Aired Sunday December 15, 2013
Written by Gansa and Meredith Stiehm who also penned last season's finale
This is part 1 of 3. Part 2 will discuss the season as a whole and what's down the pike. Part 3 will pick up the loose strands.
Brody's swan song bluntly states the case for redemption. In a Walter White-esque farewell, Brody redeems himself to the maximum extent possible * (however much that is), dying as a tool of the country he once served and betrayed (and murdered the vice president of).
* Cases like these almost always rely on the now despised character dying in a heroic act. Because of how far they've done gone, it's the only path back.
I say "as a tool of" rather than "in service of" because Brody's motivations never appeared to be of a rediscovered patriotism or desire serve his country, but as an opportunity to for him to repair his own image in the eyes of a small group of people, and to himself.
With all the pieces laid out, I'd say there were two main stories this year. One was to accomplish a mission of opening Iran via a highly placed asset. The other was to tell the end of Brody's story via his participation in that mission, allowing him an iota of redemption should he successfully complete it.
The Operation
While everyone at Langley thinks all is lost with Brody's assassination mission, Brody is nonchalantly murdering the head of the Revolutionary Guard*. He's apparently entered the cheat code for unlimited time to complete the mission and soon after walks out and escapes one step ahead of the law. Immediately, his escape and the accomplishment of the overall mission are in conflict with each other to the extent where they are nearly mutually exclusive. Javadi needs Brody to solidify his position with the Iranian government, the penultimate step in this cavalcade of whatever. All while the clock ticks (and what would this show be without a ticking clock) on Saul's CIA administration.
In what has to stem more from his support of Carrie than his rational thought about the mission, Saul commences with Brody's extraction until Dar and CIA-Gene Kranz run it up the flag pole and get Lockhart installed as director a few hours ahead of time. They scrap the mission and give Javadi what he needs to look like a hero in Iran.
The original inner line segment of this mission seem intent on jeopardizing it (until a literal or figurative bullet is put through them) while Lockhart, the critic, does what's necessary in the end. While Carrie and Saul didn't give a second thought to covering up Javadi's murder-icious encounter with his ex-wife, they doesn't want to help him do exactly what he's there to do.
So, they aren't at the CIA safe house even long enough to check the chore chart and see who was supposed to stock the fridge and clean up before Javadi's there taking Brody into custody.
Unfortunately for Brody, someone ripped out everything in their copy of the Sixth Amendment after the part about a speedy and public trial....which he technically gets. Definitely the speedy part. No waiting for Monday morning arraignments for your drunken Friday night fight here. The rest of it, about a jury and laws, not so much. He's executed in gruesome fashion. I guess he technically is hanging there, by a noose, but it's all just a really roundabout way of strangling him. There's no Seth Bullock to help him with the drop. Brutal.
Saul
Saul is on his way out the door and does the token packing up of his desk, but not without placing Javadi where he can accomplish what Saul intended all along, opening Iran. I imagine he gets a pension bump for his time as acting director, so it's off to consulting land where you get paid a lot more for doing less. Saul's earned it after all. I don't believe Dar's correct when he states that Saul misses it. I imagine after living that life for decades it is impossible to banish it from your mind, but enough's enough. Saul goes so far as to echo last year's MVPeter Quinn* wondering what in the ever loving fuck are they even doing?
* And what happened with that storyline? Is he quitting or not?
He's either living or spending time in what I will say is Cuba because Saul is wearing the official "Americans in Cuba in a movie" hat. Having eaten shit and been forced to play the political game not as a result of his normal career advancement but as a result of the worst act of terrorism since forever* I imagine he's had his fill. Saul acted like a director who was mid-level CIA management with unlimited resources while rebuilding from the inside. It wasn't a stop on his political tour or a resume line as he pondered national office. It was the culmination of a lifer who got to put into practice his wildest dreams because there was finally no one there to hassle him.
* Because when counting acts of terrorism against the United States it's always "acts of terror since (but not including) 9/11
Saul Berensen Vaccuum Repair Co. or whatever he is calling his intelligence consulting bit is primed to contract for Carrie in Turkey or Lockhart at Langley, lending his Old School expertise. Maybe he can hire Max and Virgil.
Carrie
The lady who didn't connect being pregnant with having a kid is the youngest station chief in CIA history. Luckily, she is not teaching biology or health or common sense. She's off to Turkey where among other things she'll keep an eye on Javadi. Which is kind of hilarious considering the nature of their first encounter.
Carrie wants the titular star for Brody, which makes no sense because Brody was an agent/asset. Lockhart states, correctly, Brody was not an employee which is one of the biggest criteria for getting a star. I imagine there are lots of assets who don't make it out alive. They're recruited, often via blackmail, for unsavory reasons. Look at Javadi. If he bites it, does he get a star? Obviously not.
Lockhart is the voice of reason here. Maybe that's how we're supposed to view it, discounting the justness of giving Brody a star and focus on Carrie's perspective of the question. In her mind, memorializing is justified, Brody is to mourned, and she's sad her guy is gone. And as corny as it was to Sharpie in a star, the stillness of it with the end credits was moving. So for this moment I'll without my typical Carrie judging and look at it from her point of view*.
Lockhart
The guy on the side of progress and technology can be the good guy or the bad guy, depending on how they change throughout the story and what "old ways" they are up against. If they go against ignorance, group think and tradition for the sake of tradition (Moneyball) they're the good guys. If they are cold and want to blow up the game without first learning where things stand (Up in the Air) it's a bad thing. Lockhart wanted to largely do away with the old ways of HUMINT, replacing much of their work with drones and putting him at odds with Saul's assessment of what was needed. He opposed or would have opposed nearly every aspect of Saul's plan. Rather than flesh him out at the start and have him present a credible alternative though, he was simply an opposing force to Saul who sandbagged him on the hunting trip about who was going to be director.
For a guy who started out as a cartoonish mean girl of a source of conflict, he deserves credit. He became a grudging but willing supporter of the Iran mission and allowed whatever needed to happen to happen. One could argue he was selfishly motivated and came around only because he was powerless to stop it and would inherit it regardless, thereby attaching his reputation to the mission's fate. But at least he is a competent and rational actor who can recognize what's needed and adapt.
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