Homeland: New show on Showtime

Tell us what you think is cartoonish about the depiction in Homeland, and how should it be made less so and more realistic?

 

The hysterical way they speak, adress each other, behave etc. Their entire dialogue shows them like a cheap 90's thugs, not highly experienced cold blooded intelligence officers. All right, I get it these are supposed to be the bad guys but don't dumb down the series to the "I will break you" Ivan Drago level or Octopussy's Mishka and Grishka circus show! All that was missing from the scene is a talk about Mother Russia, Na Zdorovie, a bottle of vodka and some gypsy music, LOL. Now don't get me wrong, russian Cold War films are guilty of stereotyping as well. In the classic 1984 spy series "TASS is authorized to declare..." the CIA resident is shown in all his whiskey drinking, cigar smoking and legs on the table glory. But that was 1984!

And the whole premise of some sort of conflict between KGB old school thinking and new ruthless GRU "young blood" (rogue or not) is pretty ridiculous, not to mention the accusation that it was KGB's gentlemanly behavior that lead to the loss in Cold War (the first time I heard this). Not to mention "Yeltsin's hospital", a phrase no russian would use. We don't use Yeltsin's name when describing the horrors of the pre-Putin era. It's simply "the 90's" in any talk. And tuberculosis? Really? The last time I heard about tuberculosis in Russia was in the context of Stalin's GULAG. I mean, folks, it's 2018 - just hire a good russian consultant to edit the dialogue and portrayal of the russian characters. That's all that was needed. Given such errors I can only imagine how inaccurately the other cultures (iraqi, iranian, pakistani etc) were portrayed in the previous seasons.

P.S. The show is very big in Russia. Not The Games of Thrones or Young Pope big but still. Each new episode is professionally translated and aired 2 days after it's american premiere. Can't wait for the fans reaction to the latest episode.

 

It’s tv at the end of the day, and not having access to KGB personnel I’ll take you at your word. I’m guessing the things you point out don’t really mean that much to most that are watching ( at least in this country) and certainly not to the storyline, imo. And it’s not a big leap for me to take that things have changed as to what the KGB see’s as priorities now vs. 20 years ago. And like I said, if that’s not true, it still makes for some pretty watchable tv.

 

antonkk is sensitive to misrepresentations of a culture he knows well, which is understandable. But this is nothing unique WRT to Russia. You'll find pretty much all foreign cultures misrepresented in similar ways, even when they're English speaking like Brits or Aussies, and the natives from those countries have similar gripes (fake accents, stereotypes, affectations, etc).

And overlaid on top of all that is the desire to make baddies seem really bad, which often leads to near caricature-like portrayals. Homeland has been guilty of all of those to varying degrees (as have other shows), but if the story/narrative is compelling, then these things are easily overlooked.

 

Exactly. Did anyone notice how the portrayal of russians in the current season mirrors almost exactly the portrayal of iranians in the previous one? May I suggest that it's pretty obvious that russians and iranians look, talk and behave quite differently in real life....

 

Sure and I'm a big Homeland fan myself. I don't have access to KGB personnel myself (not that I know of!) but I'm talking about general trends and thoughts in the modern russian society when it comes to such matters. We're not talking KGB in the 007 world, we're talking about real foreign intelligence which was always very low key and had strict rules of the game on both sides. I'm pretty sure that while SVR is as active in US as CIA and MI6 are in Russia it's not running around provoking Civil War to get back on Ukrainian coup.

 

This season is finally getting going. It's amazingly prescient regarding the Twitter bots. Dante's lucky Carrie didn't sleep with him, because that's the kiss of death. And Oleg hasn't aged a bit since the 80's!

 

I’m glad to read here that this show is still good. I had to give up watching a couple of years ago when I lost Showtime as part of my cable package. I miss the show a bit though also felt I had watched enough. Is Saul still around?

 

Oh yeah.

 

I think one of the things I miss the most is the interaction between Saul & Carrie. The show was at its best when she worked for him, but beyond the storyline, it was always fun to watch the dynamic between these two gifted actors. This season it seems like they've barely had 10 minutes of screen time together.

 

Sorry to hear. Best part of the show - great chemistry.

 

Yet but more is likely to come.

 

When Saul was at the marina what was the significance of the necklace attached to the weight underwater?

 

They had previously mentioned that the Russian's code name came from the necklace he always wore.

 

Pretty gruesome way to die.

 

Thanks.

 

This is turning into one of the best series of Homeland in a long time.

 

Please no spoilers!! Due to the dubbing process the new episode is coming to Moscow tomorrow so I have to wait...

 

You Russians are lucky. We don't get it until the following Friday.

 

With all due respect, I'll never understand people who haven't seen the latest episode (of ANY show!) coming on an active thread and asking everybody to NOT discuss it so they won't see any spoilers. Here's an idea that makes a lot more sense, how's about you stay off the thread until you're current!

 

OK, sorry, you've got a point here!

 

It's the privilege of being the main villains these time...

 

Not a bad episode, but nothing great in the sense that it was mainly treading water and setting the table for things to come.

 

still, and aside from the somewhat gratuitous sex scene, carrie & dante's interactions were pretty intense. that made for some good tv.

 

The biggest thing I got from the episode is the extant of Saul's rage towards Carrie. The man's pissed! He's a hop, skip, and a jump from locking her up!