Homeland Season 3 Finale Review: ‘The Star’ proves the most poignant and game-changing episode of an uneven season.

[rating=5]

SPOILER ALERT: I’ll be discussing MAJOR plot reveals during my recap/review. Don’t read until after you watch the finale!

When last we left Homeland, it seemed an impossible scenario for troubled Brody. Yes he’d fulfilled his mission by killing General Akbari, but how could he escape?

This in essence, has been Brody’s plight from the get-go. He gets out of seemingly impossible situations over and over, and he even managed to sneak out of the building, and steal a car at gunpoint. But has his luck run out? Will Brody die this season? That’s what been making the internet rumors go wild, but let’s not get ahaed of ourselves.

Meanwhile Carrie calls Saul and tells him Brody fulfilled his end of the bargain. Saul, always the pragmatist, wonders if he’s been sold a bill of goods, but he soon gets confirmation from Javadi. But Javadi drives a hard bargain; he says he must apprehend Brody and put him on trial, so that he can be put in place without raising suspicion by appearing weak.

But Saul, loyal to a fault, promises to extract Carrie and Brody both from a safe house.

This plan doesn’t sit well with his cohort Adar, who admits he’d have sold them both out and tells Saul that given this is his last day on the job, to “take his foot off the gas.” This falls on deaf ears.

When Brody and Carrie arrive at the safe-house, the tension between them is clear. Carrie remains lightening focused on helping Brody escape, but he appears distant, defeated, saying he never planned on even getting this far. Carrie says Saul says he did a job “well done.” But Brody is having none of it, saying that murdering to avenge a murder is nothing to be proud of.

He recalls the Doctor who tended to him in South American, claiming he was a cockroach, who hurt everyone while he kept on moving.

Then Carrie, feeling desperate, lets it all out. She’s pregnant with Brody’s child. In an emotionally stirring speech she says she feels she was put on this earth to cross his path, even though she knows it sounds crazy. Brody seems moved by this revelation, saying “it’s the only sane fucking thing left to hold on to.”

But this reunion is short-lived. Unbeknownst to them and even Saul, Javadi has made a deal with the President and incoming defense director Lockhart to sell out Brodie.

Carrie in a panic calls to Saul, desperate to see if anything can be done. But Saul is powerless at this point.

She reaches out to Jovadi, who gives a stirring speech, championing Brody, even while he’s getting ready to execute him by hanging; “The plan is a success. You and Brody pulled it off.” Carrie balks;“But not if he dies!”  “More so if he dies,” Javadi retorts. He appears genuinely moved by the love she has for Brody and tells her so (although it’s hard to imagine a man who killed his ex-wife by slicing her throat open would show such deep compassion?).

He tells her she should leave Brody be, as he’s “in a kind of peace” about his execution, but this is Carrie Mathison, and she can’t do that dammit.

She calls Brody, and just as Jovadi said, he seems serene;”I want it to be over.” She still holds out hope that he can get out. But Brody knows this time is it. He asks her to do him one favor, to not be there at his execution. But again, Carrie says no, she’ll be there.

The range of emotions on Claire Danes face from when she watches Brody emerge from the car at the execution, to seeing him dangle from a rope, was chilling. She defiantly stands up and calls to him as life leaves his body.

And it’s official; Brody is gone. We, like Carrie, can’t truly soak it in at first. Damien Lewis’s performance was so transformative, that we still want to see more, but his story has been over for a while now. It was time let go. It was time for Brody’s death, and where the story would go from there?

We flash forward to four months later. Saul is working in the private sector. Carrie has somehow gotten into Lockhart’s good graces and is being granted a field office in Turkey. But today they’re due at a ceremony to honor those C.I.A. agents that have died over the past year. She requests that a star be added for Brody. Lockhart denies this requests and hopes that this disagreement won’t be a problem going forward.

But while weighing the field office position, she has to consider the baby growing inside her. And her overwhelming urge is to give it up, despite being told the contrary by Quinn and her sister and Dad. She tells them that she doesn’t feel nurture, but fear of failing as a parent and sadness about Brody. This is a thread left open for next season, her baby’s fate undetermined.

At the ceremony, she greets Saul, congratulating him on the success of the Iran mission. He leaves for his new private sector job in New York, and her sadness at his departure is palpable.

After the ceremony, Carrie waits for the space to empty out. She looks at the wall of stars, takes out a sharpie marker and writes one in for Brody. It was a simple, yet deeply moving gesture.

Where does Homeland go next? Who knows? But that’s an exciting prospect. The Brody storyline has run its course. It’s time for a new phase. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Did you see the Homeland finale The Star? What did you make of it? Tell me in the comments.

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