S07.E10: Clarity

[Lady Iris]

I miss Peter Quinn.

[Ottis]

I spent the first 15 minutes trying to figure out who the guy was Carrie was talking to.

Really? You’re going to tar your sister to get custody of a kid you barely can take care of? And let the thief in to gather evidence? 

Why would the VP stay to talk to Paley? I would have turned around and walked out.  It’s kind of hard to get invested in the VP when he just showed up. Who knows what he believes or what he is really like? That said, I still have no interest in this president and whether she is removed. 

Also, fast forwarded through the whole court scene. I don’t watch this show for family drama. 

And really, neither do I watch it for political drama.

I only watch for Saul at this point.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Ottis

[anonymiss]

5 hours ago, Lady Iris said:

I miss Peter Quinn.

Shirtless, tattooed, mysterious Dante made me forget about Quinn for a couple episodes.

[Lady Iris]

11 hours ago, anonymiss said:

Shirtless, tattooed, mysterious Dante made me forget about Quinn for a couple episodes.

Laws yes, but now he's ded too!!! *sob* Lets just start calling Carrie the Black Widow.

[roughing it]

16 hours ago, Ottis said:

I spent the first 15 minutes trying to figure out who the guy was Carrie was talking to.

Me too, sadly.  I still don't really know.  I thought he was the boyfriend in Berlin...???

[Pallas]

30 minutes ago, roughing it said:

Me too, sadly.  I still don't really know.  I thought he was the boyfriend in Berlin...???

Anson, part of Carrie's team of ex-agents. Carrie recruited him in his trailer; he was part of the hit on Simone, and later spiked Dante's drink. 

The Veep's line to Paley, "Your indignation would be a lot more interesting to me if it weren't quite so covered in crap" is a direct quote from The West Wing, "17 People."  Word for word. I'm going to decide this was an homage -- though within the show, if the Veep were intentionally quoting TV-President Bartlet to actual Senator Paley, I may have to switch to his team.  

[roughing it]

7 minutes ago, Pallas said:

Anson, part of Carrie's team of ex-agents. Carrie recruited him in his trailer; he was part of the hit on Simone, and later spiked Dante's drink. 

Thanks, I miss so much

[TexasGal]

On 4/15/2018 at 10:51 PM, Spike said:

Whenever they get things wrong it takes me out of the story.  Last season they kept talking about the Solicitor General.  He’s an appellate lawyer, he wouldn’t meet with people about offering immunity.   Recently Saul mentioned mandamus.  In addition to mispronouncing it, it applies to public officials and he was trying to have it issued against a private citizen. And this episode they were talking about Congress having to ratify the 25th amendment.  It wouldn’t be an amendment if it hadn’t been ratified.  

On the 25th Amendment, I think they were saying that the notice from the VP/Cabinet would have to be voted on by Congress not the amendment itself.  Which didn’t sound right to me so I poked around and that is only the case if after the VP delivers notice that the President is not fit for office, the President sends a subsequent notice that he/she is indeed fit and that subsequent notice is challenged by the VP and the majority of Cabinet.  Then there is a Congressional voting procedure to decide if President can resume office.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

(Linking Wiki only because it’s an easier synopsis of stuff I found elsewhere, not because I trust it!)

[Spike]

Yeah Congress has a role but they used the term ratify which has specific meaning regarding amendments.  What Congress would do is decide whether the president is unfit, not ratify anything.

[Pike Ludwell]

As to that usage of the term "ratify", that usage can only be justified on the basis that the Veep was using it in a very general, non-legalistic way, simply to mean "approve" the submitted application of disability. Whatever the case, the writers made the veep look like an uneducated ignoramus who doesn't understand the meaning of key terminology. Someone who understood the constitution would not have used the term "ratify" at that time, in that way - it demonstrates ignorance.

Edited April 21, 2018 by riverclown

[PreBabylonia]

On 2018-04-17 at 4:49 PM, Lady Iris said:

I miss Peter Quinn.

Me too!

[gallimaufry]

So Dante is definitely dead.  What a waste of a promising character.

Frannie... well, who cares really.  Even though Carrie's brother-in-law is a bit of a prick, Carrie's so monstrously unsuited to motherhood as this season ably shows.

The president demonstrates no leadership at all, just paranoid mania.  She deserves impeachment.  One of the least compelling fictional presidents ever.

Saul... I don't really know what the point of Saul was in this episode.

Really disappointing episode.  "Homeland" is always a weird show and has been from the start - it can be really good or it can spin its wheels endlessly.  I don't think it's ever been truly great but it's touched greatness a few times including earlier this season.  But now it seems like an incoherent mess.  A shame.

[Milburn Stone]

I found the Vice President story line pretty compelling, no doubt due in large measure to Beau Bridges' performance. From thinking he was a "mole" (or at least an over-ambitious Cassius), it began to seem pretty clear that he sincerely wanted to believe in his President, and was persuaded to turn against her only by arguments that it would have been nearly impossible for a reasonable person to resist.

[Pike Ludwell]

The veep turned against her because she refused to undo her firing of goofball cabinet members who refused to give her the benefit of the doubt on her accurate assessment of the Russian situation. Those goofball cabinet members needed to be fired and the veep was wrong to throw himself into the  support-of-the-goofballs camp,

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Clip: Maggie's testimony

[John Potts]

Let me get this straight: the CIA are hunting for a spy in Russia, who have set off a plan to undermine the democratically elected US President and the Cabinet is considering Impeaching the President... so of course, we're concentrating on Carrie's family drama. Which ended the way it was inevitably going to, because we know that Carrie's sister really does love Carrie (and Frannie) and doesn't want to go to war,  whatever Carrie thinks in her more paranoid times. And I'm sure that the Court proceedings were 100% accurate - I mean, they were almost exactly like the custody hearings I remember from Gilmore Girls and TV would never lie to me!

Carrie sure bounced back from ECT remarkably quickly. When we saw her getting back on her feet, I thought there must have been a time jump, but apparently Carrie can bounce back from having her brain scrambled and be back on her feet in a couple of days - even heading a mission to Russia!

On ‎18‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 2:49 AM, Ottis said:

It’s kind of hard to get invested in the VP when he just showed up. Who knows what he believes or what he is really like? That said, I still have no interest in this president and whether she is removed. 

It's hard to be invested when we know nothing about what her agenda is. Nor do I find it believable for her to be so unpopular - surviving assassination would give her a massive popularity boost, not leave her hanging on by her fingernails (look at what happened to George W Bush's popularity before and after 9/11).

Saul had time to visit Carrie twice? And drop by at his special division of investigators? You'd think he'd be busy running the NSA (or whatever his job is meant to be). I guess spies are just really good time managers!

[Roseanna]

On ‎16‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 6:11 PM, Bannon said:

I kind of appreciate that she is pretty unlikeable, because I suspect the sort of person who is driven to become President tends to be, up close, an unlikeable person. 

He or she can be unlikeable underneeth, but must be likeable superficially, otherwise why would anybody vote him/her?

[Roseanna]

On ‎16‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 10:45 AM, ruby24 said:

I remember when Carrie had a whole conversation with her dad and sister when she was pregnant about how she couldn't keep the baby and was going to give her up for adoption, because she was unfit to be a mom, etc. And BOTH of them talked her out of it, insisted she had to have the baby. Now Maggie sees the light, after all this time? 

Maggie, although she is a doctor, believed then that Carrie could change. And because she herself likes to be a mom and puts her family first (she has always cancelled her patients in order to help Carrie), she couldn't believe that Carrie was unable to. Well, in Berlin she led some time a normal time.

In any case, Carrie is an adult and whatever her sister and father said, she made the decision herself. Besides, she didn't listen to them on other matters. 

[Roseanna]

On ‎16‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 6:51 AM, Spike said:

It was also interesting that when they were detailing the raid on Dante’s apartment during the custody hearing to demonstrate Carrie’s unfitness that no one mentioned that Mom had been screwing the mole on the couch at the time and he was dragged out naked.  But hey Franny sleeps through everything, right?

Nobody but Saul and his team knew it. Others knew only what Franny told them and she probably didn't understand teh context.

[Kel Varnsen]

I wonder how Carrie plans on getting into Russia when she hasn't got anything close to any kind of cover. Between her being in the car when the Keane was almost killed and her being in the car when the station chief in Pakistan was killed every intelligence person in Russia probably knows who she is.

I also really don't understand why Keane isn't more popular or at least doesn't have any public supporters. She won the election, and then survived a military coup. You would think she would have a crazy good approval rating and no one would dare try and cross her.

I also kind of wish that Carrie had threatened Maggie with the medical records. Just so Maggie could call her bluff and really rub it in by saying she didn't care and that Frannie's safety is more important than her job.