THE SMILE

Half a world away, Carrie runs. Her brain is clicking, faster and faster, seeking out targets and places to hide, places of weakness. Colors and smells and the zapping brain. She ducks down an alley that's a makeshift boutique, trading out the blue shayla he's been following for a lovely green hijab; she admires herself in a mirror pointed backwards, so she can see him coming. And when he does, she's ready. She drops him with a swift kick, screaming in Arabic that her husband has fallen, so the women crowd around.

Heading back out into the world is like being born. Her face twitches with pleasure, unhinged and focused at the same time, mouth moving of its own accord. It's an interstellar burst of power, thrumming through her, so strong that for a moment she burns the camera itself, shaking: It's not about spy stuff, it's not even about Saul's respect anymore. The thing that was asleep wakes up and bursts into flame:

Somebody has to save the world. If I'm as gifted as I think I am, then I can save the world. So I will. So I am.

NEXT WEEK

Carrie stays rogue, meeting up with her asset without thought to whether either of them might be compromised; Jessica tries to understand the new alliances in the house and get a handle on her husband's brain and her entire daughter. Politics interfere with poor Nick Brody's terroristic goals, Roya Hammad continues to be a wonder of a girl, and Estes continues to get chicks.

JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife and Homeland for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, his novel The Urges, and a novelette, "The Commonplace Book," appeared this month on Tor.com.