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[Hassled]

...before the previous thread here rolls off a cliff.

Someone wanted a character list. I have, with a bit of help from Wiki, come up with:
The Mighty Carrie
Quinn aka Woopert. Most of us definitely would, despite the resemblance to a ferret.
Lockhart - once hated, now we have some grudging respect.
Saul - all that is right and good in the world, with a passing resemblance to Life of Brian man who hasn't spoken in years.
Dar Adul aka Salieri - what's happened to him?
Fara - once an IT fraud geek, now an intrepid hands-on agent who doesn't keep enough of an eye on her bin bags.
Martha, the nice ambassador
Denis, her nefarious husband
John, second in command at CIA Lahore HQ, we're warming to him
Aayan aka Pi, now sailing the heavenly oceans with a tiger
Sandy, former CIA chief, now pushing up the daisies
Aasar Khan, aka Raza, aka Hot Spooks Guy
Bunran Latif, the General, aka Art Malik
Haqqani, the craggy Taliban leader who prefers to shag next to a bearded man chained to a radiator
Tasleen, aka one of the Kardashians.

Have I missed anyone?

Huh. So the bad guy got away this time?
suppose that's true to life.

I think when Carrie gets home to her sister in the nest series she will find her baby has been kidnapped by the man in the park who claimed to know her dad and asked when the service was but never turned up to it......

I could be in the CIA

And I'd get out of it with Quinn

And Zaf

Out of the CIA that is

I'd also get very drunk with them

I'd be gutted if the whole Haqqani thing was just left up in the air. And he was an interesting character, well acted - I'd like to see more of him.

I reckon that the next series should focus on those CIA medics. I liked them.
Well, the one I liked best is dead, but maybe Zaf can desert Pakistan, and use his little-talked about medical degree for the CIA?

Yes! werenot I thought he knew rather a lot. Enough to remind her to tow the line if she was thinking of going AWOL but obviously she wasn't in a suspicious frame of mind that day.

Since my damning verdict a couple of nights ago, I've been thinking quite a lot about the episode and the whole Quinn/Carrie cliffhanger is playing on my mind... maybe not so bad as I first thought.

I read they have ruled out a return to Pakistan (no Zaf!), not sure if that's official.

Quinn is a great character; next series will be about Carrie inserting herself in that situation surely to try to influence the outcome? At least will play a part.

On the whole a better series than the previous one (despite me being a big Damian Lewis fan).

YY. 3rd series wasn't the best.

I wonder if S5 will be set in Africa somewhere maybe.

Lovey dovey Carrie weirds me out.

Saul is GOOD! So he has not gone to the dar side, he is merely letting Dar think he has, but he is actually playing the long game and will reveal his goodness to Carrie in the next season!
Quinn will pop up dramatically and all psychologically damaged just when he is least expected.

And yes I thought Quinn's car would go boom too!

I also thought that about the baby's stuff - I mean, what was that? Were we supposed to think Carrie had packed nothing, or that Frannie has a duplicate everything ? One of the biggest oversights so far I think .

I tried to be positive about it but I didn't like that episode, the change of pace and topic were too much for me.

I was talking to someone about it today who said that that would've made a great first episode to the new series but just plain crap for a finale. Couldn't agree more!

I'm still annoyed about the finale, mainly because it felt like a missed opportunity on a number of fronts. I said before it felt like they hadn't written the next series & I guess that might have been the intention - keep it vague enough to allow the writers to fill in the blanks so it feels 'current' for series 5. The problem for me with that was there were key storylines left unfinished & that just felt very unsatisfying.

The prisoners released in exchange for Saul - they were all v specific key components for the Taliban. The asset list Lockhart gave to Haqanni - that could have been linked to Quinn's OP. Fara's demise - the impact on her family/how they react/Chandler 's new found backbone could have been touched a bit, giving a lead into the next series etc. Zaf's involvement/knowledge of Dal Adar's scheming (without being explicit) could have been touched on, Kardashian 's involvement/links to Haqanni expanded a bit etc.

There were so many unfinished storylines, left unexplained, unfinished, it left a feeling of a missed episode for me. Just filling in a bit more, tying up a few loose ends wouldn't necessarily have meant tying them into storylines that they didn't want to continue, just not leave things so vague as that episode did for me. I wouldn't have minded Carrie's epiphany about Quinn/being loveable despite her MH, if they'd just tidied things up just a bit more.

Couldn't Frannies stuff been put in the car earlier?

It would have been even more a bit boring to see Carrie start unloading a thousand baby things though.

evening special agents!

I watched 8 series (or whatever) in one go on Netflix very recently - I'm not sure where you are all now so wouldn't want to spoil anything if ahead.

but if I'm behind, please tell me, has 9th series started? or 10th?

I'm sure we've only had 4 series so far - 3 season finales with big Brody endings & then the most recent one which was all centred on Carries family. (Although in the US they have mid season breaks after quite a few episodes, so unless you're counting those as 2 series?).

oneowlgirl

last one i saw i titled "One Star"

*is titled.

i didn't title it!

The last episode of season 3 was titled The Star, maybe that's the one? If so don't read anything on this thread as it'll spoil season 4 which was so much better than 3.

Thanks southwest

I'm way behind then.

wonder where I could catch up to you guys, Netflix appears to be a no go.

and yes that's what i meant. last scene when Carrie draws Brody's star on wall. made me well up

Ooh Zing you have the wonderful Season 4 ahead of you then - it's only just finished on Channel 4 so might take a while before it gets to Netflix (no idea how these things work). Perhaps you could watch it on More4?

It's really good. Quinn gets his naked on and everything

Spent the episode waiting for another WTFF moment, there having been so many in the last few.

So there weren't any and I think on reflection that the episode worked (with the jarring and time-wasting exception of Carrie's mother) just that I was also expecting some tension, more tying up of loose ends and that the Haqqani story seems to have been resolved.

Odd though as the whole point of Saul anguishing about the prisoner exchange was that he knew that would reinstate Haqqani's command structure from Islamabad back to Kabul, as Carrie said. Dar's dismissal of that with the comparison to Menachem Begin was very weak imo.

Best thing is Saul being made CIA Director again. Which is also odd really as they put Estes above him, then fired him for failing to solve the Langley bombing, then he got kidnapped and was held by Haqqani. Which was classified information but known to the White House. Even if the video never comes out, someone high up must be on Saul's side and not on that of Lockhart and the Senate Intelligence Committee who saw Saul as old-fashioned and out of touch. Or they realised that Saul's reliance on human intel as well as all the other kinds, was effective after all.

The scene with Lockhart and his lasagne was good. Hope he comes back.

Are we closing down the MN Station now?

Just caught up.
Well that was totalling underwhelming. Worst ending since Lost.