HOMELAND- Is that a cucumber Quinn or are you pleased to see us? NO SPOILERS PLEASE WE'RE BRITISH

[TheSpottedZebra]

Da.

Struggling with the plot here as I had a long day yesterday and attempted to watch on 4+1 while I was falling asleep.

What was Quinn planning to do in Syria with the Arabic guys in the Scooby van ?

DD and I guessed they are on their way back to Berlin with chemical weapons.....

Confused by the Carrie name changed flashback thing too. Was she previously married to someone we haven't yet met ?

Manyak means... maniac.

I don't know what that Guardian blogger is smoking.

Aha, answered one of my own questions.
According to the Intelligence Expert in the Wall Street Journal Blog, it is good CIA tradecraft to operate under an assumed surname. Hence Allison and Carrie Name changing when they are first operating in Bhagdad.

blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/11/15/homeland-season-5-episode-7-an-intelligence-expert-weighs-in/

I suppose "You fucker" is a better translation in terms of the sentiment than maniac, as we don't really use that word commonly in an exclamation- maybe "You idiot!" or "Are you insane?!" would be better, if we are to infer that she believes it was an error of judgement on his part rather than an evil plot he was in on from the start. Still, the gist is that she's pissed off.

Hair's Baghdad hair is suitably frizzy for the heat.

Does she kiss her asset with that mouth?

LOL (and in the office) - good think nobody else is in the room.

It's quite common (in my tv/film experience) to keep the agent's first name (not to be easily caught out) and change the surname.
Except Bond, of course (still fresh from this weekend), who can simply enter a bad guy's nest, not be killed, end up destroying it and walking away as if leaving your favourite restaurant.
Quinn is looking more and more like Bond these days. He must have 100 lives. We could call him Quinn the undead.

I can't decide whether I liked that episode or not. Yes it filled in Alison's background but fuck me she is annoying!

Lots of Carrie wobbles though. Is this time that During appears to rescue her? 'Cos there must be somewhat reason for his serious staring face and his lying about not having seen Ginger Jonas.

Aren't the jihadists going to make out that Quinn is responsible for the attack? Patsy and all that.

Has anyone done a count of Carrie's wobbles per season?

Surely Dar will have made sure Quinn has back-up? The potential target being such a big-wig in Syria.

Can't decide who annoyed me more, Carrie with her naive gushy enthusiasm in Baghdad or her wobbly teariness when asking Düring about Jonas. Or Allison with her daft dusty hair and weakness at not playing the Russians in Baghdad & now being all weedy & needy with her handler. And the handbags? WTFF?

Am beginning to think Düring & Numan will save the day. And His Saulness. And Carrie will wobble & Allison will crumble.

Hair is more Hair Bagforlife in the flashbacks.
Maybe Durring is in love with the Angel Jonas.

His comments to Jonas about having been wrong to hire Carrie makes me wonder if he hired her because she was ex-CIA & could be useful to him down the line. If he is a BND asset.

Now he's seen her wobbliness he wants to get rid of her.

A wobble-o-meter? Is it too late to start? Someone must be counting somewhere!

Yes they have, sort of

I am now of the opinion that during is a baddie and ginger Jonas will save the day

I don't know, I'm kind of liking Hair Fendi's trashy bag-buying side. I get bored by the beige Jason Bourne type of agent, all anonymous combat trousers, amnesia, earnestness and no possessions other than an anonymous backpack in which to keep his varied selection of passports and a gun.

You can't imagine Jason 'No Idea Which Film This is Because They're All Much the Same' Bourne distracting himself waiting for a crucial phone call by shopping for handbags.

And I like knowing that Hair Fendi (Baguette to her friends? if she has any friends...) has a deeply Bad Warzone Hair past, so her current glossy waves are the result of a weekly deep-condition and regular cut-and-colours. These are the things you don't know about Bond... You get to hear what he sounds like tied to a chair having his testicles whacked with a rope, but you know nothing about his hair care...

Though I can't help thinking that anyone who suffered from incredibly long, dry, dusty, frazzled hair in a hot climate would just wear it up all the time - especially with Hair's Eowyn cheekbones.

I wonder if we're distracted by hair & wobbles & snacks - and we're missing more important stuff.

Man in Amsterdam who didn't die in Baghdad - he was a Russian asset & then helped turn HairHandbagAllison so they had to kill Carrie so she didn't figure out that HHA had been turned. CIA compromised at a senior level.

That's it right? Cos I have to call my mum & she plays bridge on Monday nights & right now I think that would be beyond me. She's 76.

Ivan in Baghdad looked older than current Ivan. He obviously missed on the new hair or indeed any hair memo.

And yes to Carrie's gushy new girl schtick. Really ? She's going out to head up the base and she sounded like she'd never met a real life snitch before.

Fiderer - yes, that's my understanding. Although I think Bridge is actually more complicated than Homeland and if your mother has mastered Bridge she could probably join the CIA.

What I don't get is - the CIA had the bloody info, didn't they? The hacked stuff? So couldn't they look at it and think "Yikes, Hair is a compromised agent" etc? Or was it so subtle that only Carrie would recognise it for what it was? Except that she didn't - it was a screensaver of Banana Joe's that alerted her. So really the Russians could have just carried on (no pun intended).

No wonder Hair didn't want Carrie to look at the files. There's no secret Intel in there, just yer man in his budgie smugglers in a variety of poses.

I'm now trying to remember just exactly what was in the hacked documents that Carrie identified as the bit she wasn't supposed to see - and it was just that she/Oriole was now a pariah and that Judge Thingummy (Khalil?) had sent up a distress signal looking for her months ago? Was that all it actually said? (Which seems pretty overlookable in the context of however many hundred docs were hacked.)

Wouldn't the CIA at least have sent another agent to interview Judge Khalil, explaining Carrie had left? Carrie only had to dial his home number and he told her he'd seen UnDead Double-Crossing Hair Fendi asset visiting his sick dad down the road - did Hair know this was the info he had? If so, how? Didn't the judge say no one had responded when he put out the signal? And, if she did know, somehow, why not act on it? Disappear Undead Man again?

Or am I being dense?

Or is there far more in the hacked documents that Carrie didn't get to read, but that are (possibly) now freely available to Sinister During at his Flash Schloss while Carrie is wibbling elsewhere?

(And I assume from the fact that During said he didn't know where Numan was, but could get hold of him that Annoying Journalist and Numan are now no longer at the Flash Schloss. But where are they? Aren't they both in danger as people who are known to have had access to the hacked information?)

But does anyone actually know Numan was part of the hacking? I think he managed to keep his head down - Annoying Journalist knows, but only her. Otherwise his mate copped all the flack.

And wouldn't it have made more sense for the Russians to kill Judge Khalil? They knew he had a message for Carrie - and presumably knew what that message was (hence wanting to kill Carrie).

Jonas: Good
Saul: Good
Numan: Good
Reporter woman: Good (but misguided)
Dar: Good
Carrie & Quins are obviously good. Everyone else is a baddie from Sauls Jewish friend to Otto. Otto is trying to keep Jonas and Carrie apart but he's also either working for the Russians or Israelis or he has his own agenda.

Great episode - I enjoyed the flash backs & seeing Carrie fresh- faced!

Slightly off topic here but I just started watching Storyville about a FBI informant who is trying to establish a relationship with a suspected would-be terrorist in the US.

OK so it was FBI and not CIA, an informant instead of an asset, but it was completely depressing so I only watched 20 minutes or so. The text messages between the FBI and informant and the informant and the target were interesting. FBI and informant: squabbles about money paid. Informant and target: one where informant tells target to watch an episode of Homeland that's airing!