‘Homeland’ Recap: Brody Appears In Venezuela; Carrie Remains Institutionalized

by uInterviewOctober 14, 2013, 12:00 amNews >

Homeland’s third episode of season three saw the return of Brody (Damian Lewis) and a noticeable lack of a number of the characters that dominated the first two episodes – Saul (Mandy Patinkin), Quinn (Rupert Friend) and Dana (Morgan Saylor).

Brody arrives on the screen sporting gunshot wounds to the stomach in Caita La Mar, Venezuela, as he’s kidnapped by a guy named El Nino and delivered to the Tower of David in Caracas. There, he’s tended to a doctor (Erik Dellums) in a poorly lit room of questionable sterilization. When he wakes up, El Nino’s daughter Esme (Martina Garcia) is there to help nurse him back to health. She offers him some drugs, which he refuses, saying, “No more, I can’t think,” and sounding quite a bit like Carrie (Claire Danes).

When El Nino pays Brody a visit at his recovery bed, he tells the wanted man that there’s a sizeable bounty on his head and that keeping him safe will be far from a guarantee. El Nino also informs Brody that he’s trying to help him because of his connection to Carrie. As El Nino exits the room, a disoriented Brody looks out his tower window, contemplating who to trust and where to go next.

Eventually Brody’s curiosity gets the better of him and he ignores his doctor’s orders to go exploring the Tower of David. The doctor comes across a sickly looking Brody and reproaches him before trying to make him understand where he is. "The world outside can be judgmental and cruel. We're here because this is the place that accepts us,” he tells Brody, refusing to verbalize why exactly he’s there. “We're here because we belong here.”

Brody isn’t wooed into any sense of security by the doctor’s speech, and makes an escape attempt. El Nino and his men are able to stop him before he makes it out, however. El Nino manages to get Brody to go back to his quarters of his own volition, but Brody still won’t submit to taking the numbing drug. In his room, he decides that in his next escape attempt, he’ll seek asylum in a nearby mosque. He believes that since he’s a Muslim, the imam will sympathize with his persecution.

With Esme’s help, Brody manages to get out of the Tower of David undetected and make his way to the mosque. After letting Esme down easy, telling her he won’t be able to take her with him, he gets the imam to invite him inside the mosque.

Back in D.C., Carrie remains institutionalized. She’s trying her best to be stable and pleads with her doctors to see how much she’s improved, but her efforts are futile. After unsuccessfully convincing them that she knows she’s better on on her meds and should be released, she intentionally slams her head on a mirror. Nurse Abby (Marcia DeBonis) stops her, and, unlike the others, takes a moment to hear what she has to say.

Abby also gives Carrie a note that reveals a man has been showing up in the hopes of meeting with her. Carrie believes it’s Saul, but it’s actually attorney Paul Franklin (Jason Butler Harner), who wants to help her. Just as she did when Quinn offered to help and vowed that he was on her side, Carrie shuts him down. "You think I'm vulnerable, you think I'm weak," she tells him before storming off back to the institution. As she passes through the rec room, she feels herself on the verge of a breakdown and requests her medication.

Brody, meanwhile, gets taken by police officers at the mosque. Before the authorities can take him away, El Nino and his men show up, shooting the police and the imam dead. Back at the tower, El Nino reprimands Brody. "I told you, 'Don't leave,' but you go," El Nino says. "This is what happens. We all get trouble.” The former marine finally appears broken, accepting the syringe and tourniquet and letting the drugs take him away.

– Chelsea Regan

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