Is It Sunday At 10 Yet?

TigerBlog saw all 12 episodes of Season 1 of "Homeland" in a three days last September, watching it on-demand.

For Season 2, he's had to watch it one episode at a time, as the show airs Sunday nights at 10.

When last week's Episode 11 ended, TB wanted to reach into the TV and pull out the Season 2 finale immediately. Instead, he has had to wait an entire week to see what will happen.

As TB has found out, there are now two kinds of people: those who don't get Showtime and those who can't wait for Sunday at 10 to get here fast enough.

TB has heard "sorry, don't get Showtime, haven't seen it" and "this is the greatest show ever." He has not heard this from a single person: "yeah, watched it, didn't like it."

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT - DO NOT READ THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THROUGH EPISODE 11 OF SEASON 2

When last we left "Homeland," Abu Nazir was dead and it was basically Roya who gave away how to catch him, after she appeared to turn the tables on Carrie, only to have Carrie find the meaning in Roya's rant.

It was the kind of scene that separates "Homeland" from other shows, because of the way it is completely non-formulaic. There wasn't one person watching who didn't expect Roya to have the same kind of in-shackles hopelessness that Aileen had a few episodes earlier, the kind of "how did I get here; why did I flush my entire life away" regret that Roya at first appeared to have, only to remind the audience of the depth to which a hard-core, unrepentant terrorist believes in the cause.

END OF SPOILER ALERT. RESUME NORMAL SPEED.

In fact, the whole show is one big "what in the world is going to happen next" thrill ride, even when it morphs a little too much into an action movie.

And again, don't tell TB that it's a little too unrealistic, that real-life events would never play out that way.

The drama is so heart-stopping and the characters are so well-developed that that doesn't matter.

So what's going to happen Sunday?

When TigerBlog does radio, he always thinks it's his job to try to say what the next strategy of the game will be and then his responsibility to be accountable if he is wrong.

With that sort of backdrop, TB will say that he'd like to make a predictio n about Sunday's "Homeland," only that he has absolutely no idea.

SEMI-SPOILER ALERT SEMI-SPOILER ALERT

If he had to guess, he'd say that it's possible that Brody has been working with Nazir the whole time and now he's going to go out and try to get revenge, probably against Carrie, who is going to figure it out eventually but not at first. Also, somehow, Saul has to figure into the plot prominently. And there has to be a secondary plot against the U.S. that Nazir had in place in the event of his death, though there really isn't anyone left in his terror group here right now, or at least that's obvious, though perhaps if there is a mole, then he's orchestrated the secondary attack.

So, TB will go with: Brody tries to draw Carrie in because he wants to kill her. Saul gets in the way. Brody kills Saul. Or maybe Quinn tries to kill Brody but ends up getting Saul instead. Brody vanishes - setting up Season 3.

And then Carrie figures out what the other attack is, which leads to a race-against-the-clock situation to end the episode.

END OF SPOILER ALERT. RESUME NORMAL SPEED. 

Anyway, the "Homeland" finale is the big story for the weekend.

Well, that and the fact that Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake are on campus now filming some movie. TB puts both of them in the category of "usually their movies will hold interest."

It certainly isn't a big weekend for Princeton Athletics.

Here's the entire Princeton schedule for this weekend: wrestling home tonight against Chattanooga and men's basketball against Fordham tomorrow at the Barclay's Center, or, as someone here just called it, Princeton at Jay Z.

By the time the basketball game ends, there will be 16 days left in the year and only 10 more Princeton athletic events, including only three on campus - two in men's basketball (Thursday against Rider and then Saturday the 22nd against Bucknell, assuming the Mayans were wrong) and then one women's basketbal game (Dec. 31 vs. Drexel).

Besides the two basketball teams, only men's hockey and wrestling have competition remaining in 2012 after this weekend.

As for "Homeland," it only has one more left for 2012 and then it goes away for nine more months.

The coming attractions say that the Season 2 finale is unreal. The actor who played Abu Nazir said something like it has to be seen to be believed.

TB can't wait.