State of Play Review: Homeland, “The Flag House"

By Michael Sulick

Michael Sulick is the former director of CIA’s National Clandestine Service and is currently a consultant on counterintelligence and global risk assessment.  Sulick also served as Chief of Counterintelligence and Chief of the Central Eurasia Division where he was responsible for intelligence collection operations and foreign liaison relationships in Russia, Eastern Europe and the former republics of the Soviet Union.  He is the author of Spying in America: Espionage From the Revolutionary War to the Dawn of the Cold War and American Spies: Espionage Against the United States from the Cold War to the Present

In Homeland’s latest episode, the CIA’s Dar Adal tightens the screws further on those struggling to foil his plot. He directly threatens President-elect Keane, conspires with right-wing TV host Bret O’Keefe to release a video on her dead son’s supposed cowardice in battle, and neutralizes Carrie’s efforts to subvert his campaign. 

The sudden cancellation of Carrie’s appointment with child services to see her daughter convinces her that her motherhood is in Dar’s hands. Fearing she will never see her daughter again, Carrie refuses to provide the deposition against Dar for lying to Congress, a tactic devised by the President-elect’s team to neutralize the CIA villain. As we noted last week, the tactic makes no sense. The President-elect doesn’t have to rely on an old offense by Dar; his tangled conspiracy has left a trail of juicy leads for investigators to follow, and more evidence surfaces in this episode.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+

Categorized as:UncategorizedTagged with:

Related Articles

Search

Close