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S08.E10: Designated Driver


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Now that Max is gone, I spent most of the episode hoping that Carrie's truck driving friend Arman wouldn't end up killed due to helping Carrie.

Jalal continues to be a horrible little shit. Forcing his father's advisor to be a suicide bomber definitely tracks.

The most surprising thing about this episode was that Carrie finally turned herself in, but I guess she needed to drop her rogue agent tour in order to get the info that Russia wants in exchange for the black box.

I had to laugh when Jenna's only concern was whether Carrie was going to reveal her part in the safe house fiasco.

Poor Saul - even now he still refuses to abandon her which means it's going to be that much more heartbreaking when she does what Yevgeny asked and betrays Saul. I'm glad he acknowledged that Carrie wouldn't be getting arrested if he hadn't gone against her doctor's wishes and brought her to Kabul because that is 100% true.

At this point, I still have no idea how she's going to find out who his asset is, but it's Carrie so maybe she just needs to go off her meds and create a complicated murder board like she did in the earlier seasons.

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I am confused.  I think we will still see Carrie trying to figure out something to avoid betraying Saul.  What was going on with Mike staring thoughtfully from the station door?  There has been speculation here that he is a mole.  Maybe he is the key. 

But sheesh, Carrie really is a black widow.  She got all those guys on the bus killed. 

 

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I thought that this episode was well done. I literally cried during the suicide bombing sequence—very well directed IMO.

Glad to finally understand Yevgeny’s interest in Carrie—she is the only person on the planet to whom Saul would possibly reveal his source. Even if they captured Saul himself, he would probably withstand the torture and die before revealing his source. Carrie, however, is his weak link, and has been proven to be torturable. (I know that’s not a word)

I am assuming that the man to whom Saul was speaking is his mole. 

Jenna is the worst and was clearly meeting the exchange to prevent a comment on record that might lead back to her. She really needs to have a heroic death to rehabilitate her character.

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1 hour ago, GussieK said:

I am confused.  I think we will still see Carrie trying to figure out something to avoid betraying Saul.  What was going on with Mike staring thoughtfully from the station door?  There has been speculation here that he is a mole.  Maybe he is the key. 

But sheesh, Carrie really is a black widow.  She got all those guys on the bus killed. 

 

Add them to the casualties list on top of the army soldiers who got killed trying to get the black box.

She went rogue repeatedly and in the last instance got these last set of them killed.

Maybe there’s no coming back for her this time.  Even if she stops the war from happening, she still is responsible for all those deaths.  Maybe the series finale ends with her ousted in disgrace or imprisoned.  Maybe Saul is ousted too and we’re suppose to be sad and outraged that they stopped the war but are blamed, seen as reckless by the world but are true heroes.

The fact that they devoted a whole episode to the suicide bombing seems to suggest these deaths will be a huge deal, something which can’t be easily forgiven, no matter how the standoff ends.

Now watch them make Jenna take all the blame.  Or Carrie takes the blame so the show ends with her being a martyr who bravely takes responsibility but stops a war.  Except of course she is largely to blame for those men being killed.

 

I still find it ridiculous that Pakistan will face off with US forces, which has the most powerful arsenal ever known to man, because they didn’t want to confront Jalal’s band, who have pickup trucks and live in tents.

 

As for the suicide bombing scenario, US forces are prepared for it.  They usually have large guns to pulverize the car long before it can get near the target.  In this scene, if they shoot the driver, his foot comes off the accelerator, he no longer steers and his thumb comes off the accelerator.

But we’re suppose to believe that all those hundreds or thousands of rounds shot, the driver isn’t killed long before the car reaches target.

🙄

 

But they wanted some kind of tragedy here.

 

 

 

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I think this show is very much invested in the final episode of the series. I think they are moving to some real shocker. And the shocker will be who the mole is. Was there not talk about a mole since season 1? 

My memory is not great, but I think they revealed one mole already. So who is left that has been around since season 1? Within that group, there is a mole. 

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17 minutes ago, Alistaire said:

I think this show is very much invested in talking out of both sides of its mouth. Do they want us to admire or hate the CIA? The answer is, They want both. And that's not fair. In fact, it's nuts.

 

I actually think it makes perfect sense to be conflicted about the CIA. Very rarely are institutions (or people) all good or all bad.

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1 hour ago, Alistaire said:

From Day 1, Saul is this magical figure who has contacts in high places all over the world. In Season 3, his friendship as a young man with Javadi (whose butchering his wife with a broken bottle and blowing the nanny's brains out is overlooked), and they're palsy-walsy by the time Brody's absolutely sacrificed in Iran. In Season 4, it's the U.S. Ambassador in Islamabad... whom he once proposed to. (Carrie is stunned to hear this and says Saul never breathed a word.) In Season 5, it's Etai, the Israeli official, whom Saul accuses of blowing up the plane the sick girl and her family were being sent to the U.S. for surgery on. Season 5 makes Allison the mole, which is extremely convenient for anyone else in Berlin who just might be a mole too... and don't forget Saul meticulously setting up Allison's execution as she heads for "Poland."

Saul comes and goes from the CIA like a college student who can't decide what he wants to major in. And Mira is an exceptional wife-of-convenience, until Mira kicks him to the curb.

In Season 6, Saul is sent to Abu Dhabi to interrogate a high-ranking Saudi about collusion with North Korea but miraculously leaves his sister's home by night to meet with bestie Javadi. The guy manages to get away with everything and away from every enemy. While this isn't different from magical Carrie, Saul interacts with people at much higher levels of power than Carrie because of the executive positions he holds. He is a "citizen above suspicion."

Season 7 is the most unusual season of Homeland because it's, like, actually about the homeland. But interestingly, after the incident at the farm where the dog is shot and everyone ends up dead Waco-style, Saul knows exactly where to go to find a Russian operative/agent who can tell him everything he wants to know about Yevgeny Gromov. Very interesting. He also knows who to recruit to confirm Russia's "disinformation" campaign. Saul knows a lot about Russia without ever having to step foot in Russia.

So there is the possibility that both Yevgeny and Carrie are mistaken about their conclusions--that the mole has to operate in or near the Kremlin in order to have as much information as he does; and also, from Carrie's perspective, that the idea of a mole working with Saul is unthinkable. Of course it is. Saul is an old-school spy who relies on a network of aging men and women concerned only with feathering their nests in old age, no matter what their country.

Money makes the world go round. Isn't it just such coincidence that Yevgeny knew exactly where to show up after Carrie's escape in the middle of the night, after the wire transfer from her best friend Saul?

Very interesting theory and it does make sense.

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11 hours ago, scrb said:

As for the suicide bombing scenario, US forces are prepared for it.  They usually have large guns to pulverize the car long before it can get near the target.  In this scene, if they shoot the driver, his foot comes off the accelerator, he no longer steers and his thumb comes off the accelerator.

But we’re suppose to believe that all those hundreds or thousands of rounds shot, the driver isn’t killed long before the car reaches target.

🙄

 

But they wanted some kind of tragedy here.

I couldn't help but think "I bet Quinn wishes he had a windshield like that" when the dozen or so rifles and an LMG were dumping on that car.

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Pakistan: Come at us, bros!
Zabel: K.

I'm glad Saul realized he pushed Carrie into the mess she's in, while she was still recovering from whatever the Russians did to her and likely wasn't up to the task. The blood on her hands are on his too, IMO.

Why did keep those guys locked in the bus? They were no longer prisoners but were left to become sitting ducks.

I don't get why it was so important to Jenna to see the guys returned. Was she planning to go over their stories about what happened to make sure there would be no details that would point to her?

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1 hour ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Pakistan: Come at us, bros!
Zabel: K.

I'm glad Saul realized he pushed Carrie into the mess she's in, while she was still recovering from whatever the Russians did to her and likely wasn't up to the task. The blood on her hands are on his too, IMO.

Why did keep those guys locked in the bus? They were no longer prisoners but were left to become sitting ducks.

I don't get why it was so important to Jenna to see the guys returned. Was she planning to go over their stories about what happened to make sure there would be no details that would point to her?

I think the bus driver and guard were in on it.  They were Pakistanis. 

I don’t think Carrie can be blamed for a terror attack.  If it wasn’t them it would have been some other victims or maybe they would have been killed another way if they weren’t stopped by the police.  

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1 hour ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Why did keep those guys locked in the bus? They were no longer prisoners but were left to become sitting ducks.

I don't think the paperwork had been signed yet to hand them over.  Officially, they were still in custody of Pakistan

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The ongoing theme this season has been men who have never fought in a war, perfectly willing to risk the lives of others, while definitely not wanting to risk themselves (I'm sure both halal and that a-hole with the facial hair in DC would both agree that they are "too important and high level" to fight). 

Everyone who undertakes to risk lives should value those lives.  Some people naturally get it, some people have to have experienced it.  People like zabel and jalal just see humans as objects.  

Zabel and jalal think they are so different but they really aren't.  For some reason I thought this was the series finale.  

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18 hours ago, Alistaire said:

Right, but there are (to borrow Catholic terminology) sins of omission as well as sins of commission. Carrie unilaterally decides she’s more important than 8 « grunts » because she is after all Carrie. She chose to risk their lives by turning them over to the Russians.

I thought she turned those guys in so she could get the black box.  Since that would likely be the one thing to stave off a world war and she couldn't have foreseen their fate I could understand her calculus.  

Pakistan had no reason to kill those men.  The taliban really didn't have a reason either since they are counting on Pakistan to protect them. I don't think Carrie could have foreseen that. 

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5 hours ago, TimWil said:

I did think it was a nice moment when Carrie hugged Arman and said he was “a friend.” Something she never got to do with Max when he was alive.

It was really nice to see her tacitly acknowledge how much he had been risking to drive her around to countless places in her neverending mission. Her sincere gratitude for his kindness and friendship were a nice change from the way she usually just expects people to do her favors.

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10 hours ago, RealReality said:

The ongoing theme this season has been men who have never fought in a war, perfectly willing to risk the lives of others, while definitely not wanting to risk themselves (I'm sure both halal and that a-hole with the facial hair in DC would both agree that they are "too important and high level" to fight). 

I think that's the theme of shows and movies about war for decades.

I still don't know the point of this season, or what it is supposed to be saying as the last season of a once-rivoting series. The only thread I see running through it is the unhealthy relationship between Saul and Carrie. There is some noise around the difficult and weighty decisions that must be made by people in their, and other, roles. But that's not saying anything new. And then we have another suicide bomber. Is the lesson that this has all happened before, and will happen again?

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8 minutes ago, Ottis said:

I think that's the theme of shows and movies about war for decades.

I still don't know the point of this season, or what it is supposed to be saying as the last season of a once-rivoting series. The only thread I see running through it is the unhealthy relationship between Saul and Carrie. There is some noise around the difficult and weighty decisions that must be made by people in their, and other, roles. But that's not saying anything new. And then we have another suicide bomber. Is the lesson that this has all happened before, and will happen again?

Besides dick, I haven't seen a movie with people who have no skin in the game happy to risk the lives of others because someone it's for the "greater good" but they don't feel it necessary to risk themselves for such a "greater good" but perhaps I'm not watching a lot of shows about war. 

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On 4/12/2020 at 9:30 AM, GussieK said:

I am confused.  I think we will still see Carrie trying to figure out something to avoid betraying Saul.  What was going on with Mike staring thoughtfully from the station door?  There has been speculation here that he is a mole.  Maybe he is the key. 

But sheesh, Carrie really is a black widow.  She got all those guys on the bus killed. 

 

How did she get them killed? I must have missed that. I thought it was the person who directed that poor guy to be a suicide bomber.

On 4/12/2020 at 12:58 PM, Alistaire said:

Add to all these deaths 1) Nicholas Brody's. Rewatch the last two episodes of Season 1. Yes, Brody detonates the suicide-vest, but when it doesn't go off, it is his daughter that stops him from going through with Al Nazir's mission. Then there's 2) Carrie's destruction of the entire Brody family when she saves him only to let her true (sick) idol, Saul, get the poor man to put on a symbolic suicide-vest by agreeing to the Tehran mission. Oh, yeah, and 3) Quinn, who spends half of Season 4 preparing to leave the CIA, changing course only when she says the magic words after Haqqani resurfaces: "Quinn, I love you."

Now for 4) Aayan... Well, if that wasn't enough to sicken the best heart in the viewing audience, there's always 5) Fara, whom poor blonde Carrie needed for her hair-color and dark eyes. And 6) Quinn, the second time, in Season 5. Ditto 7) Quinn, redux, Season 6, the guy molested by Dar Adal as a child. Was Quinn a free-agent? Did he have free will? He could always have gone home to that gorgeous, sweet, and funny as hell hotel manager from Season 4. But he was in love with this home-wrecker; and you don't really choose whom you fall in love with, especially when they're so darn needy and... needy.

7) Frannie. ("I'm so sorry.") 8 ) Maggie, who had to face the misery of taking her to court for custody of Frannie. But see also: 9) President Warner. And 10 )  All the soldiers whose escape was delayed by her urge for the black box.

9) Sweet Max.

And (so far) 10) a whole bus full of innocent soldiers, because she's good enough, she's smart enough, and, doggone it, people like her!

But the series isn't over. Body counts may vary.

11) I FORGOT SEKOU IN SEASON 6, Aayan the Second.

Carrie didn't destroy Brody's family - he did. She shouldn't have slept with him, but she was right about him all along, and she's the one who got Dana to talk him down. If she hadn't, he would have fixed that vest and blown everyone up, including himself. He took that mission because of what he'd done to his family. His daughter no longer wanted his last name. 

Quinn was smart, usually, but he didn't wait an hour, before taking a mission that could kill him, because she wasn't sure about a relationship. That was on him, not her. He helped her when she needed it, and he's the one who took off, when she was trying to take care of him. He's the one who stayed with the terrorists, when I could have sworn he was talking to Dar, was it? I can't remember, but I thought he was working something. I know that someone will correct me if I'm wrong. But he was a grown man, and could have said no. 

Fara died, because that woman's husband gave away Carrie's way of getting in and out of the embassy. That's why everyone else died that day, too. Tasneem - it's also on her. She stopped that guy from sending help. 

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No Carrie didn't pull the trigger.

But she unnecessarily put those men in harm's way by getting them arrested.

Remember that at first, they were willing to go down shooting in that safe house but were ordered to stand down.

They could have been beat up in the jails or worse.

 

 

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23 hours ago, RealReality said:

For some reason I thought this was the series finale.  

I did too! And I was feeling nervous for the show, like, "How in hell are they going to wrap up the series in the next ten minutes?!??"

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7 hours ago, scrb said:

No Carrie didn't pull the trigger.

But she unnecessarily put those men in harm's way by getting them arrested.

Remember that at first, they were willing to go down shooting in that safe house but were ordered to stand down.

They could have been beat up in the jails or worse.

 

 

Was it unnecessary if she was trying to get the flight recorder to save the whole world from destruction?  

Would Pakistan, truly dependent on US aid, really beat and/or torture US soldiers?  I wouldn't think so.  

 

 

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And if she didn’t get it?  She was chasing a lead with no guarantee of success.  But she was ready to get those guys caught by the Pakistanis.

 

and in his reality, apparently Afghanistan an Pakistan don’t care about US aid.  Because they defy anything the US asks it’s supposed allies.

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1 hour ago, scrb said:

And if she didn’t get it?  She was chasing a lead with no guarantee of success.  But she was ready to get those guys caught by the Pakistanis.

 

and in his reality, apparently Afghanistan an Pakistan don’t care about US aid.  Because they defy anything the US asks it’s supposed allies.

She had a chance to get it if she tried, she had zero chance to get it if she didn't.  

If she get it she has a chance to avoid world war, if she doesn't get it a world war will almost certainly ensue.  

Pakistan definitely cares about US aid, I think even in this program, but publicly they cannot be seen as weak or kowtowing to American interests.  So beating a US prisoner seems unlikely and not a public position they would be cornered into. 

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Right they will pull out nuclear missiles and point them at US troops but they won't torture US soldiers who were caught within Pakistan armed to the gills because that might upset Americans.

🙄

And you're right, Carrie is not at fault here.  It's all just a little collateral damage.

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7 hours ago, scrb said:

Right they will pull out nuclear missiles and point them at US troops but they won't torture US soldiers who were caught within Pakistan armed to the gills because that might upset Americans.

🙄

And you're right, Carrie is not at fault here.  It's all just a little collateral damage.

Yes, when publicly pushed on national TV they are going to make a stand so they don't look weak and like a puppet state to American interests. 

That is a completely different situation than privately capturing some US soliders that weren't supposed to be there and then choosing to beat and torture them. 

Those situations are apples and oranges to me.  

I think that this show explores a lot of grey areas and this dilemma wasn't any different.  Was she going to risk those men's for a real chance to save the world from war?  And what would she have thought she was risking happening to those men?  Would she have thought she was sending them to a beating and torture?  I don't think so, since Pakistan is pragmatic enough to realize that it is reliant on US aid.  

I think Saul and company chose to put Max at much greater risk because getting killed in a warzone is a much greater risk than getting beaten and tortured when privately captured by a country dependant on US aid.  And Max was put at risk for the potential to get a peace treaty....those men were put at least foreseeable risk to potentially save the world from a war.  

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Well, you're not going to convince me to put all of that on Carrie, either. I'm not a huge fan, I just don't see how absolutely everything is her fault. 

Brody was in the position he was in, because a president sent him to war, and he was captured by people who brainwashed him, and turned him into a traitor. His family would have been just as devastated if Carrie didn't exist. 

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The guy that was forced to become a suicide bomber was heartbreaking, and yes, the whole sequence was super well directed. I still think Jenna is hiding something. Maybe she is the mole? By the way, what ever happened to the woman Carrie helped escape her Taliban brother-in-law? Talk about a loose end.

This episode kept me on the edge of my seat. The series finale is really shaping up to be memorable. I will miss Homeland.

 

My unspoiled speculation is that Saul dies/retires and Carrie becomes the new Saul, mentoring a new agent who is a  young version of herself.

 

Oh, and the bus with the special team guys - hope some of them survived. It was heartbreaking to see them locked inside, watching the car hit the bus. One of the hardest scenes to watch.

 

 

 

 

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They really are doubling down on Zabel being a fire-breathing idiot. The Pakistanis "know what Province Haqqani is in?" Isn't that a bit like saying "We know he's in Arkansas"? At least Wellington managed some diplomacy (however unfortunately it worked out).

Isn't the point of having  co-pilot to have somebody who can radio in during a crisis? I get that, in a crisis, proper procedures will be abandoned, but you're carrying the President. And you have (well, had) and escort who might be able to help. But they didn't apparently call for help at all! Could they not have said their radio went out (for some reason)? And the Base personnel were no better. How exactly was Carrie able to not just get onto, but get off the Base too?

Saul's loyalty to Carrie is what makes a great mentor but a lousy spymaster (I'll assume he's also loyal to his other agents too). Carrie is way too compromised at this point to be useful, yet Saul is still protecting her. He's like a chess player who is unwilling to give up a piece no matter how advantageous it might be - which is a sure way to lose against any but a complete novice.

On 4/12/2020 at 4:19 PM, scrb said:

Now watch them make Jenna take all the blame.

Except she is responsible! Her duty was to report Carrie, not betray her people to the Pakistanis. Yes, Carrie asked her to, but she knew she was going against orders (and it didn't even work - at least, not this week).

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(edited)
On 4/12/2020 at 3:35 PM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Poor Saul - even now he still refuses to abandon her which means it's going to be that much more heartbreaking when she does what Yevgeny asked and betrays Saul. I'm glad he acknowledged that Carrie wouldn't be getting arrested if he hadn't gone against her doctor's wishes and brought her to Kabul because that is 100% true.

At this point, I still have no idea how she's going to find out who his asset is, but it's Carrie so maybe she just needs to go off her meds and create a complicated murder board like she did in the earlier seasons.

 

On 4/12/2020 at 5:49 PM, nara said:

Glad to finally understand Yevgeny’s interest in Carrie—she is the only person on the planet to whom Saul would possibly reveal his source. Even if they captured Saul himself, he would probably withstand the torture and die before revealing his source. Carrie, however, is his weak link, and has been proven to be torturable. (I know that’s not a word)

I am assuming that the man to whom Saul was speaking is his mole. 

"All Russia's setbacks" are due to a mole in Kremlin - Yevgeny, you are really an ass, And do the writers really think that the audience has forgotten that it was Saul who had a Russian mole as his mistress in Berlin? 

But let's assume that Saul has really a mole in Kremlin. What kind of intelligence chief would chose his source, however valuable, over saving his country, and the world, for a stupid and catastrophic war? The opposite decision is an utter romatic fantasy.  

On 4/20/2020 at 1:06 AM, John Potts said:

Isn't the point of having  co-pilot to have somebody who can radio in during a crisis? I get that, in a crisis, proper procedures will be abandoned, but you're carrying the President. And you have (well, had) and escort who might be able to help. But they didn't apparently call for help at all! Could they not have said their radio went out (for some reason)? 

They lost the video connection with the helicopter, so I guess the radio went also out. 

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On 4/20/2020 at 1:06 AM, John Potts said:

Saul's loyalty to Carrie is what makes a great mentor but a lousy spymaster (I'll assume he's also loyal to his other agents too). Carrie is way too compromised at this point to be useful, yet Saul is still protecting her. He's like a chess player who is unwilling to give up a piece no matter how advantageous it might be - which is a sure way to lose against any but a complete novice.

Saul acts like he was Carrie's father, not his boss. But if an officer commands an unit where his son is, his duty is to forget that. 

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13 hours ago, Roseanna said:

They lost the video connection with the helicopter, so I guess the radio went also out. 

The trouble is, too many things need to fail simultaneously for this scenario to work. Not only was there a mechanical failure of the rotors (I think that was what the reason given for switching vehicles), there was an electrical fault in the radio and the escort chopper lost sight of them (they'd presumably report if it started flying erratically)? Granted, it's possible for such a set of problems to crop of simultaneously (as Apollo 13 showed) but it's pilling one contrivance onto another. And it's bad screenwriting if viewers have to Fanwank scenarios that account for what wasn't shown/stated onscreen!

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At least so far the final season has been a disappointment to me.

Only Yevgeny has been super and so far many steps ahead of Carrie. Really equal to Brody and Quinn!

But the big picture ("the whole country went mad after 11/9", "there is no end to the war") is perhaps too much for the show.   

  

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