Emmy Episodes: Homeland

It’s always my policy to watch every Emmy-nominated episode each year, which leads me to sample a handful of shows that I don’t tune in to on a regular basis. For the third year in a row, I’m making a special effort to spotlight each of those installments to offer my perspective on shows that I don’t review each week.

Homeland: Season 7, Episode 11 “All In” (C)

Skipping ahead five episodes from the last hour of this show that I just watched, I didn’t miss too much. The big reveal about Dante apparently led to his death, with no mention here of whether he was ultimately guilty of working against Carrie and the United States, and now Saul, Carrie, and her crew are all in Russia trying to pull off a major operation. The big issue with this show the past few years has been that it presents a wild scenario in which Carrie is the only smart one in a whole sea of trained agents from many different places. Freezing a Russian’s bank accounts led to some pretty drastic measures on his part that appear to have produced tremendous collateral damage, and Carrie had no problem rushing right into the fray with a black mask over her head, blending in with the rest of the shooters and hostage takers. Wearing a wig so that Simone would look like her and vice versa was smart, but do they really think they’ll be able to get her out of the country? Worse still, the idea about leaking the footage of the pandemonium seems to have inspired the opposite effect of vilifying Saul and his mission. As if Keane being removed as president wasn’t dramatic enough, it’s hardly believable the new vice president, played by Beau Bridges, would have no idea at all what to do as soon as he took the reins of power. In other news, this was the Emmy submission for F. Murray Abraham, whose Dar Adal barely appeared in this episode.