Homeland Recap: 8×10 “Designated Driver”

Previously on Homeland: Carrie got a ride from an old contact named Arman; Tasneem blamed Balach, Haqqani’s right hand, for letting Jalal take over the Taliban; Balach told Jalal that Haqqani had wanted peace; Carrie tricked poor incompetent Jenna into revealing the location of the safe house, then had the American team there arrested by Pakistani authorities to buy herself time; Tasneem decided the best way to protect her country was to protect Jalal; General Aziz amassed vehicles on the border with nukes in them; and Carrie got the flight recorder, but Yevgeny tranquilized her and took it from her. (You’ll remember he took a slight break first to make out with her, but that doesn’t get into the previouslies, sadly.)

Credits. For some reason the closed captioners attribute Saul’s voiceover lines during the credits to Saul, but when Quinn yells, “Is there no fucking line?” they just quote him as “[man]”. Um, rude!

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Oscars 2021: Who Will Win, Who Should Win

Normally, around this time of year, I would be lodging many complaints about who was nominated at the Oscars: too white, too male, too many white male biopics. But this is not a normal year in any sense. Most of the traditional Oscar bait was pushed off until we can see it in theaters again, which means that most of the nominees are more indie, and, in my opinion, more deserving than usual. Stories that usually wouldn’t gain traction with the Academy–movies made by and about women, biopics about lesser-known and more radical pockets of history, smaller stories about fringe subcultures and the lives of American immigrants–are now set to sweep the Oscars on Sunday night.

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Homeland Recap: 8×09 “In Full Flight”

Previously on Homeland: Max was shot right before Carrie’s eyes, and Saul convinced her to come in, but Mike thought she was a defector because of the whole running-off-with-a-Russian-agent thing; Jalal Haqqani claimed to have killed the President and President Hayes vowed to invade Pakistan if they didn’t turn him over; Carrie got a lead on the black box, and demanded that no one question her loyalty; when the soldiers who were with Saul tried to handcuff her, she ran off with Yevgeny again and told him she knew where the black box was.

Spoiler alert: I am a BIG FAN of this episode. If you have been reading my previous recaps you’ll probably guess why!

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