6x04 A Flash of Light

[8.4/10] Despite the fact that, more often than not, Homeland tells its stories piecemeal, developing different threads until it ties them together when the endgame is in sight, it likes to draw thematic parallels. Characters may not cross paths for episodes, but still have a connection in the kinds of choices presented to them. And in “Flash of Light,” many of our heroes are pulled between loyalty on the one hand, and their principles, what they think is best for the world, on the other.

The easiest example is Carrie herself. Even when prompted by the President-Elect to squeal on Dar Adal (or, to use their delightful euphemism of choice, give the administration something with which to “leverage” him), she is reluctant. Carrie doesn’t like Dar Adal, and as her confrontation with him outside of Franny’s school indicates, she thinks that he and his ilk are a big reason why the world is in its current state, a state she wants to change. But she was an intelligence officer, and as she puts it, even Dar had her back in that guise. She does not want to betray that loyalty, that group of people bound by the sacrifices of people who died in services of it, even when pressured by the soon-to-be leader of the free world.

But on the other hand, she’s committed to the vision for that better world. The President-Elect’s pitch is a persuasive one, that if sidelining Dar means reforming the CIA in her image, helping to create a world with fewer Brodys, fewer Aayans, fewer Quinns to be perpetrators and casualties in this war, then it may very well be worth it. The episode leaves things ambiguous, but hints that Carrie, for the moment, hasn’t given them much, though the possibilities weigh on her.

They weigh on Sekou as well, and come to a head as Carrie confronts him. After her stunt manages to get him released from prison, his orders are to lay low and not comment to preserve the deal. Sekou initially seems accommodating, but when former associates accuse him of being a snitch, he releases another video defending his honor and outing the real informant. Sekou too has principles, and wants to show that he is as committed to his cause as someone like Carrie is committed to hers. He wants to wake people up, shock their consciences and let them see the ugliness of what he sees as the truth.

The most powerful moment, however, is when Carrie calls him on this. She displays a loyalty to him, a sense that even though she doesn’t know him, even though she’s virulently opposed and offended to the things he says and does, she stands up for him because she doesn’t think what happened to him is right. She, better than anyone, understands what the intelligence community’s approach to terrorism has resulted in. (And her statement that this has gone crazy since 9/11 is pretty bold stuff, even for a show on premium cable.) But she gets through to him, enough for him to appreciate her loyalty, see the look of joy in his mother’s eyes at having him home, and realize that there is something at home worth preserving, worth sacrificing for.

Saul is tested in similar terms. He meets with the Iranian puppet he installed three years ago, to try to get to the bottom of the parallel nuclear program suspicions. Saul continues to harbor his own suspicions that he’s being set up, or at least used by his brethren in the CIA. But he’s also loyal to where he comes from, enough to where he wants to be absolutely sure that his compatriots aren’t on to something before he acts on those suspicions. As his partner in crime resists but hints at, they’re too invested in what they’ve built with Iran to let it go so easily, and it’s enough to risk a lot to preserve.

But it puts other loyalties and friendship in the crosshairs. As it was in the prior episode, Saul’s sister is emblematic of this theme, chastising her brother for taking the side of the Arabs and betraying his people, but lying for him to Mossad in order to keep the cover on his story. And Etai is nominally Saul’s friend too, someone who presumably doesn’t want to lock Saul in de facto jail until he spills the beans. But Etai is just as loyal to Israel, to his people, and to the idea that they need a place of safety, even when it seems like they’re beset by risks on all sides.

The only individual who isn’t being pulled in these directions is Quinn, whose spy instincts seem to have sniffed out something genuinely fishy rather than a product of his paranoia. I don’t know how I feel about him turning out to be right in his Rear Window-esque madness, but the episode does well to toe the line between him being on to something and him just being crazy, replete with dismissals from Carrie, fairly well. The man from across the way is, at least seemingly, involved in taking out Sekou

And that is how Sekou’s loyalty is rewarded. When he takes down his video, goes back to work, and tries to, for lack of a better term, straighten up and fly right, he gets caught up in forces much greater than himself. It’s not hard to imagine that this is false flag terrorism, whether it’s Dar Adal or Conlin or someone else affiliated with the intelligence apparatus going with a last resort to prevent the new paradigm dreamed up by Carrie and the President Elect from having the popular support or political climate to be instituted.

Like Aayan before him, he becomes a pawn in a greater game, perhaps not wholly innocent, but someone who seems to understand that the people of this country, the people he’s trying to wake up, are not all bad. That they understand and are, perhaps, worth respecting. As he turns that corner, he becomes another casualty of the back-and-forth that Carrie is desperate to stop, a move that Dar Adal believes would be a dereliction of duty, of his own loyalty to his country and compatriots.

That is, perhaps, the larger theme of “Flash of Light.” That individual loyalties and individual beliefs about the greater good conflict in difficult ways, intersection at choke points that bring people in opposition to one another. When that happens, no matter how well-intentioned everyone may be, people get hurt, sometimes innocent people, and stopping that takes hard choices between the connections you’ve shared with other and the chance to preserve what you believe in.