Escape or Die
A Television Review by Akash Singh
NOTE: SPOILERS OCCUR!!!!!!!
There it is, the fickle matter of trust. It is so easy to break into a plethora of smithereens that can never truly coalesce again. Carrie over the course of her rather tumultuous existence has betrayed many, many trusts, leading two men who were the closest in her lives to their grisly executions and nearly bombing the third. After the end of last season in The Star, where the man she loved was hanged by a crane in a Tehranian square, Carrie hardened herself to the point where she was convinced that there would be no way back for her emotionally. It’s a human response to grief that one feels responsible for. Teaching yourself to become a human machine that can just go bombing terrorists without feeling anything can only last so long. At some point, that mirror will shatter and all of that guilt and grief will unspool with relentless austerity. After nearly obliterating Saul from existence and going psychotic on hallucinogens, Carrie finds herself at that state where all of her grief and guilt has unspooled around her. She can’t let Saul die this hour, even if that means betraying him so monstrously.
Halfway to a Donut, an odd title in reference to a Pakistani pastry Dennis brings his wife in the office, is the best hour Homeland has done since Season 2’s Q & A. Every frame was crackling with tension, a sense of absolute terror pervading through every minute. To top it all off, every five minutes it seemed possible that our beloved Saul was going to take that literal bullet and put it through his brain. This is Mandy Patinkin’s true episode to shine after being largely delegated to true supporting status and he does not disappoint. The last time we’ve truly seen Saul escape the walled trappings of Washington (which to him probably sound like absolute heaven at this moment) was at the beginning of Season 2 I believe, when he and Carrie had their rendezvous in the streets of Beirut. Having fallen into a much worse situation in the mountains of Afghanistan, we see Saul tinkering with his chains before finding him hanged. For a second it seems Saul is dead before he brutally strangles his guard to death, escaping into the night with a cell phone. Within a second the CIA is back in their ops room, ready to get Saul out of that hellhole within minutes. This being Homeland, something naturally will go wrong and oh, it does.
Meanwhile, back in Islamabad, the ISI and the CIA prepare for their meeting that includes a Skype visit with Haissam Haqqani. Before the meeting begins, however, we get the most intriguing aspect of the entire episode when Tasneem confronts Khan about capturing Carrie. “She was causing commotion in the streets,” he says in his defense to an irate Tasneem. She had a brilliant plan in motion to remove her from the game altogether. Carrie would go bonkers with their hallucinogens and then the CIA would be forced to remove her from her position and send her back to the States. Outisde of this being a meta joke for Homeland that acknowledges some of the criticism about how Carrie has kept her job at the agency despite her illness, it’s a simple and brilliant plan on Tasneem’s part. I love how competent she is. One look at the photographs from Dennis and she formulates a plan to get Carrie out of the way within minutes. At the meeting itself, Haqqani simply lists off five prisoners that he wants in exchange for, including one who set off market bombs in Karachi. Lockhart, in what is possibly his sanest moment ever, notes how this deal is terrible for the Pakistani government itself – those terrorists Haqqani wants in exchange have killed thousands of their own citizens. Carrie makes an acute observation towards Tasneem, who looks ridiculously calm. “Why?!” she scribbles to Lockhart. Later, she answers her own question: they know where Saul is, having latched onto the CIA’s own drone strike.
Saul arrives in a mountain town where the CIA has an asset, a man whose father was brutally killed by the Taliban and then he was recruited by the Americans the very next day in what might possibly be the most competency the CIA has ever shown on this show. True to Carrie’s word, the CIA helpers are driving towards the town, but are forced to take a detour due to an unusually large Taliban presence. That detour doesn’t really end up turning well for anyone, either. They run into another group of Taliban soldiers and a shootout erupts. From that moment on, there is no hope but for Saul to find cover within the town. Yet even that proves to be a ridiculously difficult task. The Taliban swarm into the town and Saul, exhausted from all of the running, sits down near a fountain. In the most heartbreaking moment of the episode, Saul pulls a gun to his throat, ready to shoot himself. Carrie, breaking into that cry face she’s become so famous for, implores him not to shoot himself, lying thunderously that indeed there is some form of salvation waiting for him. Saul believes him, a heart wrenching moment that proved how much he trusted Carrie. And she, not wanting to lead another man to his death, leads him into the hands of the Taliban. “You fucking lied to me! God damn you!” he screams at the top of his voice as Carrie watches, tears welling up in her eyes. The prisoner exchange is a go.
A few gorgeous shots of the modern cityscape of Islamabad begin the ending of the episode, the billions of lights sparkling throughout the night. Carrie and Quinn are sitting in her apartment, Carrie completely despondent. “I was trying to do something right for once,” she says miserably. “Nothing good can happen in this fucked up world we’ve made for ourselves.” And she’s right, even more so when she claims that there are only wrong choices. More often than not in the reality of command, there are situations that present themselves and the better of the solutions at hand have to be chosen. There isn’t the radical yes and no, black and white, good and bad options on the table. There are simply options. And to Carrie it seems that no matter what option she chooses, someone is getting hurt. It’s a wonderfully humanizing moment for Carrie, before Quinn implores her to get some sleep. As Carrie begins to go to sleep in one of the most hopeless Homeland moments ever, she gets a phone call. Quickly she runs out into the rain, holding an umbrella above her head as she meets Khan. For a good second I wanted the two to star dancing and singing in the vein of Singing in the Rain, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) that didn’t happen. Anyhow, Khan implores that Carrie needs to believe him because he’s telling the truth. Carrie being Carrie doesn’t budge so easily, to which an obviously frustrated Khan notes “You make everything so hard.” Yes, yes she does from time to time. As he’s walking away, Carrie asks him to stop. “It’s unfair,” she says of the medication switcheroo. “Maybe it’s just what we do to each other, but it didn’t feel fair.” Khan stops and Carrie seizes her opportunity. She acquiesces that she believes he’s telling the truth because “I remember…. the part at the end with you.” Khan’s expression softens a bit as he reveals that it was Dennis Boyd who switched out Carrie’s medication. The rain continues to fall as the credits fade to black, signaling a new alliance amidst so many crumbling ones.
Great Moments Not Mentioned Above:
+Beautiful and cathartic direction from Game of Thrones veteran Alex Graves here
+Khan “You should rest.”; Carrie: “No.”
+“This is an unexpected development.”
+This was a great episode for Lockhart. His boisterous nature must be a nightmare for actual diplomacy, but it is a boon for the audience. He doesn’t want Saul to end up headless in a bag and neither do we, but it provides a bigger context for why he’s so gung-ho about saving him. The way he says “Clusterfuck” is simply fantastic.
+ISIS callbacks with Daniel Pearl and James Foley
+“There was another T, I forget what the fuck it was.”
+“I will not be a pawn.”
+“That’s what they wanted, for us to become like them.”
+“You’re always welcome here.”
+Drone tagging is cool yet terrifying at the same time
+“I was really forward to telling those people to go fuck themselves.”
+“I don’t know what I did.”
+Carrie had a retainer. It’s these small touches that make characters more relatable and shows great.
+I’m really, really glad that they didn’t turn Khan into a Taliban agent. That would have been a signal of “most Pakistani officials are in league with the Taliban,” which is far from the truth. The ISI in real life is a divided organization in many ways, a battle between Islamist factions and the more secular military. The division between Tasneem and Khan makes that very clear and Homeland is all the more intelligent for it.
Magnificent
10/10
Title: Halfway to a Donut
Written By: Chip Johannessen
Directed By: Alex Graves
Image Courtesy: Showtime
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