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.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Homeland 7.2: Carrie vs. 4chan

Well, not exactly 4chan, but I liked that in the title of this review, of one of the most ridiculous episodes of Homeland - 7.2 - indeed of any serious espionage show, to come down the pike in a long time.

Carrie puts a picture of a woman she wants to identify on 4chan (if you don't know what that is, either don't read on, or look it up on Wikipedia). But ok, that makes some sense. What follows is what doesn't: Carrie downloads an image that's sent to her in response. And that image is really a landmine that explodes when she opens it, permitting some hacker to take over her computer and its sensitive files, with the motive of blackmailing her for escalating amounts of money or else the files will be made public.

Come on - even I know not to download a file that's sent to me by someone I don't know, let alone on 4chan. Carrie's upset - before this happens - as she always is, but she has excellent instincts, and would never do anything even remotely as stupid as this.

And what follows is also idiotic. She beats the hacker by first tempting him with her body on the screen and then in person, where she can turn the tables and beat him to the ground and get him to relinquish his hold on her computer lest she kill him. Again - what? What kind of hacker who stands to make thousands of dollars would risk that just for an in-person look or more at Carrie's body. (No offense to Carrie, I'd say that about any woman or man - what hacker would risk $20,000 just for a look, or a touch, or even to sleep with the victim?)

And so this episode 7.2 of Homeland goes down as one of the most implausible, if not the most absurd, episode of this otherwise fine series. Fortunately - I was tempted to write 4chan-ately - there's plenty of time to correct course in this seventh season.

See also Homeland 7.1: The Worse Threat