5x06 Parabiosis

This was an episode comprised of three stories from three of the show's most significant characters. One was great; one was good; one was godawful, all for different reasons. Let's take them in turn.

Saul's storyline was tremendous, and much of it has to do with the direction and cinematography of the episode. Mandy Patinkin certainly held up his end of the bargain, but the way his scenes were structured really elucidated Saul's paranoia without having to be more explicit about it. The way the camera seemed to be spying on him (a technique the show would employ in its first season) sold Saul's feeling cornered and needing to do something risky and/or desperate. I also appreciated how he gave Carrie the kiss off at the beginning of the episode, but that what he was experiencing gave him reason to believe her. Straining the relationship between your two most significant characters and then bringing them back together is an old trick, but they're doing the legwork to make it plausible and compelling. At the same time, it was nice to see Saul using those spy skills again, from downloading the documents after creating a diversion, to slipping During the drive without his CIA tail being able to catch on. Great stuff.

Carrie's storyline was only OK, but it was heightened tremendously, as always, by Claire Daines's acting. Whatever they are paying Daines, it isn't enough, because in scenes where her character is lonely or isolated or desperate or blindsided, the written dialogue does her no favors -- full of cliches and weak lines -- but she sells in her reading of those lines, in the pained or blindsided or wistful expressions that show she's at the end of her rope, and in the way she carries herself that lets the audience buy into her situation. She's succeeding in a herculean task on that front, and it elevates the material.

The Quinn storyline, however, was ridiculous, in a bad way. I realize that any show, especially one involving spycraft, is going to require a certain amount of willing suspension of disbelief, and a tolerance for things working out just as they need to for the plot to move along. But my god, a nearly-mortally wounded Quinn being rescued by a random good samaritan who just so happens to be flatmates with a terrorist who was released because of the very documents that Carrie is so worked up over and revealed Saul's plan with the Germans? That just strains plausibility too far. It's far too convenient as a plot development, and Quinn overhearing a terrorist plot, and then becoming the Pirate King by killing the terrorist guy in a final showdown rumble at the end of the episode was just too cartoonish for me to bear. Really hacky stuff. I don't know where they're going with all of this, but it had better be good to justify this level of B.S.