Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Tower of David - HL

Homeland Episode 3-03 "Tower of David"

Written by Henry Bromell and William Bromell.  Henry passed away in March.  He won a posthumous Emmy for last season's "Q&A" (where Brody confesses).  He also worked on Homicide in the 90s (along with Homeland producer James Yoshimura).  This is the only credit listed for William.

Directed by Clark Johnson, who played Lewis on Homicide, Gus on The Wire, and directed episodes of both include the first and last Wire.


  • Brody's having a particularly bad day.  My lousy day often involves missing my bus.  Brody's includes being shot and bleeding in the bed of a pickup truck.
  • All these guys are speaking in Spanish and there are no subtitles for us, which I assume means they want us to understand the disorientation Brody feels, being in a place where he can't communicate
  • The bullet wound is not explained, but it's reasonable to assume someone wanted to collect on the reward and he caught one during his escape.
  • The doctor appears to be American
    • This actor, Erik Dellums, played medium-term villain Luther Mahoney on the fifth season of Homicide.  Even in episodes he did not appear, the character loomed large, as well as after his time on the show was finished with the effects of the investigation stretching out all the way to the end of Season Six.
    • Luther Mahoney was essentially the forerunner to Avon Barksdale
    • Speaking of The Wire, Dellums also played a coroner on the show
  • Besides most recently getting himself shot, Brody has all kinds of scars and marks on himself making it look like it's been a rough go the whole time
  • It appears the United States has extradition treaties with both Columbia and Venezuela but how they are enforced is very much a matter that's in the air
    • This is brought to you by cursory research
  • It's unclear if these guys are connections via Carrie's people movers, or if they are some sort of Abu Nazir understudy group keeping him alive
  • Thirty one minutes into what appears to be an all-Brody show Carrie appears and is willing to play ball to get out of the insane asylum
    • Nothing like telling a crazy person to calm down and stop acting crazy to get them to calm down and stop acting crazy
    • Someone's there to see her.  She think's it's Saul.  So it's not Saul.  I think it's Quinn, but I'm wrong, which puts me in the company of Carrie which is just great.  It turns out it's a lawyer looking to help her out.  Carrie thinks it's a ruse by a foreign government or terror organization.  Which means they'll probably lead us to believe that this is wrong until Carrie is ultimately vindicated.
    • At one point Carrie goes into the bathroom and stares at herself in the mirror.  Then she does exactly what we think she's going to do and smashes her head against the mirror.  Because when television characters stare at themselves in the bathroom mirror they're likely to do one of several things 
      • inflict pain on themselves
      • Cry and watch their tears flow down their face
      • Barf  
  • Brody's not getting the message RE: Next Steps.  He believes there are more action items in the strategic plan for escape and movement of suspected 12/12 bombers
    • He decides to go off book.  His plan is not peer reviewed so some of the flaws are not identified.  His indicators of success seem to be "escape" or "not escape" but beyond that it's not thought out very well.  Which lands him in solitary. 
  • He is offered heroin and offered it thrice, he finally ties one on.  But not until after he's placed in a jail cell not unlike what he saw during his time as a POW.  I bet this technically keeps whatever agreement these people have with Carrie and her four times removed escape people where they are in fact keeping him out of sight and safe from arrest

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