Of course this is a deception. Two years after she utterly and thoroughly betrayed her mentor and last living friend, Saul Berenson, Carrie has taken on the responsibility of the Russian asset she burned. Anna Pomerantseva, apparently the CIA’s last active asset inside the Kremlin, was so thoroughly betrayed by Carrie in an attempt to prevent nuclear war that the best case scenario for Anna became committing suicide rather than a tortuous death at the hands of the Russian GRU. As Saul explained in his video message to Carrie from even further years back, other than Carrie, Anna was the most important professional relationship of his career, and the bravest woman he’d ever known.
By giving this visibly strong woman to the Russians (not to mention handing a paralyzed Saul over to would-be Russian assassins), Carrie really did what the subtitle of her memoir states, “Betrayed My Country.” She did it so thoroughly, she even wrote the book about it, further insulating herself as a prized puppet inside the Russian government—which she is apparently using as a perch to continue Anna’s work.
Just on its surface level, it’s a profoundly bittersweet ending. Carrie will repair her relationship with Saul, even as she’ll likely never see his face again, by becoming that brave woman she gave up. She sacrificed one life to save thousands in Pakistan, and will become Saul’s last eyes and ears in a government that is still clearly hostile to the U.S., both in the fictional world of Homeland and in our own (although at least Saul doesn’t have to worry about a POTUS willfully turning a blind eye to election meddling, eh comrade?).
Realizing that he has not lost Carrie forever, Saul’s eyes sparkle even as his wounded grimace stays unmoved. Carrie meanwhile smiles on Yevgeny’s arms, even as her eyes weep in the series’ closing image. However, the significance of this ending is about more than the plot machination of Carrie making amends for betraying Saul. Rather the ending of Homeland comes full circle and comments, one last time, on the era of espionage that defined the Showtime series.
Debuting in October 2011, Homeland came of age during the first term of President Barack Obama. Less than half-a-year before its premiere, Osama bin Laden was killed in a Pakistani compound, and the U.S. collectively had begun trying to turn the page on the War on Terror. To turn the page on the fear and paranoia that scarred the Bush years following Sept. 11, 2001 and which led to disastrous foreign policy with an endless war in Afghanistan and another (needless) war in Iraq.
