Homeland

I totally forgot this started last night, which means the other two friends of mine who I used to watch it with either don’t care or forgot about it too, because nobody mentioned it this weekend. I’m curious where they take this season, but I probably would’ve kept on forgetting about it if not for the internet.

From an article at rollingstone.com:

As Homeland starts its fourth season, Claire Danes’ CIA antihero keeps bouncing from one historic screw-up to another. As the season begins, Carrie, who’s proved herself as somebody you wouldn’t hire to run a strip-mall Pizza Hut, is somehow running the CIA station in Kabul. The CIA is apparently the kind of freewheeling workplace where you can tell your superior officers, ‘‘BTW, I’m carrying the baby of the terrorist who bombed our headquarters and killed the vice president,’’ and they respond, ‘‘Boy or girl?’’

I laughed.

While that Roliing Stone quote was funny, it was only right about Brodie killing the VP. He wasn’t responsible for the bombing of the headquarters, IIRC (although the bad guys made it look like he was).

I’m someone who has mostly felt like Homeland is basically somewhat bad Tom Clancy (but Clancy novels felt like they got the basic workings down right and Homeland frequently has me shaking my head or laughing in frustration at how stupid it can be).

EARLY SEASON SPOILERS!!!

Season One was fun and I liked how it came together and it probably had me shaking my head the least. Most of the time I kept wondering why the main characters were doing any of this instead of the FBI, the ones who actually handle what Homeland covers. And I’m sure Carrie could never hide her condition the way she does to get to the top levels that she gets to. Honestly I doubt she would ever be let in the door.

With Season Two, it’s almost like the writers don’t get that there is a whole world out there besides their main cast. So while we can’t leave our car idling outside an airport, and if we did, we’d be most likely photographed in five different ways by security cameras, someone can leave his car in the “white zone for loading and unloading of passengers only” strip right outside the place where 300 top people are all gathered. I spent a lot of time again wondering where the FBI was, and thinking that plot points would seem much easier to resolve in real life with outside resources than the show makes out. That sentiment culminated in the big finish bombing that should have had Secret Service noticing the specific person trying to park the car there and arresting said person. Or having all the explosives get detected trying to smuggle it onto the CIA campus since I assume they probably have bomb-sniffing shit. Or barring that,having someone check the videotape from the security camera that covers the road and immediately know it wasn’t Brody. Or whatever, it’s just too dumb to calculate all the ways most of season three doesn’t happen.

The big season three twist was fucking dumb, given the scenes with Carrie by herself acting shocked at her treatment by the CIA even though she was in on the plan from the beginning. There are clever twists, and there are bad writers cheating. The season three twist was the latter. Somehow, once the action moved to the middle east, I liked it again. Maybe the plot holes become less obvious or my suspension of disbelief comes back by separating me from the setting, but I really liked most of it near the end of season three.

END OF EARLY SEASON SPOILERS

So with the double header, there’s things I don’t know but given how sloppy earlier stuff was, I’m left wondering about the details. Could the CIA section chief of Kabul say “I want to take a walk, stop the car” in the middle of an unsecured city? Would her armed escort actually comply or just say fuck that, I’m not getting killed just so you can get some air? Would Carrie actually be making the call to launch a drone strike like that? Seems like a military decision. Sure CIA would provide the analysis, but wouldn’t someone else interpret that to make the launch decision? I feel like I’ve read that Obama somehow weighs in on certain high level drone strikes, but maybe I’m misremembering that. Anyway, that decision to launch 1) seemed above Carrie’s pay grade and 2) seems like it belongs to someone else.

For someone who has figured out situations no one else had multiple times, Carrie seemed to have no idea what she was facing during the mob scene. Her inability to read what she and the other guy could do in that situation makes me wonder how she got anything else right.

Every scene with the baby seemed to suck the life out of the show, making it the kind of drama Homeland wouldn’t cover all that well. I secretly hoped the baby would get the Islamabad Section Chief job just to write it out of the story. I don’t know, I’m not sure what I expect from Homeland at this point or why I seem to lean harder on it than other shows. I guess I want it to have the internal integrity and familiarity of intelligence services like good, classic, spy novels. It doesn’t come close, but many times, it doesn’t feel like it’s even trying.

Well, after last night’s episode, I’d say the writers have got their mojo back. At least they’ve cooked up a good cliff hanger. But the technical issues awdougherty pointed out remain.

SPOILERS

I don’t think even the head of Central Intelligence would have to the power to order the Marines off of embassy property. Also, the handling of the ambassador’s traitor-husband was hardly convincing. Everyone, including the ambassador, knows he’s working with the Pakistani’s, but they don’t continue the interrogation; they just confine him? Don’t think so.

The sad part is, that’s pretty much spot on. I’ve been watching an episode here and there for giggles and was disappointed to find it’s still just an awful and poorly written show. Claire Danes’ “acting” reminds me of bad vaudeville comedians.

After being forced to watch this entire series by my wife, I’ve finally started enjoying the show a lot with Season 4. At least until later in the season, it started feeling more grounded, realistic, and intelligent. By fast-paced action TV show standards, at least.

I also feel like I should eat some crow here. After the few initial bumps, I’ve ended up thinking Season 4 has been the best season yet. I think it helps setting the show overseas, I liked moments like Carrie telling everyone to drone strike Saul and the terrorist or Carrie betraying Saul’s wish not to be recaptured by steering him right into a crowd of terrorists. I was genuinely surprised by the cliffhanger a few weeks ago and liked what the real plan was. And while I like Rupert Friend’s character, I feel like the show has set itself up to go back into the world of stupid with the potential rogue stuff that’s about to happen. Regardless, though, at least from where the season currently stands, I think that despite some hiccups, this has been the tightest season so far.

Glad to hear it. I haven’t watched any of season 4. I didn’t even dislike season 3, I was just not interested to see how they stretched this series out until hearing whether it was actually decent or not.

I agree that Season 4 has been pretty spectacular. There were some moments with Carrie that made me shake my head, but overall this is the best season since the first.

If you build an embassy in a country that has proven dangerous for your people in the past, it’s always a great idea to continue to allow the existence of a secret tunnel into the embassy that apparently everyone but the gardener knows about!

Also, do not screen your employees for bipolar disorder and a history of not taking the required meds. This is especially true for the CIA and all other government jobs!

If an employee gets involved with a terrorist, helps them to escape capture at one point, and then has their baby, give them a management position immediately!

The proper way to deal with an informant is to try and sex them up.

<Well, to be fair, that DID work for Bond most of the time>

I’m sorry, but I just can’t give this show credit as being well written. It’s entertaining, yes. At least the last few episodes have been. But the show is so utterly ludicrous that it makes 24 look like a documentary.

I was glad that Carrie’s bipolar didn’t really play directly into it. They could have swapped a hallucinogen for any mediation anyone was taking and had a similar result, it was just that her history of bipolar made her going off the rails more plausible, and less obvious as a poisoning, but since she caught on to it anyway it didn’t really matter.

I guess you guys are still in awe over the amazing season finale.

MIND-BLOWING FUNERAL ACTION: Carrie rides in Quinn’s truck and later drinks whiskey from a paper cup! Who wants lasagna!?

SHOCKING REVELATIONS: Carrie has a half brother! His name is Tim and he rides a bike! He’s already more interesting than Dana’s brother.

INTENSE HUMAN DRAMA: Quinn flippity-flops some more! I SERIOUSLY thought he was out for good this time. Saul and Carrie break up yet again! Saul is so used to it by now he just looks tired and doesn’t manage a response. Who needs all that boring Haqqani shit that cluttered up the whole season when you got Carrie going on a road trip and talking with her estranged mom.

See you all next season!

And here I thought it was a good season. I stand corrected. :)

When they brought out the lasagna I knew shit was about to GET REAL!

That was seriously the season finale??? Nothing freakin’ happened! We get a subplot about an unknown teen half brother and an old guy who recognizes Carrie’s baby and that’s it?

I was hoping for some Dal on Saul action, but even that confrontation played out like an episode of Behind the Ferns.

I didn’t mind the finale. It was more denouement than explosive cliffhanger, and I’m not sure how you top the overrunning of the embassy. I felt like it set up some stuff to get Saul back into the CIA and give a hook to go with in the “Where In The World Is Quinn?” I think trying to end seasons with exploding CIAs is a bad trap to fall into.

We’re about halfway through the season, and all I can wonder is if we folks playing at home are supposed to see Carrie as a modern-day Maxwell Smart (when the CIA chief showed up in Pakistan I kept hoping she would request the Cone of Silence), or if this is just the fallout from sloppy writing.

Don’t you dare defame the greatness that was Get Smart by trying to compare it to Homeland!

I wouldn’t, if not for the fact that when Carrie found out the guy she was targeting wasn’t killed by the drone after all, her response was “missed him by that much”.

I love watching Homeland mostly because Carrie has only two options when dealing with external forces: she either screws them or yells at them. There is no other option. I think I’m still watching primarily because I can’t wait for her to use one of those reactions even more inappropriately.

Toast is burnt? Oh well, off go her pants…and here…we…go…