Homeland Season 2 Finale "The Choice"

DISCLAIMER: SPOILER ALERT. If you haven't watched the season 2 finale of Homeland, don't read the post as it contains spoilers!

OHMYGOD.

What an episode! It was enough to bring be back from my 8 month long hibernation on my blog!

My head is still spinning from watching the 65-minute finale of Homeland. Running 25 minutes shorter than the season 1 finale this episode has a lot more variation of pace and emotions. Let's quickly dissect what it was all about! 

The bad:

Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed in the first 30 minutes – the start as I said. The issue at hand seems resolved. Abu Nazir is dead. Brody and Carrie are working towards being together. The remaining tension of this season i.e. the side plot of Brody’s assassination, is also resolved in the first half albeit in an absurd fashion. I mean come on! A man specifically hired for his lethal training and expertise in doing the ‘dark and dirty, off-the-record’ stuff suddenly develops a conscience? That I could have still digested if the only humane thing about Quinn hadn’t been his surprising defence of Carrie in front of Estes. But Quinn’s speech to Estes in his bedroom just knocked it down for me complete. Killing Brody would kill Carrie? Was he listening to Carrie and Brody as well when he was spying on them in the cabin? 

“Nothing happens to Brody….or you will find me in this bedroom one night, right back in that chair, ‘cause I’m the guy that kills bad guys.”

Did anyone find it eerie how Estes is symbolically stripped of his power suit when Quinn crushes his authority.

The Good:

The Plot! The minute Carrie realises what’s about to happen (“Oh fuck!”), the pace and the nature of the plot just flips on its head and makes this episode worthy of being a season finale. And of all the things, who expected Brody’s suicide speech to hit the channels?  At first I thought it was someone in the American government who leaked the video which meant there are still people there trying to get Brody. But I was (apparently) wrong. Such a delicious plot development!

Acting. I also enjoyed the two emotional heart-to-heard scenes between Carrie and Brody – first in her cabin and then when they are saying goodbyes. Claire Danes and Mathew Lewis are both very strong actors and portray their internal conflicts superbly. The dialogues too are sensitive and (thankfully) free of excessive platitudes.

“Whatever happens or doesn’t….this was love. You and me.”

Saul as always overshadows everyone else. I just can’t get over how awesome an actor Mandy Patinkin is. My favourite expression of the episode is in the last scene where Carrie comes back to him:

So much grief, relief and happiness at once.

The parallels of death

The juxtaposed scenes of Abu Nazir’s last rites and the memorial service for Vice President Walden are superbly weaved. It draws you to reflect on the extent to which different circumstances can define similar acts in such a different way. And when Saul starts praying for the dead in Washington (I’m presuming he is praying, I couldn’t understand it), it just intensifies the overwhelming presence of death everywhere, the cost everyone is paying and the inherent similarities of different religions.

In Conclusion

Although the first half hour of the episode is bland, but it is all a foundation for what is to happen later. As Brody says to Carrie, “we almost made it”.

I'm looking forward to Season 3 because I want to see how they will spin the storyline now. How Carrie will explain her prolonged absence, first from the hall and then after the attack? Since someone ‘moved’ Brody’s car, does that mean that the theme of an infiltrator be repeated again in season 3 but not with Brody at the heart of it? Will Lewis (Brody) be making guest appearance from now on and if so, can there be a Homeland without Brody?

So far the writers have done an outstanding job! 

It is all the more reason to watch out for the next season!  

I totally did not intend for the line to rhyme.