'Clean Skin' - Homeland, Season One

Homeland

Season One

Episode Three

‘Clean Skin’ - 8.0

'Did you die a little inside too?' 'Yeah, twice!'

I find the opening title sequence of Homeland to be really boring. There’s nothing overly wrong with it, I just think it’s a bit long and pointless, a cut-together mess that’s like playing word association starting with ‘terrorism’. It didn’t feature in the first episode, but it started the second in a lame way. Tonight I was already sick to death of it.

Luckily immediately after the boring we got to the boning, with Prince Farid and a consort of his harem Lynne Reed together in the Prince’s suite. People love a good sex scene – the PTC don’t count as people – so it was a pretty effective and gripping start to the real action, especially when it continues into a tense spy game. Last episode established Lynne as an asset for the CIA, someone who can infiltrate high places to find information for the government, so when she came forward with news that Farid had met with Abu Nazir, she was convinced into copying his phone data. After their session, Farid leaves the room to talk to some generic member of his entourage and Lynne seizes her chance to do what she was asked. In typical spy drama fashion, whether she was seen doing the deed is ambiguous, with Farid re-entering the room just as she finishes up. In one of the most suspenseful moments of the episode, he takes Lynne over to the mirror, standing behind her as he subtly asserts his dominance. Instead of sticking something sharp somewhere she wouldn’t like, he reveals a beautiful and expensive-looking diamond necklace, tenderly placing it around her neck as the two exchange pleasantries, and she says thanks the way a consort always should.

That was only the first scene, and it didn’t feature any of the main characters of the show. For our two protagonists, it isn’t the most eventful hour. Brody spends the whole episode preparing and taking part in interviews for various personalities and programs, including a family interview at the house. The main conflict came from a sex scene far more awkward than the Prince and Lynne; Jess, tired of waiting for her husband to come around and get back into the habit of schtooping her on a regular basis, tries to arouse him again after the horrific failure of a reunion bump in the Pilot. It kind of works, but Brody seems to have little interest in actual penetrative sex, choosing instead to masturbate while Jess just sits there with her boobs hanging out. From the look on Morena Baccarin’s face, I don’t think she was having much fun being porn. She even offered to do the physical labour for her husband, but he preferred doing it himself. Carrie, who was watching on her monitors, found the entire thing particularly unpleasant and pushed the screen away. Considering she watched the original sex, you can tell how weird that was.

Dana, Brody’s wayward offspring, is having issues with her family’s sudden fame. I find Dana irritating, but I can tell that was the entire point of her character. She’s a teenager who likes drugs, swearing, ruining family moments and probably kinky sex, and in terms of rebel children she’s nowhere near the worst on television. Hello, Jeremy Gilbert and Josh Shannon. Anyway, at one of her drug-parties with her other unruly cohorts she decides that she wants to speak the truth at the family interview, rather than lie and pretend to be happy. Thankfully, a heartfelt admission from her father brings her around, as he tells her that he isn’t overly satisfied by his life back in the real world either, and the interview goes off so problem-free that it was a bit dull. Happily there was a little more drama for Dana, as she reveals that she’s entirely aware of her mother and Mike’s affair while her father was gone.

Carrie, in an oddly Brody-less storyline, takes the information gathered from Farid’s mobile phone only to discover it is practically useless. When she receives a call from Lynne detailing that she’s been called to please a new business partner of the Prince’s, she jumps at the chance to follow her and actually find a lead. Unfortunately, and not shockingly, the plan is a rouse and Lynne is pulled out into the alley only to get a pair of bullets to the chest, point-blank. Carrie is shattered, but since she took Virgil’s van to the scene they have to leave without calling it in, leaving the dead girl in the alley.

It does guide them to a realisation though, with Saul helping Carrie see that jewellery is a terrific way of transferring funds safely (not for those wearing it though) and under-the-radar. There are minor implications that the Prince himself is not fully aware of the plot with Abu Nazir, and this is corroborated by his noticeable grief at the death of Lynne. While Carrie has this epiphany with Saul, we are treated to cutaways that prove the story, showing the necklace being valued at $400,000 by an Arabic looking man, with another showing a couple buying a house – in cash – within spitting distance of the airport.

So what does it all mean? Where is this going? Is Brody evil? Who knows? We are now three episodes down and we still don’t know the rhyme or reason for one of the two protagonists of the show. Hell, even the other one has some flimsy intentions, but I think this mystery and intrigue makes the entire piece more... mysterious and intriguing? Anyway, I enjoyed it, though I would appreciate more answers that aren’t just watered-down brush-off explanations that appear to need expanding.