review of Homeland 4.4 

First, we meet Carrie\'s counterpart in the Pakistani Intelligence.  She\'s beautiful, intelligent, and clearly archly manipulative - just like Carrie, except she has a thick head of black rather than blonde hair.   We can surmise that later this season, the two will have a confrontation.  And this season will animated by their moves and countermoves.   For now, Carrie\'s opposite has expertly blackmailed the professor who\'s the American ambassador\'s husband.   A good opening move in the chess game.

Meanwhile, Carrie has moved into full seduction of the nephew whose uncle - the terrorist - was killed in the opening episode.  Except he wasn\'t killed - we\'ll get to that in a moment.  But, as I said last week, it\'s good to see Carrie so much in control of herself and at the top of her game.  It\'s refreshing after what we\'ve seen in all the past seasons.  If that includes sleeping with a teenaged boy to win his trust, hey - it\'s for a good cause, to ultimately save American lives and make the world safer.   And the kid, if he survives, will have pretty good  bragging rights for the rest of his life.

Now about the uncle not being killed.  That\'s  a pretty startling revelation, the biggest we\'ve seen so far in Season 4.  It suggests, since it\'s arriving so early in the season, that this will be a year a surprises on Homeland.   They actually began with the killing of the CIA operative in Islamabad and who was behind it.   Now it\'s moved to discovery that the apparent killing of the uncle was a set-up designed to keep him safe from his American hunters for at least a little while.

This would have been a great season of Homeland, and may still be.   And the irony is that what might bring the season down has nothing to do with what is happening on the show.  It\'s rather what is happening in the world.   It strains belief that we haven\'t heard a word so far on Homeland about ISIS or ISIL or whatever it\'s supposed to be called, and what we see reported almost daily about what it\'s now doing in Syria and Iraq.   I wonder if there\'s any chance that something about this real threat will be worked into the season by the end?  That would be an ultimate surprise indeed.

See also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie\'s State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie

And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

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Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.  His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003),  Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).  His short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.  Paul Levinson appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"  “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),  “Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

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