After a thrilling two-hour episode, was Homeland able to keep up the pace with season 4, episode 3? The answer is yes.
Our Homeland recap breaks down the events of season 4, episode 3, which found Carrie, and eventually Quinn, starting to piece together the mystery of Sandy.
The storyline begins in Islamabad, where Carrie visits the site where Sandy was walking when he was attacked. She’s trying to figure out what would’ve brought him to the area. When she steps out of the car, she begins having flashbacks to when the attack occurred.
She meets with the Ambassador, who has the organization on lockdown so no one can go out and investigate the Sandy case. Carrie naturally objects to this decision.
Carrie calls a meeting as the new Station Chief and asks about Jordan Harris and whether or not anyone agrees with him that Sandy was passing information to Pakistani intelligence (remember, Sandy had great sources and no one knows why). When no one offers anything substantial, she says they need to figure out what Sandy was up to. There’s also tension in the air after Carrie received the Station Chief job so quickly.
And then she proves why she’s capable of being the Station Chief. She secretly heads to a meeting with Fara while Pakistani personnel try to tail her. Also here is surveillance pro Max. It turns out that Carrie has secretly orchestrated a way to pick up Allyn. Fara will be posing as a journalist to get close to him so they can entice him to work with the CIA.
The next day Carrie encounters a surprise visit from Saul, who’s in town to personally deliver the security equipment he promised last week. She’s not so happy to see him because she’s got enough to deal with, and now she has to protect him! Ugh!
She can’t help but admit she needs his help, though. “One thing and then promise me you’ll go home,” Carrie says before asking he talk to the ambassador, who he’s friendly with, to lift the lock down. “Done,” he says simply.
Fara meets Allyn – or tries to, at least. He’s not comfortable sitting down with her and suspects she may be more than a journalist. When Fara reports this to Carrie, she thinks Allyn knows something more important than they realized.
That night, the ambassador approaches Carrie on the rooftop to make her aware of the lockdown violation. While chatting, the ambassador reveals she almost married Saul – which shocks Carrie – and confirms she’s lifting the lockdown, but only if Carrie promises a security plan and in person daily updates.
Her mission today? Get Allyn on her side. She traps him in a bathroom and convinces him to tell his story to her. In exchange, Carrie promises to get him out of Pakistan and a job as a physician if he wants it.
Quinn
At the CIA, Quinn is looking to get out of the organization. But first, the CIA needs to check in on his frame of mind. The interviewer starts asking about various aspects of the recent attack and questions if he and Carrie are “romantically involved” as Dar Adal watches from a separate room. Quinn storms out after being posed the question.
After his meeting, he heads back to the apartment where he’s sharing a bottle of schnapps with his manager/lover. She tries to talk to him about what his future may hold for his career, at which point he reveals he doesn’t have any sort of college degree.
Dar Adal stops by Quinn’s house for a chat because he’s concerned about Pete’s future. “Convince me that you can keep your shit together for now on,” he asks of Quinn. Or else? Re-training.
To make matters worse, Dar Adal suspects that Quinn has feelings for Carrie. If she weren’t in that car, Sandy would be alive, he argues. Quinn can’t believe this is happening and puts Dar Adal in a choke hold – maybe because his apartment manager is in the bedroom.
Later that night Quinn is still next to his bottle, watching video of the attack on YouTube. The video triggers a flashback, and he begins to realize he is responsible. He gets passed out drunk again, and the next morning he even gets pissed at his manager, who he asks to leave. She says she overheard what Dar Adal had to say, and agrees that no one should go through what he did with Sandy. She too thinks that Quinn has feelings for Carrie, but this time Quinn doesn’t react to the allegation.
While watching the video for the umpteenth time, Quinn notices a person standing out to the sidelines of the attack and talking on a device.
The revelation
Back at home after speaking to Allyn, Carrie pours a glass of wine and receives a call from Quinn, who fills her in on what he just discovered in the YouTube video. Quinn realizes that this whole takedown was premeditated by Pakistani intelligence. “The question is, why?” Carrie wonders, because Sandy was going to have to leave the country anyway.
Carrie asks for Quinn to come back into the fold so they can take care of this. He admits that he can never say no to her. “I fucking love you, Quinn, don’t you know that?”
“Yeah,” he whispers.
Showrunners have hinted that sparks may be in the air for Quinn and Carrie this season, so we’ll see how far the relationship goes in the episodes ahead. It doesn’t seem like Carrie has any sort of romantic feelings towards Quinn, so this situation may be a rough case of unrequited love.