Homeland

in a surprise twist it'll be revealed that saul is the head of the terrorist organization, and he sent carrie after himself. IS YOUR MIND BLOWN YET

i take that back dana will turn out to be sauls boss. no wait, DANA'S BROTHER

I can't help but feel a little sorry for the actress that plays Dana. She's obviously a talented actress, probably the best of the Brody clan (Damien Lewis notwithstanding), so I can understand why the writers would try to use her heavily. It's just that they haven't found a way to give her any relevance to anything that anyone cares about. I get that they want to show the impact of Brody's actions on his family, but it's not really something they need to devote 1/3 to 1/2 of episodes to. It's just become filler at this point, and unfortunately Dana gets the brunt of the hate for that.

I don't agree that it's filler. Brody's family has been a huge part of this story from day 1. Why wouldn't that continue? Especially with the new situation the family is in.I think they are frontloading her arc this season and later in the season we will have more Brody and less Dana.

One of the best part of the first season was seeing Brody's family trying to recreate bonds with their estranged dad/husband. So I was a bit bothered when Dana threw all of that away as being lies (remembering amazing bonding moments as when he confesses to her that he converted to islam), but in a way these bonds must make her feel that much more betrayed.

The out of control long con feels like a very good angle for the rest of the season, but having both the money laundering scheme and Brody in Caracas is a bit too convenient (unless we are provided for a good explaination as to why it is not a coincidence).

ditto

Szlia_sl said:

One of the best part of the first season was seeing Brody's family trying to recreate bonds with their estranged dad/husband. So I was a bit bothered when Dana threw all of that away as being lies (remembering amazing bonding moments as when he confesses to her that he converted to islam), but in a way these bonds must make her feel that much more betrayed.

Click to expand...

I don't think Dana really believes it was all lies, she's just trying to convince herself. I don't see how she can reconcile saying he was completely full of shit with the fact that she pulled out his mat and started praying like he did.

Expecting the Iranians to reach out to Carrie was quite a stretch and when you look back at Carrie's behavior during the initial stages of their "sting" the twist looks kind of silly.

BrutulTM_sl said:

the fact that she has been publicly thrown under the bus by her own agency and is totally nanners in the mental hospital would make her a prime candidate to take a run at for a foreign intelligence agency.

Click to expand...

"Hey, let's hire this ex-CIA bipolar and psychotic bitch, let's release her from that CIA-watched psych ward where everyone and their grandmother has eyes on her, let's hire her to run our secret terrorist organization !"

well its pretty obvious they are going for female Brodie v2.0 scenario, where Carrie gets into a tortureporn situation because obviously as soon as Nazir2.0 gets his info he will torture/kill Carrie, and Saul has to ride into the rescue. Of course somehow brodie will be around instead and save her, ugh just typing this shit out makes me feel stupider

I liked seasons 1 & 2 because it was cool how it dealt with shit we don't like to talk about: we do shitty things to other countries and people, our soldiers don't go into war and come out like Captain America but instead some will get seriously fucked up, and there are good brown people and there are bad brown people. Now season 3 has turned into a retarded, "rich American bankers hate America and don't have a problem dealing with people who kill hundreds of people on US soil" clusterfuck of liberal circle-jerking.

season 2 should have had Nazir escape, release the tapes, and Brodie been captured. Season 3 is Carrie is vilified as a fucked up agent who slept with one terrorist and let another one escape, Brodie is put through public trials and we see both sides ("he's a traitor" vs "we did this to him"). In the meantime we see Nazir working with Iran to plan a really, really big unexpected cyber attack and the season finale is the entire western financial system gets fucked up, Iran invades Saudi Arabia and uses nukes to prevent any retaliations, Brodie is freed by Nasir and joins him after he realizes he has no place anymore in America.

Season 4 is all about trying to infiltrate the new caliphate that Iran is setting up in the Middle East as oil jumps 50x, the west is in collapse, China is in anarchy, Battlefield 4 basically.

BrutulTM_sl said:

I'm sure they weren't going to "hire to run the secret terrorist organization". Don't be an asshole.

There's a reason why people with security clearances are watched very carefully when they get into substance abuse problems, money problems, family problems, etc. That is a great sign that they might be someone who is vulnerable to foreign intelligence agents.

Click to expand...

Except she's not vulnerable, she's a liability. Being mentally ill and not taking your medication is a permanent threat for any spy / terrorist groups having you on payroll. I know it's rather a question of opinion there, but to me it just doesn't add up. Sometimes it's not all about realism, it's about coherence.

Bondurant_sl said:

Except she's not vulnerable, she's a liability. Being mentally ill and not taking your medication is a permanent threat for any spy / terrorist groups having you on payroll. I know it's rather a question of opinion there, but to me it just doesn't add up. Sometimes it's not all about realism, it's about coherence.

Click to expand...

It doesn't really sound like they're putting her on payroll as an ongoing employee. Carrie only has a temporary use to them. They want whatever information she can provide them regarding the CIA and its operations in the Middle East. Since (as far as they know) she's no longer working for the CIA, she's obviously not someone that can continue to provide them information over the long-term. That might be why they're willing to overlook her psychological problems and instability, particularly if their plan involves doing away with her once they get what they want.

Cantatus_sl said:

It doesn't really sound like they're putting her on payroll as an ongoing employee. Carrie only has a temporary use to them. They want whatever information she can provide them regarding the CIA and its operations in the Middle East. Since (as far as they know) she's no longer working for the CIA, she's obviously not someone that can continue to provide them information over the long-term. That might be why they're willing to overlook her psychological problems and instability, particularly if their plan involves doing away with her once they get what they want.

Click to expand...

Granted they're more interested about CIA's latest strike against them than putting Carrie within their ranks on a regular basis, but in my opinion it would be quite stupid trying to flip a disgraced CIA analyst with a mental illness history. If CIA can't trust her anymore, I doubt terrorists would be willing to. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's too far stretched to be convincing. Especially when they're trying to tell us a bipolar person (who, one would say, has usually trouble dealing with his emotions) would fake his very own illness pattern to cheat everyone.

As a whole, it doesn't make much sens to me. I loved Homeland s1 because it dealt with different strings than your classic spy tv show, but s3 is basically 24 rehashed with twists, quadruple agents everywhere and every mastermind villain killed reveals a more powerful and more evil villain, pulling the strings behind the curtains. Please, not that shit anymore. We need quality writing though story and character development, we don't need teen drama subplots, Emmy baits and powerup bad guys. I'm looking at you Chip Johanssen, it didn't really take long before your 24 shitty writing instincts took over in your new job, did it ?

I feel like I'm missing something obvious, but who are these Venezuelan dudes?

Guys who owe Carrie a favor. I think that's about all we know at this point.

Bondurant_sl said:

Granted they're more interested about CIA's latest strike against them than putting Carrie within their ranks on a regular basis, but in my opinion it would be quite stupid trying to flip a disgraced CIA analyst with a mental illness history. If CIA can't trust her anymore, I doubt terrorists would be willing to. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's too far stretched to be convincing. Especially when they're trying to tell us a bipolar person (who, one would say, has usually trouble dealing with his emotions) would fake his very own illness pattern to cheat everyone.

Click to expand...

At this point, it's hard to even tell how much trust they're putting in her. While they likely view it as incredibly unlikely for her to go back to the CIA after they've thrown the complete weight of the organization behind keeping her institutionalized, there's really nothing much Carrie could deliver to them right now. The big test will be what happens after she meets the new Big Bad and has information that could make her a liability.

Bondurant_sl said:

Granted they're more interested about CIA's latest strike against them than putting Carrie within their ranks on a regular basis, but in my opinion it would be quite stupid trying to flip a disgraced CIA analyst with a mental illness history. If CIA can't trust her anymore, I doubt terrorists would be willing to. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's too far stretched to be convincing. Especially when they're trying to tell us a bipolar person (who, one would say, has usually trouble dealing with his emotions) would fake his very own illness pattern to cheat everyone.

As a whole, it doesn't make much sens to me. I loved Homeland s1 because it dealt with different strings than your classic spy tv show, but s3 is basically 24 rehashed with twists, quadruple agents everywhere and every mastermind villain killed reveals a more powerful and more evil villain, pulling the strings behind the curtains. Please, not that shit anymore. We need quality writing though story and character development, we don't need teen drama subplots, Emmy baits and powerup bad guys. I'm looking at you Chip Johanssen, it didn't really take long before your 24 shitty writing instincts took over in your new job, did it ?

Click to expand...

Quadruple agents everywhere? There is one instance of a double agent, that you literally just found out about. And she isn't so much a "double agent" as she is working undercover, it isn't like she is going to Iran. And Iran was always the power behind Nasir, we ALWAYS knew that.

I think you're missing the point, the CIA doesn't "not" trust her. She never "stopped taking her meds." Not like that anyway. the whole thing was fabricated to look real, they have obviously had this plan moving for a while. And of course the Iranians will pay her money to listen to her talk. Why wouldn't they? Money doesn't mean much to these people.