Jessica: "Brody, are you busy? I feel like chatting some more."
Brody: "I am cradling a terrorist's head to my bosom while he bleeds out from his abdomen. Make it quick."
Jessica: "The VP is on his way to this party and I am wearing a pretty dress..."
Brody: "Right, about that fundraiser. I kind of had a flat."
Jessica: "You're doing this to punish me. For what, I do not know."

Nick is physically unspooling right before our eyes, and Bassel is choking on blood, and it's kind of funny at the same time, and also but he keeps saying things in weird ways where the details don't add up, and the only reason she's not calling bullshit is that she's a little pissed and a lot scared that he's going to ruin this moment for her, and she has no idea how trivial this sounds to him, and he has less idea than he should how maddening his distracted, murderous air is getting, and I think it's about to rain... I don't know, it's hilarious in a way I don't remember this show indulging, but also well darker than most of the things that happen on this show. Maybe because it's also so funny. It's the kind of virtuoso shit where the balance itself is more important than what's even really going on.

Especially important when Nick finally has to just snap the guy's neck.

FUNDRAISER

VP Walden: "So what's the plan? Who'm I supposed to go up there and introduce now?"
MVP Jessica, awesomely verbatim: "Don't worry, sir. This is my mess."

She takes the podium, stumbling nervously over her words at first. It's a performance on par with the leads, this layered anger and nervousness and stuttering and rambling speech that slowly circles and then strikes at the heart of everybody in the room before they know what hit them. Gorgeous stuff.

"My name is Jessica Brody. My husband Nick Brody -- who most of you know was rescued and returned to us after eight years as a prisoner of the terrorists -- had prepared a speech about the challenges of coming home, but I'm afraid he's had car trouble and isn't going to make it here tonight. So I'm afraid this means you're stuck with me... Car trouble! Pretty sure when he was a prisoner in Iraq, he never thought he'd have to deal with something so humdrum as a flat tire again..."