However, the few game changing moments require a suspension of disbelief that was often a mandatory facet of watching 24. Foremost, we find out that Haissam Haqqani, the wanted man targeted at the wedding in the first episode, is alive. Fara confirms his identity with her camera when he stands alongside Aayan, whose avoidance of the press in the past weeks makes more sense in retrospect. Not only is this formerly perceived dead man alive – and 24 pulled this reincarnation trick quite often – but the wanted man is working with a character we have come to sympathize with.
Meanwhile, last week’s heated encounter between Carrie and Aayan takes a further step at the episode’s end. Carrie knows that Aayan could be complicit with terrorism, but he doesn’t know that she has the intel. He still thinks she can get him asylum abroad. In a move that brings back memories of Homeland’s first season, where Carrie seduced Brody with a similar underlying motive, she aggressively corners Aayan into having sex with her. While his acceptance of this come on felt contrived, Claire Danes and Suraj Sharma act out this seduction with nuance. He hesitates, his eyes flitting and his face registering disbelief, while she inches closer (along with the camera), so slowly that you wonder whether she will find the urge to commit to this seduction wholeheartedly. The scene is not entirely convincing, even if a scene earlier in the episode shows Carrie showing him affection, which catches Quinn’s glaring eyes. Regardless, both actors sell it with all they have.
24 was a series that also liked to tie the main storyline of Jack Bauer’s daylong pursuit with a more serious, usually politically inclined subplot. In this season of Homeland, a subplot that could have a big effect on the central plot involves Martha Boyd (Laila Robins), the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and her husband, Dennis, a professor at an Islamabad university. (Mark Moses, who avid TV watchers will instantly recognize as Duck Phillips from Mad Men, plays Dennis.) A presumably Pakistani woman enters his classroom and threatens to blackmail him if he doesn’t abide by their commands. She blames Dennis for giving Sandy classified documents straight from his wife’s desk – a declaration he refutes by saying nothing at all.
Unlike 24, episode director Michael Offer does not rely on big, kinetic flourishes. The biggest stylistic trait one can recognize is how many of the moments this week build by trapping the characters within the confines of the frame. Whether it is the meetings with Saul and his old allies or the electric conversations between Carrie and Aayan, the camera creeps gradually closer into the faces of the people ensnared in this twisty espionage. As one character tells Saul this week, referring to the reason why Sandy was murdered, “Usually the simplest answer is the correct one.” As the subplots become more complex and the plot turns more unwieldy, it is clear that getting to the bottom of the intrigue will be no easy task. Here, the correct answer may be the most difficult to parse through. Now is not a time to trust anybody.
At least Homeland is tackling this convoluted intelligence drama with some daring plotting and some thrilling twists, which some may want to scrutinize. In other words, this is turning into a good season of 24 – and that is not too much of a bother.