Oh My Homeland: What. Just. Happened?!

Things got crazy on tonight's episode of the Showtime hit

By Lauren Piester Nov 24, 2014 3:00 AMTags
HomelandShowtime

Is anyone else wishing to be on an airplane right now, so an oxygen mask would magically drop down from the ceiling to prevent you from just dropping dead after that episode of Homeland?  

We actually think we might have a heart attack. This is not a joke. We're gonna write this recap and then move right into writing our wills, just in case.

Anyway, this week was mostly all about that prisoner trade that was back on the table after Carrie destroyed her friend and mentor's trust in her forever by leading him straight back into captivity despite him begging her not to. We were obviously never thinking that the trade would go totally smoothly, but we were still quite alarmed when Saul was accompanied by a young boy wearing a bomb vest that could be detonated for just the slightest detour from the agreed upon plan. 

Out in some open, dusty field, the prisoner exchange was about to go down when Saul decided to sit on the ground like a petulant child, refusing to let these prisoners go free just so he can live. In the most maternal move Carrie has made since actually having a child, she went to comfort him. She hugged him and told him everything would be OK and picked his fallen glasses up off of the ground. Saul, meanwhile, had been broken to the point of being fine with both he and the kid being blown to smithereens.

"This is not who you are!" Carrie cried as she pleaded with him and even tried to pick him up off the ground herself. Eventually, Saul got up, and the exchange went on, unhindered, while our hearts beat even faster as we remembered what show we were watching. There had to be another twist coming.

And there was! The team was on its way back to the embassy in a convoy. Carrie handed Saul his glasses, and BOOM. The car in front of Carrie and Saul's blew up…and then all the cars started blowing up. Everyone was blowing up all over the place, and back at the embassy, Lockhart and Quinn started wondering what the hell was going on before promptly sending all of the marines to investigate. 

Meanwhile, the ambassador's husband has finally been imprisoned, and the ambassador learns of the explosions while she's interrogating him. After he hears that all of the marines are headed toward the explosions, he reveals even more really terrible news: part of the information he fed to his contacts involved giving up the location of the tunnel in and out of the embassy. So of course, now we see Haqqani himself – accompanied by several soldiers – creeping in through the tunnel as the screen goes black.

So, everything is terrible, and we have to find out who lived, who died, and what hell Haqqani's about to unleash on the embassy. On a more positive note, this is the Homeland we've been missing. Carrie is back on top of her game and we're back to theorizing obsessively over what happens next, and not in the "What Crazy S—t Will Carrie Get Up to Now?" way. Thank you, Homeland, for getting back to what you do best.  That said – we're still not going to be happy if Saul dies. Not happy at all.