“Hey Carrie? Fuck you.” | requested by anonymous

Just started a rewatch of homeland and thought of this blog. Hope all is well with you!

Phew how's that rewatching going?

I am doing pretty alright, thank you for asking!

I’ll be in the next room. If you need anything.

The only person who really understands Carrie is Saul. He, and he alone, understands that he has a “machine” on his hands. He controls his machine, supports his machine and defends, at all costs, his machine. That’s why he never gets romantically involved with her. He knows that would ruin his machine. He goes elsewhere for romance after his marriage failed. Proof of this is the last episode. Saul’s machine is hard at work for him.

There are limits to this argument... I do agree that Saul treated Carrie more as an asset than as a trusted colleague or surrogate daughter in that the primary dynamic of their relationship seemed to be be one of understanding and manipulation (it went both ways). Carrie was always desperate for his attention and plaudits and he doled it out conservatively.

In my opinion the series really sang when it showed the fissures in their relationship -- when the "machine," to borrow your phrasing, began to malfunction. The last episode showed more than anything that Saul actually wouldn't defend Carrie at all costs, and that they had a fundamental disagreement on when the ends actually justify the means.

Jessica & Brody & Carrie: That relationship was a disaster from day one. And if l had the wife Brody had, as beautiful as Carrie is, l would fight to keep that wife

Sound decision-making was not one of Brody's strong suits.

Season 8: Why was Carrie Mathison shown to be so incompetent in the last season of Homeland? Was it just to make her more human, or was there something else going on?

I'm laughin' at this one, I gotta hand it to you.

S03xE03 Tower of David: It seems full of holes though? If niño was doing Carrie a favor for someone she cared about , why get him addicted to heroin and lock him up ? Why wait all that time (weeks ? Thought it was longer ) and then sell him to Saul. He even told Brody “I could get 10 million for you “ but I’m doing Carrie a favor or something like that. Very confusing story at this point to me. And that whole episode was so weird it was like a different show.

The pedophile doctor and the daughter and their little community. Super strange I didn’t understand the point.

Getting him addicted was what kept him there. Remember he didn't want to stay and was planning to escape.

Carrie + Yevgeny | Two Years Later ↳ “I think she actually loves Yevgeny. She might be the happiest we’ve ever seen her although she’s living a lie — that’s the irony of it.” –Lesli Linka Glatter

S3E4 Game On it seems Carrie & Saul’s plan is working. Why does she get her passport, go to the bank & try to get Vergils van?

She's sellin' it.

Season 6: What is the relationship between Carrie Mathison and President Keane in Homeland (TV series)? How did they know each other before the events of the show?

IIRC they were introduced by Otto.

these days the only original content i produce for homeland is an annual playlist of vibes. listen in order, and then to volumes I and II

Peter doesn't deserve Astrid. Astrid is the only person who I can trust. Want a woman like her, but never gonna be a man like Peter. Season 6 episode 8 alt. Truth - If you are a Peter, you don't deserve Astrid. If you are an Astrid, don't get yourself a Peter. Trust is treasure. How can someone be so nice? Suggest me some Astrid's series.

My boyfriend's name is Peter and my name is Ashley and I am so unused to Quinn's first name being used that for 3.03 seconds I thought this said "Peter doesn't deserve Ashley."

Anyway, I HAVE NEVER AGREED WITH ANY ASK EVER SENT TO THIS BLOG THIS MUCH.

I really wish that Jess and Brody worked out. They weren’t perfect together, but she is better for him than she is. I really don’t think Brody and Carrie are good together. Two broken people being toxic to and for each other.

But Mike Faber exists...

Season 2 Episode 9: Frankly, Jessica told Brody that she waited six years before she looked for love. Now, I don’t know if she was lying about that.

She wasn't lying. She mentions this in season 1 as well -- she waited six years thinking he was actually alive before she got with Mike.

S3E12: Brody was no hero in anyway shape or form he was a traitor simple and plain.

This take is more right than wrong, but nothing was ever "simple" or "plain" on this show.

I actually enjoy Carrie being a bad mom, and it furthers a narrative I have that women shouldn’t be persuaded to have children they don’t want (which is what happened with Carrie, Maggie, and their father). I’m only 4 seasons in and I know people despise her motherhood (or lack thereof) arc, but it is a cold hard truth that there are women out there who aren’t suited to be moms.

The fact that Carrie didn’t become this insanely loving and caring mother is something I haven’t seen before in TV and the fact that the writers didn’t give her character a complete overhaul was great, no matter how anger inducing it is to some.

I think this is a very interesting and valid response but over the years I've become so jaded on this topic.

While I completely agree that women shouldn't be persuaded to have children they don't want, the show never underlines this point. Ever. Never ever ever. The scene in 4.02 when Maggie is scolding Carrie for leaving and says "there's not even a diagnosis for what's wrong with you" is one of the most heinous things this show ever did. And yet Maggie was depicted as righteous! truthful! for it, when Carrie told them all exactly how it would would be and exactly what would happen. The moralizing continued throughout the season with Quinn especially. There was never any reckoning that Carrie had been pressured to have this kid that she didn't want or that she was suffering from postpartum depression. She was just cold and unfeeling, "The Drone Queen," and she needed only time and a shock to the system and whatever-the-fuck to come to her senses and learn to love Franny, which is what happens by season's end.

More fundamentally, the show was never interested or invested in Carrie being a mother. The writers only gave Carrie a kid to ~keep Brody's memory alive on the show~. In that respect, she was merely a vessel for Brody's likeness, Franny's red hair being the ultimate "fuck you" to Carrie (which she acknowledges in season six).

Season after season, the writers wrestled with The Franny Problem, which had at its core the dilemma of how to depict a woman who fundamentally does not want to be a mother (maternal qualities can be learned, and Carrie certainly does learn them, but the show could never get past the fact that this child was ultimately unwanted by both Carrie and the audience) while not also completely alienating audiences. In other words: in order to stay true to your main character, you needed to show that a woman who does not want to be a mother, but then is pressured to become one, is absent from her child's life at best (seasons 4, 5) and abusive (seasons 6, 7) at worst. The problem with absence is it just makes Franny a token, therefore undermining that it was some feminist pursuit to begin with. The problem with abuse.... well there are so many, but one is that it absolutely exhausts the audience and pushes them to hate your main character, when you actually need your audience to at least partially root for her! It was Claire Danes who had to stand up for Carrie and Franny during the production of season 7 and tell Alex Gansa enough was enough and they needed to take this shit seriously.

When they finally put The Franny Probem to rest, I say without exaggeration that every viewer of the show breathed a massive sigh of relief.

S4: Aasar Khan... He is a good guy in a bad country.

Bad take