"Homeland" season 5 hit a bit of a snag in the latest episode entitled "The New Normal" when surprisingly, Allison Carr's alibi managed to pan out.
Not everybody is inclined to believe her, including Carrie Mathison, Saul Berenson, and even BND agent Astrid. But her explanation - that she was Ivan Krupin's recruiter instead of the other way around did convince others, or at least, it held up enough for her to still continue operations with the CIA.
Intelligence expert International Spy Museum's historian and curator Dr. Vince Houghton said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal that Allison's bluff "completely defies logic."
"Carrie is making all the right points, she's thinking logically," he said. "Where it falls apart a little bit is what Saul brings up, the idea that Allison failed to report the recruitment of Ivan. Granted, she tries to wiggle around this by saying she reported it to her onetime station chief, who is also conveniently dead, which makes it possible to disprove one way or the other."
Houghton said that even though the CIA is a secret organization, it is still a bureaucracy.
"Even in a bureaucracy, someone at this level would be reported higher. Allison puts the blame on the dead guy, saying he didn't report it, but that doesn't seem likely," he reasoned. "If you're recruiting a high-level agent from the SVR, someone we now know was one of the leaders of the U.S.-Russian chemical-weapons negotiations, it would have gone higher. So there should be some kind of a paper trail. These people go through security clearances for a reason. You trust your higher-ups to pass this information."
Houghton considered that maybe the director of the CIA does not know every agent that's being run, but still, the director of the division would still know about his or her agent's recruits, not just the station chief.
"This would be something that the station chief himself, if he hadn't died, would've been in big, big trouble for not reporting higher. So, that argument is problematic," said Houghton. "And Saul seems to know that. He seems to be making that argument. Dar Adal, if he ever heard that, instantaneously, given what we know about his character, should say, 'That's a ridiculous argument.'"
At the same time, Houghton sees no reason for Krupin to talk with the CIA and share information with them.
"I don't understand why, according to this plot, that he's saying anything at all to the CIA. Yes, it does protect his source, but this is really going above and beyond," he said.
