Homeland: The Man in the Basement
January 23, 2017 7:09 PM - Season 6, Episode 2 - Subscribe

Carrie and Reda fight for their client while Quinn fights against his new life. Saul and Dar suspect Keane has a secret.
posted by porpoise (4 comments total)
 
So I guess we have a definitive explanation for Quinn's visual effects; seizures/epilepsy from traumatic brain injury.

Being a student of medical literature and first hand knowledge of certain conditions, there are large sets of medical literature that are (mostly) completely useless in describing certain kinds of experiences.

Anyone able to weigh in as to the visual effects? Of course, every condition is different and I don't expect to have many nerve agent survivors who have also experienced critical physical harm on Metafilter. Wouldn't be surprised, but.
posted by porpoise at 7:16 PM on January 23, 2017


Feeling like this season is off to a strong start. I'm still mad they brought Quinn back from the presumed dead, but at least they're not sugarcoating the problems he has. Also I'm fascinated by the production effect they use for his vision distortion, it doesn't look like any other TV/movie effect I've seen.

But the strength of this show is the emotional human moments. The whole last act with Carrie showing Quinn the video, and then her breaking down when he doesn't understand why she'd save him. The long slow ending, Carrie alone in her misery. Those quiet spaces are what separates this show from dumb action TV like 24.

I also liked the dramatic irony of Carrie meeting Saul and angrily denying she is working for the president. Carrie knows she's involved, but Saul doesn't and we the audience don't. And then the irony is doubled back with Saul and Dar Adal's meeting. Now we know and Dar knows about Carrie's involvement, but Saul doesn't. Nice storytelling.
posted by Nelson at 10:32 AM on January 24, 2017


Yeah, the show really fooled the audience as much as Carrie did Saul, huh? Or at least me.

"But the strength of this show is the emotional human moments. The whole last act with Carrie showing Quinn the video, and then her breaking down when he doesn't understand why she'd save him."

Well, personally, I think that about 80% of what is working on this show is the extraordinarily talented actors. The rest of it is alternately actually good, melodrama, or nonsense. I end up really enjoying, in the moment, the parts of the show that work but for years, and increasingly, I'm left feeling either unenthusiastic or outright angry. The latter because of so much wasted potential.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:15 AM on January 24, 2017


So I guess we have a definitive explanation for Quinn's visual effects; seizures/epilepsy from traumatic brain injury.

Anyone able to weigh in as to the visual effects? Of course, every condition is different and I don't expect to have many nerve agent survivors who have also experienced critical physical harm on Metafilter.


I guess what we don't know (maybe don't need to know - maybe the writers don't know either) is whether his symptoms are directly caused by sarin acting on the brain, or by the subsequent stroke-induced brain injury. Or the three minutes of hypoxia in the ambulance, which is a totally new trauma they seem to have introduced retrospectively for this season, wasn't mentioned at all in s5. My inclination (based on zero knowledge!), would be that it's the latter two.

Agree that the emotional side of Homeland is awesome just now. That last scene particularly. Several seasons of investment in those two characters really paying off. Though I'm still slightly bemused by Quinn asking 'Why?'. I mean, even if he's forgotten how much Carrie cares for him, it's a pretty normal human thing to do, to save another human who's in danger. It's just an odd thing to ask. But then Quinn is in a pretty odd place right now. Guess he just has a lot of feels going on that he can't quite understand.

Yep, great acting, especially by Rupert Friend, who seems to manage to glide believably back and forth between Quinn at his most damaged, and Quinn that we can kind of recognise from pre-stroke days.

And Max? What a dude. He is so clear-eyed and compassionate. Sympathises with Quinn's concerns about being over-medicated; asks if Carrie asked Quinn why he threw the mug; takes him a tray of tinned food without question; reassures him fearlessly as he convulses on the floor; doesn't pressure him to go to hospital; reminds Carrie just how much horrific shit Quinn has been through and tells her to chill out over this one episode.

It feels like no surprise that Quinn was finally fit to have a complex conversation with Carrie after a day in Max's uncomplicated care.

Though the line that really slayed me, in an ep with plenty of heart-breaking lines, was when Quinn gets up from the floor after his seizure and says: "I'm a fucking mutant, no I'm not OK."
posted by penguin pie at 6:55 AM on January 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


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