I thought this was a great episode that effed with your head as much as it did Carrie’s.
Besides her unexpected journey down the rabbit’s hole, I found the exchanges between Saul and Haqqani, and getting a glimpse of their way of life and a bit of his twisted philosophy, very interesting.
This season has been very solid all the way through, despite the seeming reset once Aayan was killed. But that, I felt, was necessary to provide the weight the characters have to shoulder for what is next to come.
The cameo at the end was fun, and I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the ep. She really does a good acting job when it comes to manic behavior and psychotic breaks. Haven’t seen a single quiverchin this year, which is good. The cast is putting their all into it, for sure, which makes for tense viewing. A solid “A”.
Wow, that was a fabulous troll job on the “Brody is still alive!” conspiracy theorists. The longer the scene went on the more even I started to believe it. I was already imagining all the shark jump posts.
The finger gun scene killed me. Pew pew! She probably couldn’t shoot straight in her condition anyway. Was her ass kicking of Quinn all in her mind too? He wasn’t even there, right? But that’s how she sees him?
Wouldn’t a CIA station chief have a security detail, or an armed guard at her house or…something? I have no clue, just wondering. I know they want to keep their cover, but would it be that weird? I mean celebrities and business VIPs have body guards when they travel, don’t they?
I thought Saul saying he was Jewish to deflect from the Christian point was dumb. Oh yeah Saul, Islamic terrorists are big fans of the Jews and Israel. Maybe that was the joke, but it seemed to be played straight.
In a country like Pakistan, where living out on the economy is too dangerous, housing is right on the embassy grounds, and would not have security for individual apartments. The station chief lives in the same housing as everyone else. As I’ve mentioned before, the CIA station chief has no cover, despite what programs like this might lead you to believe. There are usually undercover agents who pretend to be political officers and such, but the station chief is known to the government.
Good solid episode. Should be interesting to see what the writers will have Saul do. (nitpick, it did seem a bit unrealistic to have him traveling around without a bodyguard at the airport, although he did have them elsewhere?) He would be a high value target even for assasination IMO
It is refreshing to see the Pakistanis and ISI portrayed as crafty and clever, and not just thuggish characters. Three steps ahead of the CIA at every turn.
My GF and I were wondering what fate:eek: awaits the ambassadors husband…perhaps the ambassador will take “care” of him.:eek:
The show is getting better and more interesting by leaps and bounds. This latest episode was a real cliffhanger. Despite some scenes that are completely at odds with how an embassy functions, the tension and suspense make up for it.
I don’t get why the CIA didn’t rain hellfire missles from their drones onto the Taliban convoy after the exchange. Which is, essentially what happened to the CIA convoy. Also, why the Taliban would not expect the CIA to do precisely that. It was like some kind of Tolkien-ish parlay, where honour is above all. Until…
So “send the Marines” means send ALL the Marines in the embassy? And the secret tunnel has a really, really good lock so there’s no reason to guard it. Yeesh. The ending became cartoon villainish.
Yeah, that’s what I was referring to. The CIA Station Chief doesn’t have the authority to send the Marines out. Their primary mission is to protect the ambassador. At least some of them would remain behind, including post watch standers. The tunnel, in the real world, would have a blast door and CCTV/motion sensors covering the entire thing. But hey: drama!
I’d assume that they didn’t do that because it would have been a clear violation of international law. Whereas the exploding vehicles that crashed into the car carrying the CIA people could be explained away as ‘random terrorists’ or the like (the Pakistani government would have plausible deniability about the incident).
And to remarks about the hard-to-believe development of ALL the Marines being sent away, and of the tunnel being so flimsily secured: yeah. True enough. But at the very least: you can’t accuse this show of being slow-moving!
I’ll just go with my Tolkien-ish “parley” thing - where it’s clear that both honourable and even evil folk do not break the Oath of Parley. I know Aragorn uses it at Helm’s Deep. I can’t find where Tolkien says even evil folk don’t break it.
I mean, this was Black Ops so it wasn’t going to be on CNN (BREAKING NEWS: Saul “Inigo” Berenson traded for five Terrorists!)
Doesn’t matter. Marines at post work for the Regional Security Officer, who works for the Ambassador. We could assume, I suppose, that the Ambo told the Marines to obey whatever orders the director issued; in the interests of story flow, of course, we’re not privy to that, and poetic license allows entertainment folks to take many liberties.
Oh, thanks. It’s still plausible deniability for the government of Pakistan, of course.
Come to think of it, the showrunners would have been better off having it be suicide-vehicles; RPGs fired into the convoy raises the question of why the perpetrators so carefully refrained from firing one into the vehicle carrying Saul and Carrie. (In other words, the RPG version creates plot implausibilities that suicide vehicles would not).
I imagine one could use discretion firing an RPG. In this case, of course, it’s hit the two black jeeps with the red-shirts on and leave our heroes alive.
We know there’s at least one Marine still en pointe - the guy guarding Duck. It’s such a cliche but I wouldn’t mind him pleading for a gun and going down fighting.
My eye-roll moment was when we saw that the (up until now) elusive head honcho was LEADING the charge into the tunnel. Surely the most important guy on the team wouldn’t be marching at the very front of the parade.
(nitpick, it did seem a bit unrealistic to have him traveling around without a bodyguard at the airport, although he did have them elsewhere?) He would be a high value target even for assasination IMO