B+
The Good
1. The cast is still awesome, all of them. It's one of the best ensembles on TV right now. This episode is 80% dialogue and those scenes are still riveting. F. Murray Abraham impresses as an Iago-like Saul-whisperer, already under suspicion for the smear campaign that sees Carrie thrown to the wolves at the end of the episode (to much traditional quivering of lips and moistening of eyes, natch).
2. No Brody. Not because he isn't a great character, but because the whole program seems to be partially reinventing itself as a Clancy-esque political thriller and Brody's flight needs to take second place for now. His role in season 3 needs to be explosive. He needs to disrupt everything and turn tables over whenever he appears. I have no interest in how he's surviving on the run or how he might be avoiding the authorities. That's not where the drama is this year.
3. It still feels unique on TV, even if it's a very different program than it was in season 1.
4. It has a nice turn in action-espionage, successfully melding the less stupid bits of 24 and Patriot Games. Again, the Clancy-ism is strong in this episode. I have no complaints about that.
5. I can't take credit for this, but with Brody completely off-stage one reviewer suggested that this could easily be a universe where Brody's vest did go off in the Vice President's bunker. I kinda dig that.
The Bad
1. Dana is still the focus of Brody's family's problems. She's a serviceable character and Morgan Saylor does a fine job, but if season 2 showed us anything, it was that the writers have no idea how to build her into the narrative. Dana's angst chewed no less than a third of our precious screen-time, and I just didn't care. I suspect -- or rather hope -- that she's going to become a target for being turned into an extremist herself, but that would have to play over a couple of seasons and I dread all the arguments with her mother that are going to happen in the meantime.
2. Claire Danes is going to have to be very careful that Carrie doesn't become a caricature, if she hasn't already. It's not her fault that her season 1 portrayal lent itself to parody so readily, but it happened, and the writers and performers need to deal with it.
3. Brody's son. Still such a non-character that I can't even remember his name.
4. VFX. Frankly, they were a little ropy, although the image of Langley's devastation through Saul's office window was a cool touch.
5. Carrie throwing herself at a Brody look-alike induced eye-rolls.
