Showtime Homeland "A Gettysburg Address" #206 "It's Complicated"

By Catherine Giordano

Showtime’s “Homeland” season 2, episode 6, entitled “A Gettysburg Address” is a thriller. I’ll skip right to the climatic last moments of the episode to explain that title. 

The title refers to the tailor shop in Gettysburg, the one run by Bassel, the man who made Brody’s suicide vest. In a previous episode, Roya asked Brody to take Bassel to a safe house, but things took a bad turn, and Brody ended up killing him.  

Brody tells Carrie’s team about the incident, but says Bassel died in a fall. This prompts the leader of the CIA team working with Brody, Peter Quinn, to take a group to search the shop. Suddenly, a SWAT team of terrorists breaks in, guns blazing. After killing everyone, they break into a false wall, and remove a large iron trunk, which they take with them when they leave. Quinn was shot and wounded, but he is alive, the only survivor. It is a shocking scene--“Homeland” continues to shock us each week with some totally unexpected development.

I’m going to rename this episode “It’s Complicated.” There are quite a few complicated relationships. Carrie and Brody have a relationship that is clearly complicated. Saul tells Carrie that he is worried about her “getting so close to Brody again.” Carrie replies, “My eyes are open this time.” Perhaps, but her heart is open too. 

The CIA team has been following Roya, keeping “eyes” and “ears” on her. They observe her meeting a middle-eastern man in a park. Roya is an experienced agent, and even though she is not aware of the surveillance, she speaks with the man next to a large fountain so they cannot be overheard. The running water obscures the conversation. The CIA use facial recognition software, but they are unable to identify the man.  

Quinn doesn’t trust Brody, but Carrie feels that he is a reliable asset. Brody has told Roya that he and Carrie have resumed their affair. (Her plan was for Brody to stay close to Carrie to get information from her.) It’s all very complicated. 

Carrie wants Brody to tell Roya that while he was at her apartment, he overheard her phone conversation talking about a new “Hellzbolah agent” to see what she says.  Brody is upset. Being a double/triple agent is a strain. Carrie tries to take his hand—a spontaneous gesture of sympathy or comfort. (I believe she does this because she cares for Brody.) Brody pulls his hand away. He’s angry at Carrie for blurring the lines of their relationship. 

 

After the attack at the tailor shop Carrie confronts Brody to see if he betrayed them. Brody denies this. A distraught Carrie sobs, “I have seven casualties.”  Brody takes her hand. He then puts his arms around her and holds her as she sobs. This is the “Did-you-really-think-this-wasn’t-going–to-get-complicated?” moment of the show. Carrie and Brody—a complicated relationship.

 

Jess and Brody—another complicated relationship. Jess wants to repair her relationship with her husband, but she doesn’t completely trust him. He tells her that she can ask him anything. She backs off. Maybe she doesn’t want to know. 

Later, Jess changes her mind and tells Brody that she does have a question for him. Is he working with Carrie? Brody says that he is not working with Carrie. He tells her Carrie isn’t even at the CIA anymore. I have a feeling this lie is going to lead to new complications. 

Jess and Mike, Brody’s former best friend and Jess’ former lover, have a complicated relationship. They believed that Brody was dead, and they were about to become engaged when Brody returned home.They broke off their relationship. But as with Carrie and Brody, feelings remain strong between Jess and Mike.They can’t quite stay away from each other. 

Mike’s relationship with both Brody and Jess has just gotten even more complicated. He has been investigating the death of Walker, a fellow marine who was part of their squad before Brody and Walker were taken as prisoners of war and both were turned and became agents for Nazir.  

Mike and his squad buddies talk to the policeman who found Walker’s body in a deserted tunnel.The policeman says that he himself would never set foot in such a place. Walker had to have been lured there by someone he knew. He says that he doesn’t know anything about the murder because the CIA shut down the police investigation in 20 minutes. 

Estes learns that Mike is making inquiries into Walker’s death, and orders him not to pursue his unauthorized investigation. But Mike can’t leave it alone. He goes into Brody’s garage and finds Brody’s gun case and a package of bullets. One bullet is missing.  He is now convinced that Brody has killed Walker. He tells Jess about his discovery.  She is clearly confused, not knowing what to believe. In a soft voice, she tells Mike, “Just go.”   

One more complicated relationship—Dana , Brody’s daughter, and Finn, the vice president’s son. On a date with Dana, Finn decided to elude his Secret Service tail. They were involved in a hit-and-run. Dana is tormented by this and feels that she has to find out what happened to the woman they hit. She goes to the hospital where she meets the woman’s daughter. Dana pretends that she got lost looking for her father who is a doctor at the hospital. She finds out that the woman has died. 

Dana and Finn were beginning a romance when this hit-and-run happened. Now their relationship is very complicated. Finn is very angry that Dana went to the hospital. I don’t think that a romantic relationship is possible for these two anymore; yet they are tightly bound together by their secret.   

So many complicated relationships.

 

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