#this episode built their dynamic perfectly and their chemistry is through the roof | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hellyeahomeland · 4 years

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“In Full Flight” | Directed by Dan Attias, Cinematography by Giorgio Scali

Sara: I love this opening shot of Mike, Alan, and Jenna in Kabul station. In my head I’m calling them the Three Stooges--which is accurate!--but when they turn on Saul in a pack like that I get The Plastics vibes.

Gail: The way they’ve lined up--Mike, Alan, and Jenna--by pecking order in the initial shot of this scene is interesting. We (the audience) should be on their side, shouldn’t we? They aren’t the enemy and are just trying to track down a compromised, rogue agent that may have knowledge about the assassination of the President, right? But we aren’t on their side, we know too much. As the camera pans around them, we see them from Saul’s perspective, lined up against him and standing in between him and the “front of the room” position he once (and very recently) held.

Sara: Locating Carrie after that doozy of a closing scene from the previous episode is always an interesting task. I’m struck especially by how bewildered, almost lost, she seems. I also have to note that this scene is basically identical to the one in “The Star” where she’s driving Brody to the safe house, and I wonder if she was getting déjà vu.

Gail: We have a window into Carrie’s mindset to start the episode as the ramifications of what just happened with Saul sink in. Sara’s comparison to Brody in “The Star” is spot on.

Gail: “You were drivin' / The getaway car / We were flyin' / But we'd never get far”

Sara: IJLTP and I loved this device in the episode. What a setup.

Sara: This image doesn’t really capture how fucking good this scene between Carrie and Yevgeny is. We know the framing of it, with the big bed in the background that they both keep glancing back at every twenty seconds, was entirely intentional. Which is just… *chef’s kiss*

Beyond that, I love the way Claire plays it. Quiet, whispering, this mix of desperation and built-up expectations (for what the flight recorder will reveal, not to mention whatever dance she and Yevgeny are doing). It’s really spectacular. She’s giving me Carrie in “Andante” vibes right before she decided to, well, you know…

Gail: I agree with everything you said, Sara. This scene is phenomenally done. A moment that struck me is when Yevgeny asks Carrie who she thinks shot down the helicopters. Her initial reluctance to answer him paired with his intense look at her begin their dance. As she is answering him and says that maybe no one did, his head tilts ever so slightly and I think the look on his face betrays a professional admiration for her. Her theory is probably one that he either shares or knows to be true. As the scene builds, so does their chemistry. It’s palpable.

Sara: First Saul, and now it’s Tasneem versus a band of three. I love this shot and the reveal that it was men under the burqas.

Gail: I didn’t notice that when I watched it! What a great catch, Sara! It struck me how similar Balach and Wellington are now that they have both found themselves serving new masters with vastly different ideas of what the path forward should be.

Gail: I love how she doesn’t break eye contact with Balach while the hood is being placed on her. Tasneem doesn’t blink first and I love her as much as I loathe her.

Sara: This “are you fucking kidding me?!” look is amazing. Nimrat Kauer has been so amazing this season. And though it seems unlikely I’ll get my longed-for Carrie/Tasneem faceoff, I love how they’ve added depth and layers to her character this season in ways I didn’t expect.

Sara: This might be one of my favorite ever visuals from this show. It’s a series of contrasts. You have the height difference, obviously. But they continue to dress Yevgeny in dark colors and Carrie in more neutral tones, even as they tie them together through their jacket details.

Gail: Carrie is high strung and relies heavily on her instincts which also contrasts with Yevgeny’s casual demeanor and his meticulous planning. Here, Yevgeny looks almost amused while Carrie looks laser focused and uneasy.

Gail: Yevgeny will lean on anything, even a ceiling.

Sara: I love this moment. The shop owner starts speaking to Yevgeny, who’s literally grasping the ceiling he’s so tall. Yevgeny smartly nods his head in Carrie’s direction: she’s in charge, not me. (“I just like how he’s always leaning. gainst stuff. He leans great.”)

Sara: Saul against another band of three (I mean, technically, Linus still looks like he wants to get swallowed by an alligator.) I’ve been picking up on body language a lot this season, and I couldn’t help but notice Zabel’s. Legs crossed, totally nonplussed. Meanwhile Saul is bent over, looking dejectedly at the ground.

Gail: The body language in the scene says way more about the power dynamics at play than anything that is said out loud. As Sara points out, Linus would rather be anywhere but there, his body language is very closed off, betraying his anxiousness and unease at the situation. Saul’s body is slumping forward and his head down. Zabel and Hayes are a mix of contradictions: they are both open (facing each other) in their arms but closed off below the waist by their legs that are facing Saul.

Sara: Yes! And then a few moments later, Hayes actually mirrors Zabel, crosses his legs and leans back in the exact same way. It’s very spooky.

Gail: Hayes has no original thoughts of his own. The fact that he is mimicking Zabel says a lot about who he is.

Gail: Saul plants seeds of doubt into Hayes by pointing out the reality of the situation and Sam Trammell plays with that knowledge so well in this scene as Hayes looks to Zabel for reassurance.

Sara: God, Sam Trammell’s facial expressions this season have been all-time. I never knew there were so many flavors of “oh shit what have I done?”

Sara: Julie and Ashley both picked up on this misspelling of Max’s last name. It’s PiOtrowski, not PiEtrowski. Another Homeland gaffe or …?

Gail: Weird... I never noticed that. But I did think her attempt to cover it up at the counter when Yevgeny walked in was futile. It most certainly did not escape his attention.

Gail: When I watched this scene I totally picked up on something between them. But looking back, maybe I’m getting it wrong that it’s Jalal feeling sexual chemistry with Tasneem. Maybe he’s just really feeling himself and feeling intoxicated by the power he’s wielding. Jalal definitely has a new swagger about him. Also? Ugh, Tasneem.

Sara: A truly stunning shot. I have nothing else to offer, except that I get no intentional sexual tension or chemistry between them. I think your suggestion that he’s high on power is right on.

Sara: Jalal walking up to the edge of the roof and this shot from below, lit by moonlight, reminded me a lot of the way they filmed Haqqani (and Saul) walking up to the edge of the cliff in “False Friends.” What an eerie father/son parallel.

Gail: I think it must be an intentional parallel too. Haqqani and Saul became equals and partners in peace in their scene in “False Friends.” Here, Jalal has no equal with him, no partner. Tasneem is standing far behind him, where he wants her and where she can watch the world begin to burn from her actions earlier this season.

Gail: Carrie’s body language here feels important. As Carrie points out, she isn’t turning her back on her colleagues. Her back is turned to Yevgeny as she waits to talk to Jenna, providing her a mental barrier between the two sides she is trying to play for the greater good.

Sara: If you need any indication that Carrie is not a traitor and hasn’t been turned, it’s the way she sits, silently stewing, after selling out her colleagues. Forget that they ignored her, left Max to die, and generally are annoying. It’s the principle of it.

Sara: That said, this expression--coupled with the perfectly-delivered line, “You did the right thing, Jenna”--is the Carrie Mathison version of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

Gail: Yevgeny has a million different smirks. This one reads as more professional admiration toward Carrie.

Gail: Poor Jenna. I used to think she was a Russian agent. Now I realize that she is actually Carrie’s. Looking back, Carrie has been grooming her all along.

Sara: [theme music from Curb Your Enthusiasm plays loudly in the background]

Sara: IJLTP.

Gail: Wholeheartedly agree.

Sara: I still am not buying that Carrie knows how to operate a computer.

Gail: What do you think is in the “Personal” folder???

Sara: Oh my God, Gail, I wondered the same thing. Um... pictures of Franny and coded messages revealing the locations of her spy grab bags in every major city she’s ever visited.

Gail: The intimacy...

Sara: IJLTP.

Sara: What I really love about this scene is that Carrie and Yevgeny both remain exactly who they are, even while giving in to the game. Carrie is her trademark intense, direct, and forward self. Meanwhile Yevgeny leans back on the table, head cocked, a slight smirk in his expression. I really can’t overstate how impeccable the acting was in this scene. Claire Danes and Costa Ronin have to play all angles convincingly and they don’t falter once.

Gail: Absolutely. Yevgeny leaning back, smirking down at Carrie, gauging her interest. She leans in and gets closer to him and cocks her head, holding his gaze, as he considers what she is saying... It is all so well done.

Sara: I don’t know what to call these. Micro-cues? Anyway, the second Carrie says “Islamabad first,” the tone shifts. She leans in to kiss him three more times, and he pulls away--just ever so slightly--each time. It’s remarkable. There are very few scenes in the history of the show that have been this on-the-surface awesome while also containing so many layers. This is multifaceted awesome.

Sara: What an incredible shot that so sharply and succinctly visually summarizes Saul’s current position. I wasn’t on board with what they were doing with Saul initially this season, but I’ve really come around. They’ve systematically dismantled Saul’s career--and therefore his life, because his career is his life. I predicted that Saul might die at the end of the series. This doesn’t seem super likely at the moment, but the death of his career is on the whole a more devastating development.

Gail: You are right, Sara. This image is Saul’s current career trajectory in a nutshell. Saul is dying by a thousand cuts professionally and you can see in his posture and stance just how much it is weighing on him.

Gail: Ashley pointed out on the podcast how reminiscent this scene was of the Carrie/Quinn scene in “Why Is This Night Different?” Yevgeny and Carrie strike me as two sides of the same coin so I can see it. Both have personas they hide behind in order to do the work they do. This scene shows an evolution to Yevgeny’s feelings toward Carrie as well as a tenderness in him that Carrie tried unsuccessfully to appeal to. It also gives the audience a small window (and maybe even a little hope?) into the conflicting emotions Yevgeny is feeling for her.

Sara: Yevgeny pulling the ol’ sneak attack on Carrie suggested that he might have been playing her all along. But how then to explain this private moment, when no one but the audience is watching? For a man like Yevgeny Gromov, the truth and reality of his feelings for Carrie is probably daunting, especially when he’s been trained his whole adult life to stifle those types of emotions. I love what this moment reveals. That he’s not some scheming supervillain but really and truly human--that is, a bundle of contradictions. Aren’t we most ourselves when no one is looking?

#homeland #homelandedit #in the director's chair #in full flight #*#dan attias #by: sara #by: gail

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