11/24/13
View Logs: Homeland S3 Episode 4
Episode Title: Game OnOnce Upon a Time... Homeland used to be good... Seriously. Back in the day, oh around early 2012 (The Emmys for 2011), Homeland shocked the TV community by being nominated in place of Dexter. That was a tough year. Game of Thrones was up for it's second season and Breaking Bad just finished it's 4th season (probably the best in my opinion). Homeland surprised further by beating Emmy regulars Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Boardwalk Empire for the grand prize. That prize was deserved. While Season 1 of Homeland had some occasionally soap opera ridiculousness (the middle episodes of S1 was... weak to put it mildly), the closing episodes more than made up for it. It was a modern retelling of the Manchurian Candidate and it updated it superbly... (which is amusing because Homeland is supposedly a direct remake of Prisoners of War, an Israeli TV show.) Fast forward to 2013 and it's a little sad to see how far Homeland as fallen (although the Emmys apparently seems to still keep giving it nominations...).
This episode had sparks of what made Season 1 so great. We're gradually seeing the greyness of the situation more (something the second half of Season 2 completely discarded...) and the series builds a lot of empathy for Carrie. She's been publicly and professionally destroyed and her most attractive option would be to help the people she's spent most of her life trying to track down. It's a fascinating angle even if I predicted this a while back.
Carrie's going to do it... She's going to become a traitor... a mole. In fiction, general audiences tend to view traitors and moles as one sided. Admittedly, a lot of moles throughout our espionage history betrayed their country for selfish or short-sighted reasons. But considering all the known moles (for us and against us) throughout our history, double agents can have wide and complex motivations for doing what they do. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a good example of exploring the complexities of the spy world that is a bit over glorified in our American culture. In fact, moles don't even have to be complete traitors. Sometimes all a mole does is just give the enemy some specific information without necessarily blowing or destroying the entire network they work for. A mole can easily become jaded and demoralized by the system the work in and only want to destroy that system but don't actually want to get anyone killed. So maybe a mole can reveal very specific information that will make an operation fail before it even executes without necessarily giving away who's who. A mole can also be doing what he or she's doing because that person recognizes that they are fighting a war that was already lost and would just want to speed up the end of it all.
Moles don't necessarily have to be mustache twirling fanatics who wants to see the complete and utter destruction of Western civilization (or whatever civilization you personally live in). Usually that's an uninteresting way to write a mole because it's just been done a little too much. Carrie Mathison seemed like she was becoming the type of mole we don't see enough of in mainstream screen fiction. Again, predictable, but interesting nonetheless. Until the writer decided to pull a fast one on the audience.
This is one of the writers of Homeland
Turns out... Carrie was faking everything. Hell everyone (except the bad guys and some minor characters of course) was faking it all this whole time. Admittedly I didn't see this coming. But in this case this wasn't a good thing. Upon reflection, it's interesting that predictability is often a bad thing in fiction and writers usually do their best to avoid being predictable in their work. I'm sure the writers of Homeland wanted to create a sense of mystery that has, quite frankly, been lacking in the introductory episodes. But, unfortunately, unpredictability is only a plus if it's interesting. There are such things as bad twists. There are such things as trying too hard. The final moments of this episode was a twist for the sake of unpredictability.
Word to the wise. If you're given a choice between a predictable but interesting development and a twist that doesn't add anything but is unpredictable. Go with the more interesting development. Art is not just about shocking people. Actually, I would argue that art isn't about shocking people period. It's about challenging them. And sometimes art can be so challenging it's shocking. But shock isn't really worth much if it isn't interesting upon reflection.
Also, Dana's plotline seemed kinda resolved last episode... I kinda want her gone now. Her development with her new boyfriend is boring (running away with him?... really?...) Honestly, anyone familiar with Alex Gansa (24) can probably see where a lot of this is going. Quite frankly, I've had enough of the 24 "home family conundrum". It doesn't need to manifests itself here. Please Alex... focus on the work.
