Homeland 2.05 Q & A
Oct. 29th, 2012 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which our leading actors are competing for another Emmy nomination.
When does a show have complete confidence in its leading actors? When it gives them basically fifteen minutes uninterrupted in a small room, with only two or so brief cuts away. Claire Danes and Damian Lewis were stunning in that scene. Which worked on so many levels, not least because for all the emotional rawness, there was also a constant level of deception. On Brody's part of course until very late the denials and qualified admittances until Carrie brings up Dana's phonecall; while Carrie creates the illusion of intimacy by switching off the cameras but as Saul immediately points out to Quinn leaves the microphones on. (And given that Brody is absolutely unsurprised when Saul comes in precisely after he made his (second) confession, I suspect he was aware of this, too.) She's deliberately playing good cop to Quinn's bad cop, but she is playing by using only the truth; and liars who only use the truth, as was said in one spy show, I don't think this one, are the best liars. I don't think Carrie lied even once with what she told Brody, and that it cost her to lay herself that open (which you can see in the very last scene, when she's alone again); and yet everything she said was calculated for effect on her part as well.
And Brody? Did she genuinenly manage to turn him? Well, he didn't have many options left, even if he had kept on insisting he never wore a suicide vest; he simply would have ended up in captivity again ad infinitum, since as Quinn points out, the CIA can do that, and he already was getting increasingly desperate about his continued spy situation with Nazir. But somehow I doubt he's genuinenly in business for the CIA now, not least because they have no reason to keep their end of the bargain as soon as Brody's use is over, in the hypothetical case he survives this thing. So my guess is that he'll try to play out Nasir and the CIA against each other while figuring out an exit strategy that will keep his family safe. (I also think he doesn't believe anymore he will survive, and is somewhat relieved by that.) Of course, I could be wrong. He did give Carrie Royla Ammad's name. But note what he didn't tell Carrie: the fact he had personally killed the tailor, or even that the tailor is dead. He still keeps this information to himself. All of which doesn't mean he didn't genuinenly break down, or reestablish a sense of connection with Carrie. I think he did; just, as Carrie did, using the (selected) truth. (In a way he does that with Jessica at the end, too, and ironically Mike and Lauder will even confirm his story though he doesn't know that.)
"And Walden will get away with it?" Brody asks, meaning the VP. But the episode's subplot about Dana and Walden Jr., aka Finn, would also fit the question. For some reason I was afraid something would happen to Dana on her date and hoped it wouldn't suddenly turn out Finn Walden is a secret rapist or something like that, but no; instead, we got something far more realistic. Driving too fast to impress his new girlfriend; very teenager-like behaviour. But every teenager isn't the VP's son, and so when Finn accidentally hits a woman, we and Dana get a demonstration of privilege mentality in action as Finn, aware of the PR disaster this would mean, is horrified but only stops because Dana makes him, refuses to call 911 and then upon seeing other bystanders run to the hit woman's assistance uses that as an excuse the get the hell away without rendering assistance after all. It's not deliberately plotted, the way the air strikes were; but it's a refusal to accept responsibility, to see other lives on the same level as your own, that is in miniature form the mentality which in his father has reached Dick Cheney "stuff happens" dimensions. Carrie, in order to get Brody to trust her, calls Walden the same type of monster Nazir is, and while I wouldn't say the show agrees there 100% it always has been more complicated than evil terrorists, good CIA, has in fact at least until now shown Walden as the more one dimensional of the two (while as Carrie says Nazir was taking Brody apart and rebuilding him, and used the emotional connection to Issa for his advantage, there is no indication his own grief for his son wasn't real), and shown a direct connection between the callousness with lives on the American side and terrorism on the other.
Speculation: Finn was presumably driving his father's car, or at least one of them, and we get this scene and Brody's question to Carrie shortly after another. It would be an irony if the VP weren't brought down by something he actually did - i.e. order the air strikes (in the current climate, I doubt this would damage him at all) - but by something he didn't, i.e. hit a woman with his car, then drive away without rendering assistance. Now that's the kind of thing that can cost you your election. And if why want to keep Walden as a villain yet make him at least as dimensional as Nazir is, one way would be if the VP, given the choice to tell the truth (that it was his son) or cover for his son, decides to take the blame himself. It would even tie to the theme of parents and children and what each is prepared to do for the other.
When is it next week again?
When does a show have complete confidence in its leading actors? When it gives them basically fifteen minutes uninterrupted in a small room, with only two or so brief cuts away. Claire Danes and Damian Lewis were stunning in that scene. Which worked on so many levels, not least because for all the emotional rawness, there was also a constant level of deception. On Brody's part of course until very late the denials and qualified admittances until Carrie brings up Dana's phonecall; while Carrie creates the illusion of intimacy by switching off the cameras but as Saul immediately points out to Quinn leaves the microphones on. (And given that Brody is absolutely unsurprised when Saul comes in precisely after he made his (second) confession, I suspect he was aware of this, too.) She's deliberately playing good cop to Quinn's bad cop, but she is playing by using only the truth; and liars who only use the truth, as was said in one spy show, I don't think this one, are the best liars. I don't think Carrie lied even once with what she told Brody, and that it cost her to lay herself that open (which you can see in the very last scene, when she's alone again); and yet everything she said was calculated for effect on her part as well.
And Brody? Did she genuinenly manage to turn him? Well, he didn't have many options left, even if he had kept on insisting he never wore a suicide vest; he simply would have ended up in captivity again ad infinitum, since as Quinn points out, the CIA can do that, and he already was getting increasingly desperate about his continued spy situation with Nazir. But somehow I doubt he's genuinenly in business for the CIA now, not least because they have no reason to keep their end of the bargain as soon as Brody's use is over, in the hypothetical case he survives this thing. So my guess is that he'll try to play out Nasir and the CIA against each other while figuring out an exit strategy that will keep his family safe. (I also think he doesn't believe anymore he will survive, and is somewhat relieved by that.) Of course, I could be wrong. He did give Carrie Royla Ammad's name. But note what he didn't tell Carrie: the fact he had personally killed the tailor, or even that the tailor is dead. He still keeps this information to himself. All of which doesn't mean he didn't genuinenly break down, or reestablish a sense of connection with Carrie. I think he did; just, as Carrie did, using the (selected) truth. (In a way he does that with Jessica at the end, too, and ironically Mike and Lauder will even confirm his story though he doesn't know that.)
"And Walden will get away with it?" Brody asks, meaning the VP. But the episode's subplot about Dana and Walden Jr., aka Finn, would also fit the question. For some reason I was afraid something would happen to Dana on her date and hoped it wouldn't suddenly turn out Finn Walden is a secret rapist or something like that, but no; instead, we got something far more realistic. Driving too fast to impress his new girlfriend; very teenager-like behaviour. But every teenager isn't the VP's son, and so when Finn accidentally hits a woman, we and Dana get a demonstration of privilege mentality in action as Finn, aware of the PR disaster this would mean, is horrified but only stops because Dana makes him, refuses to call 911 and then upon seeing other bystanders run to the hit woman's assistance uses that as an excuse the get the hell away without rendering assistance after all. It's not deliberately plotted, the way the air strikes were; but it's a refusal to accept responsibility, to see other lives on the same level as your own, that is in miniature form the mentality which in his father has reached Dick Cheney "stuff happens" dimensions. Carrie, in order to get Brody to trust her, calls Walden the same type of monster Nazir is, and while I wouldn't say the show agrees there 100% it always has been more complicated than evil terrorists, good CIA, has in fact at least until now shown Walden as the more one dimensional of the two (while as Carrie says Nazir was taking Brody apart and rebuilding him, and used the emotional connection to Issa for his advantage, there is no indication his own grief for his son wasn't real), and shown a direct connection between the callousness with lives on the American side and terrorism on the other.
Speculation: Finn was presumably driving his father's car, or at least one of them, and we get this scene and Brody's question to Carrie shortly after another. It would be an irony if the VP weren't brought down by something he actually did - i.e. order the air strikes (in the current climate, I doubt this would damage him at all) - but by something he didn't, i.e. hit a woman with his car, then drive away without rendering assistance. Now that's the kind of thing that can cost you your election. And if why want to keep Walden as a villain yet make him at least as dimensional as Nazir is, one way would be if the VP, given the choice to tell the truth (that it was his son) or cover for his son, decides to take the blame himself. It would even tie to the theme of parents and children and what each is prepared to do for the other.
When is it next week again?
no subject
Date: 2012-11-09 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-11 08:28 am (UTC)(Unless Dick Cheney is watching and identifying?)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-10 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-11 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-11 10:31 am (UTC)