HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 3 – SHALWAR KAMEEZ

Finally, after such a long time I was able to watch Homeland since the Walking Dead Season 5 had already finished and I am not anymore attending masteral and had just completed my assignment for the first subject that we had...so now I have time for Homeland – yippee! The first scene shows Carrie now back in Islamabad and Carrie clearly shows the men who picked her up at the airport who is their new boss. She asks to return to the place where Sandy was killed. She asks the people inside the car why Sandy was outside without any protection from any of them and they simply said he was a difficult person to work with and only asked to be driven on official business and his foray outside the embassy that day may not have been official.

Back at Langley, Quinn was shown talking with someone who seemed to be a psychiatrist, a process he needs to undergo before he can quit the CIA. The interviewer asks him about his last year’s attempt to quit then also about recent events in Islamabad. The interviewer tried to insinuate that something may be going on between him and Carrie but Quinn snaps and abruptly leaves. Meanwhile, Dar Adal watches the interview from a hidden room and shows no reaction even when Quinn left.

Carrie then proceeds to the embassy and she sees the busted car they used to try and save Sandy and upon arrival at the office, she wonders where everybody was and learns that the entire embassy is on lockdown after the Sandy incident. She told them that she asked for a full-staff meeting that morning and so heads to the ambassador’s office where she sees Redmond, station staff who looked obviously displeased to see her. The ambassador tells Carrie that the lockdown was necessary for the staff’s safety but Carrie argues that if they want to fix Pakistan-US relations, her men should be out in the streets.

Redmond calls the staff for a meeting with the new station chief, Carrie and she starts by thanking everyone for coming on such short notice then she asks them about Jordan Harris and why no one else seems to be suspicious of Sandy but her and Harris. She asks them to try to find out what happened to Sandy on that fateful day but they say they can’t due to the lockdown. Carrie and Redmond talk by themselves inside Carrie’s office and Redmond’s bitterness is revealed since it was him who was supposed to become station chief until Carrie came along. Carrie just condescendingly told him that she asked nicely, that was why she got the job and told him to clean up and stay sober.

Quinn drinks booze with her at the poolside and tells her about his frustrations about wanting to quit his job and having a difficult time doing it. His phone continues to ring and he ignores it so he throws it into the pool. Carrie arrives at her new apartment in Islamabad and was just about to settle in when she gets a text from a mysterious number that just says ‘Landed.’ So she goes out of the embassy, takes her drivers out on a drive to a hotel, goes out the backdoor and takes a cab to another location. She feels that she is followed by some members of the Pakistan Intelligence so she creates a diversion with kids and steps out the cab and walks onto an alley to a secret office where she meets with Fara, the face behind the text. In the office, Max is also there and they discuss plans about the operation with Aayan the next day.

Dar Adal goes to Quinn and convinces Quinn to stay on at the CIA. He too accused Quinn about having feelings for Carrie and that is why Sandy died. In rage, Quinn almost chokes and kills Dar and when he was able to stop himself from killing the man, Dar congratulated him as he knew he wasn’t totally out of control just yet. Dar leaves after telling him to ‘have a nice life’. Carrie jogs around the embassy and when she returns t the office, she sees the ambassador chatting with Saul. Carrie seems relieved to see him and at the same time shocked because she did not expect Saul to be the one to personally deliver the new security equipment. She doesn’t want it to look like she needs Saul’s help but actually she does, particularly to get the lockdown lifted as he seemed chummy with the ambassador. Saul even asked her to be good to the ambassador as she is ‘one of the good guys’.

The operation with Aayan proceeds with Fara posing as a journalist but Aayan rebuffs any of Fara’s attempt to talk with him. Quinn continues to drink and watch Sandy’s video on the day he died that was uploaded on youtube. Meanwhile, Max and Carrie discuss alternative courses of action on how to get to Aayan. It seems he seems afraid to make contact with anyone and so Carrie decides to think up more ways to get to him. While she smokes a cigarette at the rooftop of the embassy, the ambassador arrives to also smoke and the two discuss Carrie’s transgression earlier that day when she went out the embassy despite the lockdown orders. So the two decide that they may have gotten off on the wrong foot and so they decide to start over. The ambassador told Carrie that she almost married Saul when they were in Beirut together a long time ago but she admits that she is not lifting the lockdown because of Saul but because she knows Carrie is right. She just wants Carrie to update her periodically and they share another cigarette before Carrie leaves.

Quinn awakes to find the fat manager clearing up some trash inside the apartment and Quinn obviously upset asks her to just stop talking then asks her to leave. She gets her stuff but before leaving she asks about the CIA guy in the news the other day. She also tells him that she bought some food for him in the fridge and that whoever Carrie was she is a lucky girl. Saul and Carrie meet for breakfast and the two discuss the goings-on in the embassy although they are not actually discussing it since Carrie cannot divulge the agency’s secrets. So Saul starts guessing and he tells Carrie that she needs to get Sandy’s networks running again but she still do not have anyone yet that she can trust in the embassy and so she needs to set up a second station with her very own people. Carrie just smiles and Saul realizes that she’s done that already which makes Saul quite proud of her, much like a father to his daughter. Carrie gets up to leave and asks when Saul’s flight is and he says it’s tomorrow...he leaves her a message – Happy hunting! But I really wish Saul would stick around to help Carrie.

Carrie sets up another contact with Aayan, posing as a sick woman in the ladies room of the coffee shop where he just happened to be drinking coffee that morning. Carrie offers Aayan to be the one to tell his story in exchange she offers to get him protection and relocate him to the US. She slips her card into Aayan’s pocket and he leaves without agreeing to anything. Quinn continues to watch Sandy’s youtube clip and then suddenly spots a man with an earpiece in several of the videos. He realized that the entire attack was coordinated and rthat he could not have done anything to save Sandy. He calls Carrie and sends her a link to the video. Carrie begs Quinn to come help her resolve the issue and despite his qualms about working with the agency again, he agrees...so I guess he truly is in love with Carrie...just hope she doesn’t burn him too like what she did with Brody.

*** photo grabbed from Showtime ***

THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 5 EPISODE 3 – FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF

The episode starts where the last episode ends with Bob still as Gareth’s captive and him waxing philosophical to Bob about why all these (eating people) is necessary for survival...(particularly theirs) then he tells Bob that he was gonna hunt down all the members of Rick’s group and eat them all after what they did - destroying Terminus and killing his mother (Helen). He is particularly salivating for Carol’s blood and Gareth continues by telling him that Sasha would probably taste better than him since she is pretty. They have this theory that pretty ladies taste better than men. At first Bob was just whimpering in pain and revulsion then later on he convulses into unmistakable fits of laughter and when the hunters find his laughter uneasy and circle around him like vultures he gleefully reveals that he had been bitten by a zombie and that he is now – TAINTED MEAT! (Huh! I was right!) Gareth, in his rage, kicks him unconscious and tried to placate the rest of his group who were by now gagging up all over the place, by telling them they cooked him so his meat must already be safe to eat.

Next scene shows Sasha using her night vision scope to look for Bob then she is followed by Rick and Tyreese who informs her that Carol and Darryl were also missing so they must have been together. Sasha angrily returns to the church and demands from Father Gabriel where their missing comrades were. Sasha feels that Fr. Gabriel had something to do with the others that had suddenly gone missing and Rick wants him to come clean with whatever it was that was obviously bothering his conscience. Father Gabriel insists that he was alone, always had been...then he breaks down and tearfully admitted that when the people outside started turning into walkers, he locked his church doors and refused to open them again even to families and other members of his congregation who came to the church hoping to find sanctuary. They begged for mercy and continued to scream and damning him to hell and now he is convinced Rick and his group has come to punish him.

Then, suddenly they hear a low whistle outside and they see a body on the grass outside. They also see some walkers about to approach the body and so the group run out and see Bob without his legs. They carry Bob inside and get rid of the walkers, not seeing the blood red letter ‘A’ sign painted on the side of the church. Inside, Bob explained what happened to him – how he was at the graveyard and somebody knocked him out then next thing he sees they were eating his leg and he also tells them that Darryl and Carol drove off together somewhere. Then, when they try to provide him some painkillers to ease his pain he sits up and reveals to everyone that he had been bitten during that time at the food bank. They try to make Bob comfortable and sit him on the couch at Fr. Gabriel’s office and leave him with Sasha.

Father Gabriel admits knowing where the schoolhouse was located that the Hunters had been hiding out in and so Rick and the others try to make plans to run after them. But then Abraham insists that they should instead leave now for DC while they still can and avoid the threat, anyway, they already fixed up the bus early this afternoon. But Rick demands that they wait for Carol and Darryl (who by the way saved all of them at Terminus) but he says they may not be coming back at all and he has a mission to take Eugene to DC so they could save the entire planet. Glenn steps in saying they all need to stick together and convinced Abraham to stay the night, help them fight off the Hunters then tomorrow he could leave with Eugene on the bus. But Abraham countered that he would only leave with Glenn, Maggie and Tara the next day. So against Rick’s wishes, Glenn agreed. It was interesting to note though that when Abraham asked Eugene to get ready he was a bit hesitant to do so...maybe in due time they would learn how much of a fraud he truly was. (just like in the comics)

They come up with the plan to attack the Hunters at the schoolhouse. Sasha insists on coming with them as she wants to take revenge but Tyreese advises her to stay with Bob as he has little time left. Instead, Sasha leaves Tyreese her knife with instructions to put it into Bob’s brain when he turns. So the group with Rick, Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, Abraham and Tara leaves the church to find the Hunters while Fr Gabriel, Carl, Tyreese, Rosita and Judith are left behind inside with Bob. Then, the Hunters are seen next walking down the road towards the church which they effortlessly enter. Inside, they identify and taunt the ones left behind saying they knew that the others had already left on a senseless mission to look for them (or so they thought!) But just as the Hunters had finally decided which door to open (as they heard Judith cries from beyond the door), two of the Hunter’s heads suddenly exploded and Gareth’s hand gets blown off. It seems Rick and his group only appeared to leave but doubled back to the church. The remaining three men and a woman were made to get down on their knees and Gareth tries to reason with Rick telling him that he would not hunt his group anymore that can still go their separate ways but Rick learns his lesson by letting Gareth go once before.

Besides, he already made him a promise before that to kill him with his red-handled machete and proceeds to just hack down the poor guy. Sasha also guts Martin with her knife repeatedly while Michonne and Abraham also kill/hack their two captives. During all these bloodshed, Maggie, Glenn, Tara, Rosita and Tyreese just look on in horror. Then, Michonne sees her katana with the girl she just killed and pulls it out from her but with a bit of hesitation since as she said during the last episode, she doesn’t really miss the sword. Rick and Sasha counters that they only did what they did to defend themselves...as they look at all the blood and gore that now desecrated the church. Father Stokes cried, ‘This is the Lord’s house’ but Maggie replied the episode’s title, ‘No this is just four walls and a roof.’

The next scene shows everyone saying their goodbyes to poor old Bob and when they were all turning to leave, he called Rick to thank him for taking him in at the prison and giving him a chance to find love and be part of a family. He also tells Rick to not lose hope and hold on to his humanity because this nightmare is going to end (this was a continuation of their conversation in Episode 2 while on their way to the food bank). Sasha says one final goodbye to Bob and as she sobs uncontrollably and holds her knife to his head, Tyreese comes in and does it for her. So Tyreese is now definitely over that phase of his life and could now confidently kill walkers again.

Then, Sasha is shown setting up a cross for Bob’s grave, wearing Bob’s jacket. After that the bus is shown all set to leave - with Abraham, Eugene, Rosita, Glenn, Maggie and Tara. Abraham hands over to Rick a map to D.C. and tries to convince him to follow. Rick says he would and smiles a bit upon seeing inside the folded map an apology from Abraham – “Sorry I was an ass. Come to Washington. The new world is gonna need Rick Grimes.” Then Rick sees Tyreese digging more graves (probably for the Hunters) and he comes over to help him. That night, Michonne is sitting outside in the moonlight with Father Gabriel who confides that he can’t sleep as he still hears the voices of the people he kept out of the church. Michonne tells him that in time, all that will fade and it provided him some small comfort.

Then, Michonne hears some rustling in the bushes and goes to investigate while Father Gabriel runs inside the church. We see that the noise came from Daryl so Michonne immediately asks, ‘Where’s Carol?’ Then, Daryl suddenly has this unhappy look on his face before calling out to whoever was behind him to come out...then the scene fades to black and it was another cliffhanger ending that the TWD so loves to foist on us! They are so fond of doing that - making us wait and cringe and wait some more until the next episode arrives! I just wonder who really was behind him – is it Carol? Or maybe Beth? Or worse...new enemies who have managed to capture him and make him lure them back to where Rick and his group are hiding? But I don’t think Daryl would do that... I sure hope I am wrong this time! This scene is definitely not in the comics so there’s nothing I could look back to that would give me some clues...and so just like everybody else, I am also completely clueless and couldn’t stand the one entire week of waiting for Episode 4. Adios Bob...