By Matt Ern, Columnist
Homeland- "Crossfire"
A-
Homeland took some time to breathe after last week's pivotal episode. "Crossfire" wasn't particularly exciting but it delved into some of Brody's backstory and what exactly happened to him while he was in Iraq.
Brody is captured while out picking up groceries and taken to meet with his contact in the US, a Saudi diplomat with ties to Abu Nazir. He reveals to Brody that he is to accept the Vice President's offer to run for office in the upcoming special election, as part of Abu Nazir's plan to destabilize the country from the inside out.
In flashbacks we see that when Brody was first captured in Iraq, Nazir had him teach his son soccer among other things. The two developed a bond, but the boy was killed in a U.S. bombing. This explains how Nazir was able to "brainwash" Brody and turn him. The boy Isa was probably the first nice thing Brody had going for him in Iraq, and his own country blew him away.
Carrie is left to clean up the last week's mess when an FBI agent killed two civilians in a mosque while hunting Walker. Carrie is right to believe that the imam of the mosque had some ties to Walker although he himself is not necessarily evil. And Walker is still out there, taking some target practice in the woods.
After all the twists served up last week, it was kind of nice to just relax and spend some time with these characters for an episode. There was no great crisis of national security to speak of, just some clever character development and back-story.
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The Walking Dead- "Pretty Much Dead Already"
B+
This episode was kind of frustrating because the end was pretty damn good and nearly made up for a dull season where almost nothing happened. It proved The Walking Dead is still capable of being a good show, but I wonder where that show has been for the past four weeks or so.
All the storylines that have slowly been simmering over the past few weeks at the farm come to a boil as Glenn tells everyone about the walkers Hershel keeps in the barn and Rick makes a desperate plea for amnesty now that he knows his wife is pregnant. Hershel is reluctant to let the group continue to stay at the farm because of Shane's violent nature.
Shane calls out Rick for not having the stomach to exist in this new world and distributes guns to everyone in the group in a downright crazy attempt to convince everyone they need to be in survival mode. Shane opens the barn and releases the walkers, meaning everyone will have to admit they're a threat and kill them. This is very upsetting to Hershel who still views them as humans.
In the end, Sophia stumbles out of the barn, now a walker herself. The group has to kill her, ending the season on a pretty dark note. Shane's philosophy beats out Rick's, which is really the only sensible direction for the show to go.
The twist of having Sophia in the barn as a walker was semi-predictable, but it was still a great scene. It just makes me wish that all this time at the farm had been sped up a few episodes. The writers could have easily gotten to this point and still have it hold as much meaning at least two episodes ago. The show has me excited for the first time all season at the prospect of Shane's kill or be killed philosophy dictating the group's moves, it's just a shame it took me till the season finale to care about the show again.