As the Showtime series approaches Sunday’s final episode of its eighth and concluding season, we must ask a question.
What on Earth is going on with Homeland’s writers?
I ask this question, because the show’s star, CIA officer turned sort-of-CIA-contractor Carrie Mathison, has totally abandoned the spy tradecraft that made her a hero. I do not speak of Carrie’s mental health challenges here, the show’s examination of which has helped address stigmas surrounding mental health. Instead, I speak to the absurdity of Carrie’s strategy in the last couple of episodes.
Warning, spoilers ahead.
Simple problem: Carrie is now working as a witting agent for the Russian GRU/GU intelligence service. The protagonist’s objective is to secure a black box data recorder which would prove that the President of the United States was not killed by Pakistani supported Taliban terrorists, but rather by a mechanical failure that brought his helicopter down over Afghanistan. That evidence would help prevent a looming war between the U.S. and Pakistan.
Unfortunately, a Russian GRU officer, previously Carrie’s handler during a period of her former detention in Moscow, is in possession of that data recorder. And he, and Moscow, say they won’t hand it over unless Carrie does a favor. Namely, unless she finds and betrays to Moscow the identity of a long-term Russian government asset/agent for Carrie’s mentor, the former CIA director turned national security adviser, Saul Berenson.
But here’s the problem. We’re lead to believe that Carrie’s effort to do Russia’s bidding has some justification. That the stakes involved in getting the flight recorder are so great as to justify even this betrayal of that sacrosanct intelligence tradecraft rule: protection of assets. To that end, Carrie has enlisted the support of a CIA officer who agrees with her assessment of the situation.
I know it’s fiction, but Homeland has always sought to balance entertainment with espionage realities. With a sense of credibility. And placed against even a mild sense of reality, this plot development is absurd.
First off, if you make a deal with the GRU, which involves them handing over something that will greatly help America, they’re going to betray you. The GRU is, after all, not just a pathologically anti-American organization. It is a physical incarnation of the Chekist need to damage America with maximal effect. In that sense, it is nonsensical that Carrie expects her GRU handler to actually deliver on his part of the deal. He will revel in not handing over the black box just as he revels in securing the name of the Russian who is working for Saul.
Indeed, the show even hints at this even as it provides a justifying aura for Carrie’s actions. A short scene in the previous episode features Saul publicly berating a Russian delegation at the United Nations as a cover for contacting his asset, who is sitting among them. But just before entering the UN chamber, Saul asks another U.S. official what the Russians are doing with regards to an upcoming security council vote. The answer he receives is 100% accurate to real life: “the Russians are figuring out how best to f— us up.”
As former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley once put it to me, “Literally, there is a culture that Russia has [at the U.N.] which is stop, create distractions, and create chaos. So any resolution that was coming to the table, if it was moving in a direction that was pro-U.S., they created distractions or created chaos, so that it would confuse everyone. And that literally is something we’ve seen over, and over, and over again with multiple resolutions … And literally, that is what Russia focuses on every day.”
American responses to this agenda must always sit on a foundation of resolve. The same that should be guiding Carrie in Homeland. Which is to say, to exert costs on Russia that exceed its imposition of costs on us. That is the only language the Chekists understand. Why hasn’t Saul threatened to sanction the entire Russian economy if the black box isn’t handed over? Why hasn’t Carrie tried to trick her GRU handler and play him at his own game? That would be reality-based entertainment.
But with just one episode to go, things seem unlikely to shift. And so, Homeland looks to be going out with a whimper.
