Homeland: Halfway to a Donut
November 17, 2014 2:14 PM - Season 4, Episode 8 - Subscribe

Carrie organizes a last-ditch operation. Lockhart and Martha stall the ISI.
posted by roolya_boolya (19 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
You do not fuck with Saul Berenson. I don't understand how it was that they couldn't airlift him out of there before morning though.

Aasar Khan is turning out to be a good man. With excellent taste in decorating, no less. Lockhart actually came across as a decent man in this episode instead of being an asshole as he usually is.

And Duck's goose is cooked.
posted by orange swan at 5:07 PM on November 17, 2014


Aasar Khan is turning out to be a good man.

I assume he's either going to get killed or get promoted.
posted by homunculus at 6:43 PM on November 17, 2014


I'm surprised that they didn't bomb Haqqani's compound the second Saul said he had escaped. It's certainly not to spare civilian lives, since bombing a wedding was of course how the season started.
posted by shivohum at 6:53 PM on November 17, 2014


What the fuck? Saul's nice and safe in the wilderness, you can literally see exactly where he is, and you're the fucking USA with who knows what kind of stealth special forces extraction capability at your disposal, and yet you direct him to walk 20 miles back into danger and send 3 poorly disguised guys in a kombi (& like they wouldn't have been cut to ribbons by those 20 or so Taliban machine guns) to pick him up... aaaarrrrrggghhh. Oh well, pretty gripping stuff all the same; loved the 'tagging' effect.
posted by Flashman at 9:31 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


The whole escape saga was silly. What I found most implausible (among other things) is that Haqqani had apparently only one man guarding his high profile bargaining chip who could get his "command structure" prisoners released. Also, the Taliban would have informants in the town who would have alerted the compound that an out-of-place Caucasian was wandering around. Sitting Saul remaining undiscovered in that park for so many minutes with the swarm of Taliban on the streets was just the silly icing on the top.
posted by Gyan at 9:34 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


In addition to the fact that they didn't send a chopper for Saul, my favorite part was when Carrie realizes her meds have been compromised, so she immediately tells the guy who is potentially the enemy and has maybe made her a prison in his house. And then when he says "I didn't do it" she's like "oh okay. I'm going to walk back to the embassy now" despite the fact that she STILL is unmedicated and could potentially do some more crazy shit. Like, you could call your embassy and have them pick you up or whatever but nah, just walk back.

And then you get all mad and personally hurt that they would mess with your drugs, like that sort of thing could never happen TO A SPY SPYING ON OTHER SPIES.
posted by nushustu at 4:44 AM on November 18, 2014 [5 favorites]


Aasar Khan is probably the most interesting (to me) character right now. Watching him figure out duck dennis was great.

What was the text the woman got during the meeting? The copy I watched was less-than official and I didn't have a subtitle translation. Or was there just no subtitle?
posted by vibratory manner of working at 9:02 PM on November 19, 2014


Haqqani originally concealed Saul's location by using identical vehicles and a carefully thought through plan, do we really think the random muppets running around hunting for Saul were smart enough to do anything similar? So why did they make out as if Saul was now lost again? Surely they can just track the car he gets put in? And if he's going back to the compound, hellfire the shit out of it before he gets there, which should keep things in disarray until the operator lads can run them down, mop things up, and retrieve Saul.
posted by The Monkey at 3:14 PM on November 20, 2014


I don't understand how it was that they couldn't airlift him out of there before morning though.

One of the ways Carrie & Co worked out that Pakistan was aware of Saul's escape was that the Pakistanis had run a bunch of sortees along the border nearby. I guess these were in the way of their own airborne operation somehow?
posted by The Monkey at 3:19 PM on November 20, 2014


Loved this episode! I'm normally the first to snark on things on MeFi, but somehow this show has me in its spell and I can totally overlook the unrealistic things like Saul's escape, Saul's not-being-rescued, Carrie spilling the beans to Khan. There's enough plausibility for it not to be stupid. But mostly I just find the show interesting enough I can overlook the plot machinations. (Also they cleared up one the last episode; we were skeptical why Khan didn't know who Brody was, but apparently he had no prior reason to be interested in Carrie).

What I loved about this episode was the tension in the remote ops scenes, watching the action unfold powerlessly through drone cameras and cell phones. Particularly loved Quinn's cool, calm professionalism when Saul first calls in, giving him instructions, trying to keep him calm. It strained believability that he was able to escape; Saul's a desk jockey at best. But then he was losing his shit and our handsome Murder Death Robot came in and gave him guidance. Provided a nice contrast to Carrie losing it later.

I also like the turn they took with Khan, Qureshi, and the ISI. I was worried they were telling a story this season that the whole ISI was in league with the Taliban, which seems a bit bold given the real life complexity. Having the ISI itself divided with competing factions was good. The only thing I was missing was Khan's motivation for helping Carrie. I think we're supposed to believe he's so noble and handsome that he did it for the honor of his immaculate uniform. But I'd find it more believable if he were in rivalry with Qureshi and was scheming to undermine her.
posted by Nelson at 9:33 PM on November 20, 2014


Based on nothing but what we've seen so far, I feel like Khan maybe got the job because he's the son of someone important. He seems like he grew up as a rich boy. I get the feeling that he is there to be the face of ISI that doesn't work with terrorists and doesn't play dirty while those around him do.

I think his motivation for helping Carrie get out of police custody is respect for another high ranking official. His motivation for telling her the identity of the mole was definitely to undermine the Qureshi.
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:42 PM on November 21, 2014


"I get the feeling that he is there to be the face of ISI that doesn't work with terrorists and doesn't play dirty while those around him do."

He's the head of counter-intelligence, exactly who would be most concerned with the Taliban's influence in the military and intelligence services. It would be a huge coup for the Taliban to have someone sympathetic or actually working with them as the head of counter-intelligence, but that's far less likely than that another section chief within ISI would be such a person.

Carrie and Lockhart talk as if the entire delegation and, hell, the entire government cooperates with the Taliban, but that's not at all true in the real world and I've been interpreting what we see with the assumption that the only (high-level) person working with the Taliban in the ISI is Tasneem Qureshi (the woman; I looked-up the character's name).

Anyway, I was annoyed with this episode as I have been with the previous few. Unlike Nelson, I can't manage to fanwank a lot of the show's silliness and it's just starting to wear on me. That whole scene with Saul should have been very tense and moving to me, because I've always been very invested in that character, but I found myself sort of zoning out.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:15 PM on November 22, 2014


Nelson: "The only thing I was missing was Khan's motivation for helping Carrie."

LizBoBiz: "I think his motivation for helping Carrie get out of police custody is respect for another high ranking official. His motivation for telling her the identity of the mole was definitely to undermine the Qureshi."

Khan totally has a thing for Carrie - rescuing her from police custody was motivated by his respect and admiration for her as well as by his ideals (he just does not like to play dirty - fairness is important to him and he would not undermine anyone lightly, let alone his coworkers. Only once he gets crossed he would resort to such tactics).

But the more important part is that they had sex the night she thought he was Brody.
That rainy night when they met she alluded to it by saying "I remember...not...not everything, but enough. The part at the end with you." And this is where he gives up Dennis. To me it is obvious that Khan really likes Carrie, that's why it is so important to him that she knows he wasn't responsible for drugging her and wants to help her.
posted by travelwithcats at 4:34 PM on November 24, 2014


But the more important part is that they had sex the night she thought he was Brody.

Wait, they did? I though at most it was left ambiguous, but I leaned towards assuming they didn't. Because shit, if they did, then Khan's a rapist. And I don't want him to be.
posted by Nelson at 5:09 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


They didn't show anything more from that night at his house. But what Carrie said when they met again and how the two of them acted suggests they have been intimate (at least I read it that way). If you want to re-watch, it's at 47:50.
posted by travelwithcats at 5:27 PM on November 24, 2014


Huh, no, I don't read that last scene that way at all. She's saying she trusts Khan because of what he did the last night. I took that to mean she remembered that he was trying to help her in distress, to comfort her. Not rape her!

The very first scene of her waking up (3:09) is clear to show her waking up alone, I think in an echo of her waking up with Aayan at the beginning of the episode a couple before, but alone. Her arm stretches out as if to reach for someone, and the pillow next to her is mussed, and it's furnished like a man's bedroom. So it is a little ambiguous. She does wake up fully clothed.

She's also clearly pretty drugged out and disoriented. I think if she thought she'd had a sexual encounter, she would rightly feel quite victimized.
posted by Nelson at 6:06 PM on November 24, 2014


Yeah, well - Carrie saying "The part at the end with you." clearly means something else than you-getting-me-out-of-prison-cell....and to me also means more than Khan holding/comforting her while she calls him Brody.

I also don't want to get into a discussion if this was rape or not. Carrie is clearly a skilled agent who uses sex as a tool. She also fakes mental health problems quite well, if we remember last season.

She was feeling out of it, but was clear headed enough to go straight to the hospital and get a tox screen.
posted by travelwithcats at 6:25 PM on November 24, 2014


"She was feeling out of it, but was clear headed enough to go straight to the hospital and get a tox screen."

No. She woke up the next morning in broad daylight, hours later, and even then she was very unsteady on her feet and a bit confused. She talked to Khan and then went back to bed (he actually had to pick her up and place her in bed). Then, later, she woke up again, but this time much more lucid, had the epiphany about her meds, talked again with Khan, and then left. Given what we saw of the night before and how disoriented she was even hours later the next day, we can safely conclude she was still extremely disoriented when she'd gone to sleep the night before.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:01 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, well - Carrie saying "The part at the end with you." clearly means something else than you-getting-me-out-of-prison-cell....and to me also means more than Khan holding/comforting her while she calls him Brody.

No, you're definitely off base assuming sex was involved from that. Up until that point, she was first disoriented and in public, then captured, then "with" Brody and hallucinating, and then, at the end of it, she realized who was she "with" and for us, the audience, it was very creepy and uncertain what was going on. We don't know if he was in on it or not.

But the only implication most of us got this episode was that he was comforting her during her bad trip, he knew she was losing her mind for whatever reason (he has no reason to know anything at this point, we later find), and no, he did not have confused hallucinogenic sex with her, and it absolutely would've been rape to take advantage of her during this time.

I also don't want to get into a discussion if this was rape or not. Carrie is clearly a skilled agent who uses sex as a tool. She also fakes mental health problems quite well, if we remember last season.

There was no sex here.

She was feeling out of it, but was clear headed enough to go straight to the hospital and get a tox screen.

After a day of sleeping it off, after forgetting the entire night, and trusting that this guy didn't take advantage of her sufficiently to crash for the whole day.
posted by aydeejones at 4:01 PM on November 28, 2014 [3 favorites]


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