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Homeland (2 Viewers)

When you guys say you fast forward acenes, what you really mean is that you don't care about them right? You don't actually have such busy lives that you fast forward the 30-60 seconds at a time that she's onscreen right?

 
Just goes to show you that the show does not need Brody. Carrie, Saul and the Agency are what drive the show. Lewis winning the Emmy was the worst thing that happened to the show. Justified did it right with the Margo Martindale season as did The Shield season after season. They let great actors come and go.

Homeland has so much potential but the focus on Dana just shows they still don't get it. Gansa thinks she is a good actress so he wants to keep her involved. As he did with Lewis. Boardwalk Empire did the same thing with Shannon and Macdonald until they realized no one cared about their characters.

 
Michael Brown said:
When you guys say you fast forward acenes, what you really mean is that you don't care about them right? You don't actually have such busy lives that you fast forward the 30-60 seconds at a time that she's onscreen right?
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I'll flip over to this forum or reddit when she is on screen. Listen for a gunshot in the background.

 
Michael Brown said:
When you guys say you fast forward acenes, what you really mean is that you don't care about them right? You don't actually have such busy lives that you fast forward the 30-60 seconds at a time that she's onscreen right?
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No, I actually fast-forward through all Dana scenes. It's not a matter of my busy life. I just find her annoying and completely irrelevant.

 
I don't fast forward but I do find it pointless. It's a bad omen for the show. If they go off in that direction, it's really going to get dumb. No one cares about that.

 
Dana is an essential part to the show/story. You guys are nuts. Her scenes are important because of the juxtaposition she has. In a couple ears, she will be the show as she enlists in the Marines and gets trained by her dad lover seas. Then, history will come full circle when she finishes what her dad did not by blowing up the Vice President and all his/her men. This will happen in ~season 9 or so. With that bomb, the show will end.

I don't see how you guys are not getting this.

 
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I'm hoping Leo murder/suicides Dana, and that Brody finds out and has to comes out of hiding as a result. Then he gets tangled in this Iran plot and dies redeeming himself. Then, when his wife and Mike hear the truth from Carrie at the end of the season, they murder suicide themselves for ever doubting Brody. Chris is the only Brody to surivive, and Carrie adopts him out of guilt. He loves her house because she's got a sweet flatscreen, and the wall the used to have been covered with newspaper stories and leads about Brody's whereabouts is now covered with Chris's crayon drawing of his favorite anime shows.

 
Michael Brown said:
When you guys say you fast forward acenes, what you really mean is that you don't care about them right? You don't actually have such busy lives that you fast forward the 30-60 seconds at a time that she's onscreen right?
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ok i dont actually FF the scene cuz i watch the show with my wife but i do go on the ipad and browse the internet during those scenes
 
(HULK) said:
I'm hoping Leo murder/suicides Dana, and that Brody finds out and has to comes out of hiding as a result. Then he gets tangled in this Iran plot and dies redeeming himself. Then, when his wife and Mike hear the truth from Carrie at the end of the season, they murder suicide themselves for ever doubting Brody. Chris is the only Brody to surivive, and Carrie adopts him out of guilt. He loves her house because she's got a sweet flatscreen, and the wall the used to have been covered with newspaper stories and leads about Brody's whereabouts is now covered with Chris's crayon drawing of his favorite anime shows.
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:lol: Totally sounds like something these guys would come up with, only better

 
I have to imagine that the rest of the internet (yes, all of it) is blowing up with blogs and posts about the dislike for the Brody family story arc and hopefully the writers will respond accordingly.

 
Chaka said:
I have to imagine that the rest of the internet (yes, all of it) is blowing up with blogs and posts about the dislike for the Brody family story arc and hopefully the writers will respond accordingly.
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why would they care, they just got renewed for a 4rth season. They probably think what they are doing is working.

 
Mario Kart said:
Another good episode. Top notch stuff.
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:shock: Seriously? Apart from the scenes with Quinn I couldn't believe how bad it was. Glad we had a satisfying wrapup to that gripping Dana plot! And sitting Senators constantly give up their seats to be CIA director. Then throw in Saul coming home from that ludicrous goose hunt to his wife hosting dinner for another man and it was just comical.

 
Could this be the first drama where I watched two plus seasons and then abandoned for good? Possibly, this show is running on fumes at this point

 
Homer J Simpson said:
Aerial Assault said:
biggamer3 said:
Could this be the first drama where I watched two plus seasons and then abandoned for good? Possibly, this show is running on fumes at this point
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A friend and huge fan of the show just sent me an NYT article saying the show has been rejuvenated by the shocking twist. Oof.
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I was mildly excited about it. Then they follow it up with this turd. Nice work, guys. :thumbup:
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Did the twist SHOCK YOU, though?

 
I like the way Carrie's story is developing. They chose the wrong foil for Saul, with that senator, but I am okay with the track they have him on.

Everything else doesn't really matter.

 
Chaka said:
I like the way Carrie's story is developing. They chose the wrong foil for Saul, with that senator, but I am okay with the track they have him on.

Everything else doesn't really matter.
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I still like the core of the show- Carrie and Saul. Even potential Brody story lines would work for me (if done remotely well).

But the rest... ugh. It's like they can only come up with the 15 minutes or so per episode of interesting things that drive the plot- the rest is purely lazy, awkward filler. The Dana thing obviously. Carrie having to run to yoga to do... what exactly? oh right- provide "suspsense" by any means possible.

btw- anybody else get a kick out of somebody else doing the crazy-eyes, quivering chin routine besides Carrie? Dana has some work to do.

 
El Floppo said:
Chaka said:
I like the way Carrie's story is developing. They chose the wrong foil for Saul, with that senator, but I am okay with the track they have him on.

Everything else doesn't really matter.
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I still like the core of the show- Carrie and Saul. Even potential Brody story lines would work for me (if done remotely well).

But the rest... ugh. It's like they can only come up with the 15 minutes or so per episode of interesting things that drive the plot- the rest is purely lazy, awkward filler. The Dana thing obviously. Carrie having to run to yoga to do... what exactly? oh right- provide "suspsense" by any means possible.

btw- anybody else get a kick out of somebody else doing the crazy-eyes, quivering chin routine besides Carrie? Dana has some work to do.
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The yoga story line was another terrible byproduct of the Brody family. I really enjoy looking at Morena Baccarin, she's smoking hot, but the Brody family has got to go. This should be a CIA/Terrorist centric show without any of the fluff.

 
Aerial Assault said:
Homer J Simpson said:
Aerial Assault said:
biggamer3 said:
Could this be the first drama where I watched two plus seasons and then abandoned for good? Possibly, this show is running on fumes at this point
Click to expand...
A friend and huge fan of the show just sent me an NYT article saying the show has been rejuvenated by the shocking twist. Oof.
Click to expand...
I was mildly excited about it. Then they follow it up with this turd. Nice work, guys. :thumbup:
Click to expand...
Did the twist SHOCK YOU, though?
Click to expand...
:shrug: As far as this show can be shocking, I guess there was a bit of a tingle.

 
El Floppo said:
Chaka said:
I like the way Carrie's story is developing. They chose the wrong foil for Saul, with that senator, but I am okay with the track they have him on.

Everything else doesn't really matter.
Click to expand...
I still like the core of the show- Carrie and Saul. Even potential Brody story lines would work for me (if done remotely well).

But the rest... ugh. It's like they can only come up with the 15 minutes or so per episode of interesting things that drive the plot- the rest is purely lazy, awkward filler. The Dana thing obviously. Carrie having to run to yoga to do... what exactly? oh right- provide "suspsense" by any means possible.

btw- anybody else get a kick out of somebody else doing the crazy-eyes, quivering chin routine besides Carrie? Dana has some work to do.
Click to expand...
This seems to be the key...it really feels like theyr'e just trying to kill time.

 
Aerial Assault said:
Homer J Simpson said:
Aerial Assault said:
biggamer3 said:
Could this be the first drama where I watched two plus seasons and then abandoned for good? Possibly, this show is running on fumes at this point
Click to expand...
A friend and huge fan of the show just sent me an NYT article saying the show has been rejuvenated by the shocking twist. Oof.
Click to expand...
I was mildly excited about it. Then they follow it up with this turd. Nice work, guys. :thumbup:
Click to expand...
Did the twist SHOCK YOU, though?
Click to expand...
I wasn't shocked as much as awed.

 
Since this is still the show's thread for discussion, I will not just complain with every post here, but write a few thoughts from the recent episode.

Something that bothered me immensely was how Carrie was never shown to have made a sweep of her apartment for bugs and assumed that the Iranians never bugged her house. This was so asinine since it was Carrie herself who bugged Brody season one and was well aware of bugs. Especially since Carrie KNEW the Iranians were staking 100M+ into meeting her and were already following her, she would be nuts to talk on the phone to anyone else while still in her house. To put yourself through that amount of time in a nuthouse and have the bait hooked, there was no way she could ever risk that position she was in.

Second, even if the house was checked for bugs, its way more practical to take the other phone and make the phone calls in a Starbucks or someplace that for sure wasnt bugged. Besides for the bugs issue, I could not believe that when Carrie was told she might not be tailed anymore she looked out the window while still on the phone...If they were tailing her and saw her on the phone through the window without seeing her talking on her tapped phone, that would have also ruined the mission.

And the brother that Carrie called with the good line to talk about Yoga was being tracked by the Iranians, if they even made a cursory search of this guy they would see he wasnt a Yoga instructor. So either Carrie is a horrible operative these days or the show just doesnt care anymore with these careless mistakes that she makes.

Also I was wondering who exactly Virgil worked for that he was so worried about getting fired from, I thought him and his bro were private eyes last we checked.

 
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biggamer3 said:
Since this is still the show's thread for discussion, I will not just complain with every post here, but write a few thoughts from the recent episode.

Something that bothered me immensely was how Carrie was never shown to have made a sweep of her apartment for bugs and assumed that the Iranians never bugged her house. This was so asinine since it was Carrie herself who bugged Brody season one and was well aware of bugs. Especially since Carrie KNEW the Iranians were staking 100M+ into meeting her and were already following her, she would be nuts to talk on the phone to anyone else while still in her house. To put yourself through that amount of time in a nuthouse and have the bait hooked, there was no way she could ever risk that position she was in.

Second, even if the house was checked for bugs, its way more practical to take the other phone and make the phone calls in a Starbucks or someplace that for sure wasnt bugged. Besides for the bugs issue, I could not believe that when Carrie was told she might not be tailed anymore she looked out the window while still on the phone...If they were tailing her and saw her on the phone through the window without seeing her talking on her tapped phone, that would have also ruined the mission.

And the brother that Carrie called with the good line to talk about Yoga was being tracked by the Iranians, if they even made a cursory search of this guy they would see he wasnt a Yoga instructor. So either Carrie is a horrible operative these days or the show just doesnt care anymore with these careless mistakes that she makes.

Also I was wondering who exactly Virgil worked for that he was so worried about getting fired from, I thought him and his bro were private eyes last we checked.
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The question to ask is why wasn't Saul bugging Carrie's house to keep an eye on her. Even if the Iranians found the bugs it wouldn't necessarily blow her cover because she is an enemy of the CIA now.

 
Daywalker said:
biggamer3 said:
Since this is still the show's thread for discussion, I will not just complain with every post here, but write a few thoughts from the recent episode.

Something that bothered me immensely was how Carrie was never shown to have made a sweep of her apartment for bugs and assumed that the Iranians never bugged her house. This was so asinine since it was Carrie herself who bugged Brody season one and was well aware of bugs. Especially since Carrie KNEW the Iranians were staking 100M+ into meeting her and were already following her, she would be nuts to talk on the phone to anyone else while still in her house. To put yourself through that amount of time in a nuthouse and have the bait hooked, there was no way she could ever risk that position she was in.

Second, even if the house was checked for bugs, its way more practical to take the other phone and make the phone calls in a Starbucks or someplace that for sure wasnt bugged. Besides for the bugs issue, I could not believe that when Carrie was told she might not be tailed anymore she looked out the window while still on the phone...If they were tailing her and saw her on the phone through the window without seeing her talking on her tapped phone, that would have also ruined the mission.

And the brother that Carrie called with the good line to talk about Yoga was being tracked by the Iranians, if they even made a cursory search of this guy they would see he wasnt a Yoga instructor. So either Carrie is a horrible operative these days or the show just doesnt care anymore with these careless mistakes that she makes.

Also I was wondering who exactly Virgil worked for that he was so worried about getting fired from, I thought him and his bro were private eyes last we checked.
Click to expand...
The question to ask is why wasn't Saul bugging Carrie's house to keep an eye on her. Even if the Iranians found the bugs it wouldn't necessarily blow her cover because she is an enemy of the CIA now.
Click to expand...
yeah, I would venture to guess that Saul wouldn't bug her because Carrie was proficient at bugging others and would easily spot Saul's bugs and thus lose trust in him. But not showing her sweep for bugs just irked me.

 
biggamer3 said:
Daywalker said:
biggamer3 said:
Since this is still the show's thread for discussion, I will not just complain with every post here, but write a few thoughts from the recent episode.

Something that bothered me immensely was how Carrie was never shown to have made a sweep of her apartment for bugs and assumed that the Iranians never bugged her house. This was so asinine since it was Carrie herself who bugged Brody season one and was well aware of bugs. Especially since Carrie KNEW the Iranians were staking 100M+ into meeting her and were already following her, she would be nuts to talk on the phone to anyone else while still in her house. To put yourself through that amount of time in a nuthouse and have the bait hooked, there was no way she could ever risk that position she was in.

Second, even if the house was checked for bugs, its way more practical to take the other phone and make the phone calls in a Starbucks or someplace that for sure wasnt bugged. Besides for the bugs issue, I could not believe that when Carrie was told she might not be tailed anymore she looked out the window while still on the phone...If they were tailing her and saw her on the phone through the window without seeing her talking on her tapped phone, that would have also ruined the mission.

And the brother that Carrie called with the good line to talk about Yoga was being tracked by the Iranians, if they even made a cursory search of this guy they would see he wasnt a Yoga instructor. So either Carrie is a horrible operative these days or the show just doesnt care anymore with these careless mistakes that she makes.

Also I was wondering who exactly Virgil worked for that he was so worried about getting fired from, I thought him and his bro were private eyes last we checked.
Click to expand...
The question to ask is why wasn't Saul bugging Carrie's house to keep an eye on her. Even if the Iranians found the bugs it wouldn't necessarily blow her cover because she is an enemy of the CIA now.
Click to expand...
yeah, I would venture to guess that Saul wouldn't bug her because Carrie was proficient at bugging others and would easily spot Saul's bugs and thus lose trust in him. But not showing her sweep for bugs just irked me.
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I would think she would know Sauls' bugs would be to protect her like Quinn outside was.

 
When I objected to the twist at the end of last week's episode, the arguments I made were mainly about the plausibility of a long con that, as Alex Gansa explained the next day, was hatched by Carrie and Saul shortly after the CIA bombing, meaning that everything we saw over the season's first four episodes was part of the game. And the thing is, you could probably go scene by scene through those episodes and find justifications for most of Carrie's behavior, whether it's her keeping her guard up in case of hidden surveillance or her reacting to Saul taking things farther than she expected him to, but that's almost besides the point. Whether or not the twist works on a mechanical level, it was cheap storytelling. It built big emotional moments — "#### you, Saul," for instance — around conflicts that weren't what we actually thought they were. (In that case, either Carrie's faking her anger in case the nurses are watching, or she just didn't expect this particular move, at this length, to be part of the plan.)As NPR's Linda Holmes wrote the day after "Game On" aired, there is a wide gulf between keeping the audience in the dark on Brody's motivations, in a context where we knew going in that this was a mystery, and doing it here with Saul and Carrie, where we have no reason to not take everything that's happening at face value. This isn't the sort of show "Homeland" was, and "everything you thought you knew was wrong" plotting isn't the sort of trickeration it should be leaning on at this point.

And I revisit all of that at the top of this review of "The Yoga Play" to note two things: 1) Not a single thing that happened in this episode, nor in what presumably will happen going forward, would have played out any differently had the audience been in on the scheme all along; and 2) The parts of the episode that were effective — which was pretty much anything not related to Dana and Leo — only put the audience in the dark in the same ways that Carrie or Saul were.

Politics have never been Saul's strong suit, so it shouldn't be a shock that the president would pass him over for the permanent CIA director job — nor, frankly, that the gig would go to Senator Lockhart. In the wake of a massive, public, deadly failure, the easiest way to signal to the public that things won't be business as usual is to give the job to the Agency's loudest critic. And given how bad Saul is at that part of his (now short-term) job, it also makes sense that he would have been kept out of the loop on the decision. I hope Lockhart turns out to be more complex once he's in the job — even Estes was given a bit of nuance from time to time, though his primary story function was to stand in Carrie and/or Saul's way — but in the meantime, this development puts a ticking clock on the Carrie operation, and possibly the season, depending on how the remaining episodes are structured chronologically. We could theoretically spend the rest of this season on Saul's last two weeks in the gig, or else there will come a point where Lockhart is in charge while Carrie is still in the field, and he will have to be told exactly why the scapegoat for the CIA's enormous Brody failure is now the Agency's most important asset. Should be a fun conversation, if nothing else.

And as for Carrie herself, her story closes on a cliffhanger, with our big target, Javadi (played by character actor Shaun Toub) bringing her in for the face-to-face meeting she requested, only under much rougher, more terrifying circumstances than she imagined. (Some great work from Claire Danes in the strip search scene.) Javadi makes a joke about Carrie keeping in shape with yoga, and she and we have no idea if it's a pointed reference to the eponymous gambit Carrie used to slip surveillance for a few minutes to meet with Agent Hall, or if it's just another reference to American culture from a man we've already seen enjoying a messy hamburger.

That is the sort of tension "Homeland" does so well. We have to have certain constants we can believe in, or the show falls apart and becomes just a series of tricks. Carrie is erratic — here going off her meds and trying to help in the search for Dana, even though it jeopardizes her own mission (and doesn't ultimately accomplish anything, since Dana is found without Carrie's help) — but we see what she sees, we know what she knows, and if we're not required to believe everything she believes, it's only because we can see more of Carrie than she can see of herself. Carrie being unaware of whether her cover has held is genuine suspense; Carrie and Saul being in cahoots without the audience knowing is just a stunt, and one that undercuts the credibility of what comes later, because if the writers will do it once, what's to keep them from doing it again?

That said, the Carrie material was very strong here — including more from Virgil and the return of his brother Max, whose role as Carrie's verbal punching bag remains amusing — and if the operation Carrie and Saul have set up goes to interesting places, the twist will ultimately be a dumb decision but not a fatal one.

But oy, the Dana stuff. There's nothing here quite on the stupefying level of Dana reciting graveside poetry, but I remain baffled that Gansa and company keep thinking it's a great idea to hook Dana up with emotionally erratic boyfriends. I get the attempted parallel to Brody, but it doesn't matter because Leo and Finn are such weak characters, and the writing for those stories always feels like it's been imported from another show. Leo is presumably out of the picture now, and Morgan Saylor has clearly studied well the art of screen crying from her Emmy-winning female co-star, but I'd be happy to take a good long break from the Brody family for a while. Anything would be preferable at this point; if they want to give us an hour of Saul and Fara discussing forensic accounting, so long as it does not somehow tie in to Chris Brody's karate lessons, I'm all for it.
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biggamer3 said:
Just saw the pilot, THIS SHOW IS AWESOME!!!Def has me hooked after just one episode.This is one of those shows which might get stale after a season or two but for this year at least it is really a great premise. The two main leads, Claire Danes and Damien Lewis are amazing.If there is one new show you should get into this has to be it
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bump
 
flapgreen said:
biggamer3 said:
Just saw the pilot, THIS SHOW IS AWESOME!!!Def has me hooked after just one episode.This is one of those shows which might get stale after a season or two but for this year at least it is really a great premise. The two main leads, Claire Danes and Damien Lewis are amazing.If there is one new show you should get into this has to be it
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bump
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It was a one-year show with the original cast and premise. But then they just had to keep Lewis and, well, you know the rest. My guess is that the garbage that they're running now (the Dana stories, the laughable, fifth-grader's take on intelligence-related politics) was all supposed to be part of the aftermath of Brody detonating the vest. Instead, that's the ludicrously awful B-roll shoehorned in with a full recycle of Carrie's illness as she faces off against a new terrorist, the soccer-loving Iranian spy. It's just an unspeakably epic trainwreck.

 
RBM said:
Business picking up last two episodes. Saul-Carrie-Quinn operation is awesome.
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Yeah the last two episodes should be promising to those who have stuck around. They ended the Dana manhunt as well. The plane was crashing. These last two episodes have stopped that from happening. Show far from soaring though. :oldunsure:

 
flapgreen said:
biggamer3 said:
Just saw the pilot, THIS SHOW IS AWESOME!!!Def has me hooked after just one episode.This is one of those shows which might get stale after a season or two but for this year at least it is really a great premise. The two main leads, Claire Danes and Damien Lewis are amazing.If there is one new show you should get into this has to be it
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bump
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I think I nailed this one. Show got stale midway through season two.
 
Good on Saul for not kissing up to Lockhart at the toast. I though, "Good man!" when I saw him take a stance, smart or not for his future.

About to get really interesting with Carrie. If Saul's in on this most recent seizure, somehow, I'll be disappointed. Want to see what the writers have for this development.

 
biggamer3 said:
flapgreen said:
biggamer3 said:
Just saw the pilot, THIS SHOW IS AWESOME!!!Def has me hooked after just one episode.This is one of those shows which might get stale after a season or two but for this year at least it is really a great premise. The two main leads, Claire Danes and Damien Lewis are amazing.If there is one new show you should get into this has to be it
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bump
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I think I nailed this one. Show got stale midway through season two.
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yep
 
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