By Lord Castleton | TV | December 14, 2015 |
By Lord Castleton | TV | December 14, 2015 |
WARNING: Spoilers abound through Season 7, Ep 11 (but seriously, everyone should read this. Who gives a shit? This show isn’t splitting the atom.)
When we last visited Season 7 of Homeland, Peter Quinn had been given a touch of the sarin, but was magically alive thanks to the dose of sarin-resistant medicine given to him by Qasim.
Bibi had gunned down an innocent man to cover his cousin’s treachery, but he made sure to make Qasim know that he was gonna get the third degree from grandma when she heard about it. But it was still pretty clear that Qasim is not a true radical. Maybe Peter Quinn’s words to him suggesting that “it’s Allah’s will that [he] actually stop the attacks” is ringing true to him. Maybe he’s like the one kid at a sleepover who is like “I have to stay up all night because if I don’t these guys will mess with me.” Or maybe it’s just as simple as him finally realizing that cousin Bibi is kind of a fuckin’ dick.
As the clacker clacked on last week’s episode, Carrie and Astrid had found Peter Quinn alive in the sarin booth and he was able to move a finger and blink. We open with Saul and Carrie in the hospital and Saul is like “wake him up.”
Doctor: No way, José. This dude is majorly messed up.
Saul: How messed up?
Doctor: Super messed up.
Saul: Eh. Wake his ass up.
Doctor: No! He could, like, hemorrhage n’ shit.
Saul: Is that all?
Doctor: Or, y’know. Die.
Saul: I don’t think you understand. None of us here have done our jobs for two years. The only people who seem to know anything are this disgraced CIA ex-agent (Carrie), a dude who is in a sarin coma and the biggest Russian spy since The Rosenbergs. So seriously, COLONEL, wake him ass up.
Doctor: Fine! Sheesh! You don’t have to call me by my rank!
So the doctor gives him a drip of something, I’m guessing wake up juice from the wake up tree, and nothing really happens. Carrie is like Quinn? Hey Quinn? — And this is true - the doctor shakes his comatose body really hard and basically yells HAY WAKE YER ASS UP!
People mock Homeland but this is without a doubt the greatest WTF, WHERE THE FUCK AM I face in television history. But he’s still not talking! What an asshole! So they jab him with an epi pen or something and he starts mumbling. Probably something like “what’s wrong with you crazy assholes?” or something. But it’s too quiet to make it out. And Carrie is like “I got this. He can’t resist my crazy face.”
Quinn! Quinn! I’m crying! There’s a terrorist attack and you know something! Wake up damn you!
Aaaaaand Quinn throws up all the Hershey’s syrup they fed him. Rats! The doctor is like “get these people out of here!” which must be the very first thing they teach you at med school since every doctor knows it, and then they save Peter Quinn’s life.
Doctor: He’s stable. For now.
Saul: Wake him up.
Doctor: We did that already and he tried to y’know, die.
Saul: Oh yeah. Crap. I’m out of ideas.
Carrie: I could run down the person who healed him and injected him with lidocaine or whatever.
Saul: Yeah yeah, whatever. Just send me updates and shit.
Meanwhile Allison is somehow not in the electric chair and enjoying full range of movement and full security clearance! BAHAHAHAHAHA. This is where you have to take a step back and wonder if there are any writers from season two left. Because that’s when we first met Dar Adal, and since then, they’ve been setting up Dar Adal like he’s this legendary intelligence figure who is brilliant and cloaked in shadow and has been America’s angel Gabriel for five hundred years. But in reality he’s just an imbecile of the highest possible order. Like, award-winning stupidity. Like channel-changing writing. But I REFUSE to change the channel! Because I love Astrid and I’ve grown fond of words with -strasse at the end of them and I want to see Peter Quinn fuck some people up when his lungs unliquefy.
So Allison is still all Top Secreted up, but now she has to have Dummy with her. He’s an elite something or other who thinks Allison is innocent. I don’t remember his name so we’re gonna go with Dummy. Dummy trails Allison everywhere except the bathroom (because, gosh! Lady parts and stuff!)
And when Allison gets a ticket on the CAR SHE’S DRIVING and the GOES TO THE FUCKING BATHROOM we see that the ticket actually has a secret USB FLASH DRIVE from her Russian contacts! If only Dummy had been driving instead of riding shotgun.
The USB recording tells her to make sure the sarin attack goes off in Berlin. And she’s like Nah-uh! That’s unethical!
And her new handler, brunette Martina Navratilova appears and is like, yeah we thought you’d say no, but if you don’t do this you lose your millions and your dacha on the Black Sea. And I turned to Lady Castleton and said “I’d like a dacha on the Black Sea.” And she’s like “then you’re gonna have to knock it off with The Division Alpha testing and Fallout 4” and maybe write more than one article every seventeen days, and I’m like “no deal.” That’s how easy it was to say no to a dacha. But not for Allison. She’s like you’d take away my dacha? Come on! And Brunette Martina is like “civilization is facing an existential threat and radical Islam needs to be eradicated root and branch. The West needs a wake up call.” And Allison thinks of the hundreds of thousands dead and then she thinks of her dacha and she’s like OKAY I’LL DO IT.
You have to love that Dummy is just waiting outside the bathroom while she meets with her Russian spymaster. That’s magnificent.
Then there is a bunch of random shit with the terrorists where they can’t get the remote chargers to something and they’re like “we’re all on the watch list except for Qasim.” So they send him to find a certain terrorist professor and the terrorist professor is like “You’ll just have to set them off manually. All the Radio Shacks are closing down and I can’t fix it. Also I’m an atheist. Go fuck yourself.”
Then Qasim scurries away like the confused little pissant that he is.
Then there’s a knock on the door and in the interest of curbing the crazy, I’ll sum up:
—Allison knows the terrorist professor is a terrorist professor because Martina told her
—She’s pushing him and he’s getting confused
—She’s like “I’m tired of this shit”
—She’s like “give me your gun, Dummy!”
—Dummy is like OKAY! BECAUSE DUMMY DOESN’T KNOW SHE HAS HER OWN GUN ALREADY. BECAUSE HE’D NEVER FRISK HER! LADYPARTS N SHIT! OH DEAR SWEET IMPRESSIONABLE DUMMY. DON’T GIVE HER YOUR-
Aaaaaaaand that’s a wrap on Dummy, folks.
But terrorist professor is like HOLY FUCKBALLS and tells her where the attack is. It’s the train station! Holy shit please don’t kill me!
And Allison is like yeah yeah (Literally. Yeah yeah, I believe you.)
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM
She stages a gunfight. But it’s sooooooo shitty and half-ass. It’s like, didn’t she ever watch The Shield? I could stage a more believable situation just from having watched Vic Mackey for a few seasons. She’s so cocky. That’s how you get when you’ve been the best spy in the world for a decade. Then she plugs herself and calls Astrid.
ASTRID, I BEEN SHOT!
When the BND rages in, Allison manages to let them know that the attack is going to be at the airport. What good fortune! Finally, a break in the case!
If we can discern anything from this still it’s that no one rocks over-the-jeans holsters with their toes pointing outward at 10 and 2 quite like the BND.
Meanwhile Carrie takes a cab to the private residence of the Hezbollah leader in Germany and the wife answers the door and she’s like “Hi is Hezbollah in? It’s me, the fucking DRONE QUEEN. And the wife runs away with the kids and Hezbollah guy is like how dare you come here! There are rules in the international game of terrorism! This is a family day! Little Kevin has a soccer game and-
Carrie: Please help me!
Hezbollah guy: Why should I help you? You literally killed my son. Literally. You did.
Carrie: Because I’m crying? That usually works.
Hezbollah guy: No.
Carrie: I can make my face super ugly.
Hezbollah guy: No.
Carrie: Because other fathers will miss other sons? Ever been the victim of a drone attack? It’s not pretty!
Hezbollah guy: Alas, hypothetical nonsensical quasi-parallels are my kryptonite. I will help you, but only for the other fathers’ sons you would not have killed in this particular case.
Then he sends her down the rabbit hole and she eventually comes out at in Qasim’s apartment, where there are FUCKING 3D MODELS OF A BERLIN TRAIN STATION COMPLETE WITH KUNG-FU GRIP AND SIGNS THAT SAY “PUT SARIN HERE.”
Carrie calls Saul and is like “Hey, I got it. Train station. Bam. Let’s lock this shit down.”
And Saul is like “I was born with a type of chromosome disorder that makes me not realize that you’re the star of this show. Thanks anyway, but remember that spy that I almost beat to death for murdering our collective friends? Yeah, turns out she broke the case wide open! Who knew? I know she can’t be working for the Russians anymore because we put a Dummy on her, so. I’d stay on, but Dar Adal and I have to go plan Operation Dumbo Drop now and watch the Point Break reboot. It’s all better now. Grandpa Simpson out!”
But Carrie is like. That’s weird. But I better go to the huge train station and check it out.
So she goes there and she sees Qasim pretty much walking through the platform with a rocket launcher and a bomb even though there are fifty thousand people in this train station. She did it! Way to go Carrie! That’s why you never send a man to do a woman’s job, mother fuckers!
So then Carrie sees that doorways are getting chained (to keep people in when the sarin hits) and she’s like “I better send a text.”
DEAR SAUL, JUST SAW QASIM. HAS BOMB OR WHATEVER. TRAIN STATION. XOXO CARRIE
But she doesn’t have a signal! Oh poo! Sir, she says to a German man, can you bring this phone to the top of the-
“Get away from me crazy lady!” He says. He’s the first normal person on the show ever. So Carrie finds a lady to do it. Then, instead of alerting security or like, telling people to clear the platform she pulls her gun and heads down the tracks.
Eventually, Saul finishes picking his nose and eating it and humming “Mr. Mistoffelees” to himself and sees her text. He storms into Allison’s hospital room and demands answers!
But then a different doctor comes in and says get out sir I need to repack that wound!
Saul: How long will it take?
Doctor: Fifteen minutes.
Saul: You get ten!
Doctor: Okay tough guy, that’s perfect because I’m a Russian agent anyway, filthy faced American idiot.
Saul: Huh?
Doctor: Nothing!
After Saul waits for ten minutes he goes back in to find Allison, but she done left. Oh Saul! Wah-wuh!
Meanwhile, Carrie heads down the tracks, gun in hand. One woman against a trained cell of terrorists who are too dumb to program a walkie talkie.
Seriously, this show should be called Motherland because all I’m coming away with is just one bravo after another for the resources and ingenuity and omnipresence of the Russian intelligence services. This is just like a team of Navy SEALS fighting a bunch of carneys. Or maybe it’s a Spies Like Us tribute. Their guys are real spies and our guys are the fake GLG-20’s. Granted, it makes Carrie’s ability to figure shit out more impressive, but on the other hand, why is everyone soooooooooooo fucking dumb? UGH.
The season finale is next week. Let’s see how Carrie saves the world this time.