1x11 - "The Vest" Episode Discussion

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Discuss The Vest here.

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AG: We were looking for the most dramatic, the most personal, and the most effective way for Brody to carry out his mission. All the various possibilities: We talked about it being at one of these party conventions; we talked about some sort of Walker-Brody sniper team. Could they take out the vice president just by doing what they did in the field in Iraq? Ultimately, all those things felt kind of soulless, in a way. And the idea that Brody was so committed that he would actually kill himself in the process of this just became more and more compelling to us.

There was a movie called Paradise Now. It’s a really wonderful film about two Palestinians who are recruited to carry out a suicide attack against Israel. The whole movie is about the buildup to the event and the martyrs’ video that they make, and the actual physicality of the bomb, and the proximity of all these explosives against your bare skin, and just the terror of it all, and the brainwashing of it all. Even though it was extreme, and even though there were some big questions in the staff about whether a Marine would actually do this and employ this technique, there were just so many things that vouched in its favor. The most important one, of course, being that the thing could malfunction. So it just put it at such a personal level, and it meant that Brody was gonna have to say goodbye to his family, which was the entire impetus of this episode, that Brody was gonna take his family on this last trip together, and in a way, explain himself, and in a way, say goodbye to each member of his family.

AVC: Were there ever any concerns about how far you can humanize someone who is essentially an enemy of the United States?

AG: That was our goal from the very beginning. If we could make people understand why Brody was doing this, and if we could make people like him, in spite of it. It’s remarkable how many people voice their dismay that he actually didn’t go through with it. At some level, they must have felt he was justified. I don’t think anybody wanted to see Brody die for the sake of Brody dying, because they disliked him, or weren’t intrigued by him, or didn’t want to see what happened to him next. I think that they ultimately found themselves, in a crazy way, rooting for him. It was complicated, because you were also rooting for Carrie. But this episode, “The Vest,” really tried to seal the deal, really tried to show not only the growing certainty that he was actually going to go through with this, but also to really make sure, and to portray and dramatize, that Brody wanted to make sure that his family was going to be okay in the aftermath of it.

AVC: You mentioned that you kept pushing back Carrie’s mental breakdown. When did you finally decide, “We’re going to make it this episode, the next to last”?

AG: Well, it was the last one. We had no choice. [Laughs.] It was this one or nothing. The reason is that the closer to the end we could incapacitate Carrie, the better. Because the more we became certain that Brody was going to go through with what he had planned to do, the better it was to have Carrie sidelined. And what better way to sideline her than to have her have this manic breakdown, and then to have her excommunicated from the CIA, so she would be no longer be able to actually stop him? So that was the impetus for the two stories.

AVC: How much did you look into manic depression?

AG: Oh, we did lots of research. And Claire [Danes], as she did for Temple Grandin and explored [autism], she did the same thing for bipolar [disorder] on this. She really, really did her homework on what it’s like to have a manic episode. Meredith [Stiehm], who wrote most of her stuff in this episode, also has a sister who’s bipolar, and who has experienced these manic episodes. There was a lot of verisimilitude in this.

AVC: Especially in an episode like this, you’re really tossing a lot on the actor. How does it help to have actors who you know are going to be able to handle that sort of thing?

AG: It’s invaluable. In the hands of a lesser actor, the thing wouldn’t have worked.

I actually think all through the course of the season, on a number of fronts. Certainly, obviously with Damian [Lewis] and Claire, they had such tricky things to pull off, and they did with such virtuosity. It’s remarkable. Claire’s performance in this episode, from the minute she steps onscreen, is so nuanced and so heartbreaking and so real. I got a letter from somebody who said she’s bipolar herself, and she said Claire’s performance was so real to her that she worries for Claire’s sanity. Claire is just so in control of her instrument, as a performer and as an artist, and she just disappeared into the character in a way not a lot of people can do. We sit in the story room and we just feel we are writing dialogue for some of the best actors of our generation. Literally, we feel that way. Now, maybe we’re wrong. [Laughs.] But watching dailies, and watching these people bring to life what we put on the page, is incredible.


AVC: How much contact do you have with the members of the cast in the writers’ room?

AG: It’s difficult, because they’re 3,000 miles away. But first of all, Michael Cuesta, our directing executive producer, is there. And there’s the telephone. And a writer is always on the set, or I’m always on the set, if the writer can’t be there. So there is a lot of back and forth about it, but because the time frame is so accelerated, and the amount of rehearsal is so limited, not only in the writing, but also in the performing and the directing and the editing, these things are done at such velocity and such pace that you gotta be on your game. So there’s not as much dialogue between actors and writers as you would like, but there’s enough to make the thing function.

AVC: How much did you talk about making it Saul who figures out the method to Carrie’s rambling?

AG: Again, that’s the beauty of Saul’s character and Mandy [Patinkin]’s performance. That in spite of this woman’s clearly losing it, Saul is able to find the germ of genius in what she’s done. And actually, that assembly scene was shot after the episode was put together. We realized we needed it, so that was shot after the fact and put in. In fact, that happened a couple of times, where we just needed extra material, and it wasn’t quite working without it. So we did that whole montage of Saul putting up that thing and then seeing the thing, and it was beautiful. It’s interesting, if you watch Mandy’s performance in that, he makes all the little bits and pieces of business that could’ve been just boring so interesting; the way he rips [pieces of paper] off. It’s just remarkable to watch an actor to bring something so alive to something that really could’ve ultimately been such a cliché.

Alex Gansa talks about The Vest - Read more here: www.avclub.com/articles/alex-gansa-walks-us-through-homelands-first-season,68370/