Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

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

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Homeland 8.6: Carrie vs. the World

The vice continues to tighten around Carrie in Homeland 8.6, but of course she breaks out of it, in a great scene in which she bolts at the airport from boarding a plane that would take her out of the action.

What's somewhat different about this vice is that Saul is applying it to Carrie, or, to be fair to Saul, he has little choice but to apply it. On the other hand, this is not the first time he wasn't completely on Carrie's side. As he should be, because she's almost always right, if not in the short run, certainly in the long run.

But the screws are on Saul, too, and the stakes couldn't be higher: the assassination of the U. S. President. Was Yevgeny behind it, drawing on information Carrie literally unconsciously gave him? You know what - I don't think so. Although he drives a hard bargain, as he did with Carrie to get his help in locating Max, he just doesn't seem like someone who would mastermind an assassination of a U. S. President, or even implement someone else's plan to do that.

I'm glad Max is still alive. He not only provides a plausible occasion for Carrie to defy Saul, he's a good character and deserves to survive. I suppose that doesn't matter in a series like Homeland. But seeing as how this is the final season, I'll bet that Max will be alive at the end of it.

And what of Carrie? Anything is possible. I wouldn't be stunned if she doesn't survive, or if her survival is ambiguous. But that would be a shame. She deserves to be rewarded for her brilliant analytic and instinctive mind, which has saved the CIA's and the nation's bacon, lo these many times over the eight seasons her story has been on the screen.