Homeland: Chalk One Up

March 1, 2020 2:32 PM - Season 8, Episode 4

Saul plans an announcement. Carrie gets a surprise.
posted by KTamas (5 comments total)

Well shit. That was intense. Consistently entertaining TV. Nice A/B plot structure this time, with Samir's personal danger interposed with the story of the President's visit to Afghanistan.

I like that the helicopter crash happened off camera. Particularly after so many minutes of tension waiting for something bad to happen; the risk of the landing at Bagram, the risk of the landing at the outpost, the President there with no helmet on, one big melon target. All that tension but then the actual event happens off screen, and a mystery.

Haqqani's son is the obvious suspect for a rogue Taliban operation except how the hell would they get so lucky as to find the President? Some deep mole is leaking info. And it's not Boris and Natasha, the Afghan/Pakistani spy duo. They're just as in the dark as everyone.

Is this season being produced with the help of the US military? All the Army stuff looks real to me, are they actually filming some of this in Afghanistan?
posted by Nelson at 8:49 PM on March 1, 2020

This was fun in a lot of ways and the episode I enjoyed the most by far this season (partly because of the lack of torturing Carrie which will come in due time).

Yeah someone's leaking, but I don't think it's Haqqani's son give that the spy duo is in the dark and he's connected to her?

As far as I know the entire season was shot in Morocco and they even had delays which forced them to push out the premiere of it.
posted by KTamas at 5:16 AM on March 2, 2020

Yeah I liked this because I could tell they were building up to an assassination of the prez but when they took off and flew out and all was well I was like "huh, way to subvert my expectations show!" and then right after that they're like "we lost Chalk One" and I'm like "lost? you're right next to them!?! how do you lose them? wtf?"
posted by some loser at 10:09 AM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Just to write down the obvious; they're obviously setting up the Vice President as some sort of bad guy. He's a weasel, he wanted to hide out in his office instead of watching the President's moment, and he was obviously super nervous after the helicopter was shut down. Given it's Homeland I suspect it's all false clues and there's some other mole who enabled the President's helicopter to get attacked, someone we haven't even met yet, but we'll find out.

The bit about losing sight of the President's helicopter is very hard to swallow. I can't imagine a circumstance where one helicopter would ever be out of view of the other. But I guess that's what we are believing here. I guess the crucial question is whether the Taliban on the ground shot down the president's helicopter; so far we're just assuming it. OTOH it's the only plausible assumption, right?

I can't wait to see what happens next to Max. Good ol' Max.
posted by Nelson at 11:16 AM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Liking Max’s development, that small bit where they try to rub him and he flips out is nice “show not tell.” Like he’s not quiet because he’s mousy, there’s a lot of internal tension.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:44 PM on January 3, 2022