Homeland 3.04

[selenak]

I spoke too soon: while itunes doesn't put up the current season of Elementary yet, it does put up Homeland, and thus I and my trusty device were able to get the latest episode on the road.



And I'm glad to have done so, because I was starting to wonder whether Carrie's arc this season was to suffer (again), and when we'd get to see her be a brilliant agent once more. As it turns out, we already did. In retrospect, I should have seen in coming, though I will say the show cheated at least once, when showing us the reaction shot to tv watching Carrie listening to Saul's statement in front of the committe. She was alone then, and thus definitely had no reason to fake her distress. Then again, it's one thing to know in theory what the plan was and another to hear yourself denounced in practice, so I can handwave. (Also, there is the parallel of Carrie's reaction to being locked up in a mental hospital, which as her comment to Saul at the end of this episode confirms was quite real.)

Anyway, the twist is a good one, very Homeland, and in retrospect makes sense of the fact that until the end of the episode, we never saw Saul and Carrie alone together. Whereas if he'd genuinely thrown her to the dogs he would have told her in person first, now that I think of it. So Saul and Carrie in reality were hatching a scheme to set her up to be recruited by the opposition, and in order to make that credible she needed to be/look desperate with absolutely no alternative. This emotionally works because what we've seen in the last ep and in this one before the reveal is truly chilling when it comes to what the CIA can do to an individual. And Doylist-wise, it's a credible and new role for Carrie; we haven't seen her undercover for longer than an ep or so, and now it looks like she'll be infiltrating the newest Big Bad for the season. Watsonian-wise, it was downright brilliant from Saul: Carrie was bound to be resented and targeted after the CIA blow up, and letting her work at his side would not have changed that. Instead, he used a weakness and turned it into a strength that would provide her with the perfect cover.

Obvious danger: nobody but Saul knows that this is what Carrie is doing. Both Dar Ala and Quinn, albeit coming from completely different angles in their reactions to Carrie's disgrace, clearly are in the dark, so is Virgil - hi, Virgil, good to see you again!, and I bet so is everyone else, so if anything happens to Saul, Carrie is stuck with the rogue/traitor label.

In other news: Mike is also back, and very relieved am I that he didn't dump Jessica and the kids after the news about Brody came to light. Speaking of Jessica, right now she's the person I'm feeling most for in this particular subplot, and Inarra Moreena Baccarin does great things with the meaty character stuff they're giving her this season.

Also: it did not escape my notice that the evil bankers and the Iranian embezzler seem to have their HQ in Venezuela, where Brody just happens to be currently stuck. Yep, I can see where this is going. (Btw, last week I read an article in the New Yorker about the Tower of David, which turns out to be very real, controlled by a gang lord and all.)

Seems I wronged the nurse. She and Carrie's lawyer are a reminder Carrie's always been able to connect to other women, which is one of her strengths.

I still like Fara a lot, which means I'm now afraid something will happen to her.

Comments

[kalypso]

I'm beginning to think I need subtitles for Saul. There's at least one line per episode I replay several times and still can't make out... I don't remember Mandy Patinkin being this difficult in the previous series. But I couldn't follow more than half of the exposition of the football plot; I just got a vague idea that one of the terrorists was creaming off revolutionary funds and laundering them via a football club and somebody involved (possibly the dishonest terrorist) was a big fan of a famous goalkeeper. Or possibly he was the goalkeeper (did he play for Iran or Venezuela?)

[selenak]

No, he used an alias which was a name of a famous Iran goal keeper in his youth (who's dead now and has been for years). I assumed it would be like a German terrorist using the alias Franz Beckenbauer.

[kalypso]

Ah! I'm unfamiliar with Farsi names by comparison with Urdu ones, so I'm not sure whether he might reasonably think that the name wouldn't stand out (years of processing Pakistani cricket scores have led me to the conclusion that their society is drawing on a comparatively small pool of names, so the same combinations or similar ones come up more often than you'd expect, eg there were two apparently unrelated Ijaz Ahmeds playing at the same time, who had to be distinguished by senior and junior even though that would normally suggest father and son).

Where is the money-laundering football club?