Homeland: Andante

March 26, 2018 1:59 PM - Season 7, Episode 7

Carrie makes a move. Wellington has a reckoning. Saul expands an operation.

Alternate recap: Just when you thought Carrie's judgement couldn't get any worse, she really goes for gold. In the space of one episode, she pulls the worst possible moves in relation to Saul, Maggie, Franny, Dante, Hop... did I miss anyone?

posted by penguin pie (8 comments total)

Hot! We’ve already talked about how this season is, in many ways, a retread of a lot of what’s gone before, but now at least it's revisiting some of the best of previous seasons. That moment with Dante in the kitchen was totally electric - utterly menacing and utterly horny all at once, and I honestly had no idea which way it was gonna go. Which is exactly what made the Carrie and Brody relationship at its height so incredible to watch… that moment when you genuinely don’t know whether one, or both, of the characters is playing the other, and you suspect neither of the characters really knows either.

Dante must have been cognisant when he woke up during the search and faking his return to sleep, surely? Which means he knew Carrie wasn’t working alone, and it wasn't only Audrey's call that tipped him off that something was up. But presumably didn’t expect Saul’s team to descend. But he’s certainly an, erm, complex man if he was driven into the arms of the Russians by his disgust at The Drone Queen’s promotion, while also wanting to bone her.

I liked how Franny’s such a chip off the old spy-mom block, being the one to find what all the spies had missed (which comes after the first time we saw her in s06 when she had her ear pressed to the basement, spying on Quinn, and was told “It’s not nice to snoop” by Carrie, of all people).

You can still feel the writers ruing the day they gave Carrie a child to look after, as it’s a constant struggle to get her out of the way of the spy plots, but they kind of got a little closer this time to making her have a real role in the plot - pushing Carrie to such extremis that she had no choice but to go to Dante (though I’m sure of course she was also excited by the possibility of turning over his apartment again, and possibly of getting to screw him for realz this time).
posted by penguin pie at 2:09 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

I was so happy by the end of this episode. Last week I said I'd be happy with average; this was s great episode not just for this season, but for any season. There were no cartoon villains or black-and-white situations, just a bunch of real, complex people in complex situations. They wrote Carrie into a box it's going to be hard to get herself out of, and honestly, do we even want her to get out of it? Here's a guy who puts smiley-face chocolate chips in Franny's pancakes and makes sure she takes her medication. Why not Dante? Oh yeah, because he opposes everything she's devoted her life to. What to choose? I can't wait until next week.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:13 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Past two episodes have been great. But they really need to get rid of the family drama and Frannie, it just drags the show down and gets in the way of what everyone wants to see: spy shit.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:13 AM on March 27, 2018

The family drama is spy shit, though. Carrie's fractured relationship with her sister, and her need to take care of Franny, are points of vulnerability that Dante is exploiting. Part of spying is finding your opponent's weakness. If we didn't see Carrie blow up at her sister earlier in the episode, it would not make sense for her to go back to Dante's apartment. We'd all be scratching our heads like we were in the first couple episodes, saying "there goes Carrie being dumb again".
posted by kevinbelt at 6:24 AM on March 27, 2018

Agreed it was a strong episode, in particular the scary confrontation / sex scene between Dante and Carrie. OTOH they took "Carrie Fucks Up" to implausible new heights. Seriously... She's in a panic with her daughter, homeless and broke, and decides her best choice is the Russian agent who just entrapped her and destroyed her world? I suppose we're meant to think she wants the chance to snoop in his apartment more, but she brought her daughter. That's crazy. Maybe that's what's going on, she's back to Crazy, I can't tell with the acting anymore. Anyway it was a step too far to put Frannie in harm's way IMHO. I agree with penguin pie that writing Frannie into the show in the first place was a big mistake.

I liked the federal judge blocking Saul's plan. The old man isn't omnipotent.

I didn't quite understand the subtext of the Wellington / Keane relationship, the second letter, was that Wellington confessing that he's in love with Keane? Ugh. I like that Keane shuts him right down and insists he stay in the job.

Poor Max.
posted by Nelson at 10:51 AM on March 28, 2018

I didn't quite understand the subtext of the Wellington / Keane relationship, the second letter, was that Wellington confessing that he's in love with Keane? Ugh. I like that Keane shuts him right down and insists he stay in the job.

I'm glad you mentioned that Nelson, I'd forgotten it when I commented... but had a similar conversation with a friend after the ep - we were both like "Was that supposed to imply a relationship? Or feelings? Or did we totally misunderstand?" I even froze the screen on the letter to try and read it, but they only showed the full front page, which was just him explaining the whole "I've been sleeping with a spy" situation (though, interestingly, it did also include something like "Berenson tells me I'm likely not the only one...") so there was no greater context on the "conceal my true feelings" line, or whatever it was that started to sound like him talking about feelings for Keane. Sometimes (occasionally) HL is just tooooo subtle.
posted by penguin pie at 2:11 PM on March 28, 2018

Saul was being deeply patronising, or do I mean paternalistic, with Carrie in this episode. From explaining to Max why she had to be kept outside the operation to the look on his face at the end. I hope he gets his comeuppance on that.
posted by roolya_boolya at 1:45 AM on March 29, 2018

Poor Frannie. It sucks to be Carrie's kid.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:32 PM on April 25, 2018