Homeland-First Two Episodes Season Seven

Well, after watching the first two episodes of season seven of Homeland, my theory of the new president being drugged seems to be wrong. This Wellington dude does not seem to have taken control and I'm not sure this makes the show better or not.

It's turning out that the other option is what is happening. The new president turned loony. Ultra paranoid might be a better description. And as far as Wellington is concerned, he might be the loony one. Well, insofar as he was willing to murder someone to keep his job.

But none of that matters. My biggest complaint is that the show has turned America, and/or Americans into the bad guy(s). So since season six and now into season seven, we have Americans fighting Americans. It's all a domestic scenario now instead of an international one.

And again, it's not what I signed up for when I started watching the show. One of the reasons I liked the show so much was that Peter Quinn was a bad ass assassin. But now that he's gone, the show seems one dimensional. It's now only about Carrie.

At first Carrie was good enough to "carry" the show. With Quinn's addition, it made the show twice as good. But the character of Quinn was so good, he was stealing the show as I've pointed out before. So they get rid of Quinn and we're back to just Carrie. It was like they tried to improve the show through subtraction. That only works when you had a character who was a detriment to a show. And that was NOT the case with Quinn.

He was an equal hero to Carrie's hero, and now the result is the show's quality has been halved. Add that point to the point that they are changing gears as to the show's antagonists it makes for a huge disappointment to a show about which I had been raving.

No more raves seem to be in store for Homeland. But with seasons one through five, I suppose it had a great run. It seems most TV series tend to run out of gas eventually. It happened to Blacklist after its third season. So there you go.

Homeland Season Six

It sucked. Really. They ruined my favorite character and then killed him off. Yeah, yeah, he died as a hero saving the lives of Carrie and the president-elect, but so what.

To me it was like this. Carrie was the star of the show. No doubt. From the beginning. And Claire Danes did a fantastic job of acting. I believe no actress could have done better. She was tops.

Rupert Friend as CIA assassin Peter Quinn

But then they introduced a new character. Peter Quinn, played by Rupert Friend from Hitman Agent 47 fame. And just like he was in Hitman Agent 47, he was a hitman. An assassin. For the CIA. Rupert Friend is a great actor too. He was great as Agent 47, and he was great as super assassin Peter Quinn. I was thinking he might be great as Trent Smith from my Killer Series. (But no, he's too tall: six foot one.) But the character of Quinn was so great that he was stealing the show from Carrie, (Claire Danes.)

But of course we couldn't have that. Meaning we couldn't be allowed to have someone steal the show from Carrie. So what do they do? They turn him into a brain-damaged, handicapped, near crippled sideshow. And then they finished the job and killed him.

Right. So there goes my interest in the show. The entire Season Six sucked. From start to finish. All twelve episodes. In Episode One we saw Quinn's disability, and in Episode Twelve we saw him die. Just great. Not my cup of tea for a fictional story that had a great hero.

Make no mistake, I still believe Carrie is a great hero. Sure she makes mistakes. It was her mistake that turned Quinn into the brain-damaged person he became. And that was not what I ordered. I don't mean any disrespect to any brain-damaged persons out there, but watching the antics of a brain-damaged person was not very appealing to me.

So the two characters who were there from the beginning and are still there going into Season Seven are Carrie and Saul. And what does Season Seven have in store? It seems this new president is going loony. At least that's the impression the final shots of Season Six's finale implied. We see her sitting at her desk with this loony look on her face while everyone who had helped her avoid assassination, including Saul but not including Carrie, is being arrested. It could be she was drugged. No further clues were given.

My feeling is this: There's a new character by name of Wellington. And I predict it's this Wellington guy who is taking over the presidency while keeping the president in a drug induced haze. It's not original. It's been done before. Sheesh, it was the plot of a Star Trek episode from the original series. It was the episode when Captain Kirk and the Enterprise visited a planet that had copied the Nazis. A Federation guy had implemented the Nazi system of economic growth to bring stability to an otherwise floundering native population. But then the Federation guy's chief of staff drugged him and kept him in a drug-induced haze while he took over and proceeded with the original Nazi "policy" of extermination and war.

Yeah, it's a plot that we've seen many times since. So is that what's going on? Is the president drugged, or is the president really going loony? My guess is the former. Will it be worth watching? Don't know. Season six wasn't. That's for sure.

Homeland Peaks, then Flops

I watched through season five of Homeland, and as good as it already was, it was only getting better and better. By the time Season five ended, I really thought it was better than ever. Then came Season Six. Just like Blacklist, it flopped. I've watched the first two episodes, now, of Season Six of Homeland, and....BORING! BORING! BORING!

Sheesh, what a let down. I had been raving about Homeland ever since I first started watching it. And I was all set to continue raving about it after the last episode of Season Five. But now.... YUCK!

First, the star and heroine of the show, Carrie, is no longer working for (or with) the CIA. It's been an on again off again thing the last few seasons, which was frustrating, but they made it work. But now, not only is she not working for or with the CIA, she's working against them. And the show has actually made the CIA and the FBI the bad guys. And to me, that's a load of crap.

Why? Because that's NOT what I bargained for when I signed up to watch this series. But wait. It gets worse. Yeah, you guessed it. The MUSLIMS are the good guys. Or let's put it this way. They are the aggrieved party now. They're the victims.

Look, I know full well there are good Muslims. They are human beings like any other group of people. Good, bad, wonderful, horrible, and everything in between. Like any other people. I've known quite a few myself. But the premise of the show was fighting the radical ones. The ones who are the TERRORISTS. It's no secret that there are radical Muslim terrorists who kill and brag about how they want to kill Americans, and Jews, too, and anyone else for that matter who doesn't subscribe to their version of Islam. Even other Muslims!

And through Season Five, those were the bad guys. And by the way, kudos to  Homeland for including in their story-lines, not only the radical bad ones, but the good ones as well. There was a doctor who saved Quinn, for instance. A good man. A good Muslim man. I had no problem with that. But now to turn everything around? For what? For (god forbid,) political  correctness? Just like I said with Blacklist and Taken, when they did that, it's BULLSHIT. Why can't we do away with this political correctness crap? It ruins everything, and we didn't need it.

Why? Because Homeland had already established that there certainly are good Muslims out there. Good ones who help America fight the bad ones. Remember Fara? She was a Muslim woman who was also a CIA agent fighting the bad Muslims. Until one of those bad Muslims murdered her. Which I was saddened to see. I really liked Fara. She was one of my favorite characters. Yeah, a Muslim woman was one of my favorite characters. But in Season Six they've made the Muslims the victims and made the CIA and FBI the bad guys! I don't buy it.

Can it get worse? Yes. Another of my favorite characters was Peter Quinn. A total bad ass, who was a great fighter, and a great killer of bad guys. And that doesn't just include Muslim bad guys. One of my favorite scenes was when he had sneaked into the CIA director's personal residence, and warned him that if anything happened to a particular someone, the director would find him in his residence again. Because he "kills bad guys!" You see, Quinn was supposed to kill that particular someone until he realized that that particular someone WASN'T a bad guy.

Of course I loved that scene and that line. It was almost a scene straight from my own book, Killer of Killers and Killer Eyes. Trent Smith could had said the same thing word for word.

But now, in Season Six, Quinn is reduced to a brain damaged, handicapped, drug addict. And it is very annoying to see him in the scenes they have written for him now. It's more than annoying, actually. They've reduced Quinn from a terrific character who was very close to stealing the show from Carrie, to an uninteresting sideshow. It makes me want to stop watching the show.

So, like I said. I'm only two episodes into Season Six. And there's a Season Seven as well. So will I make it that far? At this rate, I'm not sure I'll finish Season Six. They better fix Quinn. And fast. Or I'm done. And they better stop trying so hard to convince me that Muslims can be good guys. Because I already knew that. They had already established that. All they're doing to the show now is turning it into bullshit. And that's a shame. It was so good.

Homeland Three Seasons Down

Okay, so I've completed watching season three of Homeland, and it wasn't what I expected. None of this has been what I expected. In fact, this show has been the least predictable show I've ever seen. That's a good thing, btw.

So the Marine dies. This is the guy who was a Marine turned Muslim suicide bomber, turned CIA plant, turned Muslim asylum seeker, turned  CIA assassin. Say what? Well, yeah.

This show is full of surprises, and for the U.S. government to betray the dude was a surprise to me. I mean what happened to leaving no Marine behind? They left this guy to get hanged. Wait, they actually told the Iranians where he was so they can catch him. That was so their other plant could be more believable, and I don't think it was necessary. It was somewhat of a disappointment.

Still, Homeland delivers. It is filled with suspense, twists, and turns. I am caught off guard often during the course of this show. Unlike Blacklist, which I can't help but find myself comparing it to. Blacklist is so predictable. Thanks to the Dizzy Lizzy character. I mean has there ever been a dumber female character who is supposed to be a top FBI agent? I don't think so.

I mean look at it this way. The dude Red, has saved this dizzy dame's life multiple times. And he's saved her friends' lives multiple times. And their careers too, btw. Yet Dizzy Lizzy is quick to believe she has to destroy the man due to some mealymouthed explanation from one of Red's top enemies. It is hard to swallow, and I won't anymore. If they can't fix this ridiculously stupid character, the show is doomed. Of course Megan Boone's lack of credibility as an actress doesn't help.

Which brings me to what makes Homeland a success. It's not just the writing and the plots and the story lines. It's Claire Danes' acting ability which I've already pointed out is spectacular. I don't keep up with acting awards, like the Oscars, the Emmy's, or the Tony's, or whatever. I mostly can't stand actors or movie stars. I think most of them are spoiled idiots living charmed lives. And when they spout off their mouths about things other than acting, they reveal their idiocy.

But I will say that Claire Danes deserves a best actress award if anyone ever did. No, I won't bother looking it up to see if she ever got one. I don't care that much if she did or didn't. I only say in my opinion, shes' the best actress I've seen since...well since...oh yeah, since Amanda Hale from The White Queen show. Yeah, that actress was top notch. I remember blogging about her once upon a time. Intense acting. That's the ticket. Wouldn't mind finding an intense actor playing the role of Trent Smith in my Killer books. That would be a dream come true.

Crazy Carrie vs. Dizzy Lizzy

Megan Boone

I have talked somewhat about the shows Blacklist and Homeland. Blacklist had been my favorite show, mostly because of the stellar performances of James Spader. He's an actor who I've appreciated, and I've liked all of his work. Megan Boone, on the other hand, is the co-star of Blacklist, and she is not a very good actress at all. It's been hard watching her sometimes, but I like the premise of the show, and I've been satisfied with the show for the most part.




The last two seasons has seen Blacklist fall in quality, as I've mentioned in prior posts, meaning the storylines have been wanting. I mean they're bad. Still, Spader keeps the show afloat, and it's not easy for him. The reason is because Megan Boone's character is a dizzy dame. Not to sound misogynistic, really, but anyone who's seen the show knows what I mean. The character Lizzy Keen is whacky. But not a good whacky. She's like the nickname I gave her. Dizzy whacky. Thus Dizzy Lizzy.

Claire Danes

Homeland, on the other hand features a woman who is also whacky, but not in a bad way. She's always right. Even when she thinks she's wrong. But the actress Claire Danes is such a superior actress, the difference is like night and day between her and Megan Boone. Claire Danes performance as the crazy Carrie Mathison is so good, I'm feeling every breath she takes, feeling every emotion she exudes, and it's like I'm experiencing every scene she's in. Wow. Claire Danes is the best actress I've seen in a long time.

Compare that with the near emotionless performances from Megan Boone. Her character, Lizzy Keen is so dumb that it seems that Megan Boone is at a disadvantage right there from the get go. But Boone offers nothing to advance her character. Her acting is wooden, stiff, and blah... Whereas Danes performances go through the roof!


I used to think that Amber Heard would be my actress of choice to play the role of Samantha Jones if Killer of Killers were ever to make the big screen. But I've since changed my mind. Amber Heard, based on the little I've seen of her on the screen is not a good actress. And if you want to see the difference between a good actress and a bad actress, just watch a few episodes of Blacklist, and pay close attention to the performance of Megan Boone as Lizzy Keen.

Then watch a few episodes of Homeland and check out the performance of Claire Danes. The difference is such that it will jump out at you and make you say wow. Danes has the unique ability to express every emotion in the book. She can convince you that she IS undergoing exactly what she is undergoing on the screen. That's a great actress. Kudos to Claire Danes.

As for Megan Boone? Well, it's a good thing James Spader is in the show. Otherwise, it would suck. And the last couple of seasons, it has sucked. In spite of Spader. But Spader, at least, keeps me watching. Can't say that will continue past next season though. Can't say it will continue past the first two episodes of next season. We'll see.

Homeland Season One - Ended Okay

A believable female hero in Homeland

So, yeah, I watched the season one finale last night, and it didn't disappoint. But it wasn't a "wow" type of episode either. I couldn't believe the dude would go through with blowing himself up, and he didn't. The way it was written was that he tried to, but the bomber vest malfunctioned. And his attempt to fix it took so long that a call from his daughter delayed him just enough so that the opportunity to blow everyone up passed.

But it could be argued that the call from his daughter did, in fact, change his mind. Whatever. He didn't go through with it just as I believed he wouldn't. All in all it was okay.

But I'm not without problems. Besides the one about how I can't believe a Marine would commit suicide by blowing himself up "terrorist fashion" like the chumps in the Middle East.

Another problem I'm having with Homeland is the same kind of problem I've been having with Blacklist. That is the on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again, back and forth with the MC Carrie who at first believed the marine dude was a traitor, then she didn't, then she did, then she didn't, and now, once again, she does. Sheesh.

I had to go through that, (and am still going through that) with the ever-dizzy and ever-fickle Lizzy Keene in the Blacklist. First she hates Red, then she loves him (as a father), then she hates him, then she loves him, and now she hates him once again. I can't stand this. Can't anyone make up their mind? Apparently not these two chicks.

But unlike Lizzy Keene, Carrie does come across as a hero, and I still consider her a hero. And I mean a realistic hero. A real true life-like hero. Not some super-chick who beats up dudes by the dozens every episode. When shows do that it makes it look like Hollywood is glorifying violence with women physically fighting, not with their minds but bare-knuckle, knock-down, drag-out fighting with bloody noses, broken bones and death blows.

I never believed women were made for that type of thing. I never believed women would WANT to be involved with that type of thing. And they shouldn't. Why? That's easily answered. It's because a woman would stand no chance against a trained male fighter. None. I've explained why many times already. And when I see it happen in almost every action show nowadays, it turns me off.

But Homeland is giving us a real believable woman hero. Not because she's not beating up people, but because she's smart and clever, and oh so flawed. As I touched on in yesterday's post. She's bipolar. And even though I don't think it was necessary to make being bipolar a part of the show, they did anyway, and they are making it work.

So yeah. Season One of Homeland gets a passing grade in my book. As I recall, Season One of Blacklist got not just a passing grade, but a stellar grade. And it got better in Season Two and it peaked in Season Three. Season Four, however, was hard to watch and Season Five completely tanked. I don't expect it to rebound with Season Six. Although it could. We'll see.

Homeland...Okay

So with my sad dismissal of The Blacklist show, and the fact that it's currently mid-season right now anyway, I started watching Homeland. It's okay. So Far. I like the main character. Of course, the MC is a woman, but at least I don't have to suffer through multiple scenes of her beating up men.

Actually, there hasn't been a single scene where she beats up a man. (Unlike the impossible depiction of Lizzy Keene beating up men a couple times in Blacklist. Or that ridiculously impossible-to-believe Shaw chick beating up men in every episode of POI.)

But that doesn't mean that the character Carrie in Homeland isn't a hero. In fact I think she's a great hero. One thing of note is that the writers of the show have made her into a very flawed individual. Imagine that. A flawed female hero. She's bipolar, and single, with the realization that she will always be single, and her attempt at preventing that has actually jeopardized her job and career.


Pretty good stuff there. But flawed as she is, she's still a hero. I'm watching the final episode of season one tonight, so I hope my appreciation of the show is not ruined. I do have some criticism of the show, however. First, I find it hard to believe that a U.S. Marine who has a loving wife, and two kids, (a son and a daughter who are still teens,) would agree to become a suicide bomber for radical Muslim terrorists.

I mean the guy has a beautiful wife who loves him. Two great kids who need him. And a promising career ahead of him in politics. Add to that that the American public loves him and you have a recipe for a great American life that supersedes any American dream anyone could have.

Yet the guy seems to be fully cooperating in a terrorist plan to put on a "bomber vest" and blow himself up in an act of terror. I happen to know from my own research when I wrote my book The Vase, which involved radical Muslim terrorists, that radical Muslims convince youngsters who don't know any better, or even mentally retarded people to carry out these "bomber jacket" or "bomber vest" suicide missions. How else might someone be willing blow him/herself up?

So the fact that this guy is a fully grown man, seemingly in full control of his mental faculties, and with everything a man might want in life, just doesn't make any sense that he'd become a suicide bomber. Sure he was captured by radical terrorists for 8 years, tortured and manipulated. Sure the little Arab boy to whom he was charged to teach English and then bonded with was a cute little boy with an adorable accent. And sure the explosion that killed the little tyke was as tragic as you can get. But still. I don't buy it.

But again, I haven't seen the last episode of season one yet. As a matter of fact, I'm getting ready to see it right now, since my wife is calling me to come down and watch it with her.

So I'll get back to you tomorrow.