Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; Black Doves; Bosch; Citadel; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Dexter: Original Sin; Dune: Prophecy; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Last of Us, Way Home; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Homeland 6.8: Peter's Problem

Another strong episode of Homeland last night - 6.8 - which was about the best Peter episode we've had so far this year.

Despite Peter's near-death experience and what it did to his brain, he still has the instincts, even the smarts, of a master spy. He has the sense that people are out to kill him. He may be a little paranoid, but in this case, as the cliche goes, he's not paranoid at all - because, for whatever reason, the same people who killed the FBI guy and were watching Carrie's house, are indeed hunting Quinn. (I'll get to who they may be in a minute.)

Since Peter is a little paranoid, he thinks he sees the guy who's been stalking him, and that turns out to be the wrong man. He's worried that he can't trust Astrid, and astutely takes the bullets out of her gun, likely thinking that, if she tries to stop him from leaving at the point of that gun, he can safely ignore it. Tragically, the strategy backfires and leads to Astrid herself getting shot to death, as she tries to defend Peter when the real bad guy attacks their cabin. It was a pretty good and stinging irony in this spy drama.

I said last week that Dar is the arch villain this season, and I'm pretty sure he still is. But I don't quite get why he would visit Peter, and try to turn him against Carrie (a despicable move, presumably for some future leverage), only to send someone to kill Peter, almost the next day. Something doesn't quite add up about that - maybe Dar isn't the ultimate villain, or at very least not the only villain, at work here after all.

Dar is presumably responsible, though, for Saul's Iranian contact lying to the President-elect and saying the Iranians are indeed cheating on the nuclear arms deal, after Saul took great pains, including recruiting Carrie, to set up the meeting. Well, at least Saul's getting wise to some of what Dar is doing.

Looking forward to more next week.

See also Homeland 6.1: Madam President-Elect ... Homeland 6.2: Parallel Program ... Homeland 6.3: Potentials ... Homeland 6.4: "A Man with Painted Hair" ... Homeland 6.5: The Attack on Carrie's Brownstone ... Homeland 6.7: The Arch Villain