Homeland Insecurity Podcast – S5E11 “Our Man in Damascus”
There is a LOT going on in Season 5’s penultimate episode. Allison is still trying to pull the wool over the daft eyes of the CIA’s top guys. Laura has gone rogue and somehow managed to become EVEN MORE ANNOYING in the process. The terrorist crew proceeded with their plans for a sarin attack in Berlin while sweet Qasim struggled with his conscious. Quinn puked up tar and Carrie somehow manages to be the most stable person in the lot!
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Omg for the season finale! I want very much to believe that Quinn will miraculously open his eyes, but I think the title of the episode tells us that that flash of sunlight through the blinds as she was leaning in to what- suffocate him?- was meaningless and he’s a goner. I’m willing to suspend disbelief at any and all plot machinations that keep him on the show next season, though.
Other thoughts, in random order- don’t fuck with Saul. Not saying Allison didn’t deserve what she got, but I was still shocked by it, and by Saul’s personal involvement. I liked how the show let her see how sordid and mundanely evil the side she chose was before they killed her, keeping her in the house with underage trafficking victims and ending her life in the trunk of a car after three and a half hours of holding in her pee.
Glad to see Laura’s comeuppance but I wish it had been rougher. I liked that Astrid used her own sense of justice against her by threatening Numan if Laura didn’t do as she was told.
The Jonas/ Carrie breakup was realistic and well done, down to Carrie’s bullheaded insistance on taking personal offense when Jonas called the situation crazy, because our girl is nothing if not emotionally immature, but I thought that immediately sending Carrie to Quinn’s bedside right afterward felt cheap, like one love interest didn’t work out so she was going to see about the next one.
Did anybody else sort of think Otto During was going to offer Carrie a position in S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of the very creepy proposition he made? No, just me, I guess. I’d personally rather see more of Handsome Khan than Creepy Otto next season.
I’m annoyed that Ivan is going to spend the rest of his life skiing in Jackson Hole instead of rotting in a cell. I remember how he tortured and killed poor venal Korzi and his girlfriend. I was also struck by how much less apparent his Russian accent was when he was talking to Saul, like he had been playing a Boris and Natasha role for Allison’s benefit, because she got off on that sense of cold war intrigue. When he spoke with Saul he sounded much more American, though maybe he was trying to foster a sense of commonality with Saul.
Did they imply that Dar Adal pimped Quinn out when he was sixteen? Ugh.
Please let there be a medical miracle that lets Quinn live. There can be minor brain damage that lets him out of the CIA with no strings, and then he can settle down with Astrid and come on as a guest star consultant for a few episodes next season. That’s not too much toask, right?