It may not have been the best season - season 2 certainly comes on top - but the makers absolutely delivered on the conclusion of my favorite non-science-fiction show by far. From the inept VP-turned-President of the US to the war hawk badgering him into a nuclear war, to the advisors at a loss to bring him to his senses, to the Taliban, Afghan and Pakistani characters bound up in this global quagmire, to the Russians taking advantage of the situation, everyone gave an indelible and incredible performance.
Time and again the series gracefully takes its cue from the real events of the war on terror in the last two decades. Long-drawn-out invasions and wars based on lies and touted by war hawks. Countries in the region having their own agendas at loggerheads with America's. Russian scheming, manipulation and interfering. Everyone has got an ulterior motive.
Costa Ronin's character Russian agent Yevgeny Gomorov was a befitting love-hate interest for Claire Danes' Carrie Mathison, whose decades-long friendship with the faithful Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) comes to a head in the most unexpected and unbelievable manner possible. I most definitely didn't see any of this coming.
Hats off to creators Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon.
