Just watched the latest episode last night. I love this show. 
I think Damian Lewis deserves an Emmy: during the hotel scene he conveyed the perfect mix of uncertainty (“is she bluffing?”), fear, surprise, and anger. I’ve always liked his acting, but I was really impressed by him in that scene.
Because that’s the line that confirmed who she was talking about, and she was acting like she wasn’t supposed to say.
I loved the scene where his wife was reading him the riot act and telling him basically what an asshole he’s being and that look on his face was totally true to life. I’ve seen that look on a man’s face when he knows he’s wrong but looks at you like YOU’RE the one who is crazy, wrong, mistaken, out of line, “how dare you?!?” etc.
One time when I was out of town, my bf came to my house, searched my dresser drawers and found my journal buried under some stuff. He read it and then put it back. I discovered that he read it when he started acting weird after I got home and “knew” some stuff that he couldn’t have known any other way. When I confronted him, he had that exact same look on his face as Brody in that scene: “YOU’RE the one who’s in the wrong for questioning me, how dare you insult me by suggesting I read your journal (and that I searched through your dresser to find it!), and by the way, how dare YOU write what you wrote!”
It’s a combination of indignation/bluff/bravado/arrogance and knowing you’re on ice so thin you’re about to fall through into oblivion.
Good acting.
I want to make a montage of all the times Saul has gone, “What the fuck, Carrie?!” You think he’d be used to her shenanigans by now.
The great news about this show is that they do a good job of “flipping the plot” - setting you up to think one thing is going to happen, then doing something else. So we think we are going to have Brody have his secret for a while, and Saul and Carrie see the tape. We get the sense that we’ll see some Brody surveillance, and Carrie confronts him.
Setting up those expectations and flipping them is cool - keeps us on our toes, plot-wise.
But, in the real world, I find it hard to believe that espionage bureaucrats would allow a person with Carrie’s rep (from their POV) to engage such a target, let alone be in a position to confront him. And the only opening scene in the next ep that would make sense in the real world would be to see Carrie totally ostracized, if not prosecuted. I don’t know espionage at all, but it stretches my credulity…
I have good news for you, he won one for season one.
Carrie’s rep comes mainly for her single-minded chasing of Brody. But now they know she was right about Brody, so it would be a little silly of them to hold that against her.
Plus they didnt really have a choice. Brody called Carrie.
Yes, fine, another Emmy.
When Carrie talked about the ECT in the bar she momentarily stopped playing a part and just answered truthfully. It seems to me that would make her story more believable, not less so. When Brody saw that vulnerability it should have created a feeling of trust towards her.
Perhaps Carrie pulled the plug because she was beating herself up for letting her guard down. She hates to appear weak. Brody is the one she bares her soul to the most.
Except that she lied about the ECT – saying it wasn’t all that bad.
I watched again tonight, and I agree that’s when she turned, when he asked about the ECT. Because he knew – and she knew he knew – that ECT is a miserable experience, and Brody’s the reason she went through that.
So before Brody asked about the ECT, he saw something in Carrie’s demeanor that put him on edge. Maybe it was her admitting that the target was Nazir. Brody would realize that something’s not right, because Carrie wouldn’t give that away, especially not to him.
Or she pulled the plug before she could let her guard down any farther.
The best example of that would have to be from the pilot episode, when she makes a painfully awkward pass at him in a desperate attempt to bribe him into not turning her in for the unsanctioned surveillance of Brody’s house.
The WTF look on his face was priceless!
And you can hear the little snippet of him saying, “What the fuck are you doing?” in the background of the show’s opening credits. Every time I hear it, I cringe just remembering that moment.
Silly yes - but given how many lines she has crossed, she would be viewed as an extremely untrustworthy field op - again I am assuming from an “espionage bureaucrat’s” POV. Confronting a mole like Brody is so over the line - even if her instinct was that somehow she had been compromised or made.
Yes, Brody called her - if they had her on short leash, they could’ve had someone at the bar. If Carrie was alone (i.e., not explicitly asked by Brody, but acting on her own) and started moving to the hotel rooms, this person would’ve had clear instructions to intercede. And would’ve provided cover and support in the bar if things went south.
Having that kind of oversight doesn’t feel like overthinking or over-expecting to this complete CIA no-nothing - just a standard protocol.
Again - really enjoy the show; my point is that their scripting sometimes leads to distractions I find jarring. Find better reasons to get Brody to have to engage the Gettysberg tailor; find a cleaner way to get Carrie up into Brody’s room and agitated to confront him.
Too late to edit: know-nothing. Like spelling 
Sorry - didn’t meant to be a thread killer 
I really enjoy the show.
I’m okay with both of these developments. We saw that the tailor was reluctant and suspicious with Brody. He would have been even more reluctant if someone he didn’t know had told him he had to hide. When Roya told Brody “There’s no one else”, that could have meant no one else the tailor would trust – not that there were no other operatives.
As for Carrie going off the rez and confronting Brody, what did they want to happen? When did they want it to happen? They throw Carrie at him thinking he’ll get rattled? Why would he get rattled? As far as Brody knows, nobody believes Carrie. Having her back at the CIA doesn’t change that.
Finally caught last week’s episode. So good.
No, Saul is the mole. If Estes were the mole they wouldn’t have needed Brody to steal intel from Estes’ safe.
Yep, Saul is the one who got Brody in that room. And as AuntiePam points out, Saul failed the lie detector test in the investigation of that incident.
That was her mission, to scare Brody enough to contact his handlers. Carrie and the new guy were discussing this as she was getting ready to go the hotel. New guy said to drop Nazir’s name, and Carrie was nervous: “Just come out and say it?” The whispering was her just coming out and saying it.
This was already explained rather well, but I think the exchange was closer to: VP comments on his son getting “Gentleman’s Cs”, she says no he got an A on yesterday’s quiz, and then the VP says Great, you can’t get into Yale with Gentleman’s Cs. That’s when she absolutely crushes him with “Not like in your day.”
I really don’t want Saul to be the mole but …if he did purposely get Brody in there to do something, could it have been a test of Carrie’s theory about Brody? It’s been a while since that episode but it could be that Saul thought that it was worth it to risk the guard to see what kind of opportunity Brody would make of getting into the room with him. Probably wishful thinking but that’s all I got…
As I recall Brody convinced Estes to let him into the room. My recollection is that Estes then must have pressured Saul to let him in. So I’m not sure it’s a fair description that “Saul is the one who got Brody in that room”.
Come on! There’s no way Saul would have snuck back Brody’s video if he was the mole. I guess he could be doing some complicated playing the middle scheme but seems a pretty big play to actively get Nazir’s biggest asset compromised. It is possible we haven’t met the mole yet.
Not sure what I think about Carrie coming at Brody with “You broke my heart”. I didn’t think he’d buy into that, and maybe he didn’t. It’s not like he has a lot of choices. But she’s telling the truth, and maybe he realized that too.
What are the writers going to do when Carrie has to choose between her job/her country and Brody? Because that’s bound to happen.
