Homeland 2.09
Nov. 27th, 2012 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI finished my Yuletide story today and sent it off to be beta'd; perhaps that is why I had a bit trouble focussing this week. Sorry in advance.
This show does nothing to discourage one's paranoia. The fact that we meet Quinn's mentor/boss/whateve-he-is this week, from a distance, apparantly a big number at the CIA, played by F. Murray Abraham so clearly meant to be an important character in the long run, makes me suspect one of two things: a)Salieri Abraham's character is a more (too obvious, and also, they'd have introduced him as trustworthy first), or b) my uneasy suspicion in a comment to the last episode that maybe Quinn's introduction to the show wasn't meant to provide Carrie with a possible alternate love interest but to replace Carrie may be justified. Because the Carrie and Saul dynamic is central to the show, and the fact that Quinn has a trusted beardy superior mentor person of his own makes me, well, paranoid.
Anyway.
I also expected something to happen to the Brody clan at their safehouse, which didn't (yet?). Starting the episode with Brody being released by Nasir and showing us only tidbits of what happened between them as flashbacks during the episode may have been an obvious device to highten suspense (did he or didn't he switch sides again, etc.), but it worked anyway. What I thought: Brody's intel was genuine but he intended to kill Walden (not because Nasir told him to again, but because he still wanted to do that anyway, now, after Dana's involvement in the hit and run, more than ever) anyway. Guess we'll see next week. Or not, of course, with Quinn as chauffeur. The episode also answered something that had been up in the air since the episode Q & A, i.e., does Brody still consider himself a Muslim? (The answer to this being tricky either way because while the show last week had Brody say that his conversion to Islam was independent from his conversion to Nasir's cause (as the later was triggered by what happened to Issa), he's not exactly a reliable narrator. So this week we saw him pray again, which is the one thing he told neither Carrie nor the CIA in general, but we also saw him tell Nasir that Nasir has no more claim to know the will of Allah than Brody himself does, so I think, Doylist wise at least, the show doesn't want a Muslim-faith-as-condition-for-terrorist-frame-of-mind subtext. (Whether or not they succeed is up in the air.)
Incidentally, whether or not I'm right re: Brody's intentions about Walden, I'm sure Walden won't get shot, because, as mentioned in various reviews of mine this season, the VP will be brought down through his self created Watergate in the form of the hit-and-run coverup. Which means he'll be alive long enough to possibly figure out that the CIA has been feeding him false information and that Estes hasn't told him his potential running mate is a double agent who wanted to kill him very much indeed. If I were Walden, I'd see red. Why do I bring this up? Because I don't think David Estes will make it out of this season unscratched, either.
Also for the chop before the season is over: Nasir. Next season will have a new villain. That's my alternate guess forSalieri Abraham's character - that he'll turn out to be a secret puppet player in addition to a big CIA hotshot. Before that, I'm still worried about the Brody family, since Brody rather anvilly told Nasir how he underestimated his attachment to his family. Now given the show hasn't really known what to do with him, I'd say the obvious Brody kid to be for the chop is Chris (also there is the symmetry of sons with Issa), but then again, the audience isn't invested in Chris, which makes me worried about Dana.
Did I mention this show is ever so paranoia inducing?
This show does nothing to discourage one's paranoia. The fact that we meet Quinn's mentor/boss/whateve-he-is this week, from a distance, apparantly a big number at the CIA, played by F. Murray Abraham so clearly meant to be an important character in the long run, makes me suspect one of two things: a)
Anyway.
I also expected something to happen to the Brody clan at their safehouse, which didn't (yet?). Starting the episode with Brody being released by Nasir and showing us only tidbits of what happened between them as flashbacks during the episode may have been an obvious device to highten suspense (did he or didn't he switch sides again, etc.), but it worked anyway. What I thought: Brody's intel was genuine but he intended to kill Walden (not because Nasir told him to again, but because he still wanted to do that anyway, now, after Dana's involvement in the hit and run, more than ever) anyway. Guess we'll see next week. Or not, of course, with Quinn as chauffeur. The episode also answered something that had been up in the air since the episode Q & A, i.e., does Brody still consider himself a Muslim? (The answer to this being tricky either way because while the show last week had Brody say that his conversion to Islam was independent from his conversion to Nasir's cause (as the later was triggered by what happened to Issa), he's not exactly a reliable narrator. So this week we saw him pray again, which is the one thing he told neither Carrie nor the CIA in general, but we also saw him tell Nasir that Nasir has no more claim to know the will of Allah than Brody himself does, so I think, Doylist wise at least, the show doesn't want a Muslim-faith-as-condition-for-terrorist-frame-of-mind subtext. (Whether or not they succeed is up in the air.)
Incidentally, whether or not I'm right re: Brody's intentions about Walden, I'm sure Walden won't get shot, because, as mentioned in various reviews of mine this season, the VP will be brought down through his self created Watergate in the form of the hit-and-run coverup. Which means he'll be alive long enough to possibly figure out that the CIA has been feeding him false information and that Estes hasn't told him his potential running mate is a double agent who wanted to kill him very much indeed. If I were Walden, I'd see red. Why do I bring this up? Because I don't think David Estes will make it out of this season unscratched, either.
Also for the chop before the season is over: Nasir. Next season will have a new villain. That's my alternate guess for
Did I mention this show is ever so paranoia inducing?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 01:32 pm (UTC)I can imagine an early scene between Abu Nasir and Brody in which Nasir would say "Your name is Nicholas?" and he replies "Only my parents called me that." Because I think it would have the same emotional impact as the shortened form of my name which is now used only by a handful of people - close family and a couple of old schoolfriends - and unknown to anyone who has met me over the past thirty years. It's not whether it's short or long that matters, it's who uses it.
I know Brody's got a gun at home, but my impression is that he doesn't carry it around all the time - my thinking was that, if a situation developed and he suddenly realised there was a suitable gun to hand, he might act on impulse - he was a sniper, too, wasn't he?