Homeland 2.08
Nov. 23rd, 2012 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAka back in my flat, and reunited with my tv. :)
You know, Brody has never sounded more fake than during that phone call with Roya when he wasn't lying at all, so I'm not surprised she didn't buy it, though gratified the show allowed her not to be stupid. Also, I'm reminded of the way the Carrie/Brody interrogation scene in Q & A paralleled Carrie with Abu Nasir, as in this episode both Carrie and Nasir (apparantly, guess we'll find out next week after the cliffhanger) decided to respond to Brody's meltdown and attempt to burn all his bridges by re-staging the encounter that originally brought them close to him. Last weekabigail_n wondered where Carrie's story this season would be, as she's been rehabilitated; this episode, I think, gave us some of the answer, in the scene where Brody asks her how she thought it would all end. I don't think Carrie is lying (or just bolstering up Brody's ego) in her reply, and it's not so much about romance (as in the compelling messed up increasing codependency that she and Brody have going) as about changing the narrative that has encircled her so far. If Brody becomes a double agent through her and brings down Abu Nasir, if he ends up a hero, then she's no longer the unstable agent everyone thought was mad last season and this season everyone thinks is too besotted to see clearly, then she is validated in a more fundemental way than being proven right by the foiled Walden assassination plan: the credits don't repeat her statement from the pilot - "I missed something that day" - for nothing. Brody becoming a hero (as defined by Carrie right now, meaning someone bringing down the big threat and saving the country) makes her a saviour and heroine (again, as defined by Carrie: saving the country). She's self aware enough to know that's not how it works and passionate enough to want it to work that way anyway.
The show also goes very meta at this moment, because of course this is what part of the viewers hope for, and givent hat Carrie spells it out, I guess that's a pretty big hint it will not happen this way. The scene being meta in other ways, too; when Brody and Carrie start to have sex, we see that they're being watched and recorded and are back in the viewer/viewer metaphor from early s1 when Carrie herself was the viewer, watching Brody; the simultanous horrible intrusiveness of surveillance and addictiveness then, only now, by cutting immediately to the camera and then bringing us to the room where Quinn, Saul and Virgil are all listening in and reacting to what they hear (and don't want to hear, in Saul's case), the show emphasizes the intrusiveness and the voyeuristic aspect instead of the compelling one. They also, like the audience, are discussing Carrie's motivations; is she hopelessly in love, or doing what she does to keep Brody as the only connection to Nasir they have in the field, or both?
Methinks there's an obvious conflict waiting here for Carrie to master or fail. So far, she could unite her emotions for Brody and her work, even make them an asset. But whatever Nasir is planning (and seriously, the writers need to come up with something original here, because right now with Brody having become suspect at least I don't see what he could do for Nasir that Nasir would entrust him with - other than a repetition of last season's assassination attempt, and the show has never been repetitive this way) will probably result in a scenario where Carrie will have to choose.
...or I could be wrong. One thing about Homeland, it keeps surprising me and coming up wit things I'd never have guessed it would do, or do this early.
Meanwhile, my favourite tv teenager not surprisingly has had it with keeping Dad's secrets and tells her mother about Carrie, but that's minor in Dana's life compared to the attempt to atone by confessing to the dead woman's daughter. Who is not in a forgiving mode, and also has been paid by Walden or rather Walden's sidekicks to stay silent. (I knew it! Watergate strikes again! They'll trace the source for the payments as surely as the bail for those burglars, I tell you.) I cringed and bled for Dana during that scene, but in a good way; if the girl (young woman?) had forgiven her, it would not have felt true to the story. We see also Mike more and more resuming the de facto dad-and-husband position, which makes me suspect that Damian Lewis not withstanding, they might actually kill off Brody this time around.
You know, Brody has never sounded more fake than during that phone call with Roya when he wasn't lying at all, so I'm not surprised she didn't buy it, though gratified the show allowed her not to be stupid. Also, I'm reminded of the way the Carrie/Brody interrogation scene in Q & A paralleled Carrie with Abu Nasir, as in this episode both Carrie and Nasir (apparantly, guess we'll find out next week after the cliffhanger) decided to respond to Brody's meltdown and attempt to burn all his bridges by re-staging the encounter that originally brought them close to him. Last week
abigail_n wondered where Carrie's story this season would be, as she's been rehabilitated; this episode, I think, gave us some of the answer, in the scene where Brody asks her how she thought it would all end. I don't think Carrie is lying (or just bolstering up Brody's ego) in her reply, and it's not so much about romance (as in the compelling messed up increasing codependency that she and Brody have going) as about changing the narrative that has encircled her so far. If Brody becomes a double agent through her and brings down Abu Nasir, if he ends up a hero, then she's no longer the unstable agent everyone thought was mad last season and this season everyone thinks is too besotted to see clearly, then she is validated in a more fundemental way than being proven right by the foiled Walden assassination plan: the credits don't repeat her statement from the pilot - "I missed something that day" - for nothing. Brody becoming a hero (as defined by Carrie right now, meaning someone bringing down the big threat and saving the country) makes her a saviour and heroine (again, as defined by Carrie: saving the country). She's self aware enough to know that's not how it works and passionate enough to want it to work that way anyway. The show also goes very meta at this moment, because of course this is what part of the viewers hope for, and givent hat Carrie spells it out, I guess that's a pretty big hint it will not happen this way. The scene being meta in other ways, too; when Brody and Carrie start to have sex, we see that they're being watched and recorded and are back in the viewer/viewer metaphor from early s1 when Carrie herself was the viewer, watching Brody; the simultanous horrible intrusiveness of surveillance and addictiveness then, only now, by cutting immediately to the camera and then bringing us to the room where Quinn, Saul and Virgil are all listening in and reacting to what they hear (and don't want to hear, in Saul's case), the show emphasizes the intrusiveness and the voyeuristic aspect instead of the compelling one. They also, like the audience, are discussing Carrie's motivations; is she hopelessly in love, or doing what she does to keep Brody as the only connection to Nasir they have in the field, or both?
Methinks there's an obvious conflict waiting here for Carrie to master or fail. So far, she could unite her emotions for Brody and her work, even make them an asset. But whatever Nasir is planning (and seriously, the writers need to come up with something original here, because right now with Brody having become suspect at least I don't see what he could do for Nasir that Nasir would entrust him with - other than a repetition of last season's assassination attempt, and the show has never been repetitive this way) will probably result in a scenario where Carrie will have to choose.
...or I could be wrong. One thing about Homeland, it keeps surprising me and coming up wit things I'd never have guessed it would do, or do this early.
Meanwhile, my favourite tv teenager not surprisingly has had it with keeping Dad's secrets and tells her mother about Carrie, but that's minor in Dana's life compared to the attempt to atone by confessing to the dead woman's daughter. Who is not in a forgiving mode, and also has been paid by Walden or rather Walden's sidekicks to stay silent. (I knew it! Watergate strikes again! They'll trace the source for the payments as surely as the bail for those burglars, I tell you.) I cringed and bled for Dana during that scene, but in a good way; if the girl (young woman?) had forgiven her, it would not have felt true to the story. We see also Mike more and more resuming the de facto dad-and-husband position, which makes me suspect that Damian Lewis not withstanding, they might actually kill off Brody this time around.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-26 05:52 pm (UTC)Which is exactly what Carrie asked him to do in the previous episode - when she said she hoped he could get what he wanted, the more optimistic parts of her mind were obviously thinking that Mike taking over Brody's family would leave Brody free to leave with her. But at present it looks more likely that Mike will be satisfied than that she will.