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" Season 2, Episode 4: &amp;quot;New Car Smell&amp;quot; I was all set to write about the more subtle pleasures of Sunday&amp;#039;s episode, especially the budding romance between Dana Brody and Finn Walden. Creating an authentic teenage voice is one of the hardest tricks for writers, even those barely out of high school. The Homeland showrunners are (spoiler alert!) old enough to have teenagers of their own, but they&amp;#039;ve avoided the like-uhh-whatev clich\u00E9s of young-adult writing. Finn is the vice president&amp;#039;s son, privileged and wealthy \u2014 but also comfortable in his own skin, funny, and apparently genuinely interested in Dana. Dana&amp;#039;s boyfriend Xander is a pleasant-enough slacker. Getting high with Xander satisfied Dana last year. It doesn&amp;#039;t anymore, and can we blame her, now that Finn has put all of Washington at her feet? She&amp;#039;s not a cruel girl, and she&amp;#039;d avoid breaking Xander&amp;#039;s heart if she could. But she&amp;#039;s left him behind already. Realizing that kind of truth is part of growing up. But let&amp;#039;s talk about hate. Let&amp;#039;s talk about those last five minutes \u2014 Carrie and Brody in Brody&amp;#039;s hotel room. Am I the only one who keeps forgetting a crucial fact about Carrie? Carrie was right about Brody last year, but even so, she&amp;#039;s mentally ill. She is bipolar and unstable, prone to acting out and taking foolish risks. This season alone, she has attempted suicide and risked her life in Beirut unnecessarily. We forget this because we want Carrie to be well. We&amp;#039;re rooting for her to be well. We want her to take a pill and put her demons aside. We want her to get better. But the real-life Carries rarely get better all the way. Their illnesses wax and wane, but they don&amp;#039;t disappear. So: Carrie is ill. And her impulse-control problems are on full display at the end of this episode. Carrie the CIA operative knows that the agency needs to play a long game on Brody, string him out, find his handler, get evidence on him. (By the way, the idea that the CIA could involve itself in a sting on a congressman suspected of being a terrorist without getting approval from the president himself is pure Hollywood, but that kind of contrivance is necessary for the show to work, so put it aside.) Carrie the operative knows that sometimes you have to eat shit from a target while you reel him in. Carrie the operative knows that the meet at the hotel bar with Brody went fine. But Carrie the operative isn&amp;#039;t in charge when Brody leaves the bar to go back to his room. Carrie the bipolar patient is. And when she realizes that Brody thinks he can fuck her \u2014 that she is so pathetic and lonely that she will go right up to his room after him, even though he has ruined her career and her life \u2014 she has to hit him back. Right then. She tells Saul, and her new boss Peter, that she is going to bust Brody because she believes he&amp;#039;s onto her. But they, and we, know that she&amp;#039;s making an excuse. She simply can&amp;#039;t bear to let Brody think she still cares about him. (Even if she does.) She needs him to know that he isn&amp;#039;t winning anymore. So now Brody&amp;#039;s in custody, and presumably the agency is about to make him an offer he can&amp;#039;t refuse: Work with us or spend the rest of your life in jail. They&amp;#039;re going to double him back on Abu Nazir.  But here&amp;#039;s the problem with double agents: Their loyalties are hopelessly conflicted by definition. Brody became a would-be terrorist mainly because of his anger at American military overreach. Now the agency has just sent a roomful of goons to put a hood on his head and drag him to points unknown. I have a feeling that Brody&amp;#039;s not going to like this heavy-handed plan to force him to switch teams. I have a feeling that as soon as the agency lets him out, he&amp;#039;ll look for a way to tell Abu Nazir: They think they&amp;#039;ve got me flipped, but I&amp;#039;m not a double. I&amp;#039;m a triple. I&amp;#039;m working for you again, and I&amp;#039;m working hard. Remember that doctrine of non-violence I was spouting? Forget that noise. If only Carrie could have controlled herself. But then she wouldn&amp;#039;t be Carrie, would she? -- Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, writes the best-selling series of spy novels featuring John Wells, a CIA operative and Muslim convert. (Yup, like Brody. Though Wells came first.) His original Wells book, The Faithful Spy, won the 2007 Edgar Award for best first novel. The Night Ranger, the seventh in the series, will be published in February. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. PLUS: Stephen Marche on Homeland and Obama, Meet Its Sexiest New Character, and Read Alex Berenson&amp;#039;s Weekly Recaps &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a16369/homeland-season-2-episode-4-recap-13971606/>