'Homeland': It Was All A Lie

Sunday's Homeland started off like any normal season four episode (in other words, it sucked). Everyone's still miserable and crying and screaming at each other all the time. And then, with just a few minutes left, BOOM — everything we thought we knew was a lie. But we'll leave that for later. In the meantime, all the actual CIA drama stopped making sense a long time ago, so let's just boil this whole thing down to who is the craziest. Yes, we're keeping score.

The Homeland melodrama quotient:

• Carrie wakes up in a psych ward to a woman growling and screaming "No!" Boo, no fun party. Tears. Shivering. (Carrie: +5)
• Carrie gets excellent marks from her therapists, doctors, and nurses for seeming normal and might go home with approval by a man in a robe! (Carrie: −3)
• Leo doesn't want his slices of brown mystery food and jailbreaks from the psych ward into Dana's car! (Leo: +2 for jumping a wall while running, Team Teen Trouble: +15 for JAILBREAK!)
• Carrie's dad and sister, who she's supposed to be discharged to, are a no-show… but all that doesn't mean anything because the government sends over a writ saying she might disclose confidential information. "Ms. Mathison, I am sorry. You have been designated a security risk," says the man in a robe. Burn. Burn. BURN! (Carrie: +5)
• Carrie calls dad: "Tell [Saul] I'll do whatever he wants, just not this." (Carrie: +3)
• Leo and Dana driving into the sunset while smoking pot — in mom's car. (Team Teen Trouble: +5)
• Leo throwing Dana's phone out the window after her mom texts — because who does that?! "They can catch us with the GPS." (Leo: +10)
• Leo's parents, while having a chat with Jessica about how to find the kids: "It's not hormones, it's a bad influence." "We know who you are, Mrs. Brody." (Jess: +5)

• Dana: "Just carjacking. Natural Born Killers." Nothing makes you a casual badass like serial killer movie references, especially when you're trading your nice mom car for a crappy stoner college boy car. (Dana: +2)
• Carrie staring at the water strains in the ceiling. (Carrie: +2, emo…)
• Creepy lawyer man is on Carrie's couch when she arrives home. Later, he says things that usually end with signing your name in blood like, "What do you have to lose?" (Creep Lawyer: +10, because who does that?!; Carrie: −2 for responding to it like a mostly normal human who works for the CIA)
• Carrie's safe in the closet with a gun and passport. (Carrie: +5)
• "The agency is still weak, Saul. It could die of the common cold." Walk and talk your way into being an Aaron Sorkin character! (Dar Adal: +10)
• Carrie's bank account has been frozen and her car is gone. (Carrie: +10)
• Sitting in a graveyard, drinking out of the bottle, and reciting "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to each other — AT THE GRAVE OF LEO'S LITTLE BROTHER WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE. THIS IS ABSURD. (Team Teen Trouble: +100)
• Leo looks like Chuck Bass in profile. (Leo: +10)
• Jessica Brody: "I just can't seem to do one thing right anymore." So many feels… (Jess: +2)
• Mike: "It's Brody who broke her heart." All the daddy issues… What would Freud say? (Mike: +1, Dana: +5)
• Dana taking Leo to where her dad deployed. Where Brody said, "The last true thing he ever said to me… goodbye." (Team Teen Trouble: +50)

• Law firm with ties to Iran and a client that "recently lost six business associates" wants to pick Carrie Mathison's brain. Carrie declares that Iran was behind the Langley strike! Lawyer man doesn't deny it! (Carrie: +10)
• Creep Lawyer #2 after Carrie flips: "Maybe you can find some common ground. Set the world right. Save us all." Even though he just called himself a "professional." (Bennet: +20)
• Carrie's parting words to Creep Lawyer #2: "Fuck you." Learn some new words, girl! (Carrie: +1)
• Leo was charged with homicide before going into the psych ward. Maybe he had a suicide pact with his brother, but he's still alive. WHAT?! NO. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. (Leo: +200)
• Dana watching Leo sleep. Honey, that's not going to make him like you. (Dana: +10)
• Leo: "What time is it?" Dana: "Who cares?" One double suicide away from being Romeo and Juliet. (Team Teen Trouble: +10)

• Saul's waiting for Carrie. Her: "It worked, Saul." I'm sorry, WHAT?! So apparently the last three episodes of the show have all been a LIE, and Saul and Carrie have been in cahoots since day one. It seems the CIA has been making Carrie's life a living hell just for show so that the law firm would reach out to her. "I'll make you a nice cup of tea," Saul says as he hugs Carrie. His beard is so fatherly, so warm, so fluffy. (Saul: +1, Homeland Writers: +100)

Winner: Leo! This guy is indeed Homeland's craziest. You can't beat a guy who sometimes looks like Chuck Bass, possibly killed his brother, and is on the run with his girlfriend who is the daughter of a presumed terrorist. Only the Homeland writers come close.

Stray observations

Fara figures out how all the money is laundered by the terrorists (more than $45 million) via soccer matches with the photos to prove it — though she never seems to leave her desk. What? Is that even a storyline anymore?

#dark Moment of the Episode Award: Lawyer man explains how the CIA will kill Carrie within a year — she will slip in the shower, overdose on Lithium or be hanged on a door knob. Sad trombone.