The Weekly Scandal-Homeland Showdown: A Drawer Full of Pee Sticks

by Ester Bloom

Last week on Scandal vs. Homeland: You should watch Chinatown.

This week on Scandal (“Icarus”) vs. Homeland (“Still Positive”): Flying too close to the sun with a drawer full of pee sticks.

As always, beware: spoilers.

HEROINE WATCH

Mental Health

Carrie is surprisingly stable for someone who is professionally and socially isolated, on administrative leave, and under an awful lot of pressure — and who nonetheless flushed her meds down the toilet a couple of weeks ago. She finagles her way out of yet another kidnapping, although again someone dies an untimely death as an indirect result of her having been taken. This time, instead of the Vice President, who kind of deserved it (RIP, Mr. Walden, you drone-happy douchebagel), the victims are two innocent women, the ex-wife and the daughter-in-law of the coldblooded Javadi. He kills them for personal satisfaction and also just to piss off Saul.

Liv is still drowning herself in red wine this week. Our favorite fixer has reasons to overindulge: she is still mourning her relationship with Fitz and, simultaneously, she is now also mourning her dead mother — who Fitz may have killed. Under the influence of a truckload of tannins, she confronts her father (“I have so many questions I want to ask you but I’m afraid you’ll kill my friends if I do”) and, later, the leader of the Free World. They both stonewall her. At the end of the episode, she has scarcely more answers than she did when she started. That would drive anyone to drink.

Advantage: Homeland

Reputation

Carrie does nothing to endanger a mission this week. That honor goes to her father figure, Saul. Aside from the TLC-show type behavior, which no one knows about but us, she acts like a competent professional and is treated like one.

Liv gets her professional groove back, after she stashes her “Grant for President” sweatshirt at the bottom of the hamper where it belongs and where, hopefully, it will spend the next year moldering under piles of sweaty gym clothes. Oh, who are we kidding: Liv’s pristine white workout wear probably smells like French vanilla ice cream, with a hint of lavender, even after she is done running.

Advantage: Tie

Accomplishment

Carrie faces down and bluffs her way out of a houseful of terrorists with automatic weapons.

Liv turns Congresswoman Lisa Kudrow (D) into a real contender — and an outspoken advocate for women’s rights.

Advantage: Homeland

•••I HAVE A SUSPENSION-OF-DISBELIEF BRIDGE I’D LIKE TO SELL YOU

Homeland: Carrie is pregnant!! And a hoarder! At least, according to the fifteen-hundred identical used pee sticks stacked in her bathroom drawer. She seems to be an immensely brand-loyal pregnant hoarder, too, since they are all from the same company. I know when I was freaking out about a possible invasion of the booby snatchers, I diversified, just in case Clearblue knew something that First Response did not.

Could the baby daddy be the friends-with-benefits guy she stole from in Episode 4? If it were, I find it hard to believe that Carrie would be keeping dozens of urine-stained mementos in her bathroom; she would have pressed the Abort button on that mission, pronto. No, more likely we are supposed to believe the baby daddy is Brody, her Mr. Big.

Wouldn’t it be great, though, if she could somehow use the baby to blackmail loathsome Senator Lockhart into not taking over as Director of the CIA?

Scandal: Could there really be a B-613 ring of super spies operating in parallel to America’s several other powerful and territorial intelligence agencies? Cyrus intimates to Fitz that it was around when Kennedy got killed, and that perhaps B-613 pulled the trigger that day in Dallas 50 years ago. (Or the two triggers, depending on which theory you buy into about how JFK died.) Would the other agencies stand for one super agency being ultra-powerful and accountable to no one, or would they be tripping over themselves to tip off Wikileaks?

Also, why would Vice President Sally “Sarah Palin” Langston run as an Independent instead of as a straight up Tea Party candidate? Independents are usually to the left of Republicans, not the right of them; and besides, they are so 1994. Kudos to Cyrus for intuiting, and preparing to foil, Sally’s dastardly plan. Nice to see him do something to earn his keep. The saddest part of Liv turning down the White House’s invitation to run the Committee To Reelect the President is that we will have fewer scenes of Cyrus and Liv having their awesome, wine-fueled slumber parties, which were a highlight of Season 1. I like to imagine that, after a certain quota of cattiness was reached, they would refresh themselves by watching romantic comedies starring Colin Firth.

Advantage: Scandal

•••SEXY SUPER SPY WATCH

Homeland: When Quinn and Carrie burst in on Javadi, who is bathing in the blood of his newly murdered ex-wife, Quinn’s rage is incandescent. He looks the way Bud White does in that early scene in L.A. Confidential when he takes on the husband who had been beating his wife — only even hotter.

Wouldn’t it be great if Quinn were Carrie’s baby daddy? For now, he is content to admire her from a distance and help protect her from somewhat closer up. Maybe he will raise the child though to help make up for the boy he accidentally killed in the season premiere.

Scandal: Jake does some push-ups in this episode. Thank you, Jake. Then he goes and nearly gets himself killed asking an old flame for a favor. Don’t die, Jake! You are Liv’s best chance for happiness and possibly, someday, a drawer full of positive pregnancy tests of her own!

Advantage: Homeland

•••OBJECTIONABLE LOVE INTEREST WATCH

Homeland: Still no Brody. What is going on over at the Tower of David? Has Brody’s hair grown back yet? Has he taken up knitting?

Scandal: Fitz is getting back into the swing of things, standing up to the woman he is married to, the woman he loves, that woman’s powerful father, and that woman’s sexy super spy boyfriend. He doesn’t run the country or anything, but he doesn’t jeopardize national security for the sake of his sex life, either.

Advantage: Scandal

•••OTHER FACTORS

When Congresswoman Lisa Kudrow (D) went on TV and declared, “This is what a feminist looks like,” she had me cheering from my couch. By contrast, when an overconfident Saul assured Carrie and the others that he knew his old enemy Javadi and was proven very, very wrong, I was hiding under my couch. Scandal’s episode was a bright spot in a frustrating season, and it posed fun questions: Will Mellie catch Vice President Sally Langston’s husband’s wandering eye? Will Quinn get tired of being treated like a kid by the Gladiators and decamp to Sexy Super Spy School? What is Harrison’s history with the man he pleads with Huck to keep out of the country?

Homeland’s episode was almost unrelentingly tense and grim. There has to be some good news for our good guys at some point, right? Since I prefer to watch TV from my couch rather than underneath it, for now:

Advantage: Scandal

Previously: Who Would Vote for Fitz?

Ester Bloom is a known heroine addict based in Brooklyn. Follow her @shorterstory.