Spoiler alert: this blog is published after Homeland airs in the US. Only read on if you’ve watched series six episode 11, which airs in the UK on Sundays.
The enemy within is always the most frightening, particularly when you don’t know who it is. At least we now have a name, even if the Office of Policy Coordination is as bland and obtuse a moniker as you could imagine. Homeland has a little something for everyone right now. President Trump could watch this episode and see his own struggles with the national security establishment mirrored. Hillary Clinton could watch it and see the reflection of a female New York senator tormented by right-wing agitators of dubious origin. It’s quite a different show now to the one that started in 2011, but it has never been more relevant.
“Someone calls me deplorable, I think they should say it to my face”
The fallout from the release of Andrew Keane’s video rains hard on the President-elect. A petition a quarter of a million signatures strong demands her son be removed from Arlington cemetery. She runs the gamut of a rent-a-mob at her hotel and is visibly shaken when her limousine knocks over a protester. For his part, professional liar Brett O’Keeffe is appalled when Elizabeth calls him a liar. He phones her admitting to making the video and invites her on his show to discuss it. Keane’s most trusted advisers tell her it’s out of the question.
But there’s a dissenting voice. Saul sees the paw prints of American intelligence all over the campaign against Keane; he sees that snubbing O’Keeffe is not an option. “You said ‘show your face’ – he did. You have to take him on.”
She takes his advice. When the showdown happens, Elizabeth comes out swinging on O’Keeffe’s home turf. She calls the veterans in his video liars, names and shames the Office of Policy Coordination and reveals their manipulation of online reaction. “You didn’t just produce the lying video – you produced the hate and the lies that accompany it.”
But the real gut punch comes when she calls him a government shill. For the dingbat shock jock, there is no greater insult. Elizabeth does her best work when she’s angry.
“All that tells me is you have no idea the shit you landed yourself in”
Max’s unconvincing denials are treated with appropriate contempt by Dar, but fortune smiles on the Office of Policy Coordination’s most recent ex-employee. Dar springs him from their custody to employ his hacking skills and gain access to O’Keeffe’s personal laptop. Once inside, Max discovers a fake online footprint for Peter Quinn, its main constituent a steadily growing rage against Keane. This is part of the big conspiracy Dar was not party to, and you know how he hates being kept out of the loop.
“I don’t care so much I visited you in the hospital every day?”
Once Quinn dispenses with the pleasantries and tells Carrie about the Medina Medley van in the garage opposite, he moves quickly on to the real issue between them – her waking him from his coma in Berlin. “You made me this way,” he tells her and she knows he’s right. It takes her until the morning to admit it, but at least now that particular boil is lanced.
Armed with the new intel, Carrie enters the flag house and locates the van. Sekou Bah’s personal photos confirm it as his vehicle. When baseball cap guy launches a surprise attack things look bleak for Carrie but Quinn white-knights in and pistol-whips him to a lifeless pulp. We never did get to know this lunk too well, and now thanks to Quinn we never will.
Nonetheless, it’s a huge win for Team Keane. Quinn has dropped a gift-wrapped smoking gun in their laps – it is comfortably enough to secure an immunity deal with the solicitor general. Nothing good comes so easily though. On the whiteboard in the flag house, Quinn deciphers that the black ops team are heading towards the east coast, maybe even towards the President-elect herself. As Carrie tries to warn Rob, a booby-trap in the garage sets off an explosion which takes out several agents and presumably destroys the concrete physical evidence of the Medina Medley van. Quinn of course survives because he’s Quinn, but has his immunity deal just gone up in smoke?
Notes and observations
In an otherwise powerful scene, Quinn’s monkey impersonation didn’t hit the spot for me. No more chimping out please.
I don’t know why there was any need to switch Medina Medley vans or why once you had done so you would leave the incriminating van lying around to be discovered.
Dar’s Vulcan death grip on Max was more school bully than enhanced interrogation but it definitely raised a smile.
Is Quinn being set up to take the fall for an assassination attempt on Elizabeth Keane? A distressed veteran with an axe to grind would make a good patsy.
Baseball cap guy’s fake name Porteous Belli seems to be some kind of callback to Casus Belli.
Will Dar Adal scupper the attack on the President-elect to save Quinn? Will Elizabeth live to see her inauguration? What are your thoughts on the season as a whole as we approach the finale? Please let me know below.
