finds a note on her desk that says "Samira Noori". After investigating her background, Carrie discovers that Samira's husband died in a car bombing, likely intended for Samira herself who was investigating Vice President G'ulom in a corruption probe at the time. Jenna stages a fake job interview with Samira while Carrie searches her apartment. Carrie finds evidence that Samira acquired which proves that G'ulom misappropriated a massive amount of funds earmarked for a military base. With this leverage, she is able to compel G'ulom to reverse his stance and release the prisoners in accordance with the peace negotiations. Tasneem visits her stepfather Bunran Latif and relates her suspicions about Saul's actions. They deduce Saul's plan to negotiate directly with Haqqani. Latif implores Tasneem to do everything in her power to disrupt the negotiations. Saul gets a message delivered to Haqqani, asking him to meet in Peshawar. While Saul waits at the rendezvous, Max alerts him from intercepted communications that the ISI are rapidly converging on Saul's location. Saul realizes that their target is Haqqani's convoy, which is struck by an RPG. In the aftermath, Saul is captured and delivered to Haqqani who was not in the convoy, but had sent it as a decoy. At a bar after hours, Carrie is greeted by Yevgeny, who reveals that he was the one who left the note on her desk.
Brian Tallerico of New York Magazine rated the episode 4 out of 5 stars, while commenting on the general tone: "There’s a world-weariness to the start of this season of Homeland befitting the final run of a show about the current state of the tired world... It’s a nice tone to use for the final season, although it could get a little wearying for viewers if it holds too long". The A.V. Club's Scott Von Doviak gave the episode a "B" grade, and noted that as the second episode in the season, it had to dump a lot of information, thus "we’re mostly watching a series of meetings and phone calls, at least until things get percolating again toward episode’s end".
Ratings
The original broadcast was watched by 675,000 viewers.
