Homeland (TV Series) Halfway to a Donut (2014) User Reviews

Fasten your seat belts

[851222 · 10/10 · 18 November 2014]

Greetings from Lithuania.

"Halfway to a Donut" was breathtaking and gut wrenching from start till finish. This is another superb episode in excellent season 4. 49 minutes of this episode run in a sec. Without going into spoilers, just have to mention - what a mesmerizing chase sequence it had in the middle of episode. I couldn't even breath, and what an outcome they performed. After seeing countless movies, i honestly can't thing right now of any chase sequence that kept me sooo on the edge of my seat as "Homeland" just did. Thats because of the performances, excellent writing, superb editing, top notch directing and characters we do care about. This sequence alone puts all recent big budget thrillers to a shame.

Don't miss "Halfway to a Donut", a breathtaking installment of season 4.

Recently i read that "Homeland" was renewed for season 5. Justise does exist.

Excellent episode in the best season..

[agurer · 10/10 · 19 November 2014]

I believe Season 4 is one of the best seasons of Homeland. Especially last two episodes were excellent, but this episode is definitely the best ever.I particularly like the increasing taste of espionage lately. It is also really impressive to see that Claire Danes' performance can still get EVEN better! I believe her acting skills are totally off limits. I really can not find anything less then perfect in terms of acting, script, execution, etc. Another nice thing this season is that the show takes very fair and elaborate perspectives on world issues like terrorism, counter terrorism, etc both from a theoretical and a practical point of view.

Escape and betrayal

[Tweekums · 10/10 · 4 December 2014]

After waking up at the house of Aasar Khan, a senior member of the ISI, Carrie learns that she had been picked up for acting irrationally. She doesn't trust him but it leads her to realise somebody has tampered with her medication; this means somebody within the embassy is working against her. She confides in Quinn, Lockhart and the ambassador… who promptly tells her husband little realising that he is the breach is security. Meanwhile Saul manages to escape his captors and after contacting Carrie heads to a rendezvous point in a nearby town to await pick up. He makes it clear to Carrie that he has no intention of being captured alive and being used as a pawn by the Taliban who are demanding the release of a number of prisoners held by the US. As it looks as if extraction will be impossible Carrie has to make a difficult decision.

The previous episode was a little disappointing but this one certainly isn't. Saul's escape and attempt to get extracted was exciting and kept the level of tension high for most of the episode. Since plenty of major characters have been killed off in earlier series one couldn't help feeling that Saul was going to be the next one killed. While not a matter of life and death the goings on in the embassy, both involving the breach and the discussions with the Pakistanis, were gripping and well handled. Mandy Patinkin put in a notably fine performance as Saul; nicely portraying his fear of recapture and Raza Jaffrey is making the character Aasar Khan more interesting. Overall a gripping episode with a couple of surprises near the end.

The Best Season Four Episode Yet

[RyanCShowers · 25 November 2014]

"Homeland" was on a roll with "From A to B and Back Again" and "Redux" but this was the hour where I realized the show I fell in love with three years ago was back. The conference scene helped build the episode's momentum and led into the imposing Saul scene nicely by the writers. The sequence involving Saul trying to escape was thrilling and the most tense the show has been since Abu Nazir exited the series two seasons ago. The use of close-ups in the midsts of Saul's chase were intimately intense and the directing scaled the suspense to levels of suspense you forgot "Homeland" was able to reach. Mandy Patinkin got off to a whimpering year at the season's beginning but has been revealed to be the heart of this portion of the season. He and Claire Danes cranked out the episode's big scene passionately and wholeheartedly, a scene so vigorous that it feels like days long. So far, "Halfway to a Donut" is the best episode of season four.

Grade: A

Take more care about details

[elhsiete · 30 November 2014]

I think the show is great, it has a great script and it's perfectly well performed. But when you are doing a high standard show like this one, you should take lots of care about details. You can't make mistakes or at list not evident mistakes because when someone is watching it, he/she gets distracted asking questions to him/herself like how is it possible that the CIA overlooked something so basic as fingerprints? Then you realize that it is not a CIA failure, it is a script mistake.

SPOILER (not from this episode) When the ambassador's husband changed Carrie's pills he didn't use gloves. The first thing that the CIA would analyze is the fingerprints from the pills bottle.