S05.E11: Our Man In Damascus

[cali1981]

When the agent in the bathroom told Allison they were taking her out of field service, my first thought was "by killing you".

That's what I thought along with the "you're damaged goods" line.  I don't think that Allison double crossed the Russians at all but was doing exactly what she was ordered to do, contact Aziz, get the info on the bomb location and and then mislead German Intelligence and the CIA on that to insure that the attack succeeded.  As fanciful as it seemed, the Russian agent's chilling, dispassionate explanation of the motives for allowing the bombing made some sense.  ISIS is a principal threat to their client Assad in Syria and they now sense that it may represent a threat to them. Russia is surrounded by republics with large Muslim populations and, after numerous invasions throughout its history, is very paranoid about protecting the homeland (a year of Russian and Soviet history drummed that concept into me).  If you accept that premise it makes sense that the Russians would try to marshal international and especially US support to destroy ISIS.  What better way than a horrific terrorist act that might rival or exceed the 9/11 attacks?  Maybe it's a stretch but there is a shred of plausibility to it.  As far as Allison goes, you have to wonder if she's now running from the CIA, the Germans and the Russians.  Saul knows that she misled them about the bomb's location so she has no cards left to play.  As others have stated, the Russians may want her dead to tie up loose ends and to maintain some degree of deniability.  Don't think that the Black Sea dacha is going to work out for our girl.

Edited December 15, 2015 by cali1981

[Tony]

So Saul pulls the man into the room, "interrogates" him, gets zero results whatsoever, and then leaves the guy alone to jump to his death.

 

I have to ask - has Saul done anything right at all ever? Besides having blind faith in Carrie and Quinn, who themselves manage to get the results, all we ever see from Saul is screwups after screwups. Just when I thought he couldn't be any more incompetent coming out of last season. 

[CaptainE]

The one thing I can overlook is the lack of hitting an alarm. It's too late to evacuate.... just a hint of fume will kill you, so what's the difference if you die in the tunnel or in the parking lot?  The only way to prevent it is to stop him....evacuating and causing mass panic won't solve anything and will only make it harder to reach the one guy you need to reach.

Well the baddies who locked the gates want to contain the people for mass casualties. An evacuation would get more people farther away from ground zero, saving lives. The gas will not kill all of Berlin, only those in a certain vicinity.

[teddysmom]

Yep. But does that threat work if you don't care for your mother or parents?. Or maybe he just figured, she's old and lived her life?. So many assumptions in his statement.

 

 

No it pretty much means, you don't do what I say, your mother dies.   This is a standard threat used by criminals and terrorists, and it rarely takes into consideration that the person it's directed at doesn't care about their family. 

[vesperholly]

Yep. But does that threat work if you don't care for your mother or parents?. Or maybe he just figured, she's old and lived her life?. So many assumptions in his statement.

 

I thought it meant, if you fuck with me, your mother/family will die.

[slowpoked]

You know on second thought, I think the sloppiness surrounding the crime scene and Allison's debrief kind of makes sense. The Germans know there's a threat and they're nearing the so-called deadline. With three hours left, they're still scrambling for any leads. Heck, everyone is scrambling and desperate. Saul, not thinking clearly when he left Marwan alone in that room. Carrie, desperately pleading her case with the Hezbollah commander, Carrie and Saul trying to revive Quinn despite the doctor's reservations, and Astrid finally getting their first tangible lead on the threat, at least as far as she's concerned. Everyone has their minds on the 5pm deadline, and then not to mention that pesky Laura journalist putting out another threat out there. I think it's plausible enough that Allison slips through the sloppy crime scene and debriefing. 

 

And I also liked the conversayion Qasim and the professor had about their differing causes and views on terrorism. Qasim, clearly still the idealistic one, genuinely believes he's doing this to advance the caliphate, and so he believes there's something good that will come out of all of this. The professor then says he doesn't give a shit about the caliphate since he's an atheist and just want to bomb the shit out of the Germans as revenge for the Lebanon bombing. Same terror attacks, different viewpoints, but the end result is still people dying.

[Ina123]

Altho it was quick and I maybe misunderstood, I thought in the previews for Sunday, I saw Allyson walking up huge steps like you would find at an embassy. If that's what I saw, I'm thinking she makes it to the Russian Embassy and  gets out of Germany. So if the Russians don't kill her, then maybe next season Quinn (recovered, of course) gets to track her down and apply his method of cleanup.

[cali1981]

Altho it was quick and I maybe misunderstood, I thought in the previews for Sunday, I saw Allyson walking up huge steps like you would find at an embassy. If that's what I saw, I'm thinking she makes it to the Russian Embassy and  gets out of Germany. So if the Russians don't kill her, then maybe next season Quinn (recovered, of course) gets to track her down and apply his method of cleanup.

Yeah, I can see it now. The scene takes place in a large market store somewhere in Russia.  Over the PA system we hear "cleanup on aisle six" and then see Allison on the floor with a couple of 9mm holes in her chest.  If only...

[henripootel]

I have to ask - has Saul done anything right at all ever?

Has Dar?  He's been around from the beginning and we get the odd reminder that he's Dar Fucking Adal, but I think he's made mistakes before and he really screwed the pooch with Allison.  I thought these two were the grand old guard of the CIA.  Perhaps their great successes are behind them.

I don't think that Allison double crossed the Russians at all but was doing exactly what she was ordered to do, contact Aziz, get the info on the bomb location and and then mislead German Intelligence and the CIA on that to insure that the attack succeeded.

 

I agree, but why would Allison need so complicated an interaction with Professor Evil?  She doesn't really need to know where the attack will be, she can just pick a target at random and say Professor Evil told her this.  I mean what're the odds she'd accidentally pick the right target?  Pretty small, so were I her, I'd have spent more time maneuvering Professor Evil into position so that it was plausible that he actually shot Agent Too-Trusting.  As it is, the Professor would have had to get Too-Trusting's gun, shoot him, cross the room, sit down, and get shot multiple times as he shot Allison at point-blank range.  That's a hard sequence to explain away, and Allison should have spent more time setting that up rather than interrogating Professor Evil.  

 

This all assumes that Allison's plan was to stick it out at CIA.  I mean Krupin is off 'singing like a bird' to bolster Allison's bona fides, right?  Even once Allison reluctantly accepts the plan to let the gas attack go on, she can still just say 'Professor Evil told me it was the airport' which wouldn't do wonders for her credibility when this turned out to be wrong, but it probably wouldn't directly implicate her either.  By running again, she's pretty much outing herself as a mole.  Hope somebody tells Krupin cuz his singing act is no longer required.

 

And I agree with you Cali, the Russians won't want her around telling anyone that they were complicit in a gas attack on German soil.  I'm surprised that Saul didn't find Allison's body in that bed, as the SVR (like the KGB before them and the OGPU before them) are likely big believers that a silenced small-calliber weapon to the back of the neck is the solution to many of life's little problems.  Allison in her dacha would be confirmation of Russian complicity, so no way that'd ever happen.  That's so obvious I can't believe Allison would go along with any of this.  It's just good op-sec, and the russians basically invented it.  

So if the Russians don't kill her, then maybe next season Quinn (recovered, of course) gets to track her down and apply his method of cleanup.

Believe it or not, Quinn probably wouldn't be tasked to do this.  Tracking down and killing your own traitors in another country is considered bad form, although it was certainly not unheard of.  But even horrible traitors like Philby lived fairly openly in Moscow, and had the brits wanted him dead it wouldn't have been too hard.  That said, most of the turncoats we got we took some effort to hide, and many lived long lives under assumed names.  Had the Russians really wanted them dead though, they could probably have found them.  Still don't think Allison is gonna qualify for russian wit-pro, not if her even being there implicates them in anything ugly.

Edited December 16, 2015 by henripootel

[magemaud]

So, it's been on all the news channels that Berlin is on high alert for a possible terrorist plot, but there's no increased security in any public place and life goes on as usual? Then a man with a bicycle chain locks people inside the subway and everyone just stands around and waits patiently like when you find a restroom is closed for maintenance? 

Edited December 15, 2015 by magemaud

[cali1981]

This all assumes that Allison's plan was to stick it out at CIA.  I mean Krupin is off 'singing like a bird' to bolster Allison's bona fides, right?  Even once Allison reluctantly accepts the plan to let the gas attack go on, she can still just say 'Professor Evil told me it was the airport' which wouldn't do wonders for her credibility when this turned out to be wrong, but it probably wouldn't directly implicate her either.  By running again, she's pretty much outing herself as a mole.  Hope somebody tells Krupin cuz his singing act is no longer required.

 

Right but now the question is who is she running from? She's got to have a sense that her Russian masters may now see her as excess baggage to be jettisoned. 

[henripootel]

Right but now the question is who is she running from? She's got to have a sense that her Russian masters may now see her as excess baggage to be jettisoned. 

I would hope so but she did what they wanted anyway, even though she considered it impossibly heinous.  I mean we're given to understand that she did it so she could collect her betrayal money and dacha but I wondered if it occurred to Allison to think about what it'd mean for her to be of 'no further use' to the SVR.  Even more importantly, that implicating herself in what promises to be a major terrorist incident would make her a huge liability to the russian government.  But as far as we know, she left the hospital voluntarily, presumably with an SVR agent.  I mean I think we're supposed to assume that, but it makes me wonder what the other possibilities are.  If she realized that aiding the gas attack would make her a target for the SVR (which is reasonable), why'd she do it at all?  Virtually anything else is a better option.

 

I'da thought her best move, at the point where she knew where the attack would be, is to make a deal with Dar and Saul, or better yet the germans.  It'd be a bit 24, but she now had one great card to play - blanket immunity for everything in exchange for the time and location of the attack.  Allison would cop to everything and retire quietly to Phoenix, and nobody would ever know about the appalling breach of national security.  It'd turn Saul's stomach to make such a deal but I'll bet the Germans would have taken it, and so would Dar.  Better outcome for Allison than making the top 10 on the FBI, CIA, and SVR's most wanted lists all at the same time.

Edited December 15, 2015 by henripootel

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Alli, Get Your Gun
As the clock ticks down on Team Bibi's gas attack, Carrie chases down leads and Allison takes a shot at redemption.

[mrspidey]

"The chancellor has deployed the army on german soil. First time since the war."

Huh? The Bundeswehr got deployed during the Oder-Flood in 1997 and the great floods of August 2002 and 2013.

Do your research, Saul!

 

Great episode otherwise. I was sceptical about Allison's staging attempts because there was no way they would've passed an actual investigation. But it ended up not mattering anyway, so I'm willing to forget that.

 

Not sure about those gates at Berlin Hauptbahnhof either. Punks and other trolls would have a field day with those if they could be operated by anyone...

Edited December 15, 2015 by mrspidey

[s-k-s]

I assumed Allison didn't want to stand up to forensic investigation - she just wanted to get the Germans attention completely misdirected get to the hospital and then start her escape. She knew that it wouldn't stand up long time but it didn't matter because she would be gone. I agree, there's no way the Russians would let her live if she knew that they were complicit and a terrorist attack.

[Constantinople]

As far as Allison goes, you have to wonder if she's now running from the CIA, the Germans and the Russians.

 

Based on the last 2-3 episodes, I don't think Allison needs to worry about the CIA or the Germans

 

Saul: Why did you flee the hospital?

Allison: I had to take care of a parking ticket that was left on my car before meeting the professor

Saul: There's no record of any such ticket

Allison: Of course there isn't now

Dar: What do you think?

Adler: Your call

Dar: Seems reasonable.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Constantinople

[cali1981]

Based on the last 2-3 episodes, I don't think Allison needs to worry about the CIA or the Germans

 

Saul: Why did you flee the hospital?

Allison: I had to take care of a parking ticket that was left on my car before meeting the professor

Saul: There's no record of any such ticket

Allison: Of course there isn't now

Dar: What do you think?

Adler: Your call

Dar: Seems reasonable.

Nice!  Given Dar's almost inexplicable behavior and his blinding himself to the most obvious point, that Allison is dirty, your punchline is easily supportable.

[beeble]

Can somebody tell me why everybody is so quick to believe what Allison says? I would think, after everything that has happened, there would at least be some question as to whether anything that comes out of her mouth is true.

My thoughts exactly. And I am also wondering why, in this age of of getting freaked out over everything, when the Berlin airport has been shut down and images are being broadcast everywhere to let everyone know that terrorists are trying to get us, if somebody suspiciously carries a backpack into a tunnel in the subway, why would people just stand there? I'd hightail it out of there.

[magemaud]

Was it ever explained how Carrie knew the Hezbollah leader's address? 

[dwmarch]

Was it ever explained how Carrie knew the Hezbollah leader's address? 

 

No. As I mentioned upthread, she just somehow knows and I will accept that at face value unless the show abuses it in lieu of a plot. I can for the moment accept that Carrie would (in her spare time) figure out where the guy lived. She might have figured it out when she was off her meds, since that apparently gives her magical powers. In any case, so long as this isn't overused I will accept it... but I'm watching you, Homeland.

[Notwisconsin]

 

I'm ready to scream at how easily Allison is pulling the wool over everybody's eyes.  I sincerely hope that our real-life intelligence services are more competent.

Mullah Omar, Emir of the Taiiban, was dead for two years and nobody in the intelligence community knew.

[WaltersHair]

Don't look at it....Don't look at it...

 

"HI AUNT MOLE"

[magemaud]

 

I can for the moment accept that Carrie would (in her spare time) figure out where the [Hezbollah] guy lived.

Maybe once she was back hanging around the Agency, she would have access to that kind of intel that she didn't have before when she was working out

security for During? 

[lucindabelle]

When. Carrie said the name peter Quinn slowly I was so expecting a lit up face and "oh, from turn of the screws, henry James!"

Just me then?

(Seriously, to me it's like naming an operative jane eyre)

Alison knows she's toast. Saul is onto her. But how she expected her story to be swallowed beats me anyway. It's obvious that shell have gunshot residue and nobody else will.

[Margherita Erdman]

I'm starting to think Quinn abuse is now a required element every week.  Writers:  I expect him to be fully functional, or at least recuperating nicely, next week. He's earned it.

 

I'm ready to scream at how easily Allison is pulling the wool over everybody's eyes.  I sincerely hope that our real-life intelligence services are more competent.

Couldn't agree more about Quinn. This show has turned him into a live-action Mr. Bill. It's becoming its own gruesome torture porn arc.

I wish there had been some explanation what happened between Carrie & Quinn in the time jump between seasons since it seemed at the end of the previous season, after Carrie's father's funeral, that she & Quinn had agreed to try out a relationship of some kind, baby and all.

And as for Allison and her continued bad acts even after being exposed, because dark ops genius superspy Dar Adal responds with a shrug of the shoulders and a single incompetent babysitter — it reminds me of the underrated, canceled-too-soon miniseries/limited series The Assets starring Jodie Whittaker from Broadchurch, about the years-long, frustrating, but ultimately successful counterintelligence operation that identified Aldrich Ames as a double agent working for the Soviets and then the Russians after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The mole hunters were sure it was Ames for quite a while before they could prove it, and it was galling as hell to know he was undermining American interests and endangering the lives of American agents and assets while they worked to build an unassailable paper trail.

[kikaha]

Was it ever explained how Carrie knew the Hezbollah leader's address? 

The Hezbollah leader helping his blood enemy Carrie is one of the most unbelievable things this season.  He did this twice!

 

Carrie not letting Saul know he Hezbollah leader's address, so the CIA can take action, is another unbelievable thing. 

 

Mullah Omar, Emir of the Taiiban, was dead for two years and nobody in the intelligence community knew.

Yeah, but this is more like the intelligence experts finding the mullah's body at the morgue, getting treated for burial, and still not being sure he is dead.  The whole shtick where Dar buys into Allison's fantasy story is probably the most unbelievable thing of all this season.  (Add to that Quinn surviving the chemical attack, though I'm glad Quinn is still breathing.) 

[Neurochick]

I wish there had been some explanation what happened between Carrie & Quinn in the time jump between seasons since it seemed at the end of the previous season, after Carrie's father's funeral, that she & Quinn had agreed to try out a relationship of some kind, baby and all.

 

 

Is that what happened?  I thought Quinn was going to leave, with Carrie.  But Carrie was dealing with the death of her father, she told Quinn to call her, when he did she wasn't there; so then he took another assignment with Dar that was basically a suicide mission.  When Carrie finally looked at her phone, she couldn't get in touch with him.  I think that's what happened.

[Margherita Erdman]

Is that what happened? I thought Quinn was going to leave, with Carrie. But Carrie was dealing with the death of her father, she told Quinn to call her, when he did she wasn't there; so then he took another assignment with Dar that was basically a suicide mission. When Carrie finally looked at her phone, she couldn't get in touch with him. I think that's what happened.

You're absolutely right, I forgot about that, wishful thinking I guess. There was that coda with Dar & Quinn's special ops teammates basically telling him that without him, the mission would be a suicide mission for them all so could he please deliver these last letters to their loved ones, and Quinn went out of guilt/loyalty/obligation and because Quinn is Superman, leaving behind a letter for Carrie

Edited December 17, 2015 by Margherita Erdman

[LilaFowler]

This is all I have to say to the ever-annoying and self-righteous Laura:

 

[John Potts]

If this is the standard of the real CIA's competence, I'm amazed the USA still exists. At this point I'd say the person most fit to lead it is Quinn despite being in a coma. I agree with Noirprincess that he would absolutely want Carrie to wake him up, even if it meant dying as a result (and I liked the Doctor honestly stating that was a likely outcome - I presume this was a US military Doctor because I doubt a regular doctor would endanger his patient like that, whatever the circumstances). As for BrainDead Bodyguard... well there's a reason you were put on guard duty and handing over your gun means you're now plain Dead Bodyguard. Wal Mart has better trained employees!

 

cali1981 Given Dar's almost inexplicable behavior and his blinding himself to the most obvious point, that Allison is dirty

 

I'm not sure it is necessarily obvious (obviously we KNOW she is a mole), but he should DEFINITELY take anything she says with a heapful of salt.

 

parandroid Maybe I didn't understand what Allison's story is. There were two guns at the scene. According to her story, one came from Conrad. The other one came from where?
 

I think there was only meant to be ONE gun (otherwise, even the DUMBEST security agent would notice!) - TerrorTech  supposedly overpowered the guard and got hold of his gun, presumably Allison wrestled it from him (getting shot in the process) and shot him. At least I think that's roughly the story she was spinning. Yes, it's a bit thin and won't stand up to much scrutiny, but Allison wasn't planning to stick around for any investigation. Be nice if they actually said that on air, though!

 

cali1981 What better way than a horrific terrorist act that might rival or exceed the 9/11 attacks?  Maybe it's a stretch but there is a shred of plausibility to it.
 

 

Ruthless but believable

 

parandroid The russians just knew "Berlin" - not the when or where. You can't really mis-direct without knowing the true target, so that was Allison's mission. Find the true target so that you can mis-direct and ensure that the authorities don't intercept
 

 

They could even intercept the terrorists once the attacks had taken place and turn them over to the Germans as a "Show of solidarity". Ruthlessly cynical, but not impossible to imagine. Also liked her handler's No Bullshit attitude toward her "Aw, but I don't wanna!" whinge - you play with fire, you can expect to get burned. And as Stalin said, "No [wo]man, no problem"

 

As for the terrorists themselves, I do like that they have their own problems (though it would have been hilarious if we'd seen the terrorists dialing technical support and getting put on hold for half an hour followed by "Yes, I HAVE tried turning it of & on again!"). Liked that the terrorists are allowed personalities of their own (beyond "We're EVIL!") like reluctant martyr Qasim and TerrorTech admitting he was an atheist.

 

numbnut IKR? The commuters just stood there.

Exactly! At least wear a "SECURITY" jacket and say "We're closing this exit". There's sheeple and there's brain dead!

 

lucindabelle When Carrie said the name Peter Quinn I was so expecting... "oh, from turn of the screws, Henry James!"

Actually, I thought Midsummer Night's Dream (though that's actually Peter Quince)

[Roseanna]

On ‎13‎.‎12‎.‎2015 at 9:16 AM, scrb said:

OK too much like 24 for me.  Carrie literally racing to save the day.

 

And let me get this straight, Alison is willing to let a massacre take place for a dacha on the Black Sea?  I'm sure it's lovely there but it's not the Caribbean and the daiquiris are not exactly what she's used to.

 

And Russians are taking the lead in fighting jihad?  What a crock, the writers can't be that ignorant of geopolitics.  The fact that the Russians knew about the professor (and incidentally, Alison was suppose to be going to the university to talk to some economics professor, not terrorist aiding guy) and didn't help means there's going to be hell to pay and no, the West won't be following Russia's lead on anything.

 

Stupid premise anyways, earlier in the season they alluded to Paris, so the notion that the West doesn't get it is stupid.

 

There is no way the Russians could protect Alison.  Nor would they have a particular reason to, since she's no longer of any use to them.  After Ukraine, the last thing they need are more economic sanctions.

 

The stupidity of 24 plots was that you had all these Americans working for the bad guys, to launch massive attacks against American civilians.  Not disaffected Muslims but caucasian Americans (and conveniently most of the bad guys Jack Bauer tortured were caucasians).  Now you have an American CIA officer, who apparently because she likes expensive purses, will sell out to the Russians and allow hundreds or thousands of civilians to suffer grisly deaths?  They devoted a whole episode and much of the season to Alison's motivations.  But they've not made the case that the greedy spy is willing to get rich on the blood of hundreds of innocents.

I agree that the Russians wouldn't do it irl as they have nothing to gain and all to lose. But in the show it's convenient to use the old enemy picture from the cold war. 

On the other hand, it makes sense to have a villain who is "like us" and can't be revealed straightway. And there have been spies like that irl, not to speak of the school shooters and other lunatic loners.  

Actually Alison had a stronger motive than greed. As her controller said, she likes betrayal, probably it gives her feeling that she is smarter than others. Yet, in another story she would have have a change of heart - but that would have been too easy.   

[Roseanna]

On ‎14‎.‎12‎.‎2015 at 7:32 PM, slowpoked said:

You know on second thought, I think the sloppiness surrounding the crime scene and Allison's debrief kind of makes sense. The Germans know there's a threat and they're nearing the so-called deadline. With three hours left, they're still scrambling for any leads. Heck, everyone is scrambling and desperate. Saul, not thinking clearly when he left Marwan alone in that room. Carrie, desperately pleading her case with the Hezbollah commander, Carrie and Saul trying to revive Quinn despite the doctor's reservations, and Astrid finally getting their first tangible lead on the threat, at least as far as she's concerned. Everyone has their minds on the 5pm deadline, and then not to mention that pesky Laura journalist putting out another threat out there. I think it's plausible enough that Allison slips through the sloppy crime scene and debriefing. 

I don't think it makes sense at all. Of course people make errors of judgment also irl. But this is a show where the audience is supposed to believe that these people are top intelligence professionals while presenting that they don't for a moment think the oldest trick of the book: giving the false information about the target and from the one who is at least suspected to be untrustworthy. Plus, they had also experienced how they can be misled in S2 and S4 without learning anything of them.

I can't really invent any other reason for this kind of plot than that the screenwriters wanted to show Carrie as a lonely heroine who saved the day and they created the plot to that end regardless of that it showed Saul, Dar, and ultimately the CIA, as a band of amateurs.

And the reason why I think so is not that the audience knows more that the characters. A good writer can use that method by giving the characters proper motives to behave illogically, trusting in a wrong person or whatever. Homeland's scriptwriters failed in this.  

They are far better when the conceal the vital information from the characters and audience, so I hope they use that method in the next season.               

[Roseanna]

On ‎13‎.‎12‎.‎2015 at 10:02 PM, slowpoked said:

And can I just say, Saul so eloquently said in two words what I felt about Laura Sutton when she was talking big about Marwan on the show. F you Laura. That's all really that needs to be said. I don't want to get in politics and all that, but I was ready to throw things at my TV when she was complaining that all these methods employed to apparently stop terrorism (torture, surveillance, etc.) weren't really working, and so the host then fired back at her, "well what do you think would work?!" and then she just answered "I wish I knew..." Shut the hell up Laura. If you don't have a solution, then stop yammering on TV when you're already told an attack on where you live is going to happen within minutes. Your types just keep on complaining and complaining and when you're asked, well what should be done, and you just back off like "well, that really isn't my job." Just. Stop. Talking. I thought Otto was ready to throw her out and disown her right then and there.

Laura could have given some good advice by Quinn who in the beginning of S5 spoke quite sensible how American operations are aimed only for short-term and therefore can't alter the basic reasons.

However, when there is an immediate danger, one must deal with it. Pondering about the long-term strategy comes after that. Laura can't differ these and, what's more, she seems to have no worry about the possible offers.

There are people like that irl. F.ex. over a hundred years ago a person who was a pacifist was angry at vivisection and he ended in thinking that it was OK to kill persons who did that to animals. Still, I think that the screenwriters should have made clear why Laura became as she was, i.e. to giver her a proper, personal motivation. Instead, they chose to present her in such a negative light that it seemed based on the intent to discredit any concern of civil-rights.

In S4 the female Pakistani intelligence officer was also presented as "bad", but her actions were explained by her sense that the Americans had treated the Pakistani as they lackeys and she wanted her country to have self-respect back. I didn't like her, either, but at least I understood her.

Of course it may be that Laura was made such as she was simply because the plot was needed where Carrie was a heroine, so Laura couldn't have a change of heart in the situation where even a strong ideology can - at least temporarily - give away to concern for human lives.                    

[Roseanna]

On ‎14‎.‎12‎.‎2015 at 6:27 AM, Andie1 said:

Allison is one hatefilled bitch, she is only concerned with a cushy retirement in her Dasha with her millions by the Black Sea.  Her full on sociopathy was realized in her decision to lie about where the threat was going to manifest at the airport instead of the real intel that was the train station . That's too bad. I was hoping she'd hesitate and actually do the right thing,she did tell the operative it was insanity, but she sure as hell wasn't going to give up her money.  As a more two dimensional character she will be easy to kill.  Saul isn't really to blame about her, it's Dar who let her out with her babysitter in the first place.

 

On ‎14‎.‎12‎.‎2015 at 9:16 AM, scrb said:

And let me get this straight, Alison is willing to let a massacre take place for a dacha on the Black Sea?  I'm sure it's lovely there but it's not the Caribbean and the daiquiris are not exactly what she's used to.

- -- 

The stupidity of 24 plots was that you had all these Americans working for the bad guys, to launch massive attacks against American civilians.  Not disaffected Muslims but caucasian Americans (and conveniently most of the bad guys Jack Bauer tortured were caucasians).  Now you have an American CIA officer, who apparently because she likes expensive purses, will sell out to the Russians and allow hundreds or thousands of civilians to suffer grisly deaths?  They devoted a whole episode and much of the season to Alison's motivations.  But they've not made the case that the greedy spy is willing to get rich on the blood of hundreds of innocents.

Actually Allison's motive wasn't greed and she tried to refuse in the ladies' room until the Russian female spy said that then she would spend 10-20 years in the American prison. Allison simply wasn't so selfless that she wanted to save lives of unknown people for such a price to herself.

Of course, she could have gone to Saul and Dar and tried to make a deal for finding out and telling the true target. But despite the possible wittness proctection she would have to fear of the Russian revenge all her life.

All her desicions on Iraq onwards were made on the basis "me first". 

[jabRI]

It was pretty stupid of them to leave her unwatched in the hospital.