Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; Bosch; Citadel; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outer Range; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Diplomat, Last of Us, Lazarus Project, Orville, Way Home; True Detective; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

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

Sunday, March 8, 2020

Homeland 8.5: Is Carrie Another Brody?

One of the most powerful, action-packed episodes of Homeland - 8.5 - in quite some time, with even more deep intrigue hinted at in the coming attractions of what we'll see next week.

This week, we learn both Presidents (of the U. S. and Afghanistan) died in the crash. We still don't know if the helicopter was shot down or the crash was an accident. Max needs to retrieve the black box - actually, orange, as he points out to Carrie - and that's where the heart-pounding action takes place, as Max and the unit, outnumbered by Taliban, try to escape with the box.

Back in Washington, the Vice President now President, needs to take command. The whole series of scenes there were reminiscent of the best of 24 - not surprising, since, as I've mentioned before, there's some overlap in brains behind the series (Howard Gordon).

But the most chilling and provocative part comes in the coming attractions, in just a snippet of a conversation between Saul and Carrie. Saul knows that it was Carrie who encouraged President Warner to come to Afghanistan. Is Saul thinking that somehow Carrie did this deliberately, to kill the President and therein the deal to end the war?

Certainly there's no way Carrie would have done this intentionally or consciously. But was she brainwashed in that Russian prison, with Yevgeny her handler, and his visit to Afghanistan, triggering Carrie to do something this bad, as in The Manchurian Candidate?

After all, Homeland was born with Brody brainwashed, and Carrie trying to break through that. It would be pretty daring to end the series with the same thing - being brainwashed - driving Carrie. We'll just have to see.