Regardless of what happens in next week's finale, and however we end up looking back on Homeland's fourth season, we should all be able to recognize how much the show has improved in developing cliffhangers, week in and week out. For one thing, it feels like they no longer happen in every single episode, which results in a greater impact when Homeland pulls out wild twists like the one at the end of "Krieg Nicht Lieb," in which Dar Freaking Adal—yeah, remember him?—suddenly appeared in Haqqani's convoy, ultimately preventing Carrie from making what probably would've been a misguided and deadly attempt to assassinate Season 4's primary villain. But outside ofthe mess involving Carrie "seeing" Brody again a month ago, the cliffhangers have also been good, in that they've repeatedly left me on the edge of my seat and wanting to watch the next episode as soon as possible. A good cliffhanger goes a long way, ya know?
Thinking more specifically about Dar's big return at Haqqani's side, there are a few potential routes this arc could take. One that might retroactively muddle a season's worth of stories is that Dar has actually been orchestrating this entire crusade from the beginning. We obviously haven't seen the guy for awhile, so Homeland could certainly have room in its timeline to fill in the blanks, perhaps by building out a story about how Dar planned all this to dethrone Lockhart and bring some old-school order back to the CIA. Another possibility is that he arrived in Islamabad much later in the game, perhaps very recently, in hopes of accomplishing the same goal. Or heck, maybe he's just a full-on villain and Quinn is going to have to kill him to finally exorcise some demons that've been following him around for years. It could be a combination of all three! No matter what, the possibilities exciting to think about—though "Krieg Nicht Lieb" definitely ruined the twist a little bit by showing Dar in the "Previously on...," right? I hate that.
In any event, I'm not necessarily a huge fan of late-season twists that slip in through the backdoor and recontextualize the entire season, but having Dar back in the mix is definitely worth the risk at this stage of the season, particularly if Quinn and/or Carrie weren't going to be able to take out Haqqani in the middle of the crowded demonstration/burgeoning riot. Ultimately, the twist itself worked really well, andHomeland has been on such a roll lately that it's unfair to assume that the season finale will be a mess that ruins all the momentum. Dar!
One reason this cliffhanger worked especially well is that it added a surprising bit of punctuation to what had already been a methodical and effective episode. "Krieg Nicht Lieb" wasn't quite on the same level as Homeland's previous few episodes, if only because it's difficult to maintain that apex-level intensity for more than a couple of hours. In that regard, "Krieg Nicht Lieb" smartly didn't even try to serve up another hour of action-packed, violent action, and instead dialed everything back a few notches to follow the development of Quinn's plan to take down Haqqani and Carrie's concurrent and oppositional plan to keep Quinn under control. As much as the last few episodes have been loud and full of gunfire, this one was very quiet and full of purposeful stares and heavy cries (R.I.P., Carrie's dad, and let's pour one out yet again for the late James Rebhorn). The change of pace didn't necessarily downgrade the proceedings, but simply brought forth a different kind of intensity that served Rupert Friend's more minimalist acting prowess.
The reappearance of Carrie's sister, Carrie's baby (THAT HAIR), and the news about her father's death made me realize that Homeland still hasn't quite figured out how to tell a season-long story about Ms. Mathison, but the resulting messiness hasn't negatively influenced the good work being done with Quinn's arc. Some of the material in "Krieg Nicht Lieb" was just a restatement of what we saw last week—chiefly, Quinn was frustrated with Carrie (and really, himself) for convincing him to return, and the mass casualties were making him realize how much of a lost cause this gig can be—but Friend and Claire Danes continued to liven things up with their performances.
Similarly, though the sudden introduction of Quinn's occasional hook-up was pretty odd, it did give us that scene between the German woman and Carrie where the former revealed that Quinn has been trying to quit for years, and that saying it out loud is just a thing he does to feel better every once in a while, because ultimately, the dude is an assassin. Therefore, while you might be able to make an argument that his rage over Haqqani is a little overblown, it feels like his behavior is more of a response to the job itself, and that he's merely allowing himself to fall into familiar patterns. If he doesn't fix this, then coming all the way over to Pakistan was for naught.
Plus, as I've said a few times this season, I'm not going to complain about episodes of Homeland that mostly focus on the characters doing their jobs. The procedural nature of Quinn finding Haqqani's likely hideout, scoping out the surrounding areas, building a bomb, and orchestrating a demonstration in Aayan's honor by manipulating his old flame Kiran and releasing the drone video of Aayan's execution online—it was all very nicely constructed. Last week, we got to spend some time with Quinn the Resourceful Assassin, and in "Krieg Nicht Lieb," he displayed other skills that actually helped illustrate how good he is in the role—no matter how much he claims to hate it.
The final sequence, even before Dar's appearance, was also successful in ratcheting up the tension, wherein Homeland used our memory of recent events to keep us on our toes. You were likely watching that an entire scene just waiting for something horrible to happen; for a moment, I was legitimately concerned that Quinn didn't care about blowing up a bunch of innocent protesters because his hatred for Haqqani was so powerful. And of course, it wouldn't've been an episode of Homeland if Carrie didn't at least consider making a bold, probably terrible strategic decision in the field, which introduced a second wave of fear and dread. How Aasar knew that Dar was in the car, or how he picked Carrie out of the crowd so easily, I don't know, but I'll let go of those things for now.
With this big cliffhanger, Homeland has more work to do next week than I would have expected before watching this penultimate effort. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. As I said above, there are a slew of different directions the reveal involving Dar could go in—some good, some bad, all likely fascinating in their own right. So even though Homeland has a long way to go to stick the proverbial landing, its last four episodes sure have built up a lot of goodwill. Until then!