Homeland "The Drone Queen" & "Trylon and Perisphere" review

I've been a fan of Homeland since the first trailer of the series came out. I was hooked from that suspenseful promo, the issue was that I had to wait til season one came out on DVD. After that I knew I loved this series. I loved the stars, the writing, the production and mostly the characters.

For the past three season it's been mostly about Carrie and Brody. We were hooked on their weird but so good relationship that we really didn't it to end. And when we saw in the season finale the end of Brody, I've read a lot of tweets that everyone was very upset about it. You know the show isn't about Brody right? It's mostly about Carrie and the people around her that she works with stopping terrorists.

That said, I'll admit that I was sad. But felt that the character had run its course. I felt even sadder for Carrie with the fact that she was carrying his child.

Now that Sunday was the two episode, one night premiere of Season Four of Homeland, it's starting with a fresh new look going into the series that in fact was suppose to be the story line for season two, if you can believe that.

"The Drone Queen"

Carrie is now stationed as the CIA chief stationed in Afghanistan. She gets a an intelligence report from the Pakistan station chief, Sandy Bachman, telling her that a farmhouse in Pakistan is the current location of a highly sought terrorist that they've been looking for, Haissam Haqqani.


But when Carrie asked Sandy about the name of his source, he refuse to inform her who it is but tells her that it was the same source that give them information on four high priority kills.  Carrie then authorizes an airstrike with a successfully distorting the farmhouse, after that the staff presented her with a birthday cake, singing happy birthday and had the name "The Drone Queen" on it.

Later on reports come out from Pakistan that Haqqani was attending a wedding and that the airstrike had killed both him and 40 other people in that farmhouse that was attending the wedding. With the U.S. denying the reports, a medical student, Adyan Ibrahim, was injured from the explosion and wake up and found that his mother and sister were the ones that died.

But Ibrahim, had a video of the event as he was taking recorded the wedding celebration. He didn't want to share it on YouTube but his roommate takes advantage and it posted it.


Carrie received word from Lockhart that the President and him want to explanation calling for her and Sandy to come to meet with the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Martha Boyd.

As Carrie and Quinn meet at the airport, they talked just a bit. Soon they see a new feed that Sandy has been identify him as an CIA chief and blown his cover, putting him in a bit a situation with him as a public scapegoat responsible for the airstrike.

Both Quinn and Carrie tries to get a hold with Sandy, Sandy lying where he was going, told Quinn were he was and informed that his cover was blown. As soon as Sandy was leaving the building, he is spotted and soon gets a mod coming for him. Quinn comes driving through the mod, Sandy gets in but the mod starts banging and even lifting the car from not going.

Sandy was taken out, Quinn shoots to protect both Sandy and Carrie but only saving Carrie as the mod took Sandy and killing him. As soon as they escape, heading back towards the U.S. Ambassador building, Quinn is in shock while Carrie thinks things could have gone better than what it did. With blood on her face, Carrie cleans her face and shows no emotion.


"Trylon and Perishphere"

Moments after the last episode, Carrie and Quinn meet with Lockhart and Sandy's widow at the airport. Lockhart wants both Carrie and Quinn to comeback and informed what happen.

Quinn who is going through some PTSD after Sandy's mod murder, he took his toll by drinking an entire bottle of vodka at his motel pool and also messed around with the manager as well.

Meanwhile as Carrie is back, she sees her daughter, whom her sister is taking care of while she's away. Her father on the other hand isn't on hands as much as she told her. Carrie holds her child and doesn't seem to have that motherly connection as other mothers would after having children.

The next day, only Carrie sees Lockhart and talked about how they news reports have Ibrahim talking to a news media about the video that came from him. Not only is Lockhart upset, but there's going to be a Congressional hearing of it. He makes Carie stay permanently due to this situation.

Carrie doesn't like it, she doesn't want to stay in the U.S. She wants to go back and find out what the hell happen back there.

Quinn on the other hand didn't show up, he took out his motel manger for breakfast and later beat the living crap out of two guys who were making fun of his friend.

Carrie ballad Quinn out of jail, telling him that he as PTSD, which he has, with signs and what has happen to him the last couple of seasons.

With Carrie staying, it would give her time to be a mother and connect with her child. She doesn't want that, she shows no emotions to the child but as if she treats her child like she would take care of her nieces. She would show love and care but later on no more of it. On her first day with her daughter she changed her diaper, took her out and drove her to where she first met her father.

Apparently, seems like no one is living in the old Brody home. She talks to her about how she loved him and that he knew and loved her. By the way, even though Carrie is new at this whole mother thing, she does have the child in her car seat in the front seat of the car. See how much she really doesn't know.

Later, as she give her daughter a bath, the child slides down in the water for a few seconds. Carrie had a thought about drowning her child but then brought her up and started getting emotional, something tells me she has Postpartum depression .  

Carrie later on does what she does best, she investigates about what happen in Istanbul. She talks to the guys about it, and give information about how he flew back to the U.S. and told Lockhart and then he told him not to speak and resigned him.

Carrie later on used that information against Lockhart and got her job back and went back to Istanbul. This upset ted her sister deeply. Carrie never did say goodbye but said it in a way that she's sorry for it, 

We see Carrie back on a plane heading back to Istanbul. She the only person on the plane is asked if she's fine by the pilot. She replies that she's fine.

I feel like the show really rebooted itself back to what it was during season one. I find that we are learning more of the characters.

I really am enjoying that we get to see more of Quinn on the show. Saul is back, he feels like he needs to do more than what he has been doing with only state work. He wants to get back in the game it seems like.

Maybe Carrie isn't a good mother, but it's something new to her. She's more of a solider who's only skills is to take on the force of bring terrorists down. She doesn't have any mother skills and it scares her to death about it and the fact that when she sees her child that she thinks of Brody.

I really enjoyed the first meeting of Carrie and Saul. They haven't spoken or seen each other over five, six months it seems like. Love the fact that these two have that mentor and mentee. I think the show would have lost it's footing if Saul wasn't there.

I think the show is off on the right foot. And with only two episodes down, I don't want to start judging but this could be it's best season since season one. But in my few, all three seasons were great.

You can catch "Homeland" Sunday nights at 9/8c on Showtime.