WMG / Homeland

Carrie's the threat.

• Primary evidence - Brody got tortured by Abu Nazir, while Carrie procured women for Abu Nazir. She's smokescreening.
  • She had an asset who was working for/sleeping with a Saudi Prince, not Nazir- if the call-girl contact is what you're referring to.
  • Carrie recruited an asset-in-place who happens to be a member of a Saudi prince's harem. Said prince having a connection to Abu Nazir is incidental. Also, said asset was already a member of the Prince's harem when Carrie recruited her.
    • This one's been pretty thoroughly Jossed.

Saul's a terrorist.

We can assume he's spent time in the Middle East, and he has a wife from South Asia or the Middle East. He's utterly terrible at polygraphs and he bailed when the crucial question was asked. Given how much he bends and stretches rules for Carrie, we know he's more oriented to "what's right" than "what's acceptable" and he seems a little unstable (although no more or less than most of his colleagues) especially after his wife leaves him. It would be a very long game to play indeed, but maybe Saul is even the one giving Nezir orders.

• Uh, he's Jewish, and his wife is Indian and presumably Hindu.
  • That's never stopped anyone before. And with him throwing Carrie under the bus as of the Season 3 opener, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that he's got his opportunistic side just as much as anyone else does.
    • This one has also been pretty thoroughly Jossed.

Carrie is Lisa Simpson.

She's blonde, a jazz fan, and shares Lisa's basic personality even if her politics have changed. Even the ages match up if you use the earliest Simpsons episodes.

• How are their personalities at all alike? Also, Carrie's sister is older than she, while Lisa's sister is younger. Furthermore, Homer is not bipolar, nor is he anywhere near as thin as Carrie's father.

David Estes is the mole.

This is the classic case of The Un-Twist. If Estes is not getting paid by Abu Nazir, he certainly should be. He rejected surveillance of Brody. He refused a protection detail for the first CIA asset to see Abu Nazir in years right before that asset was murdered, and he also insisted that that asset take an enormous risk in order to download totally useless information. He let Brody in to see Afsal Hamid, and then rejected the idea that Brody or anyone else might have slipped Hamid a razor blade, and opposed polygraphing everyone who had been in to see Hamid. Then he fired Carrie after learning that she had made a major discovery about Nazir and his agenda. In short, he has stood in the way of Carrie's efforts to foil Nazir's plot at every step of the way.

Now let's consider his motives. We know he went through a divorce, apparently a bitter one, and lost custody of his children. An experience like that can be both disillusioning and expensive, either or both of which might be reasons to betray one's country. We also know that he took part in the decision to launch the drone strike that killed the 83 children, and that he was in fact the one who brought in the intel that led to the strike. He also opposed the strike on moral grounds, saying that there was a school there, and that a ground assault would have been preferable. Maybe he feels guilty, which would also provide a reason for him to betray his country.

Here, however, is the smoking gun: somehow Nazir knew the identities of those responsible for the drone strike, even though the whole thing was covered up very effectively. That means the mole has to be someone who was in on the strike. Who knew about the drone strike, and was in a position to warn Tom Walker, and earlier warn Raqim Faisel? David Estes was the only person who knew about the drone strike, and the identities of those behind it, and was also involved in tracking Faisel and in the meeting with Walker.

Of course, there is the fact that Estes was one of the targets of Nazir's plot; he was in the bunker with Brody in "Marine One." If Estes was willing to die to make the plot succeed, why was Brody even necessary? And if not, why was he there? It's possible, however, that Estes simply didn't know all the details. Perhaps Nazir simply didn't tell him the entire plot, but instead let him believe that Walker's attack was the main one.

• As of the first episode of season two, this guess may appear to have been complicated. On the one hand, someone revealed to Abu Nazir the contents of and combination to Estes' safe. Who else would have known that besides Estes himself? On the other hand, if Estes had the file Nazir wanted in his own safe, why couldn't he himself have given that same file to Nazir? Of course, one could ask that question about anyone: obviously, the mole, whoever he is, was able to find out the contents of and combination to Estes' safe, and pass that information to Nazir. Why couldn't that same person also get the requisite files from the safe himself? The obvious answer was that this was a test of Brody's loyalty. It's quite possible that Nazir already had the file in question. In other words, Estes is still the most likely candidate to be the mole.
  • And now he's throwing Saul under the bus. If he wasn't running this whole thing for his own benefit, I'll be shocked.
    • Halfway into season 3, and the mole, whoever he was, no longer seems to be operating. That certainly fits this theory.
    • It does. Whoever the mole was, chances are s/he was killed in the Langley attack. If it is the writers' intent that Estes was the mole though, they'll be missing a chance for a great moment of revelation if they never have the still-living CIA operatives discover proof (or at least enough evidence to lead to strong suspicion) of it, ideally before the end of Season 3.

Saul is Jason Gideon

After retiring from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, Gideon joined the CIA after, got married, and lives under a pseudonym due to the sensitive nature of his work, along with breaking from his past traumas. Since Jason Gideon was personal friends with a high CIA official, along with profiling both CIA agents (Secrets and Lies) and terrorists (Lessons Learned) it isn't too much a stretch to think that he might have moved there after leaving the BAU (In Name and Blood).

The Hezbollah leader was a mole.

For Abu Nazir. Nazir is a member of Al-Qaeda, which is entirely Sunni Muslim and considers Shi'ites to be evil heretics on a par with Christians. So he'd never cooperate openly with Hezbollah, which is entirely Shi'ite. So he's turned the Hezbollah leader just like he turned Brody, and is using him to manipulate Hezbollah for his own ends. All the other Hezbollah members are ignorant of this, and don't know that Nazir is a Sunni or belongs to Al-Qaeda. They just think he's a Shi'ite bigwig.

• Not likely. Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy, and Iran has cooperated with al-Qaeda. A common enemy can sometimes overcome their theological differences.
• Also, though it has been described as an associate of Al Qaeda, Abu Nazir's organization seems to be only loosely associated with the main organization and seems to lean towards Equal-Opportunity Evil alot more than the real Al Qaeda does.
  • Abu Nazir even scorned bin Laden as being a "coward". This lends credence to the notion that his organization is at the very least an extreme offshoot of Al Qaeda.

Even with the concrete evidence of Brody's turn, he's going to get freed anyway.

Now granted, this troper gets all his info about Homeland from here and other sites, so I could be off, but I get the feeling that someone within the government is going to try to get rid of the confession tape. Ironically, they WON'T be working for Abu Nazir, and just be attempting to use Brody for their own gain.Though I might be wrong, so Forget About It.

Jessica had a hunch that Brody was/is a terrorist

It isn't too far fetched that she's backed into a corner anyhow, Brody's ability in shrouding mental trauma dwindles when unconscious, he physically hurt Jessica and probably whispered taunting threats.

Brody's method of attaining the Vice-Presidency

The current Vice-President, Walden, is dead as of "Broken Hearts". According to the rules of succession to the office, the President can nominate a replacement to the office to be confirmed by both houses of Congress. So Brody could easily worm his way into the Veep spot even if the CIA doesn't want him there.

• Jossed after "The Choice". Not now he's widely believed to be a terrorist.
  • If the above hadn't happened and the President had picked Brody to replace Walden as Vice-President, the CIA wouldn't have let it happen: At the very least, they'd release the tape, and there'd be sentiment (especially if Estes was still alive) to go farther and kill him, and those who objected to thoughts of killing him wouldn't object if there was a danger of him getting significant political power, as part of the deal was his getting out of public life.
    • Pretty thoroughly Jossed at this point.

Galvez is the mole.

I can't really see it as being anyone else. He's not a driving character, but we're more familiar with him than the rest of Carrie's lesser-known assistants. He gets a suspiciously large chunk of screen time for a character with no bearing on the plot, we don't really know who he is, and they did throw us that shootout red herring. He's a terrorist mole after all, it's not like he's afraid of being shot/dying. Also, heroically coming back just in time to "save Carrie" just after his absence may have led to a huge operation that puts Abu Nazir in the CIA's sights? Please.

This show shares a universe with The Blacklist, and Mike Faber is secretly the mastermind of everything

And that includes the stuff on that show, too, where he's masquerading as an FBI agent named Dickweed, er, Ressler, which is probably how he really found out about Leo's backstory. And he's gonna give out all kinds of useless intel to get everyone scrambled so he can get his plan achieved. At least until James Spader literally bites his head off in an epic fit of Chewing the Scenery...

Saul's grand plan

He plans to have Javadi become the next Iranian President. With what amounts to a puppet regime in place in the Iranian executive, he can force a rapprochement between Iran and Israel, and also perhaps cause Javadi to initiate cultural shifts that restore the kind of secularization that last prevailed in the 1950s.

• Hopefully his grand plan would be above all for a rapprochement between Iran and the United States, as Saul is working for the CIA and not the Mossad. He may also want peace between Iran and Israel to come of his plan (as would be likely to follow if Iran and the USA became friendly), but his first priority will be the USA. Actually, his plan is probably less ambitious, just getting the USA a constant stream of info from Iran's intelligence chief, who could get him anything he wanted from Iran. Javadi would have a hard time being elected Iran's president as he had worked for the Shah before, anyway.
• Confirmed. Javadi is now head of the IRGC, and has been pushing the Iranian government to allow nuclear inspections in exchange for lifting of sanctions. This is clearly the first step in a series of accomplishments Javadi intends to take full credit for if he ever runs for public office.

The new analyst will end up throwing an unexpected monkey wrench into Saul's grand plan

Saul's been way too focussed on Senator Lockhart, presumptive new director of the CIA, plus keeping his buddy Dar Adal from getting too curious (before the time was right for the reveal) regarding the plan to turn Javadi and reinsert him into the Iranian government.

• However, as Quinn points out obliquely, some people have moral qualms about letting murderers and assassins go free in the service of a greater good. The D.C. cop already mentioned Wikileaks, and in-verse it could be that there is enough information that could be leaked at the wrong moment (well, wrong for Saul).
• Bonus: Her wrench actually ends up drivng Saul's plans more effectively than anything he himself planned; the Iranian government, wracked by a sudden mass break out of paranoid accusation and counter-accusation as the Revolutionary Guard cuts a swathe through the upper echelons (Javadi no doubt has a convenient laundry list of who else he knows is sticking their finger into the till or otherwise doing things the RG considers unacceptable), becomes effectively nonfunctional, clearing the path for moderates to come out of the woodwork and displace the extremists who are too busy figuring out who they want to kill next.