The End of HOMELAND: Part I

HOMELAND is a television series that ran on SHOWTIME from 2011 until this year.

The series is centered by the character of Carrie Mathison, (played by Claire Danes), a CIA agent engaged in various covert activities while struggling with the bureaucracy around her and the bipolar disorder within her.

Sometimes the bipolar disorder became a critical plot point. She apparently found that going off her meds allowed her to figure things out -- to think more clearly and get a jump on whatever external threats she faced -- so long as she didn't stay off her meds for too long. That was not an element in the way in which the series came to its end, though. The writers apparently found no use for it in their final twists and turns.

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FINAL EPISODE, AND YOU PLAN TO, READ NO FURTHER.

As this final episode begins, the US and Pakistan are on the verge of a nuclear exchange. The US President -- who got that office because he was vice president when a helicopter carrying the US president crashed -- believes that Pakistan is harboring a Taliban leader responsible for shooting down the helicopter.

Saul -- who was long Carrie's best friend and mentor within the CIA, and who now works in the White House -- is fighting the good fight within that building to have POTUS back down without a nuclear exchange.

Carrie is trying to recover the black box that was on that helicopter. She had possession of it briefly early in the season -- she heard enough of the recording to know that it shows the crash as an accident, not a shoot down. But the device was then stolen from her and taken to Moscow.

In the penultimate episode, a dilemma had been established. Carrie can get the information contained in that box made public only if she can give the Russians a critical piece of information, the name of a woman high in their own intelligence ranks who has been working as a double agent for years. The woman, Anna Pomerantseva, will surely be killed if she is betrayed. But ... think of all the millions of lives that can be saved if a nuke exchange along the Afghan/Pakistan border can be avoided! Think of all the usual arguments against Kantian deontology! What matters in such a scale the life of one ethically dubious double agent against millions?

An additional point? The CIA handler and protector of Anna P for several years has been ... Saul. Carrie's best friend. Really the only friend she has in the world at this point outside immediate family. She can betray Anna P. and avoid the war, only if she also betrays Saul.

SECOND AND LAST SPOILER ALERT! TURN BACK UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ALL ENDS!!!

In the final episode, Carrie executes her complicated plan to avoid the disastrous war. As part of this plan, she has to inject a drug rendering Saul paralytic for a period so he can't interfere, and she has to lie to Saul's sister, Dorrit, pretending that Saul is dead in order to obtain documentation that will prove to her Russian contacts that Anna P. is their mole.

Saul, recovering from his paralysis, is able to get a warning to Anna P. in just enough time to allow her to kill herself before her GRU colleagues capture her, presuming reasonably that they will kill her more painfully than she will do it to herself.

Carrie also has to sell herself. She becomes the mistress of her Russian contact, and they fly to Moscow together. Moscow announced what it has found in the black box, the US President backs down on his demand that Pakistan turn over suspects, and war is averted. Hurrah!

Then we flash forward two years. At this point, the threat of an exchange of nukes in south central Asia has faded into history, and Carrie has acquired some Moscovian celebrity as the author of a book, TYRANNY OF SECRETS: WHY I HAD TO BETRAY MY COUNTRY. She and Yevgeny go to a concert together to celebrate its publication.

Carrie excuses herself, goes to the ladies room, and while in there exchanges purses with another woman.

Back in the US, Saul receives a package addressed to "Professor Rabinow," the name by which Anna P. used to address him. Inside the package he finds a note from Carrie, "Greetings from Moscow, Professor, The Russian S-400 missile defense system sold to Iran and Turkey has a backdoor. It can be defeated, Specs to follow. Stay tuned."

Saul smiles, and we are meant to understand that Carrie has taken the place of Anna P. Saul once again has an asset well placed in Moscow. The end.

Some philosophizing tomorrow.

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