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Considering how much of the fifth season of “Homeland” reflected the harsh news events of recent weeks, it was a relief to see that the planned sarin-gas attack in a Berlin subway tunnel was averted early on in last night’s finale, “A False Glimmer.”
From the very start, Claire Danes’s Carrie Mathison kept her lone-wolf reputation alive by single-handedly defusing the tension less than 10 minutes into the episode. After dodging a train “Mission: Impossible“-style, she stopped the impending terrorist act, leaving both the jihadist leader, Bibi, and the man who once saved Peter Quinn‘s life, Qasim, dead.
From the very start, Claire Danes’s Carrie Mathison kept her lone-wolf reputation alive by single-handedly defusing the tension less than 10 minutes into the episode. After dodging a train “Mission: Impossible“-style, she stopped the impending terrorist act, leaving both the jihadist leader, Bibi, and the man who once saved Peter Quinn‘s life, Qasim, dead.
With that climactic plot point now resolved, the rest of the finale was spent tying up loose ends with the other characters: Laura Sutton‘s unchecked whistle-blowing came to a screeching halt when she was arrested by the BND. Astrid then recruited the journalist as an asset by threatening to deport Numan back to Turkey in exchange for Laura’s cooperation. And in the most satisfying, albeit completely unrealistic, conclusion, Allison Carr was executed “Bonnie and Clyde“-style in the car carrying her to safety in Russia – an operation orchestrated by Saul Berenson himself.
Special Case File: Carrie in the Subway Tunnel
This is a very difficult operational decision to make, because shooting at big canisters filled with gas is a real, potential problem. But time is running out and she has to hope her aim is true. Trouble is, even if she’s shooting with her dominant hand, which she’s not – she’s shooting with her left hand, because her right hand has been whacked – after two or three shots, it’s almost impossible to maintain your aim. So the fact that she just lays an entire magazine into the bad guys means she’s just going to be spraying rounds all over the place. Because after three shots, you’re basically shooting the ceiling – your weapons are kicking so much. You just don’t have the same kind of muscle memory that you do with your dominant hand. That’s not necessarily smart when you’ve got a canister full of sarin there ready to kill everybody.
But my biggest thought after that scene was, “What about the rest of the terrorist cell?” There were about a dozen of them. Everyone’s relaxing, like, “Hey, the threat’s over!” There are still a bunch of terrorists running around. They don’t have access to the sarin, perhaps, but they’re certainly in a position to do some damage, and no one seems to be paying a whole lot of attention to where everybody else is.
This is a very difficult operational decision to make, because shooting at big canisters filled with gas is a real, potential problem. But time is running out and she has to hope her aim is true. Trouble is, even if she’s shooting with her dominant hand, which she’s not – she’s shooting with her left hand, because her right hand has been whacked – after two or three shots, it’s almost impossible to maintain your aim. So the fact that she just lays an entire magazine into the bad guys means she’s just going to be spraying rounds all over the place. Because after three shots, you’re basically shooting the ceiling – your weapons are kicking so much. You just don’t have the same kind of muscle memory that you do with your dominant hand. That’s not necessarily smart when you’ve got a canister full of sarin there ready to kill everybody.
But my biggest thought after that scene was, “What about the rest of the terrorist cell?” There were about a dozen of them. Everyone’s relaxing, like, “Hey, the threat’s over!” There are still a bunch of terrorists running around. They don’t have access to the sarin, perhaps, but they’re certainly in a position to do some damage, and no one seems to be paying a whole lot of attention to where everybody else is.
Special Case File: Laura Sutton and the BND
I was wondering what took the BND so long to round up Laura, because, sure, they can’t arrest her and try her in Germany, because of the privacy laws and because of how welcoming they are to journalists, but she’s there on her visa. The fact that she’s wanted by the FBI in the United States, that could’ve been some pretty serious leverage they could’ve used against her earlier in the season. And Numan is in a similar situation, being a refugee. He’s there through the good graces of the German government.
We’ve talked about MICE and how you recruit agents – Astrid is doing exactly that, with Laura. This is a version of Compromise, the “C” in MICE. Pressure is being put upon Laura to become an asset of the BND in this case. Now, it’s not necessary to provide information – it’s to shell out misinformation to the German people; to be a propagandist for the BND. But this is a great example of Compromise, especially because I’ve talked about how Compromise doesn’t happen very often – they catch you having an affair, they catch you for being gay. The BND figured out the one thing they could use to get to Laura, and they used it – it was Numan. That’s exactly what intelligence agencies are supposed to do when they’re recruiting an asset: You figure out what their weakness is.
I was wondering what took the BND so long to round up Laura, because, sure, they can’t arrest her and try her in Germany, because of the privacy laws and because of how welcoming they are to journalists, but she’s there on her visa. The fact that she’s wanted by the FBI in the United States, that could’ve been some pretty serious leverage they could’ve used against her earlier in the season. And Numan is in a similar situation, being a refugee. He’s there through the good graces of the German government.
We’ve talked about MICE and how you recruit agents – Astrid is doing exactly that, with Laura. This is a version of Compromise, the “C” in MICE. Pressure is being put upon Laura to become an asset of the BND in this case. Now, it’s not necessary to provide information – it’s to shell out misinformation to the German people; to be a propagandist for the BND. But this is a great example of Compromise, especially because I’ve talked about how Compromise doesn’t happen very often – they catch you having an affair, they catch you for being gay. The BND figured out the one thing they could use to get to Laura, and they used it – it was Numan. That’s exactly what intelligence agencies are supposed to do when they’re recruiting an asset: You figure out what their weakness is.
Special Case File: How Quinn and Carrie Were Recruited
There’s a bit of Hollywood mixed in with reality here, and I think it’s an interesting dynamic. Dar Adal says he met Quinn as a 16-year-old foster kid with street-smarts – that’s a little Hollywood. You might want to get kids young, but picking up a kid off the street doesn’t happen that often in the real world. Maybe you help them, guide them through university, maybe you push them through the military, but there are very few 16-year-olds about whom you can say, “He’s going to make a great CIA agent in the future.”
I’m equating that to a degree with when Saul told Carrie that he talked to the director of the CIA, who offered her “complete autonomy” [if she returned to active duty]. The CIA is a bureaucracy. However, the intelligence community really highlights things like creativity and flexibility to try to avoid rigidity of the other bureaucracies. You want to have the ability to work outside of the box. You want to have the ability to act in certain ways that aren’t as hamstrung by bureaucracy. So the intelligence community is trying to find that happy medium between having a support structure and being flexible enough to do the missions that are necessary in a world that’s a little bit crazy. “Homeland,” unfortunately, its one real drawback, is they err too much to the side of the free-for-all, the lone wolf, Carrie running around doing things on her own. But it would be an incredibly boring show if they erred on the opposite side.
There’s a bit of Hollywood mixed in with reality here, and I think it’s an interesting dynamic. Dar Adal says he met Quinn as a 16-year-old foster kid with street-smarts – that’s a little Hollywood. You might want to get kids young, but picking up a kid off the street doesn’t happen that often in the real world. Maybe you help them, guide them through university, maybe you push them through the military, but there are very few 16-year-olds about whom you can say, “He’s going to make a great CIA agent in the future.”
I’m equating that to a degree with when Saul told Carrie that he talked to the director of the CIA, who offered her “complete autonomy” [if she returned to active duty]. The CIA is a bureaucracy. However, the intelligence community really highlights things like creativity and flexibility to try to avoid rigidity of the other bureaucracies. You want to have the ability to work outside of the box. You want to have the ability to act in certain ways that aren’t as hamstrung by bureaucracy. So the intelligence community is trying to find that happy medium between having a support structure and being flexible enough to do the missions that are necessary in a world that’s a little bit crazy. “Homeland,” unfortunately, its one real drawback, is they err too much to the side of the free-for-all, the lone wolf, Carrie running around doing things on her own. But it would be an incredibly boring show if they erred on the opposite side.
Special Case File: Allison’s Execution
The shootout of Allison’s car at the end of the episode? This is not what happens in the real world. And it’s not just that it upsets my sensibility of fair play – there’s a real pragmatic reason why you don’t do something like this. It turns into war. I don’t mean tanks and nuclear weapons – it turns into an intelligence war. If you kill some of their officers, they’re going to kill some of ours. You want to get beyond a moral and ethical reason why you don’t torture? You don’t torture so your guys don’t get tortured when they get captured. In this case, you don’t kill foreign adversary intelligence officers, because then it becomes open season. Even at the height of the Cold War – even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we weren’t bumping off Soviet assets. There were so many other ways they could’ve killed off Allison. You can, under the table, trade back for Allison, you can do whatever you need to do. Kill Allison all you want – the problem is not her. The problem is the guys in the front seat of the car. You can’t kill the Russian intelligence officers, because then it’s a quid pro quo. It becomes a tit for tat. There’s no safe place Americans can go anymore, because there will be retributions. It really goes back to this idea of a gentleman’s game: You don’t kill them off, you trade them back and forth – it’s about fairness. It’s the way the game is played. We just changed the rules, in that scene. That’s rewriting decades of the way intelligence was done, by killing the people in the front seat.
This was the most unrealistic thing that “Homeland” has done in its five seasons. Everything else you can tweak in a certain way or explain, but this, by far, is taking it to a level that we just don’t do. Kill Allison if you want, but the SVR officers in the front seat of the car are not fair game. They are off limits.
The shootout of Allison’s car at the end of the episode? This is not what happens in the real world. And it’s not just that it upsets my sensibility of fair play – there’s a real pragmatic reason why you don’t do something like this. It turns into war. I don’t mean tanks and nuclear weapons – it turns into an intelligence war. If you kill some of their officers, they’re going to kill some of ours. You want to get beyond a moral and ethical reason why you don’t torture? You don’t torture so your guys don’t get tortured when they get captured. In this case, you don’t kill foreign adversary intelligence officers, because then it becomes open season. Even at the height of the Cold War – even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we weren’t bumping off Soviet assets. There were so many other ways they could’ve killed off Allison. You can, under the table, trade back for Allison, you can do whatever you need to do. Kill Allison all you want – the problem is not her. The problem is the guys in the front seat of the car. You can’t kill the Russian intelligence officers, because then it’s a quid pro quo. It becomes a tit for tat. There’s no safe place Americans can go anymore, because there will be retributions. It really goes back to this idea of a gentleman’s game: You don’t kill them off, you trade them back and forth – it’s about fairness. It’s the way the game is played. We just changed the rules, in that scene. That’s rewriting decades of the way intelligence was done, by killing the people in the front seat.
This was the most unrealistic thing that “Homeland” has done in its five seasons. Everything else you can tweak in a certain way or explain, but this, by far, is taking it to a level that we just don’t do. Kill Allison if you want, but the SVR officers in the front seat of the car are not fair game. They are off limits.
