S04.E12: Long Time Coming

[stillshimpy]

That being said, I do like Carrie and Quinn together. Whether or not that's in the stars, if tptb kill Quinn, I'm done.

 

When watching this episode I remembered James Callis (who played Gaius Baltar on the reimagined BSG) talking about how British actors don't often do very long-term gigs on series.   That it's just a slight cultural difference that after two seasons most Brits are pestering their agents about landing their next gig, because they get antsy.  They are just far less likely to play the same role for years on end.  

 

So I spent most of the episode assuming that Rupert Friend had been pestering his agent about what his next gig was going to be and I'm assuming next season will see Carrie getting that goodbye letter and there will be conspiracy theories among the fans that since we never see the body, that will last up to and beyond the closing credits of the series "Quinn isn't dead {Saul is the mole!}" and blah blah blah, fare-thee-well, Friend.  

 

For the sake of fans who would really miss him, I hope that's not the case, but I am assuming that's the deal.  For my own part I think his talent is a little wasted in the show, in this particular role. 

 

Edited to correct glaring grammatical error that even I couldn't bring myself to ignore. 

Edited December 22, 2014 by stillshimpy

[MelineB13]

You know an episode of Homeland is slow when I find myself getting distracted trying to figure out what season it is supposed to be on the show. The guy who was trying to get Quinn back for the mission mentioned being home for the holidays and wished him a happy holiday when he left, but everyone was walking around the DC Metro area in short sleeves or light jackets and bright green foliage/flowers. So could it have been Easter? No, still cold at Easter. Memorial Day? Maybe. 4th of July? It would have been hotter. Arbor Day? Potentially. Seriously spent a full 40 minutes trying to parse it together.

Well, that and waiting for Quinn's truck to blow up or for him to get sniped. Something/anything to make Carrie's chin quiver.

[attica]

The episode was so low-key, I was miserable and nervous the whole way through! I was certain another shoe would drop, and, like, a bomb would go off at Carrie's mother's house, or Quinn would drive away from Carrie's house after the kiss and go all Matthew Crawley on us. And then: nothing! Well, blow me down.

 

In other news, I'm totally digging the grooming Saul's done to his beard. Yowsa!

[RimaTheBirdGirl]

I disagree with the few posts that nothing happened. Everything happened. Carrie came to an understanding of who she is. Saul came to an understanding of who he is. Quinn came to an understanding of who he is. The pieces all came together.

 

Pure Heart Saul died when Carrie broke her word and now a more shaded and conflicted man remains.   That's an earned moment  

 

Thank you, Parandroid and StillShimpy, for redeeming the episode for me.  But dang, did it bore me.  Like many, I have nothing but impatience with Quinn's pining for Carrie.*  I love the drama of her spycraft.  I love the stories of her crazy brilliance, and her professional choices.  

 

But Carrie-the-person is a total rotter.  She is ungiving and undeserving, and I scream RUN whenever Quinn makes with the glinty goo-goo eyes.  I think the show has failed in her moral characterization.  She is just too uniformly awful.**  It is unearned for the Show to present any sane person in love with Carrie.  And so I find any focus on her love life just irritating.

 

 

*And why is that man not with the cop-mother of his child, or the smart, loyal German woman in Pakistan?  Ideal women abound for that man.  Wherefore Carrie????

 

** Gack, kicking out her mother, despite the sister's protests.  ANY interaction involving the sainted sister.

Edited December 22, 2014 by RimaTheBirdGirl

[panthergirl13]

When Carrie got up in the middle of the night I said 'The baby's gone!!" That was wishful out-loud-thinking on so many levels.

 

On the upside, I saved myself a Xanax before bed last night.

[hendersonrocks]

I'm wondering if Carrie will ever get to read that letter addressed to her. When Quinn handed the letters to the newbie I thought the top one said "Carrie Matheson". Was that supposed to be a clue about Quinn's return or not? What if he's MIA from the mission? Does she get to read it?

 

I assume this ritual is pulled from real life--it would be interesting to know how MIA works. My guess is they'd be delivered if/when the CIA signs off, which is probably a bad sign in and of itself, but who knows.

 

But yeah...I really, really hope that Quinn's letter to Carrie is just meant as a signal to us that his feelings are feeling-y and NOT that we're going to have to watch Carrie read it next season. Because between the cryface that will be & the loss of my favorite person on the show, that would SUCK.

[izabella]

I didn't mind the slower, low-key episode after all the drama in the last few.  I was underwhelmed with most of the content, though.  Carrie's mother...I know why she was in the episode, but Quinn and Carrie were always doomed, IMO, so the mom plot seemed superfluous.  Carrie now realizes she can have a real relationship...yay?  She needs to learn how to actually have a normal relationship, so the mom revelation wasn't a watershed moment as far as I'm concerned.

 

Of course, Quinn will go on to whatever next Black Ops mission his colleagues or Dar Adal pull him into.  Was there ever a doubt?  He's never getting out, as the German lady said.  He has these moments where he quits, but always jumps back in.

 

Of course, Carrie will get sucked back into Pakistan or Iraq or Syria.  She won't be there for her daughter, and she won't be there for a relationship with anyone, much less Quinn, unless it's an asset she is recruiting.

Edited December 22, 2014 by izabella

[Joimiaroxeu]

I am just pissed Tasneem is not dead.

Me too. Plus the unlikelihood that Carrie will get with Khan. Plus the possibility that Carrie caused Quinn to go on a literal dead-end mission.

 

Quinn "Corleone": Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in!

[alexvillage]

 

Quinn "Corleone": Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in!

Funny how that exact line came to me when I saw Quinn walking into the hangar

[fastiller]

Plus, the scene of Carrie, Saul, Quinn, and Lockhart sitting in the backyard was about as close to joyful as Homeland ever gets. And probably the closest we'll get in a long time. And continued kudos to the casting director for finding the ultimate mini-Brody in baby Frannie. It's kind of freaky. 

I thought of the four of them around the table was as much the actors commemorating Rebhorn as it was the characters doing so for Mr. Mattheison (sp?).  And Frannie is such a mini-Damien Lewis!

 

I am just pissed Tasneem is not dead.

 

<snip>

There are too many lose ends and they MUST kill Tasneem.

Perhaps that's why Quinn agreed to go?  A little side mission back into Pakistan to off her and to off Haqqani?

[slowpoked]

 

So let's say after 9/11 a senior CIA Black Ops guy somehow arranges a meeting with Bin Laden and promises to get him off the kill list if he lets go of his only copy of a video of George Tenet on a leash. Seems legit...

 

Yeah, this is my main problem with what Dar did. Like someone else posted, there's no way he's doing this on his own - he has orders from above, most probably connected to what Lockhart said in the previous episode that there's been a lot of hush-hush meetings. But Haqqani isn't just your "normal" terrorist. He breached the embassy, shut down a CIA station and killed Americans, which I would assume is huge worldwide news. He should be on TOP of the kill list, not negotiating to be off of it. That's like Bin Laden saying he'll never do 9/11 again as long as the US promises to stop hunting him. Or to stay in the Homeland world, just like finishing the prisoner exchange thinking all is well and Saul will go home peacefully only to have the CIA convoy be shot by snipers. Why is Dar Adal so confident that these MF'ers aren't going to stab you in the back, again, like what Lockhart told the Ambassador when she was still trying to make peaceful negotiations with the ISI? So say they release the video despite the pinkie swear - what happens next? Haqqani goes back on the kill list, but yeah, good luck finding him especially now that he enjoys full protection of the Pakistan government

 

And why is it that Saul seems to be the only person qualified to be the next director that Dar had to make a deal with the devil for it to happen? Lockhart came out of nowhere last season to be the director. And I assume there are still a lot of high-ranking officials left in the agency despite the car bomb in S2. 

 

In Saul's case, I understand there is a lot of conflict going on. On the surface it looked like he became suddenly power-hungry and has shed all of his integral beliefs in exchange for that power. But earlier in the episode, he said "I want to make this right". Could be a classic case of the means don't justify the end, but the end is all that matters. Saul accepts the position despite knowing what it took to get there, then proceeds to kill Haqqani and Tasneem anyway...Or I can only hope that is what will happen and all will be right between Carrie and Saul forever.

[CozyKat]

You know an episode of Homeland is slow when I find myself getting distracted trying to figure out what season it is supposed to be on the show. The guy who was trying to get Quinn back for the mission mentioned being home for the holidays and wished him a happy holiday when he left, but everyone was walking around the DC Metro area in short sleeves or light jackets and bright green foliage/flowers. So could it have been Easter? No, still cold at Easter. Memorial Day? Maybe. 4th of July? It would have been hotter. Arbor Day? Potentially. Seriously spent a full 40 minutes trying to parse it together.

 

I'm rarely one to sweat the details on shows like this if I'm being adequately entertained otherwise, but since I wasn't this time, the holiday/weather thing drove me nuts, especially since the leaves everywhere had the unmistakable pale gloss of May or June. Even Missouri is not THAT far south, and they don't film this in California, right? On a similar note, is Carrie's sister supposed to be married or divorced or what? Was the guy at the end of her pew in the funeral supposed to be her husband? It's Season 4; I feel like I should be clear on this by now.

 

As much as I like Quinn and (to a lesser extent) Carrie/Quinn, that was way too Harlequin-romancey for my taste. Has Quinn or the viewer gotten any indication that Carrie wants out of the CIA? I buy her Mom-motivation for being the way she is romantically, but the convenient timing of this crisis and the ruthless spell-it-out-so-a-third-grader-will understand Psych 101 approach had me eye-rolling, and I tolerate schmaltz pretty well as a rule.

 

I had convinced myself that Quinn would be killed off by episode's end and was yelling at my TV every time another anvil fell to that effect, so at least I have the remote possibility of his survival to cling to.

[Boundary]

I appreciated a quieter pace, every show needs one but this should've been in the middle of the season. But given everything that happened, the real season finale seemed to be taking place in Pakistan (something akin to a coup) and Afghanistan (Haqqani/Taliban on the march to Kabul), our Homeland cameras just weren't there.

[Hava]

I can see why the situation really made Quinn think about quitting and living a normal life because this wasthe most normal time he and Carrie have had - talking about her dad, surrounded by her family and friends, no imminent death or destruction for the evening. But to me, it was the equivalent of being on vacation. They had a day where they got to leave all those other things behind and pretend that this was what life could be like for them every day.

 

See, their conversation about normalcy actually rang false to me and was quite jarring. They had all just been through a terrorist attack, so I expected them to still be reeling from that in some way--planning, investigating, something. Did I miss somewhere that some time had passed since the previous episode?

[ShellSeeker]

I hope Lockhart sticks around next season. I can't believe I'm saying this, but he grew on me. The scene with him, Carrie, Quinn and Saul was a really nice touch. Loved it.

 

Yeah, I sort of got to like him too. I think it's because he was so vocal and critical last season in the hearings, and then found out that being the director of the CIA is not an easy job, and everyone's a critic. I think he grew on me because he was very humbled by his experience as the Director -- and not just because of the attack on the embassy. I think part of the reason he showed up so late with the lasagna was that there wasn't anyone else he really wanted to be with -- no one else he could really relate to or be with at that particular moment.

 

I spent the entire episode on pins and needles, expecting there to be some kind of huge cliffhanger, expecting danger to be lurking around every corner. But there wasn't. In retrospect I liked it because I think the tone of the episode probably pretty accurately reflected what the aftermath of something like the attack by Haqqani would be like for people who lived through something like that. I would think that once you got home, doing "everyday" things would take on a surreal aspect. OK, you can't really say that a funeral is an "everyday" kind of thing, but things like taking your kid to the park, or just sitting around talking with friends are. One minute you're dodging gunfire, trying to figure out how to take out the world's most ruthless terrorist, and the next you're sitting in the backyard sipping a beer. It would be weird.

 

And I kind of liked how they handled the Carrie/Quinn romance. She acknowledged that yes, there are definite sparks between them, but for once she did the smart thing and stopped it from going any further. It showed some self-awareness, which I think for Carrie counts as character growth.

[Constantinople]

Does anyone know how old Maggie and Carrie are supposed to be?

 

I ask because Ellen seemed a little young to be their mother.

[Superpole2000]

...But Haqqani isn't just your "normal" terrorist. He breached the embassy, shut down a CIA station and killed Americans, which I would assume is huge worldwide news. He should be on TOP of the kill list, not negotiating to be off of it...

I didn't understand that at all. It was such a weak plot point, and yet the ultimate fate of the season was dependent on it. And why on earth is anyway negotiating with terrorists to help get Saul and his regime back in charge? Have they not kept score these past few years? The CIA has been underperforming just ever so slightly.

[alexvillage]

 

Does anyone know how old Maggie and Carrie are supposed to be?

Carrie said it had been 15 years since her mother left/last contact. Then she said that in the first year of college she had her first episode and was committed, I understood that this happened shortly after her mother left. So, I assume Carrie is in her early thirties, but based only on this information that is very incomplete.

[scrb]

Who was the season 1/2 villain, Javadi or whatever?

 

They got him but not before he did a lot of damage.

 

Then the Iranian guy who did some damage.

 

They shouldn't need this device of a secret deal with Haqqani to get Saul back in.  They could have put him back in charge for any number of reasons.

 

Instead, they show this CIA repeatedly fucking up.  Like Grantland said, Carrie is bad at her job but she keeps failing upwards.

[dwmarch]

Who was the season 1/2 villain, Javadi or whatever?

 

Abu Nazir was the season 1/2 villain who slipped into America via a plot hole.

 

Javadi was the "bastard, but he's our bastard" of season 3.

[mjc570]

I know that the episodes of Carrie acting like a competent intelligence officer were too good to last.  Now that Quinn is a dead man walking and Lockhart is on his way out, the only characters I care to watch are Dar Adal and Saul.

[Bcharmer]

Not sure why Saul was giving Carrie the glaring stink eye of death at the end. Last few times they saw each other, they were on good terms. So what happened? Even if he was able to overhear her arguing with Adal (not sure that he did), he could have tried to make her understand what was going on. But he just glowered at her, as if he were angry at her. Not sure I fully understand that, at all.

[shapeshifter]

Not sure why Saul was giving Carrie the glaring stink eye of death at the end. Last few times they saw each other, they were on good terms. So what happened? Even if he was able to overhear her arguing with Adal (not sure that he did), he could have tried to make her understand what was going on. But he just glowered at her, as if he were angry at her. Not sure I fully understand that, at all.

I didn't interpret his look that way--it could have been anger, but it wasn't clear to me what he was thinking. Likely it was at least in part something like: O, crap. Of course, Carrie's here. Like a bloodhound sniffing out trouble and stirring up crap.

He might have a plan to turn the tables on everyone and not want her screwing it up or even just getting caught up in it.

Or, if Saul is mad at her, it could be because she traded his life for Haqqani's guys, and now he has to deal with all this morally gray crap again.

But I only saw firey anger darts coming out of Carrie's eyes.

Maybe Saul was just reflecting them back at her.

[Mama No Life]

I didn't see Saul's anger at Carrie.  If anything, it was 'just don't', as in he didn't want to get into it with her in front of Salierei.

 

I miss Quinn already.

 

I don't want to kill the baby because that is just cold, but that storyline does NOTHING for me.  What a goof of a plot.

[Cramps]

Agreed that the character arc of Lockhart has been really interesting. He's gone from Carrie's and our nemesis to a more humbled and battered but decent man. I hope they find a way to keep him next season. Perhaps since Saul it seems as though Saul is turning to the dark side, Carrie will side with him. Doubtful, but a possibility.

[Davey]

My favorite line of the episode was Carrie's sister telling Quinn that she had never seen Carrie this upset after an operation before. What? Guess she missed the episode where her sister was strapped to a table at the funny farm receiving shock treatment. A bunch of her friends died and she returned to her Dad's funeral and this was the calmest I've ever seen her by far. Til Mommie showed up anyway.

[Helena Dax]

Boring and underwhelming. I wanted Tasneem and Haqqani's head and I got Carrie's mom. 

[shapeshifter]

...I wanted Tasneem and Haqqani's head and I got Carrie's mom.

Hee! Exactly.

[Pallas]

When Haqqani kidnapped Saul, he made a video showing the world he had a former CIA director in his hands.

-It's extremely important this video doesn't go viral, because Saul has been unofficially chosen (as per Dar Adal info) as next director of the CIA and a director cannot be someone who has just been kidnapped by some sort fo Bin Laden.

-Dar Adal went to Pakistan and made a deal with Haqqani in exchange of Saul's video.

-Saul can now become next CIA director.

Now, who decided to make a deal with Haqqani? US President? Dar Adal is Black Ops, therefore he does all the dirty work (like in this case) but he still receives orders from someone, it's not like he took the initiative, is that correct? If that's the case, basically they want Saul to be next director SO BAD to make deals with such a terrorist? If so, why? Is there anybody else? I mean, I know that from a storyline POV it's more compelling if it's Saul, but I can't believe there's no one else (like they did with Lockhart) who can be director without sharing similar burdens. Or, at the very least, without "forcing" a government to negotiate with the chief of Taliban terrorists.

 

 

Your recap is pretty much how I see it.  Adal was working on orders: for all his dark proficiency, he is not in charge of the kill list, and Haqqani would know that.  The top-level national security meetings and negotiations with Pakistan that Lockhart referred to in his call to Carrie in ep 9 seem to have been the churn kicked up by that operation.  

 

The US broke relations with Pakistan, and has put out the story that Haqqani made his way back to the tribal region where he is protected by Pakistan.  Meanwhile, the actual deal is that Haqqani has agreed to lie low and turn over the damning video, in return for his personal safety.  I'm guessing that Pakistan may continue to receive at least some US aid covertly, through the CIA. 

 

In return for offering Haqqani by-gones for the raid on the Embassy, the US gets to keep to itself that its former CIA director was abducted by the ISI/Afghani Taliban, and that five high-level terrorist prisoners were then exchanged for him.  That this leaves Saul in a position to resume command of the CIA is merely a by-product of the deal, though maybe the most important element in Adal's eyes.  

 

For Adal, Saul proved himself an able chief when he outflanked Congress, gained support from the White House and successfully effected the plan to abduct and re-insert Javadi as head of Iranian security.  In the eyes of the powers that be, this briefly redeemed the CIA that was blown up under Saul's predecessor, and left the by-then-already departed Saul in fairly good aroma. He's looking especially terrific in comparison to Lockhart, though only as long as Saul is not seen, throughout the world, bound and bullied and on his knees in front of a makeshift Taliban step-and-repeat. 

[Kel Varnsen]

That was such a weird episode. It felt like a different show altogether--I thought I had missed an episode. The tone was bizarre.

 

I found Saul confusing. 

Saul was confusing. He basically told the senator guy that he would take just about any job at the CIA because he wanted to help. He would even be a station chief or something. Then the guy talked about how with the threat of that video he would never survive any confirmation hearings. But he would only need a confirmation hearing if he was being appointed director or some other high level job right? So why can't he take a lower level, non-confirmed job, then get the CIA to point all the drones at Haqqani's ass? Wait a year and then get reappointed director after the video is long forgotten.

 

There is a lot of unfinished business in Pakistan.  I hope the show remedies this next season.  

There was a lot of unfnished business in Iran after last season and it didn't get a single mention in 12 episodes of this season. I don't really have high hopes that we will hear about Pakistan again. Also from the sounds of Dar Adal the Taliban is going to be taking over Afghanistan again in the homeland world. I wonder if there will be any actual follow up on that?

[patty1h]

Yeesh -- What a snorefest. This show has turned into a crappy movie of the week love story.  It strains belief that men find that misery Carrie so irresistible. Run away Quinn!  She's a bipolar single mother who couldn't handle her high pressure government job, tried to murder her infant, helped a traitor to the US, and watched two of her lovers get executed. What a catch!

 

Quinn can't have crazy Carrie so he goes on a suicide mission?  If Carrie ends up in Iraq searching for Quinn next season, I'll shit. No way can I watch Claire Dane's hips striding around in a business suit for 13 more episodes.

[Kristen]

My favorite part was Lipless and the lasagna. But seriously, when this show is quiet, it makes me even more nervous than when it's crazy. I blame the season two finale for that. Except this time there was no last minute cray.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Kristen

[Milburn Stone]

This was not what I expected from a Homeland season finale, but I liked it. 

 

Ditto.

 

The Quinn story was truly tragic.

[Pallas]

Carrie's mother was always going to appear, once Carrie told Brody and us the story, in their final idyll at her family's cabin. (At the time, back on TWoP, we even speculated about casting for her.)  In a season begun with Carrie as a new mother, leaving her daughter behind with her sister and father, and with the death of James Rebhorn and her father, it made sense to me that the mother stepped in.  It was also a season, on the homefront, about how (surrogate) parents and children betray one another.

  

The Quinn story was truly tragic.

 

You betcha.  And as with Saul in Pakistan, Carrie again did the right thing, except. 

[vesperholly]

I liked this season a lot , too. It felt like a smart "24," only to end with with an episode of "My So-Called Life"

 

And that scene of her and Quinn in a darkened street, no less. I half expected her to do that twirl like in MSCL.

 

Frannie is not a pretty baby.  I'm sorry.

 

Breathtaking.

 

This show has made me so paranoid. I spent the entire episode convinced that something horrible was going to happen. I thought the park guy was going to stab Carrie and steal the baby. When she got home and saw the car with Missouri license plates, I was sure someone was going to jump out and grab her. When Carrie got up in the middle of the night, I thought someone was going to conk her on the head when she walked down the hallway in the dark. After Quinn and Carrie walked out of the house after the wake, I was afraid someone was going to kidnap her sister after she closed the door.

 

Yes! I imagined all of those and more.

[penelope79]

Your recap is pretty much how I see it.  Adal was working on orders: for all his dark proficiency, he is not in charge of the kill list, and Haqqani would know that.  The top-level national security meetings and negotiations with Pakistan that Lockhart referred to in his call to Carrie in ep 9 seem to have been the churn kicked up by that operation.  

 

The US broke relations with Pakistan, and has put out the story that Haqqani made his way back to the tribal region where he is protected by Pakistan.  Meanwhile, the actual deal is that Haqqani has agreed to lie low and turn over the damning video, in return for his personal safety.  I'm guessing that Pakistan may continue to receive at least some US aid covertly, through the CIA. 

 

In return for offering Haqqani by-gones for the raid on the Embassy, the US gets to keep to itself that its former CIA director was abducted by the ISI/Afghani Taliban, and that five high-level terrorist prisoners were then exchanged for him.  That this leaves Saul in a position to resume command of the CIA is merely a by-product of the deal, though maybe the most important element in Adal's eyes.  

 

For Adal, Saul proved himself an able chief when he outflanked Congress, gained support from the White House and successfully effected the plan to abduct and re-insert Javadi as head of Iranian security.  In the eyes of the powers that be, this briefly redeemed the CIA that was blown up under Saul's predecessor, and left the by-then-already departed Saul in fairly good aroma. He's looking especially terrific in comparison to Lockhart, though only as long as Saul is not seen, throughout the world, bound and bullied and on his knees in front of a makeshift Taliban step-and-repeat. 

 

Thank you very much for your post, Pallas! :)

[Kel Varnsen]

Ditto.

 

The Quinn story was truly tragic.

I don't know, I thought the Carrie/Quinn romance was kind of annoying. A twist worthy of Grey's Anatomy. I mean they are the two main, young, attractive opposite sex characters on the show so of course they have to fall in love with each other. Quinn is literally a real world James Bond. Having him bang hot women week after week would seem a little less cliche.

 

Carrie said it had been 15 years since her mother left/last contact. Then she said that in the first year of college she had her first episode and was committed, I understood that this happened shortly after her mother left. So, I assume Carrie is in her early thirties, but based only on this information that is very incomplete.

Carrie is supposed to be in her early 30's? It probably makes sense from the point of the writing and her history (how old was she when she was on the ground during the Iraq war?). But it seems more like a Grey's Anatomy thing where someone can be at the top of the field and still be crazy young.  Especially because Carrie's dad was writing to George Tenent about her and wanting to her to come home from Iraq, and if homeland world is even close to the real world, he resigned in 2004.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Kel Varnsen

[Loandbehold]

I'm in agreement with those who found the finale v-e-r-y s-l-o-w. Plus, I have no idea how much time passed between the aborted assassination of Haqqani and Carrie's dad's funeral. From the way Dar and Carrie were talking it could have been months when Quinn was incommuciado. However, given the funeral I can't believe it was even a week. (I'm used to Jewish funerals where the body is buried in one or at most two days later.) That doesn't seem like a whole lot of time for Quinn to be out of touch.

 

I remember Season 4 of Buffy, where the finale wasn't really a finale, but more of an epilog. Still, we knew the end of the Big Bad happened in the prior episode and the finale was basically four character studies. Homeland didn't do this. It was still a continuation of the story, but I found it rather unsatisfying.

 

 

Carrie is supposed to be in her early 30's? [snip] Especially because Carrie's dad was writing to George Tenent about her and wanting to her to come home from Iraq, and if homeland world is even close to the real world, he resigned in 2004.

Well, we know from the title sequence of the first three seasons that Carrie blamed herself for missing something that she believes could have prevented 9/11. I think that would put her now closer to her mid-30s. She must have been Saul's intelligence analyst prodigy at age 21.

[Ina123]

I looked up the actress who played Carrie's mom, Victoria Clark, to see if there was a good pic of her smiling big. Sure enough, you can see her teeth when she smiles real big. I may have been the only person who noticed that we never saw her teeth in that entire episode. I guess I noticed it because I have very short teeth and they never show unless I smile real big.

[Boundary]

Something's going on between Saul and the President. He gets kidnapped and the President sends the CIA Director, no less, to get him back. After he's back, the same President sends the Black Ops top guy to secure an embarrassing video, so that Saul can be reinstalled. So what's going on? Perhaps it was Saul's principles from last season, building human intelligence networks, turning assets. Maybe there's a debate about the drones. Either way, something's going on in Offscreenville.

[slowpoked]

 

Javadi was the "bastard, but he's our bastard" of season 3.

 

Well, now that Javadi is being brought up - isn't he the one responsible for the car bombing that wiped out the CIA HQ in S2? And yet, he still became a high-level US asset after that. So maybe this negotiation thing with Haqqani is just par for the course in the Homeland world.

 

 

The Quinn story was truly tragic.

 

It is. Vis a vis with Carrie being back in the US, at least Carrie has her baby, sister and nieces to go home to, even if she doesn't want to be with her sister for most of the time. Quinn has nobody, just an empty apartment...

[stormy weather]

 

Turned out that we had to examine how even Carrie's bolting mom actually had maternal instincts aplenty, just waiting to be deployed not merely on half-brother doorman, but a playground's worth of children.   Argh, Show.  Overkill much?

 

Obviously anyone who abandons their children has got issues, but in Carrie's mother's defense I'd like to point out that if we assume Carrie is 35 (Danes is 35 and seriously, if Carrie was any younger it would make it even more unbelievable than it already is that she would hold such a high position in the CIA, I mean, at 35 I would consider it a great accomplishment if I was the boss at a mall cops agency), this means her mother left when she was 20 and her sister was what, 23-25?, so they were not exactly children. But yeah, not even a Christmas card in 15 years... that's low, woman.

And I agree with the recapper, they cast "baby" half-brother all wrong, that kid looked so old he could've been Carrie's next love interest, although I guess that after Ayan the "hold on a sec, he's a teenager" envelope has been pushed for good.

[Kel Varnsen]

Well, we know from the title sequence of the first three seasons that Carrie blamed herself for missing something that she believes could have prevented 9/11. I think that would put her now closer to her mid-30s. She must have been Saul's intelligence analyst prodigy at age 21.

Like ALEXVILLAGE said according to Carrie, it had been 15 years since her mom left. Her mom also wasn't around for her bipolar episode when she was in 1st year university. So at best she was 19 when that happened I guess and 34 now (or younger). But then like you said 34 now means she was  21 when 9/11 happened. And like you said she must have been some super genius/prodigy to finish university early, and then get high enough up in the CIA where she actually could have had something come across her desk that she might have missed that might have prevented the attacks (instead of being the new girl who just gets coffee for people like Saul, or gets to be some station support at some non-important embassy). Then again I am probably thinking too much about this, although it bugs me that people who are paid to write for this show aren't thinking more.

[shapeshifter]

Could the timeline in the episode work if the 9/11 in the show's reality/universe happened in 2011 instead of 2001? Or maybe 2008? Probably not very well. I guess for this episode, Carrie never blamed herself for missing something during 9/11, unless she only said that when she was in an unmedicated manic state with delusions of mental grandeur about her 21-year-old self.

[Nozycat]

I think Frannie is gorgeous.

 

I HATED the kiss, I loath it when characters attack each other like that and don't find it in the least sexy.

[alexvillage]

 

although it bugs me that people who are paid to write for this show aren't thinking more.

I think I will add "Copyright Kel Varnsen" and plaster this in a lot of (all?) forums of the shows I watch 

[mascan42]

Not only did nothing happen, it took forever to not happen. Did anybody notice the sheer tonnage of padding they needed to get this to 50 minutes? I counted a dozen scenes that either ran way too long or could've been cut out entirely - because who needs to watch Carrie drive down the road for a minute and a half while saying and doing absolutely nothing?

[Milburn Stone]

All those times when apparently "nothing" was going on, there was actually a high degree of tension, for me--because, as others have said, I constantly was on the alert for something awful to happen. Suspense created because of the anticipation of something awful is just as powerful in the absence of action as in the presence of it. Possibly more so.

 

But like the episode or not (and I did like it, tremendously), there's no question that the showrunners knew what they were doing. That is, they didn't simply "forget" to put in a lot of action; they deliberately changed things up and quieted things down, to create a whole new kind of suspense, to create intrigue (the story of Dar Adal and Saul's alliance with him), and to explore the tragedy of Quinn, which was almost Shakespearean. If only Carrie had come to her epiphany about half a day sooner, Quinn would have made a choice that led to happiness rather than his potential destruction.

Edited December 25, 2014 by Milburn Stone

[Espy]

I always interpreted Carrie believing that she'd 'missed' 9/11 to be part delusion, part arrogance. I buy that she's about 35 - last season she'd worked at the CIA for 14 years and it'd been mentioned that she was recruited while in college. The 9/11 stuff though, to me, is just Carrie's belief that she can solve things that no one else can, not that she was actually in a position to intervene prior to 9/11 and missed the evidence. 

[Kel Varnsen]

I think I will add "Copyright Kel Varnsen" and plaster this in a lot of (all?) forums of the shows I watch 

Feel free to use it. Looking back more it just bugs me that this episode reminded me of two really annoying TV writing cliches that I always hate. It had the younger professional type person who even though being super young can be at the top of their field. And it also had the thing where the writers were like  "well our two main characters are single, of the opposite sex, and attractive, we better hook them up". 

 

Thinking more about my first one, it got me thinking how this show would have been just as interesting if the Carrie character had actually been played by Mandy Patankin. I mean sure you can't have the Brody romance, but a veteran CIA person, who is actually age appropriate, could have been really interesting. Then again it was established  that Carrie also had an affair with the director of the CIA so that probably helped her career along.

Speaking of which anyone know if in the original Israeli series the person in the Carrie role was also really young?

 

I always interpreted Carrie believing that she'd 'missed' 9/11 to be part delusion, part arrogance. I buy that she's about 35 - last season she'd worked at the CIA for 14 years and it'd been mentioned that she was recruited while in college. The 9/11 stuff though, to me, is just Carrie's belief that she can solve things that no one else can, not that she was actually in a position to intervene prior to 9/11 and missed the evidence. 

That could make sense. Even if she was the person getting Saul's coffee she would totally believe she was important enough. Then again she was also someone that the CIA had on the ground during the Iraq war when she was in her early 20's. I have no idea if that is at all realistic or not.

 

 

All those times when apparently "nothing" was going on, there was actually a high degree of tension, for me--because, as others have said, I constantly was on the alert for something awful to happen. Suspense created because of the anticipation of something awful is just as powerful in the absence of action as in the presence of it. Possibly more so.

 

I am not sure if that is the sign of good writing/direction or bad. Maybe good because it shows that the people behind the show are able to build tension and suspense and keep you on your toes. More likely bad because it shows that they have gone to the well to many damn times with these surprise twists/explosions/people getting killed.