Tonight’s new episode of Homeland season 4, titled “Halfway to a Donut,” found Carrie turning against one of her closest friends.

It was only two weeks ago that Carrie was willing to kill Saul – even though she wasn’t thinking straight. In tonight’s episode, she was willing to break a promise in order to protect the former CIA leader, because only one thing matters: Beating the Pakistanis.

Homeland season 4, episode 8 kicked off with Carrie waking up the day after her meth ride, but she’s confused as to what happened. Aasar steps into the scene and reminds her about the Brody vision. Poor Carrie! She’s probably just as confused as Aasar, who is also wondering who turned against her and switched out the medicine.

Aasar then heads to his meeting with Lockhart, where a television shows Saul being forced to step in front of the cameras. He asks the Americans to do nothing that the Pakistanis or Haqqani ask. After he’s whisked away, Haqqani steps in front of the camera and names five terrorists he wishes to exchange for Saul.

Saul does not want to be bait and would rather inflict damage on himself. He manages to pull one of the nails up from the floorboards to damage himself — or so it seems. He actually uses the nail to break free of his handcuffs!

Meanwhile at Aasar’s, Carrie almost swallows another one of her meth pills but then quickly rethinks it (thank God – we weren’t ready for another meth trip). It’s here that we see Carrie’s realized she was drugged. She asks Aasar if it was him who replaced the meds, and he says no (and is apparently honest).

Back at the embassy, Carrie calls a private meeting with Lockhart and Quinn. They agree that Haqqani’s demands are unacceptable, and Carrie warns of a mole inside the embassy.

Next, Saul proves he’s one of the most badass characters this season. After breaking free of his cuffs, he pretends to hang himself – which alerts the security guard outside his cell. When the guard comes in to stop him from dying, Saul grabs the guy and kills him with his bare hands.

He manages to grab a phone and call Carrie, who gets the group together to launch an extraction plan. They put a plan together thanks in part to an asset nearby, but first Saul makes Carrie promise that he will “escape or die” – he doesn’t want to be a pawn in this game. She agrees, and he heads off to the asset, Azam.

The trouble is that Pakistan is on to them. Carrie exits her meeting with Pakistanis officials early to come up with a new plan to rescue Saul. She instructs him to head towards the back of a hospital, and just in time – the taliban show up near Azam’s safe house.

Unfortunately the taliban keep pouring into the area, and Saul thinks there’s no way out, so he decides he wants to end his life. He puts a gun to his head and almost pulls the trigger. It was in this moment that we clasped our hands to our mouths because we thought he would really do it, but luckily he pulls it away after Carrie begins begging him to stay alive.

Carrie guides him as she watches with a drone – it’s a beautiful moment where Saul finally has a will to live thanks to the reassurances Carrie just made to him.

Unfortunately, Carrie breaks the promise. She guides him right to the taliban on purpose so he can be captured (but importantly, not killed) again. She knew there was no way for him to escape, but she didn’t want him to die. It was the right decision by Carrie, because Saul – like Carrie a couple episodes ago – isn’t thinking straight. The country has a duty to save the former CIA director even though he doesn’t find himself so valuable. And considering he chose to break out of the cell, he does want to live to some extent.

Upset about the failed mission, Lockhart goes back to the conference room and tells the Pakistanis they’ll meet Haqqani’s demands.

Later that night Carrie is heading to bed when the phone rings. It’s Aasar, who wants to meet Carrie face to face.

He wants her to know that he wasn’t responsible for drugging her, but he stops short of saying who could’ve done it — until Carrie thanks him for caring for her while she was having visions of Brody. Apparently pleased that she remembered that precious moment, Aasar tells her it was Dennis, the Ambassador’s wife, who was responsible for the medicine swap (viewers may remember that he spotted Dennis and Tasleem talking earlier this episode when she assigned Dennis a new task).

What did you think of ‘Homeland’ season 4, episode 8?

Does Aasar have feelings for Carrie? Did he just feel bad about what happened to her? He seemed to connect with Carrie’s feeling that being drugged was completely unfair.

Then there’s the issue of Saul. Presumably he is going to be rescued at this point, but now there’s the question of how he’ll react to seeing Carrie face to face. Hopefully, in hindsight, he’ll be appreciative of her actions — after he forgets about the temptation to slug her.

Only four more episodes to go this season!