Diksha Sundriyal
In its third episode, ‘Tehran’ jumps into the socio-political climate of Iran and uses it as a plot device to create more danger for the protagonist. We find Tamar trying to do her own thing, but she is tugged at on both ends, by the enemies as well as her friends. Using her contacts, she finds a way to make things easier for herself, but in such a delicate situation, even one mistake can prove to be one’s downfall. And that is exactly what happens to her. The episode unfolds in a highly engaging manner and takes unexpected twists and turns. It uses the motivations and nature of its characters to drive the story forward, and by the end, leaves the audience at another massive cliffhanger. Here is what it means. If you haven’t caught up with the show yet, head over to Apple TV Plus. SPOILERS AHEAD
Tehran Season 1 Episode 3 Recap
Tamar meets with her aunt, Arezoo, and requests to give her a place to hide for just one night. Despite the risks, Arezoo agrees to help her niece, but this also means inviting trouble for her family. Tamar contacts ‘sick-boy’, who had previously helped her hack into the system of the electric company. They agree on a deal where he would procure a passport for her in return for some favor. They meet the next day, and it turns out that his favor is in support of the protest by liberal students. This leads to a clash where Tamar is surrounded by dangers on all sides. She barely escapes it one time, but at the end of the day, she is forced to acknowledge the fact that she hadn’t been very cautious about her movements.
The Ending
After grasping at every possible thread, looking for Tamar, both Faraz and Masoud find themselves at the end of their lines. Masoud becomes irritated with her because she refuses to fall in line with the plan. After the events at Zhila’s apartment, she was supposed to meet with him and end up at the safe house. Then, it would be the Mossad’s responsibility to get her to the other side of the border. But she chooses to run away from what was a very safe plan for her and creates a lot of trouble for herself, as well as him. She marks her presence at a protest, of all places, and is almost caught by Faraz’s men, who had been following Masoud. With already a target on her back, Tamar has to be very cautious about her actions. Her presence at the protest only creates more problems for her, and in a rather surprising way.
Knowing that things are getting tricky on her end, Tamar bids goodbye to her aunt. Meanwhile, Masoud realizes that he is being followed by Faraz’s men and comes up with a plan to save Tamar from them. In the guise of picking her up, he leads them to a random place where they arrest him, believing Tamar to be with him. It turns out that he had only been helping a client, and this distraction allows Tamar to walk out of her aunt’s place without any problems. In addition to that, he also sends one of his men to pick her up. The man shows up in the guise of a cabbie, but by the time he reaches the place, Tamar has already left.
The entire episode was focused on Tamar’s attempts to secure a passport and get out of Iran on her own. Faraz wanted her because she was a spy and needed to be intercepted for the security of his country. Masoud wanted her because it was his job to keep her safe until she was back home. Both of them fail at their job, and at the end of the episode, we find a new problem surfacing for Tamar. At her aunt’s house, she had discovered that her cousin, Razieh, supported the right-wing politics at her university. When Tamar met Sick-boy for the deal she had made about the passport, she didn’t realize that he was a protestor on the side of the left-wing and that both of them would clash at the end of the event. It is there that Razieh saw Tamar, and complained about her at home. She was angered even further when her mother slapped her, supporting Tamar. Razieh couldn’t live with the fact that an infidel had found refuge at their home, so she decided to expose Tamar, not knowing who she really was.
In the final scene, we see the right-wing protestors, whom we had previously seen during the riots, surrounding Tamar. Their intentions don’t look good and they are also angered with the way things turned out at the riot. There is also Razieh’s anger towards Tamar, and all of that could play out dangerously for her. Considering the previous cliffhangers, Tamar has always found a way out of her problems. When she killed Zilah’s boss, Masoud came to her rescue. In the second episode, she found refuge at her long-lost aunt’s house. Who will come to her rescue now?
Read More: Is Apple TV+’s Tehran a True Story?
