Game On - HL

Homeland episode 3-04 "Game On" which brings to mind Jed Bartlet's last debate

Written by James Yoshimura, previously of Homicide: Life on the Street

Directed by David Nutter, of the final two Game of Thrones episodes this season, including"  The Rains of Castamere"

TWIST!

Have you seen The Prestige?  If you haven't, it's going to be for the 2000s what LA Confidential is for the 1990s, retrospectively one of the best movies of the decade.

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"."

"Are you watching closely?" Because the entire season just turned around at "Game On"'s conclusion.  It could be called "The Prestige".  A reveal like this one does not only change the game going forward, but forces the viewer to think about the previous three episodes differently.

While Saul still cared for and about Carrie these past episodes, he had a role to fulfill as acting director of the CIA, which meant that part of restoring the credibility of the agency was to find a patsy for its shortcomings, or at least to find a way to draw attention away from the agency itself.  With Carrie, they had the opportunity to not only present a fall girl, but pile it on so much that they would create a target ripe for the picking by the enemy.  Sources, whether for newspaper articles for intelligences agents, are often people who feel they've been wronged in a way by their country/employer, so it was easy to turn Carrie into someone who, from the enemy's point of view, fit that profile.

So, like the Dark Knight, Carrie allows herself to be publicly smeared in the interest of a greater good. 

It's unclear when Carrie and Saul hatched this plan, but a Q&A with Alex Gansa says it came about (off screen, obviously) at the end of season two almost immediately following the 12/12 bombing.  What makes it more unclear, is the interaction between Saul and Carrie at the end of "Uh...Oh...Ah" when Carrie, in a private moment between them, says "Fuck you, Saul".  This is apparently one of the points where Saul had to go off book.  While that muddies the waters as to the details of their plan, it gives a whole new meaning to Saul's response "I'm...so...sorry".  It's been strange to see what we've seen of Saul this season, but I had chalked it up to his new role and separating the man from the office in a Jed Bartlet presidency sort of way.  Her reaction to the hearing appears in a completely different way too now.  She had showed no urgency to see what was going on with Saul's testimony, and I think her reaction was pained in a way that she knew it was coming but surprised at how difficult it still was to hear.

At this point he apparently cuts off communication with her, giving new rationale to Carrie trying to get a message to Saul via her Dad.  Was she going to give up on the operation?  One could not blame her, being in the dark about Saul's plans.

When the target reveals itself to give Carrie a 24 hour furlough, she kicks back into spy mode.  Alone and alienated by everyone without access to travel or money, Carrie is so vulnerable Javadi LLC follows her and picks her up at her mountain biker's house.

Mission: Impossible 2 was on TNT this weekend and a major plot point is that after IMF recruits Nyah Nordoff Hall, international thief, they need her to infiltrate Sean Ambrose's inner circle. Knowing it will look suspicious if she simply shows up at his doorstep, they put out every kind of police alert in the book on her, expecting Ambrose to catch wind, extract her from Madrid and bring her to his house in Australia himself.  Javadi LLC essentially does the same thing with Carrie.

Part of the twist no doubt is supposed to rely on us thinking Carrie has turned, but that's not something I bought.  Following her meeting with Javadi & Partners, I thought her (understandable) fear of being re-institutionalized was dominating at that moment and she was simply buying time until she could figure something out, feeding them useless information in the meantime.  While Brody was turned to a double agent about this time last year, Carrie goes TRIPLE agent here and now.  It's the labyrinth of mirrors. 

The plotting for this is a lot like Justified, which I personally consider the best plotted show on television*.  Season Three has combined events that would make total sense in the real world (scapegoating) with the natural reactions of the characters (Carrie and Saul's devotion, duty and competence) within the universe they've created (terrorists everywhere, especially Caracas) to connect everything in a way that is both completely reasonable and shocking.  And it sets up beautifully to connect the three points of focus this season, Iran, the CIA and Venezuela, in a completely organic way.

* Also, my favorite show on television.  They are the best or near best at a lot of things.

• Dar Adal asks Saul about a DOJ paper, which he uses to continue Carrie's confinement.  Only mentioning this because my Google machine tells me Dar Adal could roughly be translated to  Abode of Justice, which is basically DOJ.
• Laundering terror money through Venezuelan soccer teams brings to mind laundering drug money through Columbian soccer teams, leading to very rich teams and an incredibly successful Columbian soccer league.  
• See "The Two Escobars" covering Pablo Escobar (drug lord) and Andres Escobar (murdered soccer player)
• Had to laugh at Carrie's cooperation and participation in craft time at the nuthouse.  Please show me the birdhouse she made
• Carrie lives in Adams Morgan!
• Mike returns.  We like Mike because he drinks Rolling Rock.
• As good as the Carrie/Saul stuff was, that's how bad the Dana stuff is.  Scenes like the infuriating one with Leo's parents (my child would never do that!) and openly persecuting Jess and Dana for Brody's crimes fall so flat it makes me thankful for those scenese in Justified where one and two scene characters are better fleshed out than leads on other shows**
• Good to see Virgil and a coded message
• Carrie robs the guy date  spending her last dollar on a cab. But she doesn't take all of it, just some so he'll likely not notice or at least be unsure how much was there. If she took it all that'd b  obvious an  could lead to other problems easily avoided
• They love the paralells in an episode's plotlines, with Carrie (trying to get) on the run and Dana on the run
• Leo is trouble.  He's going to try to talk Dana into a suicide pact, which is apparently his thing.
• And I'm not even going to pay the time of day to figure out what this poem meant because everything after "Ozymandias" falls short
• DC area!  Carrie goes by Rock Bottom Brewery in, I assume, Arlington
• If you are the sort of person who likes Homeland, this will be a favorite.  The thing about this twist is that as far as I can tell it was not even a glimmer in the eye of the craziest crazed conspiracy Internet poster.  
• If you are the sort of person who likes to complain, then there is plenty to complain about (Dana) and you will probably also not like the twist

 ** One of those other things Justified is so good at, including a character who had two scenes two years apart, didn't say a word and still absolutely killed it, even getting a laugh

EDIT 10/22 - More on the twist

Emmy nom nom noms

Something is seriously wrong with the Emmy nominations, but when isn't there?

How Justified could be completely shut out is beyond me.  Frankly, you are splitting hairs these days when you talk about which top tier drama is the best, but Justified certainly deserves to be in the conversation with Mad Men and Breaking Bad. 

Either male lead, Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins, could replace any one of three nominees between Kevin Spacy, Jeff Daniels or Huge Bonneville*.  And those are three actors who I enjoyed this past year.  But movie stars get a pass when they do television in the eyes of the voters. 

* There's a trend of anti-heros on television (obviously) where actors play characters who should be unlikeable but make them likeable.  I don't know if Hugh Bonneville decided to go for the exact opposite this year or that's just how it was written but Lord Grantham seemed both incompetent and unlikeable all season. 

Goggins could hypothetically submit as supporting and easily take out Bobby Canavale from Boardwalk Empire or Jim Carter from Downtown Abbey.  They did a good enough job in their respective roles, but none of the shake the Earth like Boyd Crowder, whether he's daring a preacher to use risk a snakebite or smart mouthing the Detroit hitmen who want to kill him.

Linda Cardellini gets a nomination for playing Don Draper's least interesting mistress.


Rupert Friend from Homeland gets a nod.  If he survives this series, I see no reason he can't get a spin off.  If he's killed on Homeland, I see no reason he can't get a prequel show giving us the origins of Peter Quinn, Season Two MVP.

The Emmy's need a catergory for best single episode.  Until then, the closest they have are the writing and directing categories.

For writing, going for a "smaller" episode, like a play*, is a good way to get in here.    Because voters aren't required to watch the entire series of shows they are voting on, season premieres and season finales are often nominated because they can be better understood by the voters out of context.

* Think "The Suitcase" from Mad Men Season Four where Don and Peggy have an adventure following their spat.

Homeland's "Q&A" (which also got a directing nod) contained one of the Peter Quinn MVP-esque moments when he fucking stabbed Brody in the hand.  Largely a play between the interviewer and the interviewee, it took us through the whole game that Brody and Carrie were playing.  Their conversation put it on both the big scale of the United States versus the terrorists and the small scale of Carrie versus Brody, and sometimes even examines the personal relationship between Carrie and Brody and all the messed up-edness they've slogged through.  And the viewer is unsure how much of it is Carrie being honest and how much of it is Carrie trying to get Brody's guard down.  How calculated could this mental case possible be?

Then there's "The Rains of Castamere" which.... just....

Breaking Bad has two nominations in this category for "Say My Name" and "Dead Freight" which provided the gut punch of 2012.  While "Dead Freight" has the single plot running throughout the episode making it a likely candidate for nomination, I need my memory jogged a bit on "Say My Name"

In the directing category, while it's hard to believe Game of Thrones didn't get anything for their annual ninth episode extravaganza, I want to pull for Breaking Bad's "Gliding Over it All" just for the use of "Crystal Blue Persuasion" which must have been hard to not use in each of the previous year's, waiting for the right moment.

"Episode 4" of Downton Abbey also received writing and directing nominations.  The episode included a plethora of significant moments in the season but knowing that characters bite it often because of the actors' other interests seems to cheapen it a bit.  Considering the episodes of television that did not receive one writing nomination or one directing nomination (like Justified * and **) it seems ridiculous to honor Downton Abbey with that distinction.

* Breaking Bad and Mad Men have some candidates that could be inserted here as well.  Just as Major League Baseball expanded it's playoffs due to the expansion in teams, the Emmy's need to expand the nomination slots due to the number of networks now in the game, programming year round instead of September-May.

** Any episode 9-11 of Justified could be inserted here to either category: "The Hatchet Tour" "Get Drew" and "Decoy".  "Decoy" should certainly be in the directing category regardless.

For best series, it's difficult to argue with most of the nominees, but again, Justified is head and shoulders above at least two of the nominees.  House of Cards, while good, is at least partially benefiting from Kevin Spacey's name and the novelty of Netflix.

Homage

In talking about Game of Thrones' "Rains of Castemere", I mentioned the brutal violence and how shocking it was.  The only thing I could compare it to or late was a Justified scene with Constable Bob.

Graham Yost, in my favorite show re-cap article, explained the Constable Bob scene was inspired by a Quentin Tarantino movie, True Romance. 

Here's the brutal, brutal scene. 

I hope folks are digging out their dvds or logging onto HBO Go and re-watching Sopranos.

James Gandolfini will be missed.

Raw Data: The Rains of Castamere - Part Two

Yeah, I'd steer clear of this one unless you have seen the episode or read through Storm of Swords...or even through the episode "Baelor" in the first season for that matter.

The most recent episode of Game of Thrones was.....Seth Rogen says "Shocking"....Amy Poehler says "Horrifying"...Bill Clinton says "Depressingly free of nudity."
- Conan, doing his Celebrity Survey

Many upset at the number of characters who died violently on last night's episode.  Ladies and gentleman all I have to say is wait until you see how this show ends tonight. Bad news for you Andy fans - Conan doing his monologue

This is part two of observations and reactions for Game of Thrones episode 3-09 "The Rains of Castamere".

Game of Thrones often puts even the HBO standard of including violence and nudity to shame.  It's more notable when an episode does not include one or both.  No nudity in "Rains" but plenty of violence.

Whether you were surprised or unsurprised at the turn of events, or sullied or unsullied by the books, the nature of the violence at the wedding was shocking.   This episode used suspense uniquely, everyone walked on eggshells the whole episode, but all for naught.  Often when there's suspense throughout an entire episode, or an entire scene, the payoff is avoiding the obstacle at the end.  Not so here.

Talisa attends the wedding with Robb, rather than stay behind to avoid further risk of insulting the Freys.  Walder calling attention to her makes the payoff even more devastating when you realize he was studying her to see if she was pregnant.

In what feels like a cousin to the cop who 'has just one last case', or who gets shot the day before he retires, Talisa and Robb discuss naming their child Ned and teaching him to ride horses.  Not sure what this trope is called, but another example is in the movie Lincoln where he and Mary Todd discuss what they will do with the war winding down.

The first thing the ambush does is go after Talisa.   But they don't shoot her with a cross bow or slit her throat from behind.  Her attacker runs up to her and stabs her not once but like a billion times in her pregnant stomach.  In a show where it's uncommon to not have limbs or heads hacked off in an episode (and not in the funny Star Wars type way) this is absolutely the worst, most jarring image they've shown.  The wedding as a whole is not over quickly and neither is the attack on Talisa.  The number of deaths shown on Game of Thrones can't be totaled at this point, from all sorts of manner.  But stabbing Talisa is could possible be the image that provokes the most reaction from live watching from sullied and unsullied alike.

There is not much that can surprise in television violence, or movies for that matter.  Television has a tiered system of what they will broadcast, from the networks to cable to pay cable.   It's not so much the graphic-ness (?) of the violence that gets you now, but who it happens to, and why.

This was by far the worst thing I've seen on television in the past year.  The second worst was an episode of Justified involving a character named Constable Bob taking a beating. The wincing born from these two incidents doesn't so much come from the actual act of violence, as lots of people get stabbed or beaten in television, but from our investment with the character on the receiving end and the stakes hanging in the balance.

Constable Bob was a character who had been a bit of a laughingstock throughout this recent season of Justified, those harmless, affable and likeable.  He never became a "real" police officer, instead serving as a constable in the state of Kentucky, where he basically was paid case by case to be a process server.  He even had to buy the lights for his own car.  He was even mocked and beat up by some grown up bullies.  But when the bad guys went after him for the locations of the other good guys he not only didn't give it up but didn't give it up in the most hilarious of fashion.  The beating went out about 5 or 10 minutes longer than it normally would.  There was even a point where I fully expected the scene to cut to another scene, but no, the beating just continued.  Even though there weren't any weapons used, it was absolutely brutal and tough to match on the hard to watch scale.

A couple factors contribute to the brutality of Talisa's stabbing.  It is the first act in the massacre, following the foreboding door closing and chain mail reveal on Bolton. No one (except for Cat), least of all Talisa, realizes what is happening.  All she knows is there is a knife plunged into her pregnant belly over and over again and she's about to be made dead.  Actually, I'm not even sure the last part would have a chance to register.

The fact that Talisa is pregnant speaks for itself.  Cutting her throat would have effectively had the same result in the show, but would not have the same effect on the viewer.

Finally, the stakes and history make it all so hard to swallow.  Since that stag killed the direwolf, the Starks have been crippled, beheaded, made homeless, held prisoner and hostage and are losing a war despite winning every battle.  Much of their misfortune stems from a sense of honor and misplaced trust.  Their war is winding to a close and they need the wedding to go well if they have any chance of taking the battle back to the crown.  But unfortunately when the doors shut on the wedding reception, the doors shut on the rebellion and any chance for the family to live well and be happy. 

Hodor?

Raw Data: The Rains of Castamere - Part One

Yeah, I'd steer clear of this one unless you have seen the episode or read through Storm of Swords...or even through the episode "Baelor" in the first season for that matter.

These are initial observations for Game of Thrones episode 3-09 "The Rains of Castamere" written by Benioff and Weiss  and directed by David Nutter, of two previous Game of Thrones episodes, as well as next week's season finale.  He's also a veteran of other great shows like ER, The West Wing, The Pacific, Band of Brothers and The Sopranos.

That's it?  Thirty people died?  You know what they call that on Game of Thrones?  A wedding. 
- Jon Stewart

This quickly became a very long post, so it will be split into two parts.

The Rains of Castamere was a song sung by the Lannister men (and Bronn) prior to the Battle of Blackwater.  Cersei revealed in the previous episode to Margaery that it refers to Tywin's complete and total destruction of a lesser house who rebelled against House Lannister.  This was a huge part of step 3 in the 5 step process of building a Game of Thrones season, where the foundation is layed and the pieces are moved into place*.

* But nothing happened in that episode!

Quickly:

• Slowly but surely, no one will be left but Rickon and Tommen and we'll all be like "who were those people back in the beginning?"
• Daenarys needs to run into some opposition and conflict.  At this point she's steamrolling the East with the tenacity of Alexander the Great
• Now that I look at it, his empire (or Asia in general for that matter) doesn't look all that different than Essos
• Jorah is jealous of Daario.  Surprise!  Looking for Daario to usurp him as No. 2.
• Jorah also passive aggressively slighted Barristan by referring to the two "best men" as Grey Worm and Jorah himself

Now...

Nary a Lannister to be found in the episode that bears the name of their favorite song.  Their absence is so apparent that Peter Dinklage, top billed actor since the start of season two, does not appear in the credits.  Unfortunately for Robb, the Starks, the Tullys and anyone standing too close to any of those people, the Lannisters (Tywin) don't need to be present to have presence...a point driven home by Roose Bolton who literally twists the knife into Robb.

The episode and the ones leading to it did a good job setting up a red herring in Robb's next planned attack following the wedding.  The opening scene focuses entirely on Robb seeking Cat's advice regarding his planned assault on Casterly Rock.  Such a maneuver could set up a great finale and storyline going into next season.  But it allows the viewer to focus on both the upcoming wedding and a battle on the horizon.  The viewer gets bolo punched.

Ned and Robb

Ned and Robb made two similar tactical errors.  Trusting one who should not be trusted and failing to act on the third option, or at least a less severe option of one of the ones presented.

Ned puts his trust in Littlefinger to help secure him at court while Robb trusts Walder Frey to accept his apologies and not murder him.  Both are sorely disapointed.

Similarly, Ned and Robb both take the unbending, rule of law-type option with executing justice.  Ned wants the throne to succeed, as law would dictate to Stannis, who we meet in Season Two and has similar view of rules and honor to Ned.  Renly knows this is impractical for several reasons and offers to help Ned secure the castle and throne, which Ned turns down because it does not follow the rule of law.  He fails to use a third option of, for instance, acknowledging Joffrey and biding his time.  The result is Ned secures his own downfall, as he doesn't have the relationships and resources at court to implement the only plan he sees fit.

Robb, when dealing with Karstark's revenge murder of young Lannister prisoners, feels he has no choice but to execute Karstark, and to do it himself.  Robb is so hung up on executing Karstark himself (because he does his own dirty work) that he fails to see the merits in, well, not executing Karstark.  Rather than keep him as a prisoner or hostage, effectively keeping the large part of his army Karstark's men comprise, he kills Karstark and loses the men.  The result is Robb secures his own downfall because his only remaining course of action on the battlefield relies entirely on reinforcing his troops (replacing the Karstark men) by the grace of the very man he already gravely insulted.

Reaction
I can only think of a few reactions within the series of tubes as huge as this one.  If you read online forums after the Sopranos finale, you had to go through pages and pages of all caps posts revealing helpful insight such as "WTF!" or "THAT WAS HORRIBLE!".  Initial reactions, people who feel the need to post at 10:01 after a 9:00 episode, tend to go that way.  Eventually the dust settles and you can get down to more sensible reactions and analysis.

The other reaction is from Game of Thrones itself, Season One's "Baelor".  Still, the single most shocking thing I've ever seen in a television drama.

While the number of reactions still is incredibly high, the mood is much more subdued than it was for "Baelor".  One possible reason is that, like myself, viewers are more likely to have read the book and already know what is coming.  When the series started, I had never heard of the books, let alone read them, so everything was fresh, unsullied and surprising.  I caught up to the show about episode four this season and could not help but surpass it.

While Ned's course of action in the episodes leading to "Baelor" led to a great Internet meme, there was not as much frustration toward him as there is toward Robb who failed in spectacular fashion in several ways leading to "The Rains of Castamere", all his own doing, made the act carried out by the Freys less shocking only in the sense that it was a direct result of his doings rather than others'.  The frustration stems both from seeing poor decisions made, but also because we root so hard for him to make good ones due to our love for the Starks and despising the Lannisters.  It's like a parent being disappointed.  We expect more and would never have such a frustration from one of the token Lannisters, because we want them to fail.    

The whole episode was spent tip toeing around the Late Walder Frey, knowing anything could set him off.  It turns out, he was going to be set off no matter how delicately they treated him.  "Baelor" featured a last minute change from a loose cannon psychopath making bad decisions, which was never part of the plan.

Part two is coming, and will focus on the jarring nature of the violence in the wedding at the Twins.

Hodor!