Homeland: Super Powers
October 18, 2015 8:36 PM - Season 5, Episode 3 - Subscribe

Jonas and Carrie revisit her past. Quinn stalks his prey.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich (12 comments total)
 
Huh. Pretty much they didn't answer any of our questions from last week.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:39 PM on October 18, 2015


Crazy Carrie is best Carrie, though.
posted by Justinian at 1:42 AM on October 19, 2015


It answered a little - Quinn's not going to kill her. He would have just done it if he was going to. We don't know who put her name on the list, because neither Quinn nor Carrie know either. I imagine a good part of the next few episodes is going to be trying to figure that one out.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 7:57 AM on October 19, 2015


I assumed Quinn was just told to bring Carrie into CIA custody.
posted by orange swan at 8:35 AM on October 19, 2015




"I assumed Quinn was just told to bring Carrie into CIA custody."

But that doesn't fit with his previous instructions and also the message we saw seemed like it was just a name. I mean, it's definitely possible that they're being both annoyingly misleading and implausible/lazy about it, but that's just going to hugely piss me off so I prefer to think otherwise. That misdirection would be for no real purpose other than very contrived suspense.

Yeah, we now know that Quinn isn't actually going to assassinate Carrie, but other than when he kidnapped the kid, I never seriously considered it. But I was shocked at the kidnapping. Although we've actually seen Quinn kill a child back when we were first introduced to him, IIRC. I've assumed that he was ordered to kill Carrie, but that he wouldn't do it and his urgency in finding her is to warn and help her.

I'm much more inclined to believe -- and am amazed -- that they're really making the CIA look like the villains here. Nothing the CIA or German intelligence is doing makes them look like anything other than self-justifying thugs and then they're really hitting hard on Carrie's past sins. They set a lot of that up last season but really up to this point I've always felt that the show was arguing that it's ugly but necessary and sort of giving us a sort of slumming thrill of being implicit in moral compromise while mostly avoiding the true horror of it. It's the sort thing that I think people like the ones behind the desk making these decisions actually indulge in -- facing up to the ugliness only enough so that they can think themselves strong and courageous for making the hard decisions, but never so much that they actually see the dying faces of children in their dreams.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:11 PM on October 19, 2015


I hope you're right IF! I thought the first season did a lot of that what with the off-the-books dronestrike on the school which turned Brody but fell away a bit in the next two season. Last season and this season seem like a return to form.
posted by Justinian at 6:39 PM on October 19, 2015


I thought Carrie's bit about it not mattering which of her many enemies/victims was the actual finger on the trigger was quite powerful. The irony if it possibly being those she considered her friends or allies is palpable.
posted by Justinian at 6:42 PM on October 19, 2015


So now that Quinn's killed Carrie as ordered, where should the show go?
posted by scalefree at 3:42 AM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


This episode was so grating to me.

I don't like the German boyfriend. The actor isn't that good and he just does whatever Carrie says.
Snorting caffiene? Really? There's crazy and then there's ridiculous.
Quinn is dumb enough to think that as soon as the bf found out his son wasn't at any police station that Carrie wouldn't catch on?

I mean, I'll keep watching because I have trouble giving up on shows but I guess I'll just have to embrace the ridiculous.
posted by LizBoBiz at 5:04 PM on October 22, 2015


Also, the introduction of the boyfriend means that the writers and have to tell us everything that has happened in the series to get him caught up, which is really tiring when, at this point, everyone watching the show knows what is going on.
posted by LizBoBiz at 5:06 PM on October 22, 2015


I'm really skeezed out by the portrayal of Carrie's mental illness. I mean factually I can't disagree with the writing; they put a lot of nuance into it, and they show she's incoherent when she's off her meds, and they show that when she gets crazy it leads to bad things. But that moment where she negotiates with her boyfriend to watch her off her meds, it just hits close to home for the manic folks I know and, oof, skeezed out.

Agreed the boyfriend is a weak character. They didn't do enough to establish him, and then he's written to be passive and having to follow Carrie's lead everywhere. I did like how he got firm with her taking the pills though.

Quinn really blew it in the van; he yelled "shut the fuck up" at the kid in English. That's going to blow his cover in, oh, three episodes.

Loved the bits with Saul networking with the Israelies and Dal and even his station chief / protegé / lover. The lover bit is a bit too much though, I kind of wish they hadn't gone there. One thing I loved about his relationship with Carrie is it's always been paternal, mentoring, the one time she threw herself at him he was revolted. For him to turn around and be sexing it up with an underling in Berlin is beneath him.

I like this teevee.
posted by Nelson at 8:17 PM on October 22, 2015


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