Ep 8. All About Allison

As one of the most intense seasons of Homeland continues, episode eight, titled All About Allison, is a huge landmark for the show as it marks the halfway point of the season. This episode deviates from the main narrative slightly, giving the viewer a glimpse into the backstory of the show's former CIA agent Alison Carr (Miranda Otto), who, in a previous season, had been responsible for leaking sensitive materials to the Russians.

The episode begins with a teenage Allison, who is in the process of being recruited into the Stasi, the East German intelligence agency. The backstory shows her transformation from a timid, vulnerable teenager to a highly trained and dangerous spy, all under the tutelage of her strict, brutal Stasi handler, whom she begins to develop feelings for.

We see her as she is first tasked with listening in on political meetings and intercepting communications, all while maintaining her everyday life as a regular citizen. The scenes exploring her involvement with the Stasi are particularly well done and help to build a much more nuanced and complex character, something that Homeland excels at.

The rest of the episode is pretty much a flashback, with Allison's storyline occupying almost the entire episode. We see her evolution from a recruit to a seasoned spy via different missions and tasks that her handlers assign to her. For instance, she is tasked with blackmailing a young German soldier, manipulating him into becoming a spy for the Stasi, and successfully extracting military information from him.

As the episode progresses and we see her change, it becomes clear that Allison's flawed moral compass is a product of both her training and the physical and emotional tactics used by her handlers to ensure her loyalty. We begin to see the ways in which Allison's past has contributed to her betrayal of her country and colleagues, and how the death and terror that she has caused could have been easily avoided if her recruitment had gone a different way.

All of these events in Allison's backstory are shot beautifully, with each new scene adding an extra piece to the puzzle that is her character. This exploration of a villain's backstory is a brave and bold choice by the show's creators, but it pays off, with the episode developing her character in a way that adds depth to her current motivations and actions.

The present-day part of the episode is set in Berlin and sees various elements of the show's narrative finally coming together, with Allison's past in the Stasi serving as a crucial backdrop to her current problems within the CIA. We see Homeland's main character, Carrie Mathison, continuing to work with the German intelligence to uncover a wider terrorist plot that Allison is involved with, all while Allison attempts to manipulate her colleagues and keep her secrets safe.

This episode serves as a reminder that Homeland is often at its best when it explores the complexities of human behavior, bringing much more depth to their characters and motivations than most other spy dramas are capable of. Additionally, the tension throughout this episode is incredibly well done, as we start to see the events of Allison's past come back to haunt her in the present day.

Overall, All About Allison is another excellent episode in an already amazing season, acting as both an expansion of the show's overall narrative and a rewarding exploration of an enigmatic character. The episode is a welcome reminder of Homeland's brilliance, with the show continuing to push the boundaries of what we expect from spy thrillers.