Homeland Review: Season Six, Episode 9

Vacation's over. You'll find a new set of talking points in your folder. Get outraged! Let's go! - Trent

(Quick Note: My reviews this week are staggered and delayed due to a sudden death in my family. I will be traveling much of the week. The plan is to get The Americans review done today before I leave, so it can post tomorrow. I will double up on Billions and do a dual episode review for next week. Apologies to those asking for updates. I appreciate your understanding.)

For weeks, I've been reticent to declare Dar Adal anything stronger than a strategic asshole, but today there's no other choice. The move with Javadi, coupled with what happened with Quinn and Astrid, and joined with Agent Conlin and Sekou Bah's demise sealed the deal. I wanted to believe Dar wasn't aware of the lengths his man was going to in order to silence the truth. But, in the final two minutes of Sunday's episode, during the brief phone call after Quinn's pistol whip, it was clear.

Dar is this season's villain, and he's now Gargamel. He's Sauron. He's Doctor Doom. He's Joffrey. He's Hannibal Lecter. And it's a little bit much to take.

I said if Dar ended up being behind all of the deaths and mayhem, and especially behind the bombing, it was time to shutter Homeland's doors forever. I still believe that, especially after the reveal that the black box company Conlin stumbled onto is run by Brett O'Keefe. Here, we have something I got right a long time ago, but can now simplify.

O'Keefe may have a platform like Alex Jones, and certainly Breitbart and Infowars appear to be on the same spectrum these days, but Brett O'Keefe is absolutely supposed to represent Stephen K. Bannon. And, more so than just Jones' show, Bannon produced and funded documentaries and videos as well. From the look to the activities, O'Keefe exists to be the very embodiment of every portion of the left's interpretation of Bannon's playbook. Saturday Night Live regularly depicts the man as the grim reaper, and honestly, most on the conservative, constitutional right do as well.

He's an opportunist. He's a guy who wants desperately to see everything burned to ash. And, he wants to stand on the top floor of the castle that's built to replace it. Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire worked alongside Bannon as editor at large of Breitbart before it went completely in the tank for Donald Trump and became Pravda for the Alt Right. I quoted him last week, but this week will add attribution to the statement. In a radio interview before the election, Shapiro said the following:

"Steve Bannon doesn't have principles, he has interests."

Brett O'Keefe is the television (and liberal) friendly way to portray Bannon, ensuring that everyone watching knows what a nefarious, Cloward and Piven-style revolutionary he is. Running that corporation, which we find out thanks to Max's new job is at least partially a front for a group of people who man thousands of social media and internet accounts, is damning. And, no surprise, Homeland mentions 4Chan, which has long been a haven for trolls and underhanded doxing practices.

The left believed since the rise of the Trump campaign in 2015 that social media was taken over and infested by a small group of people intent on spreading and populating false information via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, 4Chan, Reddit, and everywhere else they could set up a nest. Furthermore, they also buy into the idea that it's coordinated from on high, that's it's Astroturf, and that it helped perpetuate the culture of so-called "fake news."

These are the egg accounts and the Twitter timelines that started tweeting a week ago but have tweeted a thousand times, all about the election. They're the ones using "cuck" and the derogatory language we've all seen in RT's from people not realizing they're only enhancing the reach of those they wish to malign. They're many of the Pepe the Frog people, and the ones who look to Jared Taylor, Richard Spencer, and point to the genius of provocateurs like Milo Yiannopoulos for his forward thinking thoughts on gentrification and an "ethnostate."

Yet, many of them might not even believe any of this stuff, but see it as a way to divide, destroy, and decapitate civility and any chance of uniting the populace. "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

I'm not going to speak on my thoughts on much more of this, even though I've made it clear I'm no fan of Bannon, and I voted for Evan McMullin. He was imperfect, but he was the closest to my values. There's real evil in this world folks. It doesn't have an "R" or a "D" by its name. Social media is both the best and worst thing to ever arrive in our society, and there is no doubt at all many people abuse it and do so with backing, support, and money. It happens all the time, on both sides, and it has led to some absolute atrocities in this world. It's also made people hate each other first, before even attempting to listen.

I bring all of this background information to you in totality because it explains what Homeland's purpose has been in Season 6. Everything involving Frannie goes back to Dar Adal's skulduggery, which ties it to O'Keefe, which then ties it to the opposition movement to Keane taking office. Sekou Bah's death and how it was laid out all goes into that same cesspool. Conlin's death, Astrid's death, the attempt on Quinn's life, and what happened to Javadi in the hotel suite. It's not doxing anymore. It's crime, murder, and undermining the security and sovereignty of the United States.

Everything this season hasn't been for Homeland's benefit as a series. It's been to prove a point about the shadowy cabal on the right. It's The Star Chamber. The closest thing to the Illuminati we can find, but the writers made a point to display in O'Keefe a dead ringer for Steve Bannon. This has been about politics. I have mentioned over and over how agenda-driven Season Six has felt since the outset, but Sunday night, it was made abundantly obvious and was the equivalent of Quinn pointing a gun in all our faces.

Can you shut off the histrionics and just watch the drama for what it is? I can, but admittedly, Dar turning out to be a Bond villain is flat out lazy. Had he been a smaller part of things, but somehow unaware of certain events, it would have made more sense. But for this man to be involved to this degree? You can tell me it's been building for years, but it's completely ridiculous as a credible story, unless you buy into the deep narrative behind the plot.

We're to a point now where Carrie is being asked to sell Saul Berenson out, and even during their meeting, she's very hesitant. It gets personal, with Saul bringing up Brody (who played a big background role in the episode as a piece of emphasis in the dialogue) and Mathison going to the Russian mole he slept with in Berlin. He will get a pardon, but his entire professional life will be destroyed.

It was a solid scene, because it cut through the bullshit that often underlies the one-on-one chats in the show and gave us full-on Carrie and full-on Saul. No talk about a child, about depression, about anything but the nuts and bolts of the situation at hand. When Homeland is at its best, it doesn't beat around the bush. Even though we're dealing with intelligence agents, when they refrain from speaking in code and actually talk with one another in the open, we're able to grasp what's happening and care more about the individuals.

Even as Dar and Keane spoke about the Iranian deal, it wasn't this cut and dry. Both parties were holding back some of their cards, as they should, but there comes a time in a drama series for transparency. And we got some of it; certainly more so than at any time before. I still don't care about the intricacies of the nuclear deal, but if you see it simply as the powder keg that led Dar and O'Keefe to go one way, and Keane, Carrie, Saul, Quinn, and everyone else to go another, it all falls into place.

Don't get caught up in the nonsense. Just worry about the players and turn the nuclear portion of it into anything else. Dar likes a certain chocolate ice cream, which would give him control of the factory and its human resources. He wants to have the power of Breyers once others are destroyed, and he wants to paint Strawberry as the enemy in the process. O'Keefe is manipulating the system to eliminate all flavors, and probably Blue Bell (when safe) because he's a monster. He hopes to own the factory that arises to fill freezers of the future. Keane and her contingent believe vanilla has gotten a bad wrap, and also wants to give Mint Chocolate Chip a legitimate shot.

Homeland used the nuclear arrangement because it's current and it remains polarizing. That's it.

Keane calls Adal an "obsequious little shit," and then turns her fire on everybody after hearing the truth from Carrie and Saul. "What is it with you people, the intelligence community? Who even thinks like this?" Because I've never been there, never worked in the FBI, CIA, or some faceless corporation, I can't answer that question either. It's why sometimes what Homeland does fails so miserably for me. Are there really people like Dar Adal walking around Langley? TV tells me so, but they've also told me a lot of other things that were outrageously false.

Two fun tidbits this week, first with Quinn robbing a tactical supply store after using a homemade Molotov cocktail, and then slipping away as everyone is busy fighting the fire under the truck. Secondly, "2005 - M and M." Max tells O'Keefe the year he left blank on his resume was embarrassing and personal. He spent that year taking meth and masturbating. He was in free fall after things that happened overseas. O'Keefe sees him as an asset immediately. That was hilarious.

Finally, Keane sits down with Dar again and snows him into thinking he could end up the Director of the CIA under her administration. When he looks at Andrew's framed picture and tells her how proud he would be of his mother if he were here, Elizabeth Marvel does the best acting work of her run this season, and executes that feat without saying a word.

Three episodes remain, and now the question shifts to who takes down Dar Adal, and how? Or, does anybody? Sometimes, major villains find a way to survive. It's a Howard Gordon specialty. How many times did that Chinese jerk face Cheng Zhi show up in 24 and go after Jack or someone he cared about? Bauer killed everybody that threatened what was important to him, but that guy escaped and tortured him in every way imaginable.

Charles Logan? How about Gregory Itzin? See him as both as an actor and a character, and consider his value. It was enormous. Season 5 of 24 was as good as it gets. Keeping that guy around was smart.

Dar Adal and F. Murray Abraham are integral to Homeland, but in all honesty, you can't keep him on the show. The finale has to see his end, whether in leg irons or a body bag.

As we discussed last week, the chessboard is set. The one thing that hasn't yet happened is the reunion between Peter Quinn and both Carrie and Saul. That's what's coming next, and then the two main characters will find out what happened at the cabin and will finally see their friend and colleague as fully believable. There will be apologies, maybe even tears. Perhaps it will be Quinn that sits down with Keane and brings this entire chapter to a close. His words and his story are crucial.

Actually, there's a second thing, and if Homeland were real life, I would be stunned no one on the show has caught onto this yet, but it's fiction. We have 12 episodes to fill and everything has to be paced and divvied out cautiously. Eventually Carrie will realize Dar is behind the fiasco with Frannie, and then all bets are off. You heard her with the therapist in the opening sequence. This woman has applied more meaning to Frannie than anyone ever realized. She sees Bobby Axelrod in the child's eyes. We know what Lara will do for her beau.

And she never wore a bomb vest.

It's possible Carrie shoots him in the forehead, but at the very least, there will probably be a scene with her getting to tell him off and shame him before he's led away. It doesn't have any power if he's dead, so that confrontation must precede a bullet.

Sunday's episode was wacky as all hell, but I enjoyed watching the lunacy on the base level. It was often dumb, but it was like a really hot girl (or guy). At least her tits were perfect, even if you prayed she'd never actually try to talk about anything...except her tits. Women, go with abs or whatever it is you're looking for that I probably don't have. Or, if it's eyes, email me at jmartclone@gmail.com. I do have great eyes. Anyway...

Even as ham-handed as it continues to be with its newest brand of politics, for the time being it's still fun to watch most of these folks operate. Quinn was actually interesting as this new stealth-action Sam Fisher character he's playing. Still not a great season, not even a good season, but at least it's not completely wasting an hour of my life regularly anymore.

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I'm @JMartOutkick. There will be a pardon for me down the line.