Homeland Season 3, Episode 5: A Yoga Hoax, A Kidnap & A Dead Goose

  • 04 November 2013

Until last week's final five minutes of CIA drama Homeland, fans of the show were beginning to wonder if the rest of season three would be as improbable and sedate as its beginning episodes. Just for you UK viewers, here's the recap of The Yoga Play.

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Image caption 'Homeland': Slowly It's All Coming Together.

This week's episode in the UK made for the tensest scenes of the season so far as we saw Carrie rush back to her class just in time to convince the surveying thug that she'd been up to nothing more suspicious than stretches and sun salutations during her excursion. We also saw Dana met with the realisation that Leo had lied to her about his brother's death, having actually been involved in a suicide pact. Heartbroken, she ran away from her repentant lover and handed herself over to police which ended in an emotionally raw shot of Dana's scrunched-up face as she cried in the dark.

After being let in on Carrie's psychiatric instability ruse by Saul, we see Quinn gain a deeper respect for Carrie - and maybe a little more than respect we sense - as he spends the whole episode looking out for her. Or maybe, after Carrie's crazy tequila-induced stair sex scene and Dana's dalliance in the hospital's laundry room, we're just hankering for a little bit more plausible lovin' this season.

After having thrown Carrie under the bus in front of the CIA in the season's premiere, Saul was now episode 5's underdog as he had to deal with the crushing announcement that Senator Lockhart would be the new head of the CIA as well as returning home early from his goose shooting weekend to find his wife enjoying a candlelit dinner with a handsome "colleague." So ensued plenty of eyebrow-knitting from the temporary CIA boss who had been shot down from his assumptions of power.

The episode gave us our first real glimpse of the season's big baddie, Majid "The Magician" Javadi, who entered the USA under the guise of a paper salesman. With hardly the same surrounding aura of terror as last season's Abu Nazir, we see the "villain" scoffing a sandwich and spilling sauce down his shirt before he is set up in his own, heavily fortified mansion complete with interrogation room.

The episode culminated in a heart-racing kidnap scene where Carrie was taken from her home and strip-searched by Javadi's thugs before being taken to see "The Magician" himself. In a twist, Saul was relieved to hear that Carrie had been kidnapped, as it means the operation to infiltrate Javadi's group is still on.