MrX

Ugh, with “The Last Dance” on I’m going to have to wait until I get home from work tomorrow to watch what is sure to be a masterpiece of a finale.

Is spoilers for this really that big a deal, half the audience at this point is just us in this thread who make fun of it.

mcnabb

I think I will be more disappointed if it isn't outrageously ridiculous, and just semi-ridiculous. How they can have Carrie recover the black box, save the world from War, get credit for it so she doesn't go to jail for the rest of her life for being accused of murdering the President, and tie up the whole 8 seasons in 60 minutes is beyond me.....

windom

So Carrie went to live and work in Russia? Worst ending ever.

Coral

She may as well have moved to Oregon to be a lumber-jack.

As soon as we saw that 2 years later she's in Russia, I figured she'd be a spy... or probably part of a spy network (no way she'll work for the Russian government as an American who was a former CIA agent). I guess she's in a sham relationship with Yevgeny, working behind his back? The bat-shit crazy postings on her wall is for her book, and not undercover stuff right?.. since Yevgeny would obviously see what she's up to.

Fitting for them to be at a jazz concert and not some other event.

Shit ending... and really a sub-par bunch of seasons. Glad it's over

windom

Why would Saul trust any info she sent back to him? Is she going to write a new book for every piece of info she needs to send him? Where is she getting the info from and what guarantee is there that's it's not fake?

Bill Needle

Preposterous to the very end. I don't think there was a single moment of the entire finale that was grounded in any sort of reality. It was so absurd I could only view it as a comedy.

And thanks for making us listen to that unbelievably shitty jazz music at the end. I wish she had died horribly for that alone.

johnnysd

Maybe as dumb as the Dexter finale. Carrie is evil too bad the writers and producers cant see that. They think she made the ultimate sacrifice, lol.

dolphinboy

Finale was pretty good and is getting solid reviews from writers who concede all the problems the show has had over the years and, of course, it’s the worst ever and as bad as Dexter’s in here.

Bill Needle

I'll give it this: It's over.

To be honest I did also get a pretty big laugh when they kept showing all those Russian hep cats nodding their heads and snapping their fingers to that godawful music. It was like watching something from SCTV.

mcnabb

I have to admit that I thought the ending was pretty good, as I have buried the show for the last few years and wasn't expecting anything from last night. Most Series Finales totally suck (because they aren't true to their respective show), but this one was true to the show and Carrie's character in that respect. From the beginning, she was a flawed character and the ending did not make her the ultimate hero. She became the hero (from a certain POV) but did alot of bad shit that makes her ethics very questionable. The whole point of the show from the beginning (which they lost somewhere along the way) was the toll this job takes on their personal life (Sal, Brody, Carrie, Quinn as they all lived lonely lives because their job came first). Carrie and Saul were good people making decisions that you would question for the greater good of the Country (Carrie even more). The problem is the show turned into 24 the last few seasons, and everything Carrie did was so crazy and unbelievable. Yes, the whole plot for the finale was over the top and we could poke holes in everything that went down, but the ending was satisfying in that Carrie was essentially exiled to Russia. No family, a fake marriage (or relationship), and just a spy behind the scenes that will never get any credit. I give the creators that much due in that they pulled it off.

Bandoman

I watched this season just to see the show through to its end. My wife and I actually enjoyed just how ridiculous it got over the years. Carrie should be executed for treason, but hey, it's all good.

uteotw

My favorite part of the finale was when Saul told Carrie to go F herself. Other than that, I didn't much care for it. Carrie just became way too despicable.

MrX

They could have gotten another episode out of it where the CIA foils a couple of Russian plots, it take the Russians two seconds to figure out who the source is, and the final shot is pieces of Carrie’s body lying around Siberia.

Bill Needle

Yeah you could see it coming from a mile away but it was nice to hear just the same.

Also love how Saul running a shadow presidency which in actuality kept making the situation worse gets a complete pass. Even though he was supposed to be the “good” guy the writing is so bad he is just as easily the bad guy. “The Russians have the black box and it was an accident.” “Hey Saul, just how long have you been hiding this information from the president while simultaneously violating your oath of office and subverting your chain of command, including working with foreign governments to provide false information leading to military actions which escalated the situation even further when your treachery was discovered?” Between him and Carrie I can’t even say Russia was America’s biggest enemy at the end.

And LOL at the gut-wrenching and emotional standoff in the basement between the faceless Russian agents and two unknown characters thrown in at the last moments of the series.

There is so much more.

MrX

You don’t leave the door halfway open with your back to it when you’re in someone’s house mixing chemicals to make your secret paralyzing gel?

How exactly did the DC police rescue Saul from a GRU kill team

Coral

Yea, not sure why she didn't at least use the bathroom and lock the door.

I assumed the GRU team untied Saul and left after they found out the spy killed herself

mphtrilogy

I thought this wasn't too bad all things considered, a decent ending with a show that has had a lot of problems the last few seasons...

Shannon Nutt

Let me just say this: Carrie Mathison is an AWFUL human being. Amazing how the writers made (most) of us hate that character over the last several seasons.

Anyway, at least the Saul character made it through the series maintaining his dignity and thank god they didn't kill him off (which would have ticked me off further).

I'm so-so about the ending. As soon as I saw the time jump and that they were in Moscow, I knew Carrie was going to be the new undercover agent there...but, as others have pointed out, why Saul would trust her (or even CARE about her) at this point, who knows?

Also, I had to at everyone in Moscow (including the performers) speaking English.

DeFan

They had a scene where the GRU team got a text and just left.

I liked this season. It made no sense, like the Russians are going to let Carrie anywhere near any missile secrets, but it was fun.

I've been watching a lot of "realistic" spy movies like "The Spy who Came in From the Cold" lately. In order to make the movies interesting they have to rely on implausible coincidence so I don't mind it on Homeland.

PerryD

I liked this season. I burned through it in a week or so, after letting the episodes cache up which helps with the enjoyment factor I think. To be honest, I enjoyed all of the seasons, although obviously the first two were the highlight. The show went in an odd direction for a couple seasons, but the stories always seems to be way too relevant at the time that the show aired, so they do a great job staying on the bleeding edge of the political landscape (like this season with the negotiations with the Taliban, or previous seasons with the social media troll center). Just when you think she's a little plain, that final scene at the concert, she looked gorgeous. I'll definitely miss this show.

windom

One thing that I had always assumed over the run of the series was that it didn't take place in the present. I thought that it probably took place in the near feature, possibly 10 to 20 years later. It seems that that it was supposed to be taking place pretty much in the present over the course of the show.

The original opening credits featured President Obama, but it seemed like he wasn't the current president. Didn't season 1 feature a VP that obviously wasn't Joe Biden. So I assumed it was supposed to take place after Obama was out of office. Then they had started having their own fictional presidents, so I wasn't sure if those were supposed to have come after President Trump or directly after Obama.

I think the finale referenced 9/11 as takling place roughly 20 years ago, so it was pretty much present time. Also, Carrie has the line (from the opening credits) about having missed something once which referred to 9/11. So she had to have been old enough to have been an agent in 2001.

Did anyone else think the same way?

Shannon Nutt

That dialogue is from (I believe) the first season (if not the first, then the second). Yes, Carrie was in the CIA during 9/11 and missed "something" (the series was never specific, but we can assume it was intelligence about the hijackers) and how she didn't want to make the same mistakes with Brody.

johnnysd

I agree. I dont think they really gave it much thought to be honest but if you really think about it the last scene would be somewhere around 2030 I would think

ctyankee

But ... wasn't she always? After all, when she screwed up in the first season, she offered Saul sex to make it up to him. That's ho-low.

I liked that they tied in the jazz music at the end. That was quite fitting.

However, the idea that Carrie lives in Moscow and that she would ever be able to buy milk on her own, is beyond stupid.

Osiris3657

Hm, it appears I'm in the minority. I thought this final season was pretty entertaining and a step up from the previous couple, which were a drag to get through at times. I'm glad Carrie's family and daughter were basically written out, I wanted to fast forward through anything involving them in previous seasons.

I'll never revisit the show, but I don't regret watching it.