Monday, October 21, 2013

'Homeland' Showrunner Alex Gansa on the Big Reveal in 'Game On'



[Warning: Spoilers ahead for last Sunday's episode of Homeland, "Game On"]



After watching the last scene of Sunday's Homeland, the fourth outing in its third season, many viewers may want to revisit the last few episodes. "I'm hoping that's the general consensus," executive producer and showrunner Alex Gansa tells The Hollywood Reporter. "This should answer some questions for people."


Carrie (Claire Danes) finally made her way out of her forced institutionalization -- and though circumstances seemed to be pushing her toward turning her back on the CIA, the last scene of the episode reveals that she and Saul (Mandy Patinkin) have actually been working together all along. Carrie and her mentor choreographed her second turn being thrown under the bus by her employers in an attempt to bring down the terrorist network involved in the bombing.


Q&A: Damian Lewis Talks Brody's 'Homeland' Return, Rock Bottom and TV Fatherhood


Gansa, who chatted with THR about the big twist, explains that the unseen wheels were set in motion as soon as the second season faded to black, where Homeland is shifting its attention now, and how Brody (Damian Lewis) will fit in down the road.


How long have Saul and Carrie been in cahoots?


We started the year by talking about what had happened at the end of season two. Carrie and Saul are together, standing there with all of the bodies around them. Clearly, they are culpable for what happened -- Saul and Carrie together. As intelligence officers, the first thing that they would try to do is to turn this tragedy into something positive. That's what they went to work on the day after the bombing. How were they going to catch the guys responsible for this? A plan was hatched quite quickly in the aftermath of the attack on the CIA.


Does this mean the CIA fallout will play a lesser role now?


We view season three in three movements -- each being four episodes -- with this being the end of the first movement. It was a long con that they played in order to draw out this Iranian intelligence officer, Majid Javadi [Shaun Toub].


The cast and producers were very candid about a lot of early season-three plot points during in the summer. Was that intended to play up the red herring?


We were also playing a bit of a con here from the story room. That said, one of the thing we've learned from our CIA consultants is that the most successful intelligence operations are 95 percent true -- and the 95 percent that's true, in this case, is that Saul and Carrie were culpable and that, largely, the CIA as an organization would look for a scapegoat to lay the blame on. Saul and Carrie were playing on that natural, institutional inclination to find a scapegoat. They used that, but when you go back to the first three episodes, you can see the toll that it's taking on both of them. The con also has its consequences.


PHOTOS: 'Homeland': Portraits of the Emmy-Winning Cast and Creators


Like that moment between Carrie and Saul in the hospital at the end of the second episode.


It comes down to the line toward the end of this episode when she says, "You really should have gotten me out of the hospital." That was one step too far. That was the part of her role-playing that hit too close. Although they are in this ruse together, it's painful for Carrie to admit that she's to blame for what happened and to think that because she was on her meds, she missed stopping the attack. All of that is true and playing through her head.


What does the next movement focus on?


They are now in the process of luring him out into the open and landing this guy. That's the substance of the second movement.


How will Brody figure in to all of this?


I will say that Brody becomes a principal player in the architecture of the last sweep of episodes. His predicament down in Caracas and his separation from Carrie and Saul is really paramount as we move into the next two movements of the season.


Did you have any reservations about having an episode ("Tower of David") that was almost exclusively from Brody's point of view?


It was really a function of how much story was to be told there. Just anecdotally, some people felt we were with him too much and others felt we were with him too little. It felt right to us to establish his predicament and to parallel his plight with Carrie's. These are two people in some very desperate circumstances. The show has paralleled their stories before and some of the most successful episodes that we have done have drawn comparisons between their predicaments.


Stylistically, the episode was very different from the rest of the series.


I sort of leave it to the audience to tell us if we were successful or not, but it's fun for us to mix up the show a little bit and not tell the same story over and over again -- to take a risk here and there. We also teased the audience by not having Brody in the first two episodes, so we gave them a healthy dose of him in number three.


Q&A: 'Homeland' EP Alex Gansa Talks Season 3, Benghazi and Demedicating Carrie -- Again


The Brody family storyline has really been dominated by Dana (Morgan Saylor) this season. When did you decide you'd focus so much on her?


Because Brody was not onscreen and not part of the story in those first couple of episodes, we really wanted to tell the aftermath of the bombing in a more personal way. The relationship between Dana and her father is very strong. It's stronger than his relationship with Jessica [Morena Baccarin] and certainly stronger than his relationship with Chris [Jackson Pace]. Going back to the first season … the first time that Brody came back from captivity, he gives his wife a hug -- but it's kind of a tentative one. The first time we see him open up, it's in response to his daughter. That led to the end of season one, when she talks him off the ledge when he's about to explode that vest inside the bunker with the vice president. Her role grew through season two, and she just felt like the logical person. For the weight of what her dad did, it just landed on her in a more profound way.


How much does the story stick with Dana moving forward?


You'll see in the next four episodes, and certainly the last four, that she doesn't play as big of a role. She's not physically onscreen a lot, but her presence is there in a profound way for Brody and for Carrie.


How was all the secret-keeping for you personally?


We've taken a degree of pleasure in it. I was an amateur magician when I was a kid, and for me, the best tricks were the ones where the magician convinces the audience that he's made a mistake – only to prove at the end that he's been ahead of them all along. We've been leaning into that idea a little bit, and hopefully it will have paid off in episode four.


E-mail: Michael.OConnell@THR.com
Twitter:
@MikeyLikesTV



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Where are all the women at finance conferences? - The Term Sheet ...

By Susan Askew


131018135343-men-in-suits-620xaFORTUNE -- I am one of the 32% -- the 32% of the Wall Street Journal readers that are women. For many years, I have faithfully read the financial news and, not so faithfully, looked at the ads. But sometimes an oversized or provocative ad will catch my eye ... as in the case of one recent full-page splash for a private equity conference sponsored by Dow Jones. The ad prominently displayed the photos of 10 featured speakers. All men. Huh, I thought. What happened there?


Shortly after, another full-page ad in the Journal for its own Heard on the Street Live conference on "Investing in an Age of Easy Money" hosted by three male editors and featuring nine male speakers. Within days, a half-page ad appeared for Barron's "The Art of Successful Investing" conference. Ten speakers. One woman.


By this point, my incredulity was a bit strained. As the saying goes: Once is an anomaly. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.


Twenty years ago, as a novice entrepreneur looking for financial backing for a "women's website," an investor asked me "Is this a social cause, are you asking me for a donation?" I learned very fast that it wasn't about mission. It was about money. So, let's talk numbers.


  • In 2007, the most recent year for which IRS data are available, there were an estimated 1.3 million men and 1 million women with assets of $2 million or more.

  • The Boston Consulting Group reports that in 2009 women controlled 27% of the world's wealth, 33% of financial assets in North America, "meaning that they decide where the assets are invested." Within the next decade, private wealth in the United States is expected to reach $22 trillion with half of it controlled by women.

  • In a BCG survey of women with bankable assets of more than $250,000, 42% reported their wealth was self-earned, coming from salaries and bonuses.

  • Looking to the future, due to longer lifespans, women are expected to control a large portion of what Boston College researchers say will be an estimated $42 trillion wealth transfer by 2052.

According to the IRS data, women are more likely to hold publicly traded stocks and other assets such as bonds vs. the "closely held stock and business assets" that make up a greater portion of men's portfolios. That means women should be in the sweet spot for the organizers of conferences, like Barron's, that target individual investors.


MORE: The 50 Most Powerful Women in business


The Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst conference targets "investors in private equity and venture capital transactions." The WSJ conference is for fund managers and financial advisors. While, admittedly, this audience is dominated by men, the Center for Venture Research reports a significant increase in the number of women angel investors, growing from 12.2% of the market in 2011 to 21.8% in 2012.


At the same time, there are women in private equity with something to add to the dialog. A report earlier this year from Rothstein Kass indicated hedge funds owned by women outperformed the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index in the third quarter of 2012, netting an 8.95% return vs. 2.69%. I would think these women fund managers would have something of interest to say to the audiences at the Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal conferences.


While women control a significant amount of wealth, surveys indicate they don't have a gender preference when it comes to financial managers, but they do want to be respected. Invisibility of half the population on the dais at financial conferences is the height of disrespect.


Including female voices in financial conferences isn't just good policy, it's good business.


Susan Askew is a former staffer to Delaware Governor Mike Castle, is a recent graduate of the George Mason University BIS program with a concentration in Latin American Finance, and a new Gender Avenger (genderavenger.com).


Source: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/18/women-finance/
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France summons US ambassador over spying

U.S Ambassador to France Charles H. Rivkin, right, leaves the Foreign Ministry in Paris, after he was summoned Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. The French government had summoned the ambassador to explain why the Americans spied on one of their closest allies. Le Monde newspaper said Monday, Oct. 21, 2013 that documents leaked by Edward Snowden show that the U.S. National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French phone records in a 30-day period. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)







U.S Ambassador to France Charles H. Rivkin, right, leaves the Foreign Ministry in Paris, after he was summoned Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. The French government had summoned the ambassador to explain why the Americans spied on one of their closest allies. Le Monde newspaper said Monday, Oct. 21, 2013 that documents leaked by Edward Snowden show that the U.S. National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French phone records in a 30-day period. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)







U.S Ambassador to France Charles H. Rivkin, right, leaves the Foreign Ministry in Paris, after he was summoned Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. The French government had summoned the ambassador to explain why the Americans spied on one of their closest allies. Le Monde newspaper said Monday, Oct. 21, 2013 that documents leaked by Edward Snowden show that the U.S. National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French phone records in a 30-day period. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)







FILE - In this March 8, 2013 file photo, U.S Ambassador to France Charles H. Rivkin, stands as the US national anthem is played aboard US aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Marseille, southern France. Le Monde newspaper says Monday, Oct.21, 2013 that documents leaked by Edward Snowden show that the U.S. National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French phone records in a 30-day period. The French government has summoned the Rivkin to explain why the Americans spied on one of their closest allies.(AP Photo/Claude Paris, File)







(AP) — The French government summoned U.S. Ambassador Charles Rivkin on Monday to explain a French newspaper report that the National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French phone records in a 30-day period.

The French government called the practice "totally unacceptable" and wanted to know why the U.S. spied on one of its closest allies.

Spying among allied countries is common, but the scope of the NSA surveillance, as revealed by leaker Edward Snowden, was larger than expected.

Similar U.S. spying programs have been revealed in Britain, Brazil, Mexico and Germany.

"The ambassador expressed his appreciation of the importance of the exchange, and promised to convey the points made back to Washington," a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Paris said.

Rivkin assured Alexandre Ziegler, chief of staff to Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that "our ongoing bilateral consultations on allegations of information gathering by U.S. government agencies would continue," the embassy statement said.

The report in Le Monde, co-written by Glenn Greenwald, who originally revealed the surveillance program based on leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Snowden, found that when certain numbers were used, the conversations were automatically recorded. The surveillance operation also swept up text messages based on key words, Le Monde reported, based on records from Dec. 10 to Jan 7.

The French government, which wants the surveillance to cease, also renewed demands for talks on protection of personal data.

"This sort of practice between partners that invades privacy is totally unacceptable and we have to make sure, very quickly, that this no longer happens," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said during a meeting in Luxembourg with his European counterparts. Fabius said the U.S. ambassador had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry.

The most recent documents cited by Le Monde, dated to April 2013, also indicated the NSA's interest in email addresses linked to Wanadoo — once part of France Telecom — and Alcatel-Lucent, the French-American telecom company. One of the documents instructed analysts to draw not only from the electronic surveillance program, but also from another initiative dubbed Upstream, which allowed surveillance on undersea communications cables.

The U.S "gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations," said Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council at the White House. "We've begun to review the way that we gather intelligence, so that we properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people share."

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-21-US-NSA-Surveillance/id-abafa29af1954958954031b16d9f306d
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Snowden: No classified documents taken to Russia

In this image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden speaks during a presentation ceremony for the Sam Adams Award in Moscow, Russia. Snowden was awarded the Sam Adams Award, according to videos released by the organization WikiLeaks. The award ceremony was attended by three previous recipients. (AP Photo)







In this image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden speaks during a presentation ceremony for the Sam Adams Award in Moscow, Russia. Snowden was awarded the Sam Adams Award, according to videos released by the organization WikiLeaks. The award ceremony was attended by three previous recipients. (AP Photo)







(AP) — Former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden says that he did not take any secret NSA documents to Russia and that intelligence officials in China as well as Russia could not get access to the documents he had obtained before leaving the United States.

In an interview with The New York Times, Snowden said he handed over all the documents he had obtained to journalists during his stay in Hong Kong. The newspaper posted its story on its website Thursday.

Snowden said he did not retain copies of the documents and did not take them to Russia "because it wouldn't serve the public interest," the Times reported. He said his familiarity with China's intelligence abilities allowed him to protect the documents from Chinese spies while he was in Hong Kong.

"There's a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents," he said.

Snowden's leaks of highly classified material have resulted in numerous news stories about U.S. surveillance activities at home and abroad and sparked debate about the legality of those activities and the privacy implications for average Americans.

The Times reported that in the interview, which it said took place over several days in the last week and involved encrypted online communications, Snowden asserted that he believed he was a whistle-blower who was acting in the nation's best interests by revealing information about the NSA's surveillance dragnet and huge collections of communications data.

Snowden said that he had helped U.S. national security by prompting a badly needed public debate about the scope of the intelligence effort. "The secret continuance of these programs represents a far greater danger than their disclosure," he said.

Snowden faces espionage charges in the U.S. On Aug. 1 he was granted asylum in Russia, which is allowing him to remain there for one year.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-17-US-NSA-Surveillance-Snowden/id-4f057cdb51194bd292a67bb704aa47ea
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Report: NSA and CIA collaborate on drone strikes

(AP) — The National Security Agency has been extensively involved in the U.S. government's targeted killing program, collaborating closely with the CIA in the use of drone strikes against terrorists abroad, The Washington Post reported after a review of documents provided by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden.

In one instance, an email sent by the wife of an Osama bin Laden associate contained clues as to her husband's whereabouts and led to a CIA drone strike that killed him in Pakistan in October 2012, the Post reported in its online edition Wednesday night.

While citing documents provided by Snowden — the American is hiding out in Russia after being granted asylum there — the Post reported that it was withholding many details about the drone-strike missions at the request of U.S. intelligence officials. They cited potential damage to ongoing operations and national security for their request, the paper reported.

The documents make clear that the CIA-operated drone campaign relies heavily on the NSA's ability to vacuum up enormous quantities of e-mail, phone calls and other fragments of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, the newspaper said.

The NSA created a secret unit known as the Counter-Terrorism Mission Aligned Cell, or CT MAC, to concentrate the agency's vast resources on hard-to-find terrorism targets, the Post reported.

The documents provided by Snowden don't explain how the bin Laden associate's email was obtained or whether it was obtained through the controversial NSA programs recently made public, including its metadata collection of numbers dialed by nearly every person in the United States.

Instead, the Post said its review of the documents indicates that the agency depends heavily on highly targeted network penetrations to gather information that wouldn't otherwise be trapped in surveillance nets that the NSA has set at key Internet gateways.

The U.S. has never publicly acknowledged killing bin Laden associate Hassan Ghul, according to the Post. The al-Qaida operative had been captured in 2004 and helped expose bin Laden's courier network, a key development in the effort to locate bin Laden. Ghul then spent two years in a secret CIA prison and returned to al-Qaida after the U.S. sent him to his native Pakistan in 2006.

U.S. forces killed bin Laden at his Pakistan hideout in 2011. That same year, the Treasury Department named Ghul a target of U.S. counterterrorism sanctions after he had helped al-Qaeda re-establish logistics networks, enabling al-Qaida to move people and money in and out of the country. The Post said an NSA document described Ghul as al-Qaida chief of military operations and detailed a broad surveillance effort to find him.

Obtained during a monthslong effort to find Ghul, the email from his wife erased doubts U.S. forces had found him, the Post said.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-17-NSA-Drone%20Strikes/id-c1990a2e3aaa475585d553ce45877b72
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Bar Refaeli Bafflled at her Single Status: "So What's Wrong with Me?"

Looking gorgeous while out and about in the Big Apple, Bar Refaeli strolled in Soho on Friday (October 18).


The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition covergirl wore a green jacket over her green top and white skinnies as she chatted on her phone outside.


Recently, the Israeli stunner talked with the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth about being single, lamenting, "I don't understand it."


Mystified, she continued, "I’m okay. I look great. I’m cool. I like going out. I like being at home, I like movies, I like eating. So what’s wrong with me? Why am I alone?”


However, her expectations may be pretty high. "I’m looking for someone serious, who I can set up home with. Someone who comes from a warm, loving family like mine, who has values like mine. I’m very interested in going out with someone who is big and strong and famous.”


Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/bar-refaeli/bar-refaeli-bafflled-her-single-status-so-whats-wrong-me-946167
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'The Americans' Casts Cartoon Network Alum for Season 2 (Exclusive)


Actress Aimee Carrero has landed a recurring role on FX’s The Americans, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.



Carrero, who was a series regular on the Cartoon Network live-action series Level Up, will play Chena, a smart yet impulsive Sandinista freedom fighter who “will go to any lengths to support her cause.” The casting indicates that the United States’ assistance of the Nicaraguan Contras will be among the historical events of the 1980s that the FX political drama will explore in its second season, which premieres in January.


PHOTOS: 'The Americans': Exclusive Portraits of Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys on Set


Carrero has also been cast in Young and Hungry, a multi-camera comedy pilot from ABC Family and CBS Studios. Carrero will play Tessa, the best friend of series protagonist Gabi (Emily Osment) in the project from executive producers Eric Tannenbaum, Kim Tannenbaum, Ashley Tisdale and Jessica Rhoades. Tessa is described as an ambitious banking intern who is always hustling to make ends meet. If the pilot is picked up, it will be a series regular role.


Carrero’s credits include Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and Blue Lagoon: The Awakening as well as guest spots on Greek, Lincoln Heights and Hannah Montana. She is repped by Innovative, 3 Arts and attorney Bill Skrzyniarz at Skrzyniarz & Mallean.


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