‘Homeland’ recap: Carrie’s in a jam; better call Saul

In scrambling to determine who’s out to assassinate CIA agent Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) and herself, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) turns to some unlikely individuals for assistance on “Better Call Saul,” Episode 505 of Showtime’s “Homeland.”

Carrie first reaches out to Astrid (Nina Hoss), an officer with Germany’s BND intelligence service. Astrid agrees to help only because Peter, her former lover, took a bullet before gunning down his assailant.

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If Astrid can identify the shooter and who hired him, Carrie will come closer to solving this attempted-murder mystery. Astrid, with some guidance from her nosy boss Keller (Rainer Bock), learns that the hitman was a ruthless freelancer for Russia’s SVR spy agency.

“Saul didn’t put my name in that kill box,” Carrie quickly realizes, referring to CIA leader Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) and his clandestine work with Peter to track down terrorists in Germany. “The Russians did!”

Carrie believes that the Russians don’t want her to access certain top secret CIA documents. The files were inadvertently downloaded by computer hacktivist Numan (Atheer Adel), whose greedy friend Korzenik (Sven Schelker) unfortunately tried to sell them to the SVR.

Now Russian agents possess Numan’s flash drive and a backup copy after torturing and strangling Korzenik and shooting his girlfriend Katja (Anna Herrmann).

Next Carrie turns to her rival, dissident American journalist Laura Sutton (Sarah Sokolovic), who obtained a portion of the CIA files from Numan and posted them on the Internet. The documents detail an illegal arrangement in which the BND skirted privacy laws by allowing the CIA to spy on German citizens.

“We are on the same side here,” Carrie pleads with Laura in asking for the files. “People are dying because of what’s in those documents!”

Laura admits that she doesn’t have all the files and advises Carrie to contact her former colleagues at the CIA.

“I’m poison to them,” insists Carrie, who’s widely viewed as a turncoat for quitting the agency and serving as security chief for a charity accused of supporting terrorist organizations.

“Well,” Laura responds in a snarky tone, “it’s not like you got a ton of options right now.”

True enough, which is why Carrie arranges a secret meeting with Saul. As they drive off together, Carrie will no doubt explain her precarious situation in hopes of regaining Saul’s trust and support.

Saul has huge problems of his own, however. He’s being falsely implicated by Allison Carr (Miranda Otto), CIA station chief in Berlin, in a jet explosion that killed Syrian Gen. Youssef (Igal Naor) and his family.

Prior to the crash, the CIA tried to stage a coup in which Youssef would have replaced embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“I’ll be damned,” CIA black operations director Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham) utters when Allison shows him surveillance photos of Saul speaking with Israeli official Etal Luskin (Allan Corduner). Etal adamantly opposed the CIA coup attempt.

“It’s hardly a smoking gun, sir,” Allison says disingenuously. “This could be about something completely unrelated.”

Yeah, right, is Dar’s cynical reaction.

Finally, Carrie contacts her estranged boyfriend Jonas Hollander (Alexander Fehling) and asks him to bring medical supplies for Peter, who refuses to seek hospital treatment for an infected gunshot wound.

“I can’t just sit here and watch you die,” Jonas tells Peter when his condition worsens.

“If I’m found like this in a hospital or a morgue,” Peter moans, “Carrie will never be free.”

As Jonas starts to call an ambulance, Peter staggers out onto the street. That’s when Hussein (Mehdi Nebbou), a mysterious stranger, offers his aid. Peter exhorts him to “go away!”

“Only God is permitted to give life and to take life,” Hussein says. “God has sent me to help you!”