The Yoga Play - HL

Homeland episode 3-05 "The Yoga Play"

Written by Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, Homeland executive producers

Directed by Clark Johnson.  Here's a scene from his Homicide days where he encounters Luther Mahoney/Brody's heroin-inducing doctor.  He gives a speech that Mike Erhmantraut fans will appreciate.


After going full Nellie Bly and rotting in a nuthouse for a while, all in the name of what a great spy she is, Carrie decides things are going too well and does her best to undo all the progress made so far.  The op is still too small to have an inner circle, but Saul does expand their inner line segment to an inner triangle by bringing in Peter Quinn.  Because if you are going to pick teams, Peter Quinn is your first pick.  In fact, you can have the next nine if I can pick first.  Then I'll pick Mike Erhmantraut because you wouldn't have picked him due to him being old, and I'll win with just those guys. 

Quinn and Saul both admonish Carrie for her behavior, risking the op, and they aren't even aware they flushed her meds.  Oh yeah, Carries off her meds again, hooray.  So we can look forward to a lot more crazy-eyed shrillness in the coming episodes I guess.  Her yo-yoing from sanity to insanity is so incredibly tiresome and uninteresting.  Rescue Me was at its best when Tommy was going on long stretches of sobriety or drunkeness, rather than going into recovery every other week.  Right now, Carrie is at the same level of annoying as Elizabeth and Phillips' hot/cold relationship on The Americans.

So Carrie jeopardizes everything on a whim.  The kicker is Dana comes home through no action of Carrie's.  Her FBI guy's reaction is not unreasonable considering the actions taken to date, the most likely reason for the runaway and the fact that it is not their problem.

The titular yoga play she uses to nag the FBI guy is a cool bit of spycraft but has little effect except to possible make Javadi doubt Carrie's position.

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice, Saul begins the first verse of a country song.  He is invited to hang out with the cool kids and do dumb stuff that seems cool to the cool kids for what is ostensibly a reason to feel Saul out for the full time director gig, specifically questioned by Senator Keith Olbermann (SKO) from the hearings earlier this season.  Unfortunately the Red Viper is not in sight.  Saul feels good and deigns to take a drink when offered.

They camouflage themselves and await the enemy because that is their only method of survival.  Oh wait, they are waterfowl hunting and not WWII Japanese soldiers.  Let me start over...they sit in a hut and wait to shoot unsuspecting birds which they most likely will not clean and eat themselves while a dog fetches their corpses because they don't want to give away their position to the birds, or get off their butts.

Pretty soon, SKO goes full mean girl on Saul revealing that it is he who shall be nominated!  SKO is sure to do so only after being fake nice to Saul and after Saul implicates himself as to his far differing views and how he will not fit well in the new SKO CIA regime.

The crux of Saul's disagreement is that he believes human intelligence (HUMINT) is far better than anything technology can bring about, despite all of HUMINT's inherent vulnerabilities (specifically Brody).  Saul trusts his officers to act as needed in their situations, in which they are half blind, working off script and trying to discern good information from bad, all in a completely unrealistic timeframe.  SKO has made a career throwing stones at the agency he means to head, but now he's going to have to work with those same people he criticizes and realize once he gets in the weeds, he's not going to be able to sit on high from drones (OR HUNTING HUTS) and take care of business from afar.

 Basically, SKO is every politician and appointee ever.

Saul, drinking upon having this news, gives a toast to SKO's nomination saying as much as he said previously to SKO, but he does it in front of everyone, then drops the mic and heads home a day earlier to find his wife and a dude, pre-bang (but barely pre).  So verse two of the country song starts.  Ugh what a night.  Plus he has to deal with Carrie's nonsense and possibility she blew the op..

Good news though, she's kidnapped! 

Carrie is making decisions on the fly that make no sense but speak to Saul's point of trusting HUMIT rather than shooting ducks from a hiding spot.

• No matter how much you try, you cannot shoot the dog
• I don't think that being averse to conflict is a quality one would want in a chief of staff.  What a wimp.
• "555" telephone numbers are the worst and most jarring thing shows do to take viewers out of them.  
• When Turk changed his number on Scrubs to 916-CALL-TUR(K)  they actually purchased the 916-CALL-TUR and viewers could call to get a real voice message 
• It doesnt work now, I just tried it
• And Lost had multiple DHARMA-related numbers viewers could call
• Unclear who is surveying whom.  Is it the Javadi people surveiling Carrie?  And CIA surveilling them?  And Quinn surveilling them all?  It seems to be so because Saul is so pleased when her surveillers/kindnappers re-appear.  Not sure if the CIA from say, Dar Adal's unit is watching her too.  I'm unclear who Quinn blocked in his car, if that was CIA or Javadi.  
• Pretty soon with enough coats of paint this room is going to be two inches smaller
• I think it is Carrie < Javadi < Quinn but I am not positive
• Javadi strolls in via the politically uninteresting but super important in practice Canadian border
• I assume Abu Nazir took this route in Season Two.  "Oh so unrealistic!!!!!!!!"
• Javadi drops ketchup on himself and makes a stain.  On Lost we'd all be like "WHAT DOES THE KETCHUP MEAN?!"
• Unclear if his burger was Halal.  I hope it was Five Guys.
• Dana is not a stupid girl.  She wisens up and dumps Bad News.
• "K4" (as I heard it) is not K4/K-Four but KFOR, Kosovo Force

And so begins the second movement....