Homeland: Active Measures

March 12, 2018 5:05 PM - Season 7, Episode 5

Keane plays tactics to calm the situation in Richmond; Carrie assembles a team to put pressure on Simone; Saul pursues the Fake News agenda alone.

Alternate recap: Carrie spies again! With her rag tag band of piratical ex-spies, at least one of whom she’s (of course) slept with, she gives us a little of the old spycraft magic, albeit to little avail. Keane continues her bid for the hotly-contested “least sympathetic fictional President ever” title by persuading a newly-bereaved WOC widow to walk into a memorial full of white supremacists in the hope of averting violence on the streets - and presumably of holding her Presidency together. Saul is the elderly uncle sitting in the corner shouting “But what about the Russians?!” while everyone studiously ignores him and chats about more exciting things.

posted by penguin pie (7 comments total)

I liked it! Thank God! I started this with the novel experience of sitting down to watch an ep of Homeland without feeling excited for what was to come, but I loved watching the spy gang at work. It was great to finally have a scene (where they were all around the kitchen table plotting) that moved so quickly I had to rewind it and catch everything that was going on. Feels like ages since Homeland has had that kind of pressure and pace and snappy dialogue.

I don’t really understand why getting evidence via a bug placed in Simone’s bag by a random vigilante was going to be more admissible to anyone than the evidence gained by bugging Wellington’s house. But wasn’t in the least bit surprised that Simone didn’t tell Wellington about the beating/demand. As I commented last week, it’s pretty clear she’s the one pulling the strings and setting Wellington up, not the other way around. She must have been pretty nimble to make sure he didn’t spot the massive rib bruise during their quickie on the couch.

I wonder where Saul’s plot is going, though. I mean yes, it was probably the Russians, but that seems too simple. I do hope there are more twists to come and it doesn’t just turn out Simone’s working for the Russians as part of the wider plot to destabilise Keane. Surely that’s too straightforward?

Excited to see in the ‘Next week…’ trailer that we’re finally going to get Carrie and Saul back together again. That’s one of the things we’ve really been missing.
posted by penguin pie at 5:19 PM on March 12, 2018

Ahhh just read a comment elsewhere that pointed out that Ivan, the Russian in the spangly house in the woods, was Allison's handler from S05. Totally passed me by.
posted by penguin pie at 6:06 PM on March 12, 2018

I don’t really understand why getting evidence via a bug placed in Simone’s bag by a random vigilante was going to be more admissible to anyone than the evidence gained by bugging Wellington’s house.

Wasn't it that Carrie and Max can't tell anyone about the surveillance in the house? So placing a bug was just a ruse.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:26 AM on March 13, 2018

Wasn't it that Carrie and Max can't tell anyone about the surveillance in the house? So placing a bug was just a ruse.

But if her object was to get legitimately-obtained intel that would be admissible to Sen. Paley and his committee, surely the "bug placed in handbag in an off-book operation run by a gang of ex-spies" is still not exactly kosher (albeit not as treasonous as secretly bugging the Chief of Staff's house).

I guess it at least convinced the rest of the gang that Something Is Going On, so maybe that was her goal. Though when she was getting cross with Dante for giving up, it was seemingly because she'd wanted to have something to pass to Paley and hadn't got it.

I guess it's not a biggie, plot-wise, just had me scratching my head.
posted by penguin pie at 7:40 AM on March 13, 2018

Both bugs don’t work and the Simone/Wellington have sex instead of talking about her getting roughed up? I think the bug thing was to show that Simone and Wellington know about the cameras.

If there were no failed bugs then maybe Simone was waiting for right moment to talk. But the failed bugs show that she knew about being followed, and the sex shows David is also in the know.

Also, I got a “actors playing real people attempting to act” vibe from the pre-sex dialogue, which would fit if they knew about cameras.
posted by sideshow at 8:43 AM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

This season just feels really clunky compared to past seasons. This was the best episode of the season so far: like penguin pie said, there's actual stuff happening quickly, and stuff that doesn't involve pseudo-Alex Jones, which is nice. But it's still just...not up to standard. The Russian plotline is really obvious, the surveillance stuff is haphazard, and there's still the crazy-Carrie issue that I'm not comfortable with.

But at least I'm looking forward to the next episode again. That's something.
posted by kevinbelt at 10:34 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Just catching up, I really liked the pacing of this episode. The Scooby Doo Gang spy operation was so incredibly tense. I was waiting for the "Carrie fucks up" moment and it never came. She even had to do a close thing on the fly and it all just went pretty smoothly, random accidents aside. I was worried about how she was seeing some pattern in the two failed bugs though, as if the universe is operating against her. Perhaps we're about to have "Carrie's meds" in full force again.

I also loved where they've gone with O'Keefe, sitting in that conference room. He looks totally broken. As he should be, although it's hard to imagine the real Alex Jones ever having a moment of humanity like that. The news that he's no longer in control of his own online operation must be the worst of all things for him.
posted by Nelson at 4:18 PM on March 20, 2018