As much as I'm loathe to do so, I'm going to briefly review the season finale.
The show was good. The political machinations were intriguing and all of performances reasonably well-inhabited -- although I do hate the pinched face of Elizabeth Keene and there is no way that squinty smirk would ever have been elected president. Beau (or Luke or Uncle Jesse one of them) Bridges gave a powerful turn as the vice president and his motivations were never clear -- until they were. Mandy is his usual solid self. The Russian bad guy had gravitas. Jack McCoy's Law and Order underling acquitted himself well as the president's advisor.
But as has been the case for too many seasons, each of those compelling characters was diminished when they had to interact with Carrie. Thankfully she had little to do in the finale other than run around, look like stinky ass and offer sex for something she wanted (yet again).
Sadly this season ends once again with a "Carrie has gone insane" moment that was so horribly overacted by Claire Danes as Carrie that it bordered on something you'd see in a silent movie from the 30s. Her bug-eyed bad acting in the show's last ten seconds took a show that was rocking along at a solid 8 or 9 and dropped it to a six. It was pathetic.
The show is substantially better off without Carrie, her mental problems, her weeping overacting, her stupid disposable kid, her gross misuse of her limited sexuality and her penchant for being the only person in the universe who understands what's going on. When it forgets about Carrie's weak ass for a minute and works with Saul, his technical and field teams, the political moving and shaking that keeps the intelligence community in turmoil and the life and death tensions of playing both sides against each other? It's a quality show and well worth watching. When it's forced to deal with Carrie's trumped up insanity or her "who gives a purple turd" child custody issues? It completely loses its way. The entire season was like that. Every time she was on the screen (typically on the verge of some emotional breakdown with her lip quivering and her eyes tearing up) she dragged the show down.
Season 8 is said to be the last. That's a shame because if it could jettison the baggage of Carrie Mathison, this series could evolve and grow to be one of the best political dramas of the time.
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