re: Homeland

SPOILERS


Love the episode and the end.

I like that she wrote a book telling her story. Hopefully she aired all of the dirty laundry.

I like that Carrie is enjoying herself in Moscow. And I like that she is using Yevgeny while at the same time enjoying herself with him. He likes her but that didn’t stop him from using her to get the flight recorder. So now she’s repaying him likewise.

Some will say Saul’s refusal to give up his asset is admirable. I don’t. He was willing to let a nuclear war break out based on a lie. He was willing to sacrifice countless...hundreds of thousands, maybe more...lives, including the lives of American soldiers. And all just to protect one single person. His asset. That’s how much value he put on it. And it wasn’t just to protect that one person...he liked being the only one able to get reliable info out of Moscow. So I don’t find that admirable at all. frick Saul.

And he would have thrown her to the wolves if he could, even though she stopped a war based on a lie by getting the info. He sent Shin Bet after her and Yevgeny saved her from a lifetime in Colorado Supermax. Saul protected his asset and ability to spy on Russia at the expense of real lives, including American soldiers. He was willing to let countless people die based on a lie. He lost sight of what’s realky important. He was in the spy game too long. It’s reprehensible to me. Again, frick him.

Saul was “but Russia.” Carrie was “frick Russia, let’s worry about them tomorrow, this is more important.” Saul was wrong, Carrie was right.

That being said, I’m glad that Carrie had a backup plan for finding the info. Good for her.

And I’m fine with Carrie sending Saul info now. She’s making up for having to burn his asset and realizes the Russian government sucks too. Like Saul, they were willing to let countless people die when they knew the truth. So she’s paying them back too even though they are clearly protecting her.

Finally, this was a huge indictment of the CIA. A real giant middle finger. When Carrie gets her purse from the office in she and Yevgeny’s home...from the slow pan from the Pulitzer Prize winning book Legacy of Ashes (a damning account of the CIA) on the desk to a giant wall of headlines and articles listing all of the CIA’s failures and corruption...the message was clear: the intelligence community has a lot of blood on its hands and left to its own devices can absolutely wreck havoc in the world and at home.

Lot of great variables in this show.