'Homeland' Season 8 Episode 9 Review: A tale of hidden motives, sly political decisions and betrayal
Spoilers for 'Homeland' Season 8 Episode 9 'In Full Flight'
Three episodes remain after 'In Full Flight' and the political thriller has now turned into a pacy affair as it deals with multiple plot threads woven into one episode. Hidden motives, sly political decisions and betrayal come to the forefront in the aftermath of the deaths of two important characters— Max Piotrowski (Maury Sterling) and Haissam Haqqani (Numan Acar).
Their deaths have had that impact on other teams as each party involved tries to deal with the situation. For the United States, forget Max, but it is a response needed from Pakistan to hand Jalal Haqqani over, especially after the wanton claim he makes of shooting down the president's chopper. Now, this doesn't sit well with Tasneem Qureshi (Nimrat Kaur) who confronts the son of the former Taliban leader only to be shown a frightening picture of what they created have actually backfired on them. Big time.
For Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), their missions are clear. While the latter is busy trying to explain the consequences of their actions to President Hayes (Sam Trammell), Carrie and Yevgeny Gromov (Costa Ronin) hunt the weapons markets in Kohat in search of the Black Box. And by the end of the episode, just when it comes across that Carrie has won and may be found romance, things go woefully, scratch that, things terribly wrong for the CIA agent as Yevgeny shows off his true colors.
Fans who theorized that Yevgeny was shady and sinister hit the nail on the head. The series now subtly hints that Yevgeny might be in cahoots with the Abdul G'ulom (Mohammad Bakri) as they would have hatched up a plan to conveniently raze down the choppers. For concrete evidence, rewind to the episode where Carrie encounters the Russian operative for the first time in G'ulom's office. Now, was that meeting between Yevgeny and G'ulom that started it all?
It's that excitement of a successful mission that guides 'In Full Flight'. Carrie displays complete dominance as she ensures she gets the data from the flight recorder that reveals a startling truth. We may have said spoilers in the review, but this one's worth concealing. Yevgeny, who teams up with her for help, makes sure that she's safe, but has been watching her every move. Soon after they retrieve the data from the Black Box, they share a romantic moment that sees Carrie let her guard down. And that window was all that Yevgeny needed.
Now, Yevgeny has the data, Carrie lies unconscious, Tasneem and Co. decide to back Jalal. And the US, well, they've all but ensured that both countries are on a war footing. The season seems to have decided to pull out all stops considering its the final season and has made sure each episode is an edge-of-the-seat thriller. It may not be heavy on the intense, guns-blazing action, but the compelling storylines ensure you won't be missing it either.
'Homeland' Season 8 airs Sundays 9 pm ET on Showtime.