Sending him to America would be to obvious plus the one she was sending him to is one of the best around.

Well it's because Fara and Carrie are pretending to work for a British paper (The Times?) Pakistani guy might be more likely to trust a British organisation than a US one, and Britain has more cultural ties to his country than USA.

I think we're all supposed to feel uncomfortable with that scene. That's what makes it good, showing the things Carrie will do for the mission.

I'm pretty sure that in the previous episode, she promised him "The Royal College of Surgeons", which isn't even that kind of college. In this one, I think they said King's College London. But since Carrie isn't hiding her American accent from him, I don't know why she doesn't promise him an American university instead - I'm sure that then the CIA could come up with some convincing documentation, or even an actual offer of a place if necessary. Surely she could say her paper belongs to an American media group or something?

RCS is a professional body for UK doctors. I guess you have to be educated or work in UK to get in and it's prestigious, hence the carrot she dangled.

I think the idea is Pakistani people might like USA less than UK. There are lots of people of Pakistani descent or nationals compared with USA. UK intelligence would surely collaborate with the CIA for a university place if it were to come to that.

I thought Art Malik did a Pakistani accent, didn't he? Though I haven't got time to rewatch it to check. But it was the other guy who I was wondering about, the ISI one.

And please say Alexander Siddig is going to turn up! (Although he isn't British Asian; his mother was English and his father Sudanese.) Now that would get my interest in this show back.

Carrie is an idiot. She is obsessed with protecting her country and fellow man and woman but contemplated "that" with her own baby?!

In general, I as someone who follows politics in general very closely have found it frustrating in how much "explaining" and laying out the background to US/Pakistani relations. I think with whats been going on for the last 13 years, most people should have a good idea of the role Pakistan has played in the war against terror.

I've never been convinced that the entire Pakistan Inteligence Agency and its Army are a bunch of double gamers. I mean if they were, how come the then President of Pakistan along with 16 of his top General where murdered in a sabotaged plane crash in 1988?

I think its much more likely that Pakistan has rogue officers in its inteligence core and army ranks just like a lot of countries seem to have had during the Cold war and were double agents.

Do you mean the role the USA hawks would have us believe they played?

I agree. It seems much less measured politically; Carrie is getting more and more unlikeable and it really suffers from the missing Brody and family.

carrie has turned repulsive - that scene with the young bereaved med student- ugh. I could see it coming but was really hoping she wouldn't go there. Most uncomfortable thing to watch.

On the other hand, Quinn is getting more air time this series and is just lovely

That's a bit coy, why don't you come out with what you think is the case.

When Zia Ul Huq was killed/murdered with 16 other Top Generals, I think they were all part of Pakistan's ISI Intelligence Agency too and the only Top General who wasn't killed was the one who chose not to get on the plane that day. Does that sound to you that the ISI are a united front?

Nothing coy about it. I, for one, do not accept propaganda from either side of the fence at face value. Do you?

Depends on what you class as propoganda. I've already written as to what I think is the case to some extent already.

. You want...more Dana?

Almost half way through season 4 and its been a complete snooze fest. I cant believe how fast and far this show has declined since the end of season 2. I will probably finish the rest of this season but can't see myself coming back for season 5 (if there is one).

Last night was pretty dull . Nauseaous in some parts . Carrie's becoming very, very dislikeable and she's doing that side to side head movement again which annoys me .
Anyway how the heck does the ex head of CIA get duped the way Saul did?

I agree. Carrie is a horrible person and Quinn *swoon* is our new lens. Maybe the intention is to give her a redemption arc, but it'd better involve actual remorse rather than the show's usual "but see, she's brilliant, she was right all along!" schtick.

I don't trust this writing team at all, not since halfway through S2 when it morphed into 24. I've read interviews with Alex Gansa and it's clear from his responses to criticisms about things like the ludicrous twist in S3, when it was revealed that Saul and Carrie were in cahoots and which wasn't a twist at all but duping the audience and breaking your own show's narrative rules, that what he thinks they're doing and what we see are different.

You've gone wrong with your writing when your heroine gets shot in the arm and the audience cheers, or when we groan "not again" as two more men (Quinn and the young lad) fall for her charms.

All the American characters were so stupid in this episode.

Saul getting caught out at the airport - does he really think nobody recognises him, when he was acting director of the CIA not that long ago and attended official functions in that capacity?

Carrie not checking her phone messages. Her cover story is that she is a journalist, so it would hardly strike Aayan as strange if she had to take lots of phone calls, and I don't see why he would expect her to take them where he could hear them. If she has to be in the same room as him the whole time to make sure he doesn't leave the house, it's not really a suitable house for this kind of operation.

Carrie having no extra security measures at her apartment in the embassy apart from the door lock which she apparently didn't change when she moved in - although she has Max available! I'm sure he could have installed some stuff pretty quickly. Does she really trust the embassy's security completely? Remember it's so dangerous in Islamabad that she couldn't take her baby there with her.

Everyone who works for / with Carrie assuming that she was fine and just couldn't be bothered to answer her phone, rather than worrying that something had happened to her. It's only a few days since her predecessor was murdered! Well, I know Peter Quinn did eventually knock on the door, but she could have been long dead by then. Surely those who know that she has Aayan there couldn't be absolutely sure he wouldn't attack her?

And nobody bothering to make sure Saul had some security till he was on the plane, or better still, till he reached the US - he is a former acting CIA director, after all. Don't people think he might be a target? You might expect the ambassador to insist on it as he is a personal friend of hers.

I'm sure there is lots more but that's certainly enough ranting for this week!

Posted by mistake

The way Saul was captured and the "Policeman" turned a blind eye to it highlights well the corruption there is in Pakistan and how you can get what you want or away with things in Pakistan if you pay people off and or they are corrupt in general in the first place.

Fantastic tonight, gripping from start to finish and to think I was going to stop watching after that terrible second episode.

Homeland is back in form. Brilliant or what?
And it gets amazing from now on...

Oh no - poor Aiyam. To be honest as soon as the uncle kissed him & thanked him for saving his life, I pretty much knew the next thing he'd do was shoot him - kind of like the Mafia; he was so sweet, Carrie will feel terrible for 24 hours & then will be fine I'm guessing.

For a while I'd been wondering where this season was filmed, then when the credits went past at the end I paused on the bit where it tells us it's filmed in South Africa - that really surprised me; I knew it wouldn't have actually been filmed in Pakistan/Afghanistan as it's far too dangerous & also highly unlikely a US company would get permission, but I thought it was filmed somewhere a lot nearer to where it's set.

I can't believe you guys loved tonight's episode, yes I and probably everyone knew what was going to happen to the kid and the preview from last week made it pretty obvious Saul was going to be there. But he's an "ex" CIA director currently employed by the private sector so it was much more important to kill the 4th most wanted man in the world especially seeing as they know he is about to do something.
Saul's death would just have been "collateral damage" and seeing as there were only 3 cars and they should have had a pretty clear view of which one the bad guy got into how the heck did they not know which one to follow whilst leaving. While I do like this show it totally loses the plot sometimes.

It's an improvement over the past few episodes and when they stick tom plot it's a better series. It just shows how pointless some subplots are such as Quinn's. Hopefully more like it rather the more Brody family type episodes.

Best episode since S1, I thought without Brody this would probably be the last series but the show has rediscovered it's form. After the first episode I thought Aiyam would have a straightforward radicalisation storyline but instead became a much more interesting and tragic figure.

Quinn should stop pining for Carrie if he wants to live to the end of the series!