‘The world is watching. The Kremlin has lost control. You are the problem’
Carrie flanks Saul at the table as he gets to work telling the Russians how miffed he is at their rotten subterfuge. When he can finally be bothered to swing by, Yevgeny answers the numerous accusations levelled against him with flat denials and some world-class whataboutery chronicling the US’s history of less-than-stellar foreign interventions.
Saul can field this garbage all day, particularly as the whole meeting is a decoy so that Anson and his boys can snatch up Simone at the dacha. Calamity strikes on the exfiltration op, though, when they are ambushed by Russian agents who seemingly knew about their plans. With one man down and the element of surprise gone, it is clear to everyone that they need to flee back home or face a trip to the gulag.
Everyone except Carrie, that is. She didn’t lose her mind and her kid to walk away when she’s this close to the prize. She persuades Saul to put the squeeze on Yakushin by emptying his sizeable US bank accounts. All he needs to do to get his cash back is give up Simone. It works like a charm, with the general sending a battalion of his balaclava’d SVR goons to storm the GRU headquarters where Simone is now holed up. Chaos reigns. It’s awesome.
Carrie and her team slip into the building during the melee. A quick Harold Lloyd tribute on the balcony and she’s into Simone’s suite, where her welcome is a gun trained on her head. With the clock ticking and her life on the line, she reminds Simone what happens to Yevgeny’s allies when they become a problem: Krupin, Clayton, Dante – not a pulse between them. Simone can’t deny the cold logic of it. With a quick switcheroo, the pair are out of there. Carrie may well have started the next Russian Revolution, but she went all-in and got Simone all-out. Maggie wasn’t kidding. She was born to do this.
‘Worst part is, she told me. She told me not only that it was Russians, but that they were using me to get to her’
Demonstrating the survival instincts of a rat in a tight corner on a pressing schedule, Paley visits Dar Adal – a prisoner of conscience, legally detained for a crime he did commit. The prospect of freedom loosens Dar’s tongue and he advises Paley to go after whatever Russian experts are coordinating Saul’s covert op.
His chief of staff, Janet, is straight on the case. She leans on Saul’s IT whiz Clint who, in a triumph of trope over nuance, lives in his mammy’s basement. One mention of the attorney general and he folds like a cheap suit, giving up the operation’s location, the mission intent and lets slip the fact that Simone is still alive. Saul really could stand to vet his nerds more thoroughly.
Janet passes on the intel to Paley and virtually frogmarches him to the Russian ambassador so he can join that betraying-your-country craze everyone’s into this year. When he stalls – paralysed by the enormity of the act – she speaks to the ambassador herself. That’s the great thing about Russians – they are always ready to listen to treason.
‘They’re not gonna stop, these people lined up against me’
The supreme court back the invoking of the 25th amendment and Elizabeth is finally moved out of the Oval Office by vice-president Warner. President Keane is not quite done yet, though. Warner needs a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress to ratify his presidency or Elizabeth is back in power and, as usurpers go, he’s terribly underwhelming. When the footage of the Russian carnage goes viral, Paley demands that he disown Saul, and Warner looks lost. It’s lonely at the top, old boy.
Notes and observations
- Was Yevgeny really coming to kill Simone? I say no. The love story is real and to kill her before she flipped is too cold-blooded even for him.
- David’s worry from Like Bad at Things that Elizabeth would be the first president since Harrison not to make it to 100 days seems prescient, but I think she’s going to come through this crisis like all the others. She always finds a way.
- Some commenters have proposed Janet as a Russian mole and that increasingly sounds like a good shout. She has the clout, the smarts and a ruthless streak that would make Allison Carr blush.
- “She’s not an idiot.” I liked Yevgeny’s show of respect for Carrie. Mortal enemies they may be, but game recognises game.
Is Yevgeny now gunning for Simone? Can Keane survive? What will happen to the major players in the finale? Please let me know below.
