You Can Call Me Saul

An overdue examination of Homeland's Saul Berenson and a reckoning with my own tepid fantasy life.

I am not a fan of the phrase “guilty pleasure.” Whatever gives you pleasure shouldn’t also give you guilt. (There are, of course, important exceptions.) So why do I feel so guilty about my overconsumption of spy stuff? It is, far and away, my favorite genre of entertainment. Worse, the older I get, the more of it I consume. Maybe it’s because for certain types of guys – guys like myself – youthful dreams of finding fame and fortune on the baseball diamond of basketball court eventually collapse into porridge, only to be reformed, somewhat later in life, into equally absurd dreams of becoming a superspy.

I don’t mean an action hero like Jason Bourne. Our knees wouldn’t put up with it and the time zones would be hell on our nap schedules. I mean the mid-level bureaucrat who jets off to dusty locales every now and again to conduct covert operations and maybe gets involved in a (brief) shootout that doesn’t require too much running. Less Jack Ryan, more Saul Berenson.

Netflix has just started streaming Homeland, the Showtime spy series that ran from 2011-2020. I’d never seen it before. I started watching because, as I said, I love spy stuff and because I have a modest crush on Claire Danes. But it’s Mandy Patinkin’s Saul Berenson that has kept me hooked. Saul is a put-upon career CIA officer in the midst of a mid-life crisis that looks like the mid-life crises of many men: his overly demanding work schedule is cratering his marriage, he’s managing office rivalries and an undisciplined protégé, he doesn’t take particularly good care of himself. He’s also a superb analyst dedicated to preventing the next terrorist attack on, naturally, the homeland.

As a man of a certain age whose work schedule is non-existent and whose marriage is (I think) in pretty good shape, and whose own analysis skills have never exceeded the “All cats have fur, Fluffy is a cat, Fluffy must have fur” variety, I don’t share an awful lot in common with Saul. But I love him.

Swoon.

As I get older, I find myself caring less and less about stuff. Any youthful hopes I may have once had for lighting up this world have dimmed to the barest of flickers. Most activities that require me to stand on my feet for more than an hour at a time are filed into the “no thank you” bin. What makes Saul such an attractive character for somebody like me is his unwavering dedication to an ideal. To see him pulling all-nighters and taking it on the chin for the good ol’ USA does my pruny heart proud.

Saul is tired. Saul is probably overdue for a physical. Saul should drop a few bucks on new threads and take his wife out for a good meal. But he can’t. Because Saul is out there (gently) interrogating a crooked diplomat who wants to do harm to you and yours. He rarely raises his voice. He doesn’t punch people or beat them with truncheons. He’s got a moral compass, but he’s not a stick-in-the-mud. Saul is comfortable making hard moral decisions. Guys like me want to be guys like Saul. Because, despite his advancing years and failing eyesight, Saul is still in the game.  

It's the same reason those dumb CBS shows are so popular: the CSI franchise, Blue Bloods, I think they’ve maybe got one about the FBI. The formula is the same: older white dude stops the ticking time bomb. They give the armchair supersleuth the reassuring message that he still matters. Just because he’s gotten a little soft in the middle (when the rest of my life is so hard – sorry, just quoting You Can Call Me Al) doesn’t mean he can’t still make a difference. These shows are a balm to the legions of men keeping their heads down and trying their best without getting much in the way of thanks or reward. “You matter,” is their message.

It’s kind of heartbreaking, actually.

Here we are, the nation’s anonymous pencil-pushers, occasional churchgoers, tenders of barbecue grills, loving fathers and husbands looking for a little positive affirmation. We’d love to spend a few hours with Saul’s problems. To get into the weeds with a boxful of classified intel and a timebomb ticking in the background. Could we, weaned on James Bond and Sherlock Holmes, connect all those elusive dots? Could we, our shadows looming ever-longer, save the day?

Amazon is currently airing the fourth and final season of Jack Ryan, starring John Kaczynski as the beefed-up reboot of Tom Clancy’s CIA operative. You might remember Jack Ryan as the hero of a series of movies starring Harrison Ford. (The series actually began with The Hunt for Red October starring Alec Baldwin) What made Ford such a compelling Jack Ryan was his “what the hell am I doing here?” approach to the character. Ford was an analyst, not an operative. This wasn’t a Navy SEAL. He was just..a guy. Yet, time and again, he found himself in the field being chased and shot at. Kaczynski’s Ryan has none of that. This Jack Ryan is fit. He can take a beating with a lead pipe. He’s cocksure in a way that Ford’s Ryan never was. Honestly, he sucks.

Ryan’s sidekick, the character who should be Saul Berenson, is James Greer, played by Wendell Pierce. This James Greer is an out-of-shape fiftysomething lifelong operative who has none of Berenson’s complexity. He’s a wisecracking, perpetually scowling crankcase whose got half a mind to tell you what’s what. Whatever inner life he has is muted by the exigencies of the job. His Greer is a thin “I’m getting too old for this shit” portrayal. Contrast that with James Earl Jones’s characterization of the same character from the Harrison Ford years. Jones was a later-in-life Greer, now director of the CIA, who hangdog expression let us know he’d been worn down by both the field and the bureaucracy but still got up every morning to play the game. This Greer is a guy who eventually succumbed to cancer, but never stopped looking out for the stars and stripes, not even from his hospital bed. His was the Saul Berenson model, a man of depth and subtlety and, finally, resignation.

Much has been written about the plight of the modern man over the last few years. I wrote an entire book on the subject. Of course, it’s easy to dismiss us – particularly the white version of us - as whiny and entitled. Haven’t we gotten so much with so little comparative effort? Of course. But that doesn’t mean our human needs are any less pronounced than anybody else’s. As we age, we still need affection and encouragement. We need a reason to get out of bed. We need to feel like we’re making a difference. The TV superspy is perfect escapist entertainment for the AARP set, of which I would like to point out, I AM NOT YET A MEMBER. Saul Berenson, typing on his laptop one finger at a time, can still work wonders and he probably won’t even strain a hamstring doing so. Like Saul, and the old James Greer, we like to think we don’t need medals or the thanks of a grateful nation. We just want to rage, rage against the dying of the light. And, maybe, a foot massage.