I’m not going to get into the specifics of the season. If you’re a fan of the show, you already know what the specific personalities and traits of the main characters and you’re aware of the non-formulaic formula used each season, But so far in year number six (the series finale is this Sunday night), art is imitating life in oddly specific ways.
For starters, Alex Gansa wears a ridiculous number of Homeland hats. He’s a screenwriter, producer, creator, executive producer, showrunner and probably chief brownie baker for craft services on the set of the award-winning Showtime series. Politically and culturally speaking, he proudly states he’s left of center. That’s obvious this season in Carrie’s paradigm shift.
Last year, and the year before that and the year before that, she was a fiercely determined, bi-polar CIA hunter of radical Islamic terrorists. This season, she’s a retired spy with a sympathetic side. A year ago she hunted them down. Couriers to head honchos, she didn’t care. She now represents jihadis (real or perceived) against discrimination.
What Ganza doesn’t seem to realize, at least in my opinion, is that this season has analogous undertones for…..wait for it….wait for it….the TRUMP administrstion and not necessarily in a completely negative vein. This year has been rife with mentions of Alternate news sites, fake news, fabricated news reports, security leaks, fraternizing with Russians, professional protestors, revisionist historians run amuck. We’ve even heard the words “deplorables,” and “Not My President,” which helps make all of this partisan nonsense shameful, embarrassing and painful to watch.
I’ve had nuns inflict less guilt.
This season features alt. news mouthpiece, Brett O’Keefe (Jake Webber), an Alex Jones show host type whose dislike for Madam President Elect Keane (Elizabeth Marvel) is as obvious as the perpetual Diet Coke can he clutches in his right hand. Chalk one up for product placement.
Keane’s son was killed in Iraq while trying to rescue an injured warrior during a firefight. The event was captured on another soldier’s body cam and O’Keefe and his incredibly well-funded misinformation machine creatively edited the video to make it appear as though Soldier Keane was running away from battle. This infuriates his mom who vehemently kept the subject of her son off topic during her campaign. She didn’t want to politicize his death. So, O’Keefe does that for her after her election. They end up going head to head on his TV talk show, both unflinching in their stances on the veracity of the video.
Mrs. Keane insists the video is incomplete, there’s more to the story. Even so, her son died a decorated war hero.
O’Keefe says nope, that’s the not the case. The video is correct and he has eyewitness accounts from solders involved in that same gun battle who know the facts and they say Late Almost First Son died a coward, so there!!!
This on air confrontation stirs up a hornets nest of protestors at her transition headquarters which just so happens to be a lavish hotel in the heart of New York. As her motorcade heads black to HQ, one hate liked protestor breaks through the security barrier and her car clips him. Her expression is truly one of shock and awe and she asked without uttering a word, “What the hell have I gotten myself into???”
We then learn that a specific security detail is being sent to help the President-Elect’s team. They are in fact, a hit squad.
But we’ll have to wait for Sunday night’s season finale to find out if Carrie can once again (as she has during the previous five seasons) be completely ubiquitous and Teflon coated and somehow save the CIA, the President- Elect and the world, from any and all evil.
Speaking of evil, Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham) has never smiled or shown any emotion once since his first appearance on Showtime and in season six, he lets out all the stops in terms of his evil induced facial paralysis. He’s funding O’Keefe’s alt. news/misinformation effort with CIA slush money,. That’s a HUGE no-no because national security agencies are prohibited from influencing U.S. public opinion.
Hhhhhmmmmm…..sound familiar?
We also learn that Dar is a big old queen and recruited trained assassin, Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) out of High School because of his potential and no doubt, because Quinn is on the hot side.
Like O’Keefe, Dar also dislikes President- elect Keane. Before winning the election, she was a Junior Senator from New York (D) with no foreign policy or national security experience. In an earlier episode, as her team is just starting its presidential transition, Keane meets with Dar and Saul (Mandy Patinkin) about the CIA, an organization for which she obviously has little esteem. She asks about the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan. She also inquires about specific programs, including drone attacks and clandestine military operations. Keep in mind, Carrie now a civilian with a former CIA station chief title, has been her secret ghost advisor throughout her campaign and transition. She ordered most of the drone strikes and covert military attacks in question.
Saul and Dar have no idea Carrie is anywhere in the picture. So, they’re surprised the inexperienced next President would even know to ask these questions. They hedge their answers.
‘She then asks, “If the war isn’t winnable, what are we doing there?’
Have scarier words ever been uttered into the ears of CIA bigwigs?? After the meeting, Dar is convinced Keane wants to demilitarize the CIA. That’s when he goes into “get Keane” mode. He goes into “eliminate Keane” mode after she threatens to throw him in jail for all his nefarious behavior. It’s safe to assume he ordered the hit squad that’s coming to Keane under the guise of extra security.
DETAILS WORTH NOTING:
Saul broke into Carrie’s apartment a few episodes earlier. He was on the run and about to go into hiding. He searches the entire apartment and finds a room that’s locked. He breaks in and it’s a small room filled with photos and connective lines and scribbled-on Post It notes stuck all over the place. The look on Saul’s face says everything. Carrie is crazy again, yay!!!….but this scene is short and hasn’t been referred to since. In fact, scenes including the infamous Carrie bottom lip quiver have been few and far between.
Quinn is the new Rasputin. Nothing kills this cat. After being shot, the victim of chemical warfare, a stroke and being within three feet of Carrie at any time over the past sex seasons, it’s almost ridiculous that he’s still alive.
Keane is an interesting character. She’s ballsy, which she’d have to be as the nation’s first female president. She’s also smart and to the point and as president’s go, quite an iconoclast, like Trump. That said, show creator Alex Gansa seems to have derived Keane from a big political salad….a little bit of both Clintons and Trump. If Obama is in the mix, I can’t see it.
OKeefe (The Alex Jones type) and Dar are working together, but Dar accidentally sees a website on one of a zillion laptops in O’Keefe’s office . It included a photo of Peter Quinn and is filled with anti-President- Elect Keane stories and conspiracy theories. Real lunatic fringe stuff. There’s even a threat made against her life and as we saw in last Sunday’s previews for the season finale this coming Sunday, there’s a shoot to kill order for Quinn. But why? What does OKeefe stand to gain by going against Dar? O’Keefe must know Quinn has a special place in Dar’s heart, plus he’s funding this massive cottage industry of misinformation under one very large roof. Isn’t that biting the hand that feeds?
Lastly, Gansa and Homeland seem to have turned their attention away from Muslim extremism and more towards our own internal corruption. Each week has been like an imposed object lesson: as if yo say, See? We’re no better than those we call the enemy.
The show has have a seventh season planned, but some major changes will have to happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dar and Quinn are either killed or jailed (depending on the terms of the actors’ contracts) while Carrie re-enters the Agency, more manic than ever. I want to hear more jazz, I want to witness antipsychotic meds washed down with Chardonnay and more frenetic promiscuity. Her ginger headed by product of an affair with Brodie? That character isn’t a factor at this point. She’s just a means used to control Carrie. Motherhood will never be easy for Carrie,, nor is it that intriguing to her character . Frannie might have to go the way of Chuck, the eldest brother on Happy Days or Mike, the oldest boy on My Three Sons. Poof!!! Gone. No questions asked.
Which begs the question–who’ll be enemy next season? Every show ever produced for TV has established conflict. In this case, it’s man vs. man with a subtext of good vs. evil. If Gansa and company want to exclude all things Middle East from the equation, I’ll bet Russia will enter the picture as the new (old) foe. Hating within, hating ourselves is safe, but just as factional and too close to reality these days. If we all gang up on Russia, that’s okay. Years ago, the late great radio legend, Mark Stevens once noted on air that since the Korean War, Americans only wage war on country’s with citizens who have darker skin. He said it in jest, but if you think about it…..
if Russia becomes the new focus of hate, either on Homeland or from within The Beltway, we need to remember who we’re dealing with. Russia is bigger, wealthier and so much more organized. We’re used to seeing old adversaries throw rocks and bottles at defenders of Democracy. Russians might do the same, but the rocks and bottles they throw have nukes attached.
Now MY bottom lip is quivering.
mske it look like he was running away from the gun bsttlr and awarded a Gold Star