What I’m Watching: Homeland

Homeland: Season 5, Episode 8 “All About Allison” (C+)

This show feels like quite a mess right now, with just a few main characters all over the place with absolutely no idea where any of the others area. The background information on Allison was helpful in explaining that she wasn’t a Soviet plant all along who worked her way up from the bottom in the CIA as a knowing traitor but instead as someone who compromised herself enough to get caught and then traded information so that her career wouldn’t be over. I have to imagine that the only reason that Allison opted to save Carrie’s life and deem her not to be a threat worth killing was that she still has some of her humanity left, but that was a big mistake given that one simple screensaver was enough to unfurl her entire cover and make it entirely clear to Carrie that she is the leak she has been looking for. Saul hiding out with the Israelis makes sense to ensure that he won’t get sent to a locked prison for the restof his life, but he’s now done enough to make himself look hopelessly guilty. I don’t know what Quinn’s plan was all along since he did just about everything to look like a spy, and now he’s headed back to Berlin with a bunch of armed terrorists in a plotline that I imagine is far too reminiscent of real-life events in Europe. Now that Carrie knows Allison is bad, what can happen over the course of the next four episodes? There’s no one left to call but stubborn Dar Adal, who I don’t think will be too receptive to hearing from her.