Homeland S2 Ep10 "Broken Hearts" Guy Ferland Henry Bromell
What initially intrigued me by Homeland was that despite it’s 24 pedigree it was a really small offshoot of that type of drama. The 24 that I have seen always had this big bombastic side to it. Jack Bauer never really mattered to me, he was just the hero who made the show go. Homeland got me to care about Carrie, Brody and Saul's Beard. The first season finale, "Marine One", is a great example of mixing that type of tension and drama on a small scale. Where I wanted desperately for Brody not to blow himself up.
Homeland season 2 is barreling towards the finish line at 11 non stop. A very different type of show than even previous episodes. It’s all a bit crazy with some leaps in logic. All the things that made 24 so enjoyable. Plausibility never really bothers me if in the end a character gets a moment in the sun. That’s what I find most interesting about TV as a medium, that ability to star a character at one end and 5 seasons later have he/she in a completely different but logical place, that you hopefully didn't see coming. Todd VanderWerff has expressed largely the same philosophy when it comes to TV watching. That said the whole using skype on a blackberry thing was just utterly preposterous.
So if it takes Carrie being kidnapped and Brody once again blackmailed and some crazy technology that gets characters to a point, I’m fine. Not discounting the insanity of it all but that’s what they wrote and went with. Brody holding VP Walden down and killing him by proxy was still a great scene. Brody finally got to tell how he really feels. How he disagrees with just about everything that man stood for. The mission he set out to fulfill in season 1 is done. Brody has little else to do now except die most likely in some sort of CIA assassination with a cover up that keeps his honor intact. That’s the only way Nick Brody was going to get out of this whole mess anyway.
Carrie also moved beyond her voyeuristic relationship with Abu Nazir. The two raise points that make them both eerily similar in execution. Everything is a matter of perspective. Navid Negahban manages to elevate some chessy dialog about how he wants to exterminate us and doesn't care if it takes hundreds or years a lives. This is how every other terrorist leader has been portrayed since True Lies. Something that is getting a bit boring at this point. A Nazir who is more interested in taking revenge on the murders of his son and their institutions as his motivating factor would be refreshing Carrie going back in armed with a pipe after calling Saul is a stupid thing, but also a very Carrie thing to do.
There is still two episodes left "The Motherfucker with a Turban" and "The Choice" no doubt the next episode at least will continue the balls to the wall manhunt for Nazir. It feels earned though or at least I’m willing to delude myself into believing that. Nazir knows he is going to die very soon. Brody is going to hopefully die very soon.
All this momentum has me very interested in where season 3 goes. A prospect that I met with tepid enthusiasm around the time of “Q&A”. I was seriously considering jumping out after this season. Looking ahead at season 3 some questions come to mind. Will be a larger time skip and who becomes the next terrorist boogeyman? What Dar Adal's plan for Estess and Quinn is being brought up in a way that points to some sort of season 3 conspiracy Hopefully that means more Rupert Friend as Quinn (or whatever his name is).
C+ Cognizant of the insanity and constantly wondering if this show is running off a cliff just one of the reasons watching TV "live" is actually fun.
This week we have the season finale of Sons of Anarchy something I'm looking forward to. Season 5 as a whole has just felt boring there have been extremely shocking moments but hardly a clear unifying thread. Showing the depths Jax has gone to get the club out of RICO and the cartel buisness is something you would think as a momentous occasion. They have finally killed Clay (metaphorically). All things that at the start I wanted badly. Hopefully there will be some clarity at the end.
