Sex, Drugs, and Espionage: An abridged review of the show “Homeland”
By Greg Evans
4 am. Awake. Snow falling again outside. I hear the wind. Read a few passages of Evangeline by Longfellow to get my head right. I always read Evangeline when it is snowing.
Pulled up the New York Post. Skimming the article and watching a video of drunk people fighting at a Nantucket Christmas celebration. It was a ridiculous spectacle for which I was highly offended. A lot of flailing, falling, grabbing, gelled hair bouncing stiffly before returning back into place as if just combed, expensive clothes getting soiled, and not a single can of mace in sight.
Am only one prepared for such gleeful violence? I carry, upon my belt, a giant canister of grizzly bear spray. 24 fluid ounces of 2,000,000 Scoville units of pain and suffering. I would have unleashed the entire can onto that coterie of thugs, soaked them down to their pasty pale, sun-damaged skin.
Then you really would have had a show. People in Ralph Lauren and Hermes, writhing on the frozen blacktop in agony, gasping, and tearing at their eyelids, desperate for relief. Once they calm down, blast them again. Maybe they’ll think twice about ruining our Christmas celebrations next year. I wasn’t there obviously. I would never step foot in that horrible place. However, I read the news for gentle, warm-hearted and humorous Christmas stories and happenings. If you know me, you know I love the festivities and traditions of Christmas. And it was tainted. Soiled by goofy, albeit well-dressed, bozos with the fighting prowess of a Barbie doll. The fracas reminded me of a show I watched fairly recently, “Homeland”.
There are eight seasons of this wild, steamy, violent, and clandestine production. The show explores the dark underworld the nations spy agencies and those they monitor and fight. This is easily one of the most entertaining and infuriating shows I have ever watched. It is filled with intrigue, espionage, action, and evil villains like none I have encountered since Iago in Othello, but the distain that rises to the surface because of the characters’ behavior and personalities is thick and muddy.
Sergeant Nicholas Brody is the most deplorable villain written yet into theater since Iago. He is a psychopathic, narcissistic, demented, traitor, wretched father, miserable husband, jihadist, coward, violent sex maniac, serial killer on an international scale, animal abuser (if you don’t recall, a deer was wandering through his yard and he blew its head off) overt liar, etc. The depth of his darkness is so perverse I don’t see how it could get any worse.
Then he has his Carrie, who is totally whipped and at his beck and call. The show is stacked with filthy espionage, layers of slime, perfidy, grit, and mental illness. I don’t think I have ever liked and hated equally characters more than the ones in this show since the Real Housewives of Orange County.
The red-headed terrorist blows up the funeral and disappears and thus far has never been seen again. Guaranteed he’s living high on the hog on some tropical island, bedding beautiful island betties and drinking coconut martinis all day long on the beach.
The only character I liked early on was David Estes, but he was blown up toward the end of season two. Now I have no one to cheer for.
Early in season three, Carrie goes to a liquor store, meets some goofball, also a redhead, and catches the clap on her staircase after dragging red back to her place for a pound. Even though she is a slut, you can’t despise her for that. I do like how she went into the restaurant and threw a fit on the two old geezers still trying to be relevant. If she wasn’t so hung up the redheaded terrorist, I think I’d like her character.
Also in season three, they are interviewing Saul Berenson and the congressional squares still refer to Brody as “Congressman Brody.” Of course they do. It’s so annoying that it gives me heartburn. Saul is a character who I haven’t been able to really pin down. One day he seems like someone to root for, the next he’s standing in an auditorium full dead people murdered by radical arabs, speaking Arabic. So, I don’t know what that’s all about. Maybe he’s somehow part of it.
When Carrie is dragged out of the interview with the press lady, indicted on empty charges and thrown into a psyche ward, because someone in power says so, I felt my skin crawl. That was too real. On a sidebar, I think she needed it.
Journalists in the show are lower than dirt. But it is crucial to this storyline.
One of the so-called journalists or mouths if the news is a real lowlife whimpering eel, O’Keefe, an egotistical podcaster with a real sour stomach for Madam President. Eventually, when he is the cause for 19 people dying, all we could do was cringe.
One thing is for sure. Carrie is a bundle of bad decisions wrapped up with an emotional bow. She is a sex addict, a drug addict, potentially an alcoholic, a bad parent, lousy sister, and unstable. She’s a fervent grenade perpetually on the verge of exploding.
Then we have Madam President. No idea what her real name is and no desire to Google it. I’m not sure what to make of her. She’s like Saul’s fraternal twin sister. She’s a pit that you chip your tooth on. And it hurts. Then you need a dentist and the dentist rips you off. She is a quintessential scumbag, a political hack, a conquistador with a taste for fresh blood. I wracked my brain for good comparisons of her disposition along with being a reincarnated conquistador. She is like a developer you see now in small growing southern cities getting rich by raping the land and destroying the forests to build. Monsters. Danger lurking around every country bend.
Madam President is a narcissistic, morally absent, and stone-cold Frankenstein. Peter should never have saved her life. Like David Estes, Peter was one of the good guys and is now dead. Only the good die young.
Madam President turned out to be one of the good guys. Didn’t expect that. Never saw it coming.
As for Carrie, locked away for nearly a year in a gulag and going mad; for all of her obvious flaws, she had courage.
This show is so packed with espionage, betrayal, surreptitious violence, sketchy politicians, ruthless hired assassins, unhinged confrontations, lots of sex, lots of secrets, lots of high tech maneuvering; has there ever been anything that mirrors real life so perfectly?