Citadel, Season 2: Here's What You Might Want to Know I Think About It

The wife and I binged Season 2 of Citadel the past few nights.  I think it's a great scalding piece of science fiction spycraft with somehow some nearly slapstick comedy woven in via a new rogue CIA operative.  As I was watching it, I thought that if Alfred Hitchcock were alive and kicking today, Citadel might well be the kind of streaming TV series he would make.  

Citadel -- both seasons -- is also a special kind of love story, chocked full of insights into the way love plays in all of our lives, off-screen.  There's a conversation in almost every episode in which Nadia or an equivalent character says to Mason or an equivalent character, you don't really love me, "you loved the thought that I loved you."  That's pretty astute stuff, in a spy or any narrative, because it comes straight out of real lives.

Because of what we found out at the end of season 1 -- I'm trying to avoid spoilers here -- there's also a lot compelling and provocative family drama, probing the relationship between parents and their adult children.   Since we're dealing with daily life-and-death relationships, the regular pressure points that we find in everyday life take on cutting-edge importance.

The importance of chips in the brain -- the key science fictional lever in season one -- is expanded in season two into a capacity to remotely turn anyone with an implanted chip into a murder machine.   If this sounds like an update of The Manchurian Candidate, you'd be right, and that's indeed what one of the characters says in Citadel season 2.

Lots of people get killed, including some major characters, including one whose death I'm very unhappy about -- but hey, this is science fiction, maybe a soul can be embedded in a chip, and I hope there's a third season in which some version of that happens.

See also:  Citadel 1.1-1.2: Memories and Questions ... 1.3: Jedi ... 1.4-1.6: The Arch Anti-Hero

lots of chips in this novel

Who Killed JFK? Episode 4: The Real Manchurian Candidate

Episode 4 of Who Killed JFK, the podcast with Rob Reiner and Soledad O'Brien, was just put up today.  It's all about Lee Harvey Oswald, prior to his day in the Texas Book Depository, or wherever he was on that day in 1963 when JFK was assassinated.  It tells us of his conditioning or brainwashing by the CIA, resulting in his false defection to the Soviet Union.  A lot of this reminded me of The Manchurian Candidate.

In case you haven't seen it, I highly recommend this 1962 movie, based on 1959 novel by Richard Condon of the same name.  In the movie, Lawrence Harvey (Oswald's middle name, an awful coincidence?) plays a Korean War veteran who comes home to America, brainwashed by the North Koreans. He's now an assassin, programmed to kill -- in this case a nominee for U. S. President -- with no conscious knowledge of what he's doing.  (Yes, this is similar to Homeland, which clearly was inspired by The Manchurian Candidate.)

Episode 4 of Who Killed JFK presents a variety of evidence that Oswald was "brainwashed" by the CIA in the late 1950s.  Whatever happened to Oswald, the CIA's infamous MK-Ultra program -- which used LSD, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and other nefarious methods to program its subjects to do whatever the CIA wanted -- is established fact.  (Candy Jones, one-time model and later co-host with her husband, Long John Nebel, of their widely popular late-night radio talk show, claimed to have been given the MK-Ultra treatment in the 1950s.) Episode 4 of Who Killed JFK presents the case that Oswald was put through the program and sent to the Soviet Union as a double agent.  The title of the episode, "The Patsy," comes from what Oswald himself said when he was between the time JFK was killed and Jack Ruby in turn killed Oswald.  The next episode will present the further case that Oswald, still under the influence of MK-Ultra program, was set up to take the sole rap for killing JFK.

So here's where we stand at the end of 4th episode:  The CIA has it in for JFK.  They pressured doctors to change their reports in order to support the preposterous single-bullet theory.  And they programmed Lee Harvey Oswald to do their bidding -- at this point, to pretend to defect to the Soviet Union.

I'm looking forward to learning all about the continuation of Oswald's trajectory in the fifth and subsequent episodes of Who Killed JFK?  I do have one question at this point.  What was the reaction in the Soviet Union of Oswald being named the sole killer of JFK?  In Episode 4, we're told that maybe, likely, the Soviets were suspicious of Oswald's defection, and likely were playing their own game with Oswald, seeking to use him for their own ends.  I hope Who Killed JFK -- which has become must listen-to audio for me -- tells us a little more about what Reiner at al may have learned of what the Soviets thought of Oswald being labeled as the sole assassin of JFK.  Given what we found out in previous episodes about JFK and Khrushchev drawing closer after the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, driven by their mutual desire to make sure that the U.S and the USSR never came so close to the precipice of nuclear Armageddon again, it makes sense that the Soviets would have been very interested in who really killed JFK, even after Khrushchev was put out of power.

See also Who Killed JFK?  A Review of the First Three Episodes of this Podcast

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.

See also Homeland 8.1: Lost Time ... Homeland 8.3: Ohio ... Homeland 8.4: Helicopter Down

And see also Homeland 7.1: The Worse Threat ... Homeland 7.2: Carrie vs. 4chan ... Homeland 7.3: Separating Truth from Hyperthinking ... Homeland 7.4: Fake News! ... Homeland 7.5: "The Russian Angle" ... Homeland 7.6: Meets The Americans, Literally ... Homeland 7.7: Meets The Americans ... Homeland 7.8: Evenly Matched ... Homeland 7.9: Franny vs. the Job or the U.S. Hacks Twitter ... Homeland 7.10: President Trump and President Keane ... Homeland 7.11: Carrie in Action ... Homeland Season 7 Finale: The President

And 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 ... Homeland 6.8: Peter's Problem ... Homeland 6.9: The Tide Begins to Turn ... Homeland 6.10: Fake News! ... Homeland 6.11: Quinn and Dar ... Homeland Season 6 Finale: Chilling - and True to Life

And 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! ... Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland ... Homeland 5.11: Allison as Primo Villain ... Homeland Season 5 Finale: RIPs

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

Revolution 2.16: The Manchurian Post-Blackout Patriot

After the heady pseudo-time-travel nanite-induced dream of last week, Revolution 2.16 returned to its more conventional story of the US at war with itself after the blackout, and put on a pretty good hour of it.

The most interesting part of the episode was the back story of how these new United States came to arise out of Guantanamo.  This has been hanging as far as specific details since the beginning of this season or the end of last season, depending upon how you look at it, and it was good to see it played out with some of the people we've come to know and hate in the post-blackout present of the series.

We also get a fuller and more provocative account of exactly how this new patriot army - including Tom's son Jason - have been "trained," with the revelation that his training is a Manchurian Candidate kind of conditioning, in which the subject can be ordered to do anything, including killing a specified target.

In The Manchurian Candidate, this led to the brain-washed pawn killing the woman he loved, because she inadvertently witnessed his killing of her father, which he was ordered to do, and part of his conditioning was to kill anyone who witnessed his crime.  This scenario sets up a promisingly harrowing situation on Revolution, in which Jason's conditioning may oblige him to kill or try to kill Tom.

Meanwhile, it's good to see more of our characters in the same town, with the fight between Monroe's and Tom's sons especially noteworthy, not only because they both are sons of major players - and, as such, major players themselves - but because they both love or at least like and want Charlie.  And this in turn leaves open the question of whom she would choose, whether for love or life, should a life-and-death situation involving the three present itself.

Still not on the scene yet are Aaron and his wife, but they're on their way back, and with Priscilla in full possession of the nanites, the two should add just the thing when they arrive in Willoughby.


See also Revolution 2.1: "The Last Surviving Friend" ... Revolution 2.2: Reanimation ... Revolution 2.4: Nanites and ... Maybe Aliens? ... Revolution 2.7: Firestarter Aaron vs. the Creepster ... Revolution 2.9: The Boy and the Attitude ... Revolution 2.10: Mexico and More ... Revolution 2.11: Captives and Nanites ... Revolution 2.12: Eugenics and Lubbock ... Revolution 2.13: Steve Tyler, Mummy ... Revolution 2.14: Time Travel! ... Revolution 2.15: Not Time Travel

And see also Revolution: Preview Review  ... Revolution 1.2: Fast Changes ... Revolution 1.14: Nanites and Jack Bauer ... Revolution 1.15: Major Tom and More 24 ... Revolution 1.16: Feeling a Little Like the Hatch in Lost ... Revolution 1.17: Even Better Nanites ... Revolution 1.18: Whodunnit? ... Revolution 1.19: Cheney's Bunker ... Revolution Season 1 Finale: Good Pivot

 
Like real time travel in fiction?   Try The Plot to Save Socrates ...

Falling Skies Returns

Falling Skies returned for its second season on TNT last night, with an excellent two-hour foray.  The main theme, for at least this part of the season, is whether Tom, who spent some time on an alien ship, had returned a Manchurian Candidate, or a sleeper who will unknowingly work for the aliens on the inside of our brigade of freedom fighters.

In support of this hypothesis, we have -

• the aliens massacre a group of humans in a field - and leave Tom unscathed
• some kind of tiny alien insect mech emerges from Tom's eye and eventually finds its way into an alien eye
• and this, maybe a stretch on my part, but was Ben's shooting his father totally an accident, or because Ben with super-sensitivity to aliens sensed something alien in Tom (and couldn't see that he was shooting his father)?

So far, only Pope is really suspicious, and Weaver has certainly taken note of the possibility.  Tom is of course the loving father, and ready as ever to kill aliens, but that's exactly what a good unknowing sleeper agent would do.  And in the end of the second hour, as he takes out a bunch of aliens, he manages to escape when the aliens torch his position.

Otherwise, lots of good brotherly tension between Hal and Ben - who has become, because of his strength and perception, Weaver's best operative, but is still not 100% above suspicion because of the parts of the alien spine that are still with him.  Matt's growing up, too, able to handle a gun despite what Hal (and Tom) want, due to Ben's teaching.

Some good romantic flourishes between Maggie and Hal, Anne and Tom, and Lourdes and Jamil (fine new tech-savvy addition).   And hey, I enjoyed the shoutout to Bob Dylan, who may still be alive back in Minnesota writing protest songs!

See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story ... Falling Skies Concludes First Season

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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 ...