The Central Intelligence Agency is approached by a former asset, Fatima Ali (Clara Khoury), who is a wife of a Hezbollah district commander.
Carrie, now working as an ESL teacher, receives a surprise visit from Galvez (Hrach Titizian) while she is teaching a class.
Later on, he meets with Roya Hammad (Zuleikha Robinson), a journalist who reveals herself to Brody as an ally of Abu Nazir.
Brody correctly ascertains that Al-Qaeda intends to hit one of these targets and refuses at first, reluctant to be responsible for deaths of civilians.
During a spirited political and religious debate at her school, Dana (Morgan Saylor) accidentally blurts out that her dad is a Muslim.
The original American broadcast received 1.73 million viewers, which became the highest rated episode up to that point.
[2] TIME's James Poniewozik praised the premiere, saying "what made this such a strong season debut was that the internal drama of the characters was at least as compelling as the thriller stuff".
[3] HitFix's Alan Sepinwall felt Damian Lewis' performance was particularly strong, and highlighted the confrontation between Brody and Jessica as the best scene of the episode.
In regards to Carrie and Brody, he went on to say "these two scarred human beings are the heart of the show, and 'The Smile' was first and foremost about seeing how they're doing after all they went through a season ago.
VanDerWerff had very high praise for Claire Danes, describing her smile as Carrie escaped as "one of the best moments of acting I’ve ever seen on TV.