ashley

always sunny meme: [2/7] scenes → a very sunny christmas

NOAH: You know why I didn’t win, don’t you?

[Assuming I can count right, this is the tenth and last debrief. Thank you to everyone who participated. These questions are harder than they seem! See you all on the other side. –Sara]

Name: Sara (@carriemathison)

Answered on: various days over the last two weeks 

1. What is your idea of a perfect Homeland ending? 

It needs to feel right. I need to look back and think, “yeah, that was right.” What is “right” though?… I mean, I have no idea. I’ll know it when I see it and I’ll know when I don’t see it. How’s this for not answering a question? 

2. Which Homeland character do you most identify with? 

This is a tricky question because I don’t really relate to any character on this show. Their lives and circumstances are all so extreme. That said, I’ve spent the better part of a decade thinking about and trying to understand Carrie Mathison in all her maddening complexity, so at this point I do identify with her. 

3. What has your experience as a fan of the show been like? 

A rollercoaster, start to finish. This fandom has gone through so many iterations. It’s evolved in much the same way that the show has. I could never in 400 gagillion years imagined that after seven years we’d have amassed over 22,000 posts, five seasons’ worth of podcasts, and so many friends from all over the world. It’s been a ride. We really did have a time. 

4. What is a moment on Homeland that made you sit up out of your seat in awe or shock? 

There have been quite a few over the years. These stand out most vividly in my memory. 

Carrie going New Car Smell on Brody’s ass in “New Car Smell.” I have vivid, vivid memories of watching that in my apartment in college. This was before the days of the blog and the only place I had to discuss this show was TWoP. 

Brody dying. I remember watching that episode at my desk, in that same college apartment, and having an actual physical reaction to him being hanged. I think I started to shake. That hasn’t happened before or since. 

Strangely, the end of “Long Time Coming” really caught me by surprise. I felt that ending was actually kind of cliffhanger-y, because when the screen cut to black amid that familiar jazz music I think I stood up and screamed. It might also have been a delayed reaction to The Kiss, which was legitimately shocking at the time.

5. If you could have the writers redo one storytelling decision, what would it be and why? 

The popular answer seems to be that they should have killed Quinn in season five, which is correct. But let’s just assume they’ve already done that since we all agree they should have. 

I’m going to go with a left-field answer and say that I want a redo of the storyline with Carrie’s mother. In two straight season finales (“The Choice” and “The Star”) there are allusions to Carrie’s mother and to Carrie feeling abandoned. They set up all the right pieces in season four, a season that is largely centered around Carrie coming to terms with being a mother herself, with being a mother to this child she kept for a number of reasons that felt more and more tragic (and ill-advised) each day. 

Instead of focusing on the resolution of Carrie’s own anger and resentment toward Ellen Mathison in light of Carrie finally understanding what it means to abandon a child, they decided to make it about Carrie’s secret half-brother, her mother’s series of affairs, and the revelation that Ellen didn’t leave Frank because he was bipolar. The last, by the way, is important, but it’s framed in such a way as to provide context to her initial rejection of Quinn post-The Kiss (“I’ll just fuck it up”), and it all adds up to a jumbled, overwrought mess. We all deserved better. That scene is I think the only time while watching this show that I thought, wow Claire seems to be really struggling with this. 

6. If you could be a Homeland character, which one would you like to be?

I would like to be Carrie for… let’s say a month. It would be supremely painful and dramatic, but imagine being that fucking awesome? That smart and powerful and fearless? 

7. What is your favorite episode of Homeland? 

“Marine One” and that’s been my answer for over seven years. I think it’s my favorite episode of television ever. Beyond it spawning twin years-long sartorial obsessions, I think it is really a masterpiece. I love the structure of the episode. It starts off very quietly. Brody’s tape is haunting and then the scene where Saul visits Carrie is disgustingly heartbreaking (“But Saul…” … I will never get over that). Then it ramps up into this anxiety-filled clusterfuck. Carrie realizing what’s happening but no one will listen (yes, I know all the words in that phone call scene, what about it?) except Dana. That’s irony. The Carrie and Brody cat/mouse game continuing outside the police station, Brody just digging and digging even after Carrie cries uncle. Carrie remembering who Issa is right before they erase her memory. These are all sentence fragments because I’m bad at articulating my feelings about this episode. Except that I can basically only ever watch it on an airplane because I have nowhere else to go. I build up some episodes of this show in my head, remembering them as better than they actually are. This is one of the few that is just as good. Legendary, iconic, will never be topped.

8. What is your least favorite episode of Homeland?

There are some episodes of this show that are boring and nothing to write home about (or blog about, for that matter). Other episodes have gotten a reputation over the years as being some of the show’s worst (“Broken Hearts,” “Tower of David,” “America First” – all of which are better than you remember). I can deal with all of those episodes well enough. In fact I’ve been quite shocked at all the “Tower of David” slander in these responses over the last few months, but now is not the time for me to defend “Tower of David.” 

In keeping with this blog’s motto for the last seven years, I’m gonna go rogue on this one and say that I absolutely hate the double whammy of “Why Is This Night Different?” and “Better Call Saul.” Those episodes suck. In all our years of podcasting, the only episode that I have outright refused to do a podcast episode for is “Better Call Saul.” (At the time I made up an excuse, but guess what I LIED because I hate that episode.) Quinn leaning pathetically on Carrie’s shoulder after he gets shot and later tying himself to a cinder block to drown himself in a river will never not be legitimately, horrifyingly terrible. The only saving grace of these episodes is HAIR IN A BUN but they had to fuck it up with that awful wig. Bad.

9. If you could bring back one character, dead or alive, from the Homeland graveyard, who would it be and why? 

David Estes. Gone too soon and we deserved to see a Carrie/David romance redux. 

10. What will be your most enduring memory of Homeland? 

I’ve met so many amazing people as a result of this show and this blog. Real and true forever friends. There are so many fantastic memories, and not-fantastic ones that will nevertheless endure.