Homeland has just one hour left after Season 8, Episode 11, which just set up exactly what fans can expect from the Showtime drama's series finale. In Episode 11, titled "The English Teacher," Carrie Mathison (played by Claire Danes) is still on the hunt for the flight recorder that proves that mechanical error rather that the Taliban are responsible for the death of President Warner (Beau Bridges). However, to obtain it, Carrie will have to do what Yevgeny Gromov (Costa Ronin) wants her to do—murder her mentor Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin).
In Homeland Season 8, Episode 11, it is confirmed that Saul has a double agent at the heart of the Russian government. This was shown in a flashback sequence where a young Saul (Ben Savage) meets this agent in '80s Berlin. In the present day, the agent seems to be a translator for the director of Russian intelligence, and leaves messages for Saul in minute writing on the spines of books.
As the show begins to move towards an ending, these flashbacks finally give us some additional backstory for Saul. We learn that he began to move up the ranks of intelligence due to the intel he got from his Russian agent. Among the information she passed along were details of the Chernobyl cover-up, Gorbachev's willingness to do a deal with the west and Russia's plans to annex the Crimea.
In the penultimate episode of Homeland, Yevgeny offers Carrie a deal. He will give her the location of the flight recorder, which also would get her off the huge number of charges she is facing over the death of President Warner, if she can find the name of this Russian agent. Towards the end of "The English Teacher," when Carrie tells him she does not have the name, he offers her another choice. Carrie can kill Saul so that she becomes the handler for the agent and can "neutralize her."
Carrie believes that this may have been Yevgeny's plan all along. She tells him, "You f****** knew it would come to this," to which he replies, "I hoped you'd find another way, but like you said, you've tried everything. What's left?... Kill Saul."
This seems to suggest that the series finale will see a final showdown between Carrie and her mentor–a showdown that has perhaps been inevitable for at least a few seasons. Although this could be the latest fake-out from the Showtime show, it would certainly bring the series full circle just in time for its ending.
If Carrie does not take the deal, fans could get a very downbeat ending for the show, as Carrie faces jail for life for a presidential assassination that did not actually happen. If she cannot prove that the Taliban had nothing to do with the death, it is also highly likely that an unjustified war between the U.S. and Pakistan is going to break out and Homeland is going to end on a note of global catastrophe.
Homeland Season 8 airs Sundays on Showtime.
