State of Play: The Real Story Behind Netflix’s Narcos

The brutal battle against the Cali Cartel enters a new chapter in the war on drugs, with the Season 3 premiere of the Netflix series Narcos on September 1st. It follows the previous seasons that tracked the life and eventual demise of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. The Drug Enforcement ...

State of Play Review: Homeland Finale, “America First”

In this year’s finale, all the tangled strands of the plot against the President-elect converge in a thrilling resolution—but, as always in Homeland, the season ends with unexpected plot twists. As more details about Dar Adal’s plot were discovered by our heroes and relayed to the incoming President, the plotters ...

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

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 ...

State of Play Review: Homeland,“Sock Puppets”

Another Homeland episode means Dar Adal commits yet another heinous deed. In this episode, Dar allows the Mossad to kidnap top CIA asset Majid Javadi, Chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Dar has to tie up loose ends. He convinced Javadi to lie to the President-elect and claim Iran was ...

State of Play Review - Homeland Season 6: “Alt. Truth”

The prospect of foiling the plot against the President-elect appears even bleaker as the CIA’s Dar Adal stymies our heroes at every turn. By the end of this episode, Saul’s planned meeting between President-elect Keane and Iran Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) chief Javadi backfires miserably, and Quinn is almost murdered by ...

State of Play Review - The Americans, Season V

Season 5 of the acclaimed FX Series The Americans has returned after a 9-month hiatus, and it might be hard to follow if you start at this point.  I’ve watched religiously over the past four seasons, and I found the new episode hard to understand, at least for the first ...

Homeland Season 6:“Imminent Risk”

The CIA’s Dar Adal was eventually revealed as the mastermind of a plot against the incoming President, but in this episode, the villain emerges as the very personification of evil. We shouldn’t be surprised. Dar’s warped conspiracy has involved a terrorist attack on U.S. soil to undermine an incoming president ...

Homeland Season 6: "The Return"

The central plot of this season’s Homeland has now been revealed to be a full-blown right wing conspiracy against an incoming President considered soft on terrorism. To strengthen the U.S. fight against terrorism, our conspirators have committed a terrorist act themselves and routinely murder anyone who could expose their plot. ...

Homeland Season 6: “Casus Belli”

The previous episode of Homeland ended not with a whimper but a bang when the "Medina Medley" van driven by Sekou Bah exploded on a busy Manhattan street. In the same episode, Peter Quinn tracked a shadowy stranger to the Medina van parking lot. While watching news coverage of the ...

Homeland Season 6: "Fair Game"

After globetrotting the past few years, Homeland returns to the United States. All the season’s events take place in New York City, site of one of the catastrophic attacks that sparked the war on terrorism, which suggests that Season 6 will examine the impact of that war on the characters ...