on a jog. He continues to play the role of Abu Nazir golden boy, listening to her demands to step up his efforts in light of the recent attack at the tailor’s shop. With six federal agents now dead, it’s more imperative than ever that Brody maintain his allegiance to his former savior and super-terrorist Nazir. Brody gives off an air of discontent at ramping up his role, but just enough to keep Roya on his side without compromising his undercover role for the CIA.
Soon after, we see the Brody’s en route to a political fundraiser thrown by Rex Henning, a war veteran and wealthy contributor to Walden’s presidential campaign. With Chris and Dana in the other car, Brody takes the moment alone to confront his wife about Mike coming over to the house the other night. Instead of being caught off guard by an accusation from Brody, she uses it as an opportunity to question her husband about his involvement with Tom Walker. The new and improved “truthful” Brody gives his version of the “truth.” Instead of denying it and denouncing Mike, he claims he was involved with CIA efforts at the time to stop Walker, who had become “too dirty to fix,” and soon found himself having to “clean up the mess.”
Brody’s new sense of the truth seems to be just enough to keep both himself and his wife happy. No mention of his terrorist past and an almost full reveal of his work with the CIA leads to a comfortable medium that he seems to be able to live with for now. How long this can last will remain to be seen, but it looks like the old man is back in the good graces of his doubting wife.
In the other car, Dana and Finn continue to debate their ever-growing conundrum of whether or not to disclose to their parents the hit and run they were evolved in. An anxious Dana continues to plead her case to Finn, who eventually agrees to confesss, seemingly only to shut his girlfriend up for a minute.
As they arrive at the fundraiser, Henning greets the family and then pulls Brody aside, leading to a full-on schmooze fest. He seems to understand Brody, giving him usual shtick about everyone hoisting him up as a “hero” when in reality he’s just like any other guy. Henning seems to have good intentions, but the conversation ultimately leads to him asking Brody to accept the Vice Presidential nomination and even look towards the Presidency for himself. A befuddled Brody plays it cool, giving a slight smirk and shaking his head, but underneath he knows just impossible that would be.
Meanwhile, as the CIA attempts to gather more information on the mystery associate working with Abu Nazir, they send Saul to talk to terrorist sympathizer Aileen Morgan. Captured last season after it was discovered that she was working for Nazir, her relationship with Saul after their long road trip from Mexico to DC leads the CIA to believe that he’ll be able to coerce some information out of her.
What ensues is a classic cat and mouse game, where Aileen refuses to divulge anything until Saul agrees to move her from solitary confinement to a cell with a window. With help from the attorney general and a little red wine, he is able to get a name and a location for this mystery man and hopefully some more information on the suspected terrorist attack.
Saul relays this newfound information to the CIA and they storm the house of the suspected terrorist. Instead they find an innocent man who knew Aileen as a child, not an Abu Nazir sympathizer planning the next attack on the United States. A frustrated Saul goes back to confront Aileen, only to find that she’s killed herself using the glass from his reading glasses. Saul’s vulnerability could certainly become a storyline to follow as this seems to be his first real slip-up and the series hasn’t dealt with his fallibility before.
Back at the fundraiser, all hell breaks loose as Dana and a reluctant Finn reveal their hit and run to their mothers. While both are horrified and can recognize the potential ramifications if this information gets out, Mrs. Walden seems to take a different approach to dealing with this than Mrs. Brody. The Vice President’s wife elects to follow her son’s lead and let the situation take care of itself, not wanting the authorities to get involved. The ever-righteous Mrs. Brody, however, disagrees wholly, feeling that justice would certainly not be served.
Eventually, Jessica Brody tells her husband of the incident and he instantly agrees that the right course of action would be to go to the police. He quickly sweeps his daughter away, aiming to do the right thing for once and hopefully have karma swing his way. A weary Estes takes notice of Brody’s exit and orders Carrie to track him down and stop him from blowing his cover.
As Brody arrives at the police station, he finds none other than Agent Carrie Mathison waiting for him. As he leaves Dana in the car to go talk to her, you can see the blood quickly drain from his face. Of course, she orders him not to go into the police station, as that would surely dissolve his relationship with Walden and self-destruct the entire operation. Once again, his integrity has been compromised. In this situation there’s no one solution that pleases the CIA, Walden and his family. He decides that now may not be the best time to go to the police, upsetting an already weary Dana and infuriating his own conscience. Brody is at a breaking point. There are only so many people he can please before he starts to break down, and that day doesn’t seem to be too far away.
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