Homeland, “The Drone Queen”/ “Trylon and Perisphere” (4.1-2) - TV Review

Oct 5, 2014, 9:00p.m. (EST), ShowTime

This episode is a phenomenal comeback from the entire third season.

Carrie is back and in the best way! Running the show as the CIA’s station chief in Afghanistan where she has been working since we have last seen her. The opening scene where she is deciding whether she should drop the bombs or not on the building is loaded with a ton of suspense that only Homeland can deliver, leaving me with chills up my arm wondering if she did the right thing or not.

The dropping of the bombs happen at the same place where a wedding is taking place and there is only one survivor, who happens to have videoed what was occurring at the wedding up until the bombing. This video ultimately gets uploaded to YouTube and over half a million people view it. I personally loved this plot line because it’s what’s ultimately happening in the world today. We can go to YouTube or even turn on your TV to watch the news and there are hand held videos of explosions happening in other countries.

Not only was the video aspect interesting but the dynamic between the two male students who were debating if the video should be uploaded. It shows the dilemma that we all face in this day and age, should this video be published or not? Will it better the world, or cause more harm? Not only those questions but this boy who filmed the video is also in it, what will the uploading mean for his life overall? That said, the two scenes with Saul did not need to be included in this episode. I feel as though the writers included those two scenes to let the audience know that Saul will be apart of this fourth season, but I felt as though it was a waste of time that could’ve been better spent delving into the two students.

SPOILER ALERT: The scene near the end of the episode when Sandy Bachman’s (Corey Stoll) face gets exposed all over the news as the reason behind the bombing had me on the edge of my seat. When he gets in the car I thought that maybe he would be saved by Carrie and Quinn, but Homeland doesn’t write the show for Hollywood, they write it for the audience. That being said, we did not get a happy ended which left me in absolute shock at seeing the mob ambush the car and steal Sandy, ultimately beating him to death.

Claire Danes is at the top of her game in this episode, always delving deeper and deeper into a character that I thought she couldn’t go any further into. Her range is amazing and is one of a million reasons to watch this show, and this season in particular. Another character that I have always been interested in is Peter Quinn, played magnificently by Rupert Friend, who we have only scratched the surface with in the past seasons. Near the end of this episode I really got to see him and his entire range which was great. I only hope they develop Quinn into a main character instead of a supporting.

I can’t see how any of the future episodes are going to be better than this, but here’s to hoping.

Moving on to “Trylon and Perisphere.” There is something refreshing about seeing Carrie Mathison back in America, and I think it’s the fact that just coming home makes her go off the rails. The season opener showed a very subdued Carrie, but this episode brought her back to her old routes. She was manipulative and a little mentally unstable, just like she had always been.

The strongest point in this episode was Carrie being back home, and seeing her interact with her child. There were many scenes were I was scared to watch because I got a feeling that she doesn’t love, or even like, her child and that something bad was going to happen involving the baby. For example, the scene where she was washing the baby in the bathtub. I actually had to close my eyes when she was holding the baby under the water like she was going to kill it. I was thinking in that moment that this show is so good it is making me cringe and wonder what is going to happen. That never happens to me. I am usually one step ahead of TV shows! But this episode really made me think about what Carrie is capable and incapable of, especially when it comes to the baby.

This episode just further confirms how magnificent Claire Danes is. Why do we not see more of her? Seriously people, can she play every female role out there, because this show is simply not enough Claire Danes for me. From her skillful, manipulative ways when she is working in the CIA, to her father-daughter like conversations with Saul, to confronting Quinn and finally her interaction with her baby, it really is a wonder how Claire does it.

I also got to see more of my favourite character, Peter Quinn. He was a good break between all the scenes with Carrie, but I feel like his scenes were just to put someone other than Carrie on the screen. I am really happy to be seeing more of him and getting to see Rupert Friend uncover those layers of the character, but was it really necessary in this episode? I don’t think so. More time could and should have been given to the two students with the video of the bombing.

This is the second episode and I feel that I should’ve seen more of what was happening to them since the video upload. When I did see them it was in very fast scenes that didn’t give them enough time to elaborate on what was really going on. Until the last scene, where a group of men barge in and tell Kiran, the student who is seen in the video and taped it, to never speak to the news again and beat him. I wish that this episode really focused more on these two friends and what is happening over in Istanbul than Quinn. And this says a lot coming from someone who loves that character.

This is still a very strong episode and I am happy that I got to see Carrie interact with her baby, even if it was really hard to watch. I hope that in the next couple of episodes there is more focus on what is going to happen to Kiran.