Homeland 2.03
Oct. 15th, 2012 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Carrie and Brody have really, really bad days in their separate ways.
In some ways a filler episode, marking time between Saul's departure from Libanon and arrival at D.C., but there's some neat character stuff there, and good subversions of clichés. For example, the teaser scene was teasing indeed: I thought it fulfilled expectations that having evidence of Brody's aborted suicide bombing, Saul would immediately lose it (a la disk with Angel's resouling in season 2 of Buffy until later this season, or it would be destroyed, or anything other than Saul actually managing to keep the damn proof. So when it was confiscated, I saw my expectations confirmed, but lo and behold, the writers kept in mind Saul is really good at his job, and thus he fooled the Hizbollah guy with a decoy (or second copy) and got away with the goods.
Also, the moment Brody was charged with bringing "our friend the tailor" to a safe house I knew he'd end up having to kill him (not for nothing was the "I won't be responsible for the death of civilians" in the previouslies), and when the accidental belly wound came, I thought, tch, that's chickening out of moral responsibility, show, but no, Our Friend The Tailor didn't die of this but Brody did end up killing him deliberately by breaking his neck. Note that with Brody's previous deeds, he could buy into his own self justification. Walker was a killer as well, and they'd both been broken and betrayed each other anyway. The VP and entourage he'd declared (and still believes to be) war criminals. (Yes, he didn't kill them, but not for lack of intentions or going through with same - he did pull the trigger.) But Our Friend The Tailor was a scared little man. And there aren't even Nazir's orders to justify it with. (The Tailor was obviously convinced he'd get killed anyway once Brody had delivered him to the safe house, and my cynical guess is he would have been, but fact is also that Reina (that was her name, right?) the journalist did not tell Brody to kill the man, just to bring him to safety, so he doesn't even the inner excuse of "orders". I also like way it comes about, with Brodie going from trying to patch the man up after the accident but refusing to bring him to a hospital to freaking out while talking with Jessica on the phone to breaking the man's neck to silence him so his wife won't hear him. It strips away any comforting delusions about somehow being able to live without killing despite being hands in gloves with not one but two killers (Nazir and the Veep), and there's no way he can talk to Jessica about it, so it gives his marriage another fatal blow to boot.
Speaking of Jessica, my suspicions about her being written one dimensionally in order to justify Brody are entirely laid at rest now. This was a very good episode for her. Not just coming through with the speech, though that was great, but also earlier her scene with Brody, which btw says something sad about the state of affairs between them: the only way he's able to show her something of what is going on inside him is by a draft for a speech he never makes, he can't say it out loud, he can only do so in writing, and even then she's unaware that what he says in the unfinished draft about having decided to die and the confusion of how to handle survival and interaction with her and the children applies to more than his years as a prisoner.
Carrie's storyline was where the filler feeling came from, mostly, and I wondered why it was necessary to show her crushed by Estes/the CIA one more time before Saul gets home with the news, but then came the aborted sucide attempt, which was a twist of cliché again. Carrie isn't saved by someone else (and the episode could easily have been written in a way so it was Saul that saves her), or by her suddenly remembering what she thought before she got electro-mindwiped re: the name "Issa"; it's pure survival instinct coming through that makes her get up again and decide to live. The high she starts the episode on, newly buyod by the Beirut success, is followed by her hitting rock bottom (which is in tune with her condition but also with her particular situation then), and it occurs to me that now she shares another experience with Brody: being willing to die only to at the last second reconsider. Of course, Carrie would have only killed herself, not dozens of other people as well.
And then we finally get Saul showing up chez Carrie (how does he know she's back at her own place? Ah well, I declare he called from the airport at her sister's and thus found out) and giving her the good news. (And the clip of confession is still not getting destroyed or mysteriously vanishes or whatever. I'm impressed, show!) Which of course is where the episode ends and I want it to be next week already.
In some ways a filler episode, marking time between Saul's departure from Libanon and arrival at D.C., but there's some neat character stuff there, and good subversions of clichés. For example, the teaser scene was teasing indeed: I thought it fulfilled expectations that having evidence of Brody's aborted suicide bombing, Saul would immediately lose it (a la disk with Angel's resouling in season 2 of Buffy until later this season, or it would be destroyed, or anything other than Saul actually managing to keep the damn proof. So when it was confiscated, I saw my expectations confirmed, but lo and behold, the writers kept in mind Saul is really good at his job, and thus he fooled the Hizbollah guy with a decoy (or second copy) and got away with the goods.
Also, the moment Brody was charged with bringing "our friend the tailor" to a safe house I knew he'd end up having to kill him (not for nothing was the "I won't be responsible for the death of civilians" in the previouslies), and when the accidental belly wound came, I thought, tch, that's chickening out of moral responsibility, show, but no, Our Friend The Tailor didn't die of this but Brody did end up killing him deliberately by breaking his neck. Note that with Brody's previous deeds, he could buy into his own self justification. Walker was a killer as well, and they'd both been broken and betrayed each other anyway. The VP and entourage he'd declared (and still believes to be) war criminals. (Yes, he didn't kill them, but not for lack of intentions or going through with same - he did pull the trigger.) But Our Friend The Tailor was a scared little man. And there aren't even Nazir's orders to justify it with. (The Tailor was obviously convinced he'd get killed anyway once Brody had delivered him to the safe house, and my cynical guess is he would have been, but fact is also that Reina (that was her name, right?) the journalist did not tell Brody to kill the man, just to bring him to safety, so he doesn't even the inner excuse of "orders". I also like way it comes about, with Brodie going from trying to patch the man up after the accident but refusing to bring him to a hospital to freaking out while talking with Jessica on the phone to breaking the man's neck to silence him so his wife won't hear him. It strips away any comforting delusions about somehow being able to live without killing despite being hands in gloves with not one but two killers (Nazir and the Veep), and there's no way he can talk to Jessica about it, so it gives his marriage another fatal blow to boot.
Speaking of Jessica, my suspicions about her being written one dimensionally in order to justify Brody are entirely laid at rest now. This was a very good episode for her. Not just coming through with the speech, though that was great, but also earlier her scene with Brody, which btw says something sad about the state of affairs between them: the only way he's able to show her something of what is going on inside him is by a draft for a speech he never makes, he can't say it out loud, he can only do so in writing, and even then she's unaware that what he says in the unfinished draft about having decided to die and the confusion of how to handle survival and interaction with her and the children applies to more than his years as a prisoner.
Carrie's storyline was where the filler feeling came from, mostly, and I wondered why it was necessary to show her crushed by Estes/the CIA one more time before Saul gets home with the news, but then came the aborted sucide attempt, which was a twist of cliché again. Carrie isn't saved by someone else (and the episode could easily have been written in a way so it was Saul that saves her), or by her suddenly remembering what she thought before she got electro-mindwiped re: the name "Issa"; it's pure survival instinct coming through that makes her get up again and decide to live. The high she starts the episode on, newly buyod by the Beirut success, is followed by her hitting rock bottom (which is in tune with her condition but also with her particular situation then), and it occurs to me that now she shares another experience with Brody: being willing to die only to at the last second reconsider. Of course, Carrie would have only killed herself, not dozens of other people as well.
And then we finally get Saul showing up chez Carrie (how does he know she's back at her own place? Ah well, I declare he called from the airport at her sister's and thus found out) and giving her the good news. (And the clip of confession is still not getting destroyed or mysteriously vanishes or whatever. I'm impressed, show!) Which of course is where the episode ends and I want it to be next week already.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-27 05:57 pm (UTC)Good point about Carrie not being rescued from her suicide attempt by anyone else.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-27 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-28 10:15 am (UTC)