Carrie Mathison is back on Sunday with the season five premiere of Showtime's Homeland. Get ready for more heavy sighs and awkward cry faces—not to mention international intrigue, family drama and totally crazy, heart-thumping plot twists. Plus, don't forget about Peter Quinn, badass, and Saul Berenson, national treasure.
In other words, Homeland is a really wonderful show and season four was certainly the best installment since we first met Carrie in 2011. As for Season five, it takes place two years later, with Carrie, who no longer works for the CIA, living in Berlin and working for a private security firm.
Unless you've been pining away the months until the show's return watching reruns of Carrie and company, you probably don't recall everything that happened in the previous seasons. So here's a quick rundown of seven things to remember ahead of Sunday's premiere.
There's always been a will-they-or-won't-they thing going on between Carrie and Quinn, and in the season four finale they did with a passionate kiss. But as quickly as that happened, Quinn was shipped off on a potentially deadly mission to Iraq. His farewell letter, should he not make it back, was addressed to Carrie.
Okay, not everyone—not like at the end of season two when CIA headquarters blew up. But Carrie's dad died, which sent her into a tailspin. Fara, the Muslim CIA staffer who was part of Carrie's team, was killed in a raid on the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. And Aayan, the mark that Carrie slept with, was killed by his uncle, the terrorist leader Haqqani.
Haqqani and his men took over the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, by entering through a secret tunnel in the basement. At the same time, Carrie's convoy was attacked while returning to the embassy while the Pakistani government—which was in cahoots with Haqqani—delayed the rescue mission. Meanwhile, CIA Chief Andrew Lockhart handed over a list of CIA informants. Thanks to the daring do of Quinn, the attack was eventually thwarted.
Haqqani's men snatched him from the airport and brought him to Afghanistan. Carrie was about to shoot a missile at Haqqani while Saul was nearby, but Quinn intervened, stopping the attack. Ultimately, they swapped several prisoners for the release of Saul, who wasn't happy about it.
The season's biggest WTF moment—I mean, aside from when Carrie slept with Aayan, who was basically a child—came when Quinn spotted Dar Adal, the only CIA man to pull off a turtleneck, riding in a car with Haqqani. It seemed treasonous, until we learned that Dar retrieved an incriminating video of Saul that was taken when he was captive. If the video were to leak, Saul could never rise to CIA chief, which means Saul has to basically be okay with the fact that for him to become boss, the agency had to get into bed with Haqqani.
Carrie tracked down her mother after her father's death, only to discover that she has a son, who is Carrie's half brother. She also learned that her parents didn't split up because of her dad's mental illness― a belief that had prevented Carrie from becoming romantically involved with Quinn (see No. 1: "Carrie and Quinn kissed").
We're pretty sure at least.
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