Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland

As my wife aptly pointed out earlier this evening, we were going to see two Homelands tonight. That would be Homeland for real, with Obama's 8pm address to the nation, and Homeland on Showtime, at 9pm tonight.

Here's my review of the first:  Obama's speech was ok, but could have been stronger and with more specifics, in the first part, about what we would do to fight terrorism.  It was excellent in the second part, about what we shouldn't be doing, and who were as Americans.

Here's my review of Homeland on Showtime - dynamite, easily the best in this season, which has so far been not the greatest.

But kudos to the show for having Allison actually saying we don't want "another Paris" - her back was to the camera, so that was dubbed in.   I have to hand it to Showtime and the producers of Homeland for having the guts to put that into tonight's show.

The rest was outstanding too.  Claire Danes gave one of the strongest performances in the series - finally reminiscent of what we saw in the first few seasons - as Carrie reacting to what she thought was Quinn's death.   And Miranda Otto as Allison was excellent, too.

The plot was suitably tense with some nice twists - the best being the guy who saved Quinn being saved, surprisingly, by his cousin.  This gives the forces of good a continued possible hand on the inside, and it looks as if we'll need all the help we can get.

And that's true in real Homeland as well, where the convergence of what we see in drama on our screens and what we in news on that same screen is all too close.  Indeed, Homeland on Showtime had an especially frightening clout tonight because, so far, in our real world, an attack by chemical weapons is about the one thing we have not been subject to in the past few months.

See also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch ... Homeland 5.9: Finally!

And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together

And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

#SFWApro 


  different kind of espionage

Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's States of Mind

The big question was whether Homeland could sustain the energy and tension it had for the first three seasons, given the killing of Brody at the end of season 3, and given that he was at least half responsible for the energy and tension.  Not just the initiating character - an American war hero under a terrorist's spell - but his subsequent relationship, against all odds, with Carrie.

The answer, based on the first two episodes, is yes - though we are being treated to a very different, somewhat more conventional, CIA story.   But Carrie is the same character, just this side of sanity on the insanity border, and she once against plays a pivotal, wild, unpredictable role (brilliantly performed by Claire Danes, as always).

I mean, she maybe almost drowns her baby girl - who is Brody's baby girl - and the possible reasons for that are as complex as they can be.  Part of her doesn't want to be a mother.  Part of her wants to get back to Islamabad - though maybe part of why she wants so badly to get back to Islamabad is that she doesn't trust herself with her baby.   And part of what must be driving her is that the baby looks just like Brody.   The hair color is exactly right, and even the expression.   In this triumph of casting, we as well as Carrie feel she's looking right down at Brody when she looks at her baby.  So, if she hates that part of herself - or, a part of herself hates that she slept with Brody, and came to love him - he was, after all, the enemy, at least part of the time - then that gives her another motive for almost drowning her baby.

That scene in the bathtub was the most disturbing scene in the first two episodes.  Which is saying a lot, since the killing of the Islamabad CIA chief Sandy, pulled right out of the car with Quinn and Carrie doing their best to stop it, was pretty brutal, too.   And the aftermath is a simmering can of worms, with Carrie sure she and Quinn could have done more to save Sandy, and Quinn sure they did all that they could.

Quinn certainly did.   Carrie didn't do much, because she couldn't find the weapon that Quinn said was in the car.  Assuming it wasn't really there, what more could Carrie have done?  Does she feel guilty because she thinks Quinn was diverting at least a little of his attention to save her?  Maybe, but I don't even know if that's the case.

What is the case is that Homeland is off to a great, harrowing start, and it all revolves around Carrie's states of mind, as it alway has, even though this a very different situation indeed, without Brody.

See also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

#SFWApro  #SHO_Homeland


  different kind of espionage

Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review

I've just seen episodes 3-5 of the new, second season of Homeland - courtesy of a screener from Showtime - and I'm here with a sneak preview.   As was the case with my sneak preview review of Homeland 2.1-2 last month, I'm going to tell you enough so you'll know I really did see these episodes when you get to see them, but not every last detail, so you'll still get a jolt or two when you see them.  In other words - there are major spoilers below.

Homeland justifiably won big at the Emmys this year.  As I said in my review of 2.1-2, the new season is even better than the first season - even tighter, with more unexpected twists and turns.  Episode 2.2 ended with a mind-blowing game-changer - Saul saw Brody's video, intended for broadcast after he blew up the Vice President, but in fact in one of Nazir's hideout napsacks in Lebanon - which Carrie obtained in a fabulous chase scene - because Brody never did pull the string on his suicide vest.

Let me first say that there is a game-changer just as profound at the end of Homeland 2.5.  Here are some of the steps along the way of our characters getting there:

The first few minutes of 2.3 are a masterful spy piece in itself, with a cool kicker at its ending.  Saul does not have an easy time of it leaving Lebanon - he's stopped at the airport by a Hezbollah agent, who confiscates a certain computer video card in the lining of Saul's briefcase.  This promised to be a serious setback to the benefits of finding Brody's video.  Saul still would have seen it, which would have given comfort to Carrie, but David and the rest of the CIA would likely not have done much about Brody - now a Congressman - without hard evidence.  I was also concerned that Saul might have been further detained, or kidnapped before he got on the plane, but-

Turns out Saul kept the computer card with the Brody video in his pocket, which the Hezbollah agent never touched.   Score a big one for our side, though defanging Brody and getting Nazir will still be a tall, harrowing, order.

Brody is doing fine as a Congressman, set to give a major speech about wounded veterans, when Roya Hammad gives him a mission: go to Gettysburg, PA and pick up the tailor who made his suicide vest.  The tailor is in danger of being picked up by the CIA, who found his name on some of the other Nazir materials Carrie got out of his lair.  Brody protests to Roya that he can't go to PA with a speech to give that very evening; she says he'll get back in time; and he goes on the mission.  Here's a minor weakness in the story:  given the importance of Brody's political success in the U.S. to Nazir, it doesn't add up that Roya would risk his missing his speech even for such an important mission.

And indeed he does miss the speech, which Jessica effectively gives in his stead.  Brody and Jessica's rocky relationship is one of the best parts of episodes 2.3-5.   He gets thrown out of the house for his unexplained absence.  Carrie's not having a good time of it, either.  Her thanks for getting the Nazir materials - impressive, even though David doesn't yet know about the most impressive thing of all, the confession video - is to get locked out a CIA briefing.  (David is an infuriating character - just doing his job, I know, but infuriating.)

In one of the most powerful scenes in both seasons so far, Carrie comes close to taking her own life.  Saul, significantly, finally gets back to the USA and back in the action, and shows up at Carrie's house - she's moved out her family's house - after she has decided not to die.  Carrie has chosen not to take her life, in other words, even before Saul arrives with the Brody video, which confirms and reaffirms everything she believed and was fighting to bring to the CIA's attention.  That speaks of her inner strength, which is good to see.

Moving into 2.4, Saul shows David the video.  But rather than taking Brody in, they decide to keep an eye on his every move, in hopes that they can get to other people who are part of Nazir's new strike team.  We meet Peter, whom David puts in charge of this operation.  He's at first a bit of an arrogant jerk to Carrie - but I predict we'll see them in bed before the end of this season.

Carrie still has feelings for Brody, but what they are is not exactly clear - just as it wasn't last year - some mixture of attraction and revulsion.  Part of the CIA plan is now to get Carrie to disconcert Brody enough to go to his handlers, whom the CIA will then reel in.  But Brody disconcerts Carrie as they talk in a bar - when he talks about her shock therapy - and she's convinced that Brody knows she's part of a mission against him.  Paranoia or is she right?   She confronts Brody, tells him what she really thinks of him, and when he looks ready to attack her the CIA takes him into custody.  Did she lose control or was this what she wanted and planned?  You never quite know with Carrie, which is one of the things that makes Homeland so strong.

Episode 2.5 has Peter and then Carrie doing their best to break Brody in the interrogation room.  He's obviously been there before.  Peter has a surprise to deal out as the "bad cop," and as Carrie takes up the "good cop" role, alone in the room with Brody, and ostentatiously turning off the video (but not the audio - which Brody apparently doesn't realize), we're again in a scene in which Carrie's real feelings about him  - undoubtedly a mixture - are brought into play.  In particular, she skillfully uses the real connection she feels with him to get him, at long last, to confess.

And herein is that second game-changer I mentioned before.  Brody not only confesses, but agrees to work with the CIA to get Nazir or at least stop his latest plan to attack America - Carrie tells Brody that it's that, or Brody can be brought to public trial with his kids humiliated and all that follows. But can we now trust Brody?  Of course not.  But the question for Brody now, as it's been for Carrie for a while, is how much of what we see him say and do reflect his real feelings?  He's an exquisite liar.  He knows just how much of truth to put into the mix to make it believable.  He tells his wife at the end that he's working for the CIA - which is now literally true - but doesn't say a thing about his previous work for Nazir, which included blowing himself and the Vice President up.

The acting throughout is just wonderful.  Tour de forces by Claire Danes and Damian Lewis and everyone else on hand.  There's not a scene which wasn't riveting in the three new episodes I saw.  At this point, Homeland is contention for being one of the best shows ever on television.

See Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review

See also Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

"As a genre-bending blend of police procedural and science fiction, The Silk Code delivers on its promises." -- Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review

Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

Homeland wrapped up its excellent first season on Showtime tonight,  in a fine, intense, thornily surprising package - that turned out not to be wrapped up at all, i.e., the best kind of package for a season finale.

Dana - Brody's daughter - pretty much plays the most pivotal role.  She realized something was not right with her father last week, and suspects something bad,  but doesn't know what.  When she confronts Brody praying, he tells her he converted to Islam - Brody, like all ingenious liars, knows the best way of hiding something is to admit some significant part of it when caught in the lie.   But Dana's smart and intuitive, and is only mostly not completed convinced by Brody's religious confession.

When Carrie - who has figured out what Brody is up to - comes to Brody's home and tries to convince Dana to call her father and "talk him down," Dana calls the police instead.  Carrie's taken away in handcuffs, but she has tapped into Dana's residual misgivings.  She calls her father (especially powerful acting by Morgan Saylor as Dana and Damian Lewis as Brody in this episode), and indeed talks him down  - i.e., from setting off his suicide vest after it didn't work the first time, which would have killed not only Brody but the VP set to announce his campaign for President, and a whole bunch of high-ranking American officials.

Dana may even had had something to do with why the vest didn't work the first time - she interrupted her father when he was putting on and connecting the parts of the vest.   He had to take it off so Dana wouldn't see it, and he likely stuck a wire in a wrong place when he hurriedly had to put the vest back on.

But how did Brody get in the room with the VP et al?  That was one the best turns of the story.  I was wondering how Brody would get through the weapon detectors-  when Walker takes a shot that misses the VP, hits the political operative, and takes two more shots that hit no one.  This drives everyone including Brody into the building, with no one paying any attention to the weapon detector sounding off as the Secret Service hustles to get everyone to a safe room.  Smooth piece of plotting.

Brody later goes on to kill Walker, as part of his apparently successful effort to convince Nazir that the only thing that happened in the bunker is the vest didn't work, and Brody can actually do more damage to the US now, by being in a a position to take out the VP after the election and the VP has become President.

Meanwhile, Carrie at first takes Brody's survival to mean she was wrong to suspect him a second time.  She checks herself into a hospital to get shock treatment for her bi-polar condition, and just as she's about to go under the anesthesia, she recalls that Brody shouted the name of Nazir's son when Brody had a nightmare the night she and Brody spent together (outstanding acting by Claire Danes the whole season, but especially in tonight's and last week's episodes).  But she's unconscious the next moment, and the shock therapy might result in some kind of short term loss of memory.

But we won't forget a thing, and the ingredients at the end of this first season of Homeland look like the makings of an exceptional second season next year, as well.

See also Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises

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The Plot to Save Socrates





"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Homeland on Showtime

I've seen the first three episodes of Homeland, thanks to a top-secret, crumpled envelope with a screener disk sent to me by Showtime.   It looks to be a wrenchingly powerful series, about POW US Marine Sgt Brody, who returns home to his wife and kids after nearly a decade in captivity.

Not, necessarily, great news, since CIA Officer Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) has just been told by an informant that an American has been turned by the Middle Eastern terrorist.  Is Brody that man?

He's certainly not completely comfortable with his family - especially his beautiful wife, Jessica (played by Morena Baccarin of V fame!), who's been having a serious affair with Brody's friend.   But that's likely not the reason Brody is acting weird, because we also see him looking at products for who knows exactly what in a home supply store, and getting up in the middle of the night for prayer - Islamic.

Meanwhile, Carrie has a drug problem, and her superiors are less than convinced of her acumen in any case.  Saul (Mandy Patinkin) is at least willing to have an open mind, and Patinkin puts in his customarily fine performance in the role.

Homeland of course has been compared to The Manchurian Candidate, but it's not clear at this point whether he's aware that he's been turned, or if it's all unconscious, as in The Manchurian Candidate.  I suppose there's also an outside chance that Brody is really a double agent - he really hasn't done any damage as of the end of the 3rd episode.

Showtime tried its hand with terrorist drama in Sleeper Cell a few years ago, which I actually thought was very good, especially in the first of its two seasons.  Homeland looks to be at least as good - with solid acting, action, story line, nudity, and a beat on current events that even mentions bin Laden is dead.   The series premiers right after Dexter on October 2, and I'll be back with more reviews later that month.

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...