Homeland Finale: A Change in the Series’ Tempo That’s been a ‘Long Time Coming’

Following the explosive action and plot twists seen in the past eleven episodes, Homeland Season 4 ends with a quieter but just as suspenseful finale that aired December 21.

The scene opens with Carrie (Claire Danes), now back home from her mission abroad, making preparations for her father Frank's (James Rebhorn) funeral when Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham) shows up looking for Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) who was not there. At the memorial service, Carrie, after delivering her eulogy, finds Quinn waiting for her outside the church. The two gets reacquainted, with Quinn asking her to leave the agency with him and start a new, more normal life. Carrie told him she'll sleep on it but not after first telling him: "Quinn, I'll just fuck it up. I know how this goes. It ends badly."

Quinn on getting back to his apartment finds one of his special ops colleague who asks him to sign up for a new black ops mission. Before he decides, he calls Carrie who abruptly tells him she's "kind of in the middle of something" and asks him for more time. Dejected, he accepts the mission that will be takintg him to parts unknown.

As it turned out, Quinn caught Carrie as she was on her way on the road to Missouri to talk to her estranged mother Ellen (Victoria Clark) who showed up at her door unannounced after the funeral. She refused to let her mother in then and now she's going after her to make amends. On reaching her mother's house, the first person she encounters is her 15-year-old half-brother Tim. Her mother, it turns out, left them years ago because she was pregnant with another man's baby. Ellen, who admitted to being unfaithful to her dad, told her that she was tired of hurting those that she loved and so just left so that she could "do one right thing, focus on Tim." Carrie had all along assumed that it was her father's bipolar condition, a condition she also shares, that drove her mother away. "I always thought that being bipolar meant that you couldn't be with people, at least not for the long haul," she cries at her mother. Distraught, she realizes there may hope after all in a future with Quinn, whom she tried but failed to reach.

Deducing who it was who dispatched Quinn on the mission, Carrie went to Dar's house to confront him. She threatens to expose him to the press that she saw him consoting with the terrorist Haqqani (Numan Acar) if he doesn't put her in touch with Quinn. He, in turn, urges her to check with her longtime mentor Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) before doing anything rash, who as it turns out was also there at the time. On confirmation, Carrie puts the pieces together in her head. Heartbroken, betrayed, and defeated, she storms off into the night.