I’m not sure if I missed something, but Carrie putting the moves on Aayan: was that part of the recruitment plan, or is she going full-on Brody nuts again?
It’s a long con. She’s playing him because the kid is aiding a terrorist she thought dead. She knows that he is an invaluable lead and needs to make absolutely sure he’s manipulated to her will.
So she’s giving him a little life of pi. cherry pi. 
Funny guy here! FUNNY GUY!
(okay, thanks… that’s what I was hoping, because I don’t know if I could stand her character going bonkers over yet another target, but a college age Pakistani virgin.)
Seducing Aayan *was *originally part of the recruitment plan, but it was supposed to be Farah(sp?) that reeled him in. When he seemed to rebuff her and later showed more of an affinity towards Carrie (silly boy!), she apparently decided to step in as pinch-hitter.
Was that a total surprise or was Haqqani on the cot next to Aayan the next morning?
I’m thinking no if it was all a setup and the bad guy was never there in the first place…yet it would make more sense if he was actually at the wedding where people would have seen him but was somehow (semi)protected just in time.
Which is what I thought I heard/remembered. I just wasn’t sure if I missed the memo about Carrie stepping up, or if it was all unsaid; which looks like it was the latter.
Now when she gets really, impulsively flirty with people, especially targets, I can’t tell if she’s off her meds again or if its part of the ruse.
I’m thinking it was all a setup in that he was never there, what with Pakistani intelligence now involved in killing the CIA spy. They wanted the CIA to think he was dead, so he’d be off their radar to keep doing whatever it is that terrorists do.
Carrie was definitely flirting with Aayan when she met him in the ladies’ room in the previous episode.
I noticed that too. Are you saying her feeling might be legit infatuation?
Eventually the series will bear this out, but I’m curious if I should be girding my loins for more irrationally allocated and manic Carrie passion.
I’d like to think that Carrie was deliberately manipulating Aayan. But she’s so fucked up, who knows? Perhaps she’s into him.
BTW, what is going on with John Redmond (Michael O’Keefe’s character, who expected to get the job that Carrie now has)? He and the others were spying on Carrie. So are they looking out for her or looking to sabotage her?
My thinking is that he’s waiting for her to trip up, or even just basic CYA on his and his crew’s part. He doesn’t want to get blindsided again, I’m sure.
I think that’s it, given her earlier comment to Fara (about recruitment of an asset being “a seduction”), and given the parallel we’re seeing with the Pakistani Carrie (who goes all Warm and Supportive with the Ambassador’s husband, once she’s sure she has him over a barrel).
Carrie’s doing it for the mission. Uh huh. She’s such an adrenaline junkie she probably can’t even get her rocks off anymore without the threat of armed men bursting through the door. She’s raw doggin’ him too, isn’t she? By the time this series is over she’ll have a litter of terrorist babies.
I feel stupid for asking because it feels like I missed something obvious but what are we supposed to believe about Aayan’s drugs?
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He was funneling money to his uncle the whole time, maybe even before the bombing.
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He was doing it on his own for walking around money, maybe to impress his pseudo-GF. Fat stacks, dolla dolla bill y’all, etc.
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He did it recently as an escape plan, after his life went to shit and he was outed. This doesn’t seem right since I think he had the drugs stashed in his home before it all went down, but I can’t remember.
It hasn’t been spelled out.
I think he was funneling medicine to his uncle since before the bombing. Not because he believes in the cause, but just afraid of what his terrorist uncle would do if he doesn’t deliver. Since he got kicked out of med school, he didn’t have easy access to medicine anymore and that’s is why he needed the cash to buy it somewhere else.
That sounds about right to me. He clearly was terrified when he learned his stash had been destroyed, and that reaction doesn’t fit with a ‘he’s selling it to supply himself with pocket money’ theory.
Very possibly the uncle had capitalized on Aayan’s entry into medical school–seeing an opportunity to rope the boy into his operations. Sort of a “you’ve done this much–you’re implicated now–you may as well become a real operative for us” plan.
And of course that’s just how Carrie et al recruit their own operatives.
My guess is that his uncle was how/why he got into medical school in the first place.