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" Season 3, Episode 12: &amp;quot;The Star&amp;quot; Rest in peace, Nicholas Brody. I was wrong, you did die. There wasn&amp;#039;t any last-minute swooping in of helicopters. There wasn&amp;#039;t even a gallows with a door that could get stuck, a la your malfunctioning suicide bomb vest. You went out like a hero, which is better for your soul even if it is worse for your show.  In the first season, Brody nearly blew himself and most of America&amp;#039;s political leaders up. He was willing to die for a cause he believed in, misguided and brainwashed as it was, but the show wasn&amp;#039;t willing to do the same. So now, two seasons later, Brody has been left abandoned, seeking redemption by honoring a cause that he&amp;#039;s not at all sure is right. There were moments in Brody&amp;#039;s scene in the safe house with Carrie last night that ran deep, where you could really grasp the torn rags that are left of our soldier&amp;#039;s psyche after a tour of duty. Nicholas Brody is an extreme example of a Marine, but his fatigue is relatable. He&amp;#039;s so tired of having to justify it all to himself, to keep it all straight, the terrible things he&amp;#039;s been told to do by both the so-called good and bad guys. Carrie&amp;#039;s been waiting to see him for so long, but now that he&amp;#039;s right there in front of her, she doesn&amp;#039;t know how to act. You can practically hear the voiceover: &amp;quot;Why&amp;#039;s he acting so weird? Does everyone know how to act around boys except me? Love is when you look into someone&amp;#039;s eyes and, like, see that they love you in spite of your new hair color being unflattering.&amp;quot; I guess it would&amp;#039;ve been tacky to have the two of them just start making out, but after all the effort spent keeping Brody alive, you would think that the show would&amp;#039;ve wanted to capitalize a little more on their chemistry while it was still an option. Instead, Brody falls asleep on Carrie&amp;#039;s lap. It&amp;#039;s sad and intimate. It feels like Homeland is sorry for what it&amp;#039;s done to Brody. It messed up and now it&amp;#039;s acting all deferential, trying to follow his lead, give him his space.  Since this whole season has functioned like a Ferris Bueller&amp;#039;s Day Off when it comes to time frames, Saul&amp;#039;s last day at work is coming to a close just as Brody is captured. Who will get to him first, Principal Lockhart or high-strung sister Carrie? It&amp;#039;s Lockhart. He finds the key under the mat. Brody&amp;#039;s trial and execution happen within 24 hours. His actual death was effective mostly because of how graphic it was. You can&amp;#039;t show a man&amp;#039;s eyes nearly popping out of his head without stirring something in your audience. Carrie defied his final wish of not being there. Instead of an angry mob who had just one week ago adored him being the last sight that Brody saw, it was Carrie, the future mother of his child. The last words he heard were her not saying she loved him, which was their thing. So again Carrie turned out to be right. If these two had managed to stay together, that&amp;#039;s how all their fights would end. He&amp;#039;d sigh and say, &amp;quot;...and you were right,&amp;quot; and she&amp;#039;d do that thing where she sort of puffs air, like a baby dragon, and say, &amp;quot;Well, yeah, I always am... when it comes to you.&amp;quot; Javadi says that the whole world will now see Brody as Carrie does. &amp;quot;You mean they think he&amp;#039;s the dreamiest?&amp;quot; thinks Carrie. He&amp;#039;s been redeemed, says Javadi, adding &amp;quot;even to me&amp;quot; as though that&amp;#039;s supposed to mean something. Out of all the pawns moved about this season as we advanced toward the end game of Brody&amp;#039;s death, Javadi was the most egregious. He was never a real character, just an exaggerated attempt by the show to demonstrate the double-edged sword of diplomacy. Even what he says to Carrie in their final scene is jibber jabbish, since Brody&amp;#039;s status as non-hero in the U.S. seems to have remained intact even after his execution. The epilogue felt like being shown the rough sketches they have going for next season, all done in pencil so that anything can still be erased and redrawn. Saul&amp;#039;s working for the private sector, but his diner talk with Dar Adal hinted at his, obviously, missing working for the C.I.A. Quinn is apparently fine with his job again, which means that that can change as soon as it&amp;#039;s most convenient to whatever the show decides to cook up. I&amp;#039;m beginning to think that Rubert Friend was cast as Quinn mainly because of his ability to convey a completely noncommittal facial expression at all times. Even Carrie&amp;#039;s pregnancy isn&amp;#039;t a game-changer. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t think it through,&amp;quot; she tells her family, which just has to be the writers using her as a medium for their own doubts about a newborn baby being thrown into a show about a group of people whose main unifying character trait is a willingness to die. Her dad offers to take the baby off her hands and Carrie looks at him with such hope before her sister comes over and tells her to wait until the baby&amp;#039;s born before she makes any decisions. Damnit, sister, we were one handshake away from having this baby situation taken care of! Now we&amp;#039;re going to have to probably sit through half a season of Carrie visiting Dana at the motel, sitting on the toilet seat while Dana scrubs the tub and asking her how she feels about the idea of having a little sister. The other half will take place in Toronto, I mean Istanbul.  What Carrie wanted more than anything was a fresh start for her and Brody. He never believed it was possible and for once, he was right instead of her. Now it&amp;#039;s a question of how much faith Homeland has in new beginnings. Now that Brody&amp;#039;s gone, the show has reached the equivalent of sticking a paper clip into that little hole that old computers used to have. The one that let you reset when the whole system froze. READ MORE HOMELAND 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/a26495/homeland-season-3-episode-12/>