Homeland (TV Series) Oriole (2015) User Reviews

Review of season 5: Episodes 5-7

[851222 · 9/10 · 17 November 2015]

Greetings from Lithuania.

Both episodes 5 and 6 were 8/10 in my opinion. If considering that it is "Homeland", it is a bit low score. Although acting, directing, script and production values overall were very solid as usual, i felt that story didn't moved drastically. I understand that story has to be build on something to have a great "punch effect" later, but in doing that story could have been moved a bit faster - they could have made it both episode 5 and 6 into one single episode, and i thing we couldn't missed anything. But i guess creating of 2 episodes instead of one is not what channel want's, although it wouldn't be damaged creatively

Episode 7 was better regarding story itself. This episode was crafted very solidly as usual and all best ingredients of this show are in here, but it also managed to present story more tightly. With a nice little cliffhanger at the end and some interesting twists Saul's story, i will be looking forward to episode 8 much more now.

Homeland's just alright season continues

[foleyjd · 7/10 · 25 November 2015]

Oriole was okay… do I need to say anything more?

I guess I probably do, but at this stage Homeland isn't really providing a lot to write and talk about. In its opening season Homeland was this vibrant, water-cooler, event television show. In its second season it remained this but lost some of its quality and by its third season any semblance of consistency had disappeared.

Since then Homeland has steadied the ship and particularly in this fifth season the show has become one of very few highs, but also not many lows. I think this is one of the biggest reasons for why Homeland has totally and utterly lost that water-cooler tag, it isn't about a huge decline in quality but actually about the nature of the show now.

I think Oriole epitomizes this. It is steady and self-assured but also a little dull. I think the main problem with Homeland at the moment is that the big moments aren't hitting hard enough. If we look at this episode the biggest moments are Carrie's friend dying in the cab, Saul being abducted by his Israeli friend, were they big enough climaxes.

I mean the death of Carrie's cabby friend was advertised so far in advance that it could never really be effective (them having that little exchange so he could say that he was about graduate is the equivalent of it being the last day on the job for a cop) and at the moment I'm not really particularly confident about the directions that they are taking both Saul and Quinn.

This isn't to say it was a terrible episode. In fact, as alluded to, I think this episode is really great example of where Homeland is at the moment. In the last few weeks I have talked about anticipating the show hitting its stride but I'm starting to believe that the show will just carry on at this pace.

There isn't anything particularly wrong with this and I'm sure there will be some acceleration but I just don't see the show quite exploding the way it did in its first season, or even its second and third (the last few episodes of season three are what stop me from calling it consistently bad and instead just calling it inconsistent.)

Regardless, I continue to enjoy Homeland while simultaneously finding it kind of boring (I don't know if that is some sort of horrible indictment on me.)

(for more reviews go to donheisenberg.tumblr.com)

Defection

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 23 November 2015]

Having acquired a copy of the data stolen from the CIA Carrie sets about finding what could be there that could explain somebody wanting to kill her. Her search leads to an Iraqi that she believed had been killed in an explosion but is in fact alive and well and living in Amsterdam; she heads of to find him but by now Allison Carr and the Russians know she has the data and where she is heading and are determined to stop her uncovering what the man knows. Saul meanwhile is ordered back to Langley but is abducted before he can depart. Quinn meanwhile has persuaded the terrorists he met that the real fight is in Syria and sets about helping them to return hoping one of them will lead him to a known senior terrorist.

This is another solid episode which advances to plot nicely. There is some excitement as the Russians try to shoot Carrie in Amsterdam and as Saul is abducted. This later event leads to one of the series bigger surprises as it turns out he has been grabbed by the Israelis and is planning to defect! It was also interesting to learn how Allison Carr is part of a long term plot to get a Russian agent to the higher echelons of the CIA rather than somebody who has switched sides. As expected the cast, both regulars and guests to a good job. Overall another gripping episode.

Esam the cab driver

[mark22-2 · 9/10 · 1 December 2018]

The cab driver in Amsterdam was supposed to be an Iraqi in exile. He should have had at least a trace of Arab accent. Well, an Israeli was picked up for the part, with a Sabra accent that no Arab would have in a thousand years!

System security ???

[suwrdbgq · 8/10 · 14 February 2021]

Even small IT companies have major safeguards to detect any foreign drives that are being entered into work PC's and/or to the inner network, if these are not approved all hell will break loose and even if they are approved or even if they are entered by management personnel, security will still get notifications about the PC/data/timestamps etc. And they want us to believe that Allison could copy-paste it without setting off any red flags in the CIA? Otherwise enjoyable.

It cannot all be action and cliffhangers

[dierregi · 7/10 · 21 April 2021]

Reasonably decent episode, apart from the fact that the killing or Carrie's Amsterdam asset didn't make any sense. He was just a guy walking in the street for whomever was following the Iraqi guy. Hardly suspicious.

Also, on a side note, I can understand that Otto won't be renewing Carrie's contract, but the reason he gives to Jonas is ridiculous. He said Carrie's behaviour is erratic and her personality is the issue. It seems to me that the HUGE issue is almost getting killed by someone who's after my head of security.

Surely nobody would like to keep that sort of people around... much more dangerous than personality issues.

Weak

[jeroen-106 · 2/10 · 18 November 2015]

This episode was pretty weak. First of all it didn't move the story forward that much. I also hated the fact Carrie calls 'old friends' and introduces new characters just to solve a problem the writers have. Characters the audience doesn't know at all. They are just puppets to drive the story.

As a Dutch guy myself I got immensely irritated by the fact the Amsterdam portion wasn't shot in the Netherlands at all. They just took a German city and motion tracked number plates and street names. It looks very weird. You can hear people talk German and some street names aren't tracked at all (since when does the 'Senkestraße' intersect with the 'Tolstraat'? Some plates were tracked pretty badly, showing a wrong color and a non-existing number plate. I've seen this before in one of the Bourne movies too; showing Brussels accompanied by the text "Amsterdam". It's sad a high-value crew disrespects a city/country with crappy research.

Unlike the previous seasons, there's no real suspense. There are just a sequence of actions and nobody really cares what is going on.

Terrible

[ardyvanbroekhoven · 1/10 · 3 January 2017]

Why use a Amsterdam in the story line and not shoot anything there... I agree with other reviews that these sequences are done quite poorly, but what irritates me the most is that the scene's shot in 'Amsterdam' don't come close to resembling the real thing. It's cool and all trying to cover it up by masking license plates and street signs. Still this makes the whole thing too unbelievable, which is really sad for a show I thought was really good. For the rest of the episode it does lack some suspense and isn't helping the story much forward. The pace in this episode is way to slow and really doesn't seem to do much for the full story.

Amsterdam?

[bertusdeleeuw · 2/10 · 16 February 2021]

Even though the episode is good it's really really bad to say Potsdam is Amsterdam!

A Twisted Tale

[MajorBaleegh · 3/10 · 10 February 2020]

A twisted tale of Carrie, who, where ever she goes brought death and destruction with along her. Incorporating old friends out of her previous employment are brought forward and also killed them before the show closes. For instance, the most hideous looking person is shown as a Muslim where are he looked like a gangster and giving him beads and a cap on his head doesn't make him looks like a Muslim that was absurd. While following the man with the taxi driver in the ending part of the show it was funny and out of synchronization, as he went out from a green door whereas Carrie entered the same house with red door. A person with an average IQ can make out what rubbish is being portrayed here. A slow moving episode which did not moved the story a bit. CIA girls are sleeping with here and there as they do not have a moral obligation rather they are animals rather we say open relationship like prostitutes and this is a funny way to degrade a prestigious institution with no reason at all.