1. EVERYTHING IN BEIRUT. Holy crap on a cracker. These two episodes get their own subset of WTF.
First of all, Hamra Street, that infamous nest of Hezbollah operatives, actually looks like this:
Yeah, there's a Starbucks. But all the cool terrorists hang out at Gloria Jean's.
2. You're also more likely to find Lebanese women dressed like this:
The idea of Carrie having to wear a headscarf to blend in is ridonkulous.
3. So is the idea of Carrie having to dye her hair and wear brown contacts. There are plenty of Lebanese with light hair and eyes. In fact, the woman who plays Carrie's informant in Beirut has green eyes. There are also plenty of European and American expats wandering around Beirut. No one would give her a second glance.
As a side note, most of the "Beirut" scenes were filmed in Yaffa, a Palestinian city now inside Israel. (You can see the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv in the distance in the shot when Carrie and Saul are on the roof.) Not only does Yaffa not look anything like modern Beirut, but like all Palestinian cities under Israeli control, it's been systematically de-developed and denied the resources to expand, modernize, or preserve most of its historic pre-1948 buildings. But apparently that crumbling, jerry-rigged, overcrowded look is what the show's producers were going for, cause that's how Arabs roll.
4. Random Arab Mob! Cause apparently that is also how Arabs roll, wandering the streets looking for random western-looking people to threaten for no apparent reason.
5. Hezbollah dude is also a wife-beater. Of course.
6. Brody's wife finds out he's a Secret Muslim. In one of the show's more horrifying and bizarre scenes, she reacts like he just told her he's in a secret child-molestation club or something. The only thing I can remotely compare it to is someone coming out as gay in maybe, like, the '50s--the sense of disbelief, shock, horror and disgust, like the thing this person is telling you about themselves can't even be a real thing that exists. What. The fuck.
7. Brody can go rifling around in a safe in Estes's office, because apparently there's no security camera in there. In the CIA building.
8. Pretty sure CIA officers are not allowed to keep secret documents in drawer safes in their offices. I think there is like some giant vault for all that stuff.
9. Also pretty sure you cannot park a car in front of the glass-fronted CIA headquarters, ever, for even like a second.
10. CIA interrogators win always! (Almost. See below.)
11. The whole absurd plotline with the Gettysburg bomb-maker. Stupid Arab, trying to run away from a sketchy dude who just turned up and demanded you go with him to an unknown location. Serves him right for getting killed.
12. Brody washes dirt and dead guy's blood off him in a car wash. Apparently no cameras in there either.
13. Hezbollah SWAT Team Sleeper Cell in Pennsylvania. Yeah, that happened.
14. ROYA HAMMAD. Who's Palestinian, we learn, despite her Persian first name. Which means she gets to be EXTRA CRAZY. No matter how well-groomed, successful, educated and integrated they are, those wily Arabs are always up to something.
Roya Hammad wins a special prize, though. She is the only character in the entire series to resist Carrie and Saul's foolproof interrogation tactics. Apparently you have to be a 100%, certified, screaming-in-Arabic fanatic to resist Carrie's interrogation superpowers.
First of all, Hamra Street, that infamous nest of Hezbollah operatives, actually looks like this:
2. You're also more likely to find Lebanese women dressed like this:
3. So is the idea of Carrie having to dye her hair and wear brown contacts. There are plenty of Lebanese with light hair and eyes. In fact, the woman who plays Carrie's informant in Beirut has green eyes. There are also plenty of European and American expats wandering around Beirut. No one would give her a second glance.
As a side note, most of the "Beirut" scenes were filmed in Yaffa, a Palestinian city now inside Israel. (You can see the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv in the distance in the shot when Carrie and Saul are on the roof.) Not only does Yaffa not look anything like modern Beirut, but like all Palestinian cities under Israeli control, it's been systematically de-developed and denied the resources to expand, modernize, or preserve most of its historic pre-1948 buildings. But apparently that crumbling, jerry-rigged, overcrowded look is what the show's producers were going for, cause that's how Arabs roll.
4. Random Arab Mob! Cause apparently that is also how Arabs roll, wandering the streets looking for random western-looking people to threaten for no apparent reason.
5. Hezbollah dude is also a wife-beater. Of course.
6. Brody's wife finds out he's a Secret Muslim. In one of the show's more horrifying and bizarre scenes, she reacts like he just told her he's in a secret child-molestation club or something. The only thing I can remotely compare it to is someone coming out as gay in maybe, like, the '50s--the sense of disbelief, shock, horror and disgust, like the thing this person is telling you about themselves can't even be a real thing that exists. What. The fuck.
7. Brody can go rifling around in a safe in Estes's office, because apparently there's no security camera in there. In the CIA building.
8. Pretty sure CIA officers are not allowed to keep secret documents in drawer safes in their offices. I think there is like some giant vault for all that stuff.
9. Also pretty sure you cannot park a car in front of the glass-fronted CIA headquarters, ever, for even like a second.
10. CIA interrogators win always! (Almost. See below.)
11. The whole absurd plotline with the Gettysburg bomb-maker. Stupid Arab, trying to run away from a sketchy dude who just turned up and demanded you go with him to an unknown location. Serves him right for getting killed.
12. Brody washes dirt and dead guy's blood off him in a car wash. Apparently no cameras in there either.
13. Hezbollah SWAT Team Sleeper Cell in Pennsylvania. Yeah, that happened.
14. ROYA HAMMAD. Who's Palestinian, we learn, despite her Persian first name. Which means she gets to be EXTRA CRAZY. No matter how well-groomed, successful, educated and integrated they are, those wily Arabs are always up to something.
Roya Hammad wins a special prize, though. She is the only character in the entire series to resist Carrie and Saul's foolproof interrogation tactics. Apparently you have to be a 100%, certified, screaming-in-Arabic fanatic to resist Carrie's interrogation superpowers.
LOL! I've never watched it. And now I know I don't need to!
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