| Laura Sutton | |
|---|---|
| |
| Name: | Laura Sutton |
| Status: | Alive |
| Age: | 30s |
| Birthplace: | United States |
| Nationality: |  American
|
| Residence(s): | Berlin, Germany |
| Affiliation: | Düring Foundation |
| Profession: | Journalist |
| Marital status: | Single |
| Played by: | Sarah Sokolovic |
| Season(s): | 5 |
| Episodes: | 10 appearances |
| First episode: | "Separation Anxiety" |
| Last episode: | "A False Glimmer" |
"You can take the girl out of the CIA, but you can’t take the CIA out of the girl.” - SUTTON, Laura
"She doesn't matter if the world goes down since she gets her Pulitzer!!!" - Astrid talking about Laura Sutton
Laura Sutton is an employee of the Düring Foundation in Season 5 of "Homeland" who takes care of the publication of controversial topics that are kept secret from the general public. She comes into contact with the hacker Numan, who gives her secret CIA documents.
Biography[]
Laura Sutton is an American journalist who works for the Düring Foundation and deals with the publication of controversial topics that are kept secret from the public, for example. When a hacker gives her secret CIA documents that show the CIA colluding with the German secret services about wiretapping German citizens, she wants to know from Carrie Mathison whether these documents are genuine. When she falls on deaf ears, she is furious and feels vindicated that Carrie has never completely turned her back on the CIA. It doesn't matter to her what consequences the publication of the documents could have for certain diplomatic agreements and therefore does not hesitate to make her knowledge public on the Düring Foundation's website.
After the publication of her article, Laura is invited to a talk show. There she is convinced that there are more CIA documents that reveal further agreements. Meanwhile, Saul Berenson is informed by Allison Carr that Laura has met Carrie. At the same time, Astrid and a team from the BND search Laura's apartment, who at the same time jokes about it on television and emphasizes again why Europe and especially Germany actually have such good data protection laws that their own secret service doesn't seem to adhere to. Astrid, who hears this remark on TV, then instructs her colleague to bring Laura to her. Laura uses the last minutes of the interview to thank the whistleblowers for their trust and to assure them that the information is in the right hands with her. She wants to convince them to send her further material. When Laura leaves the television studio building shortly afterwards, she is taken away by the BND without giving any reason. Later, in an interrogation room, Astrid asks her where she got the CIA documents from, but Laura doesn't want to tell her and accuses her of the laws she's breaking. When Jonas found out about Laura's arrest, he took her straight out of the interrogation room the next morning. Astrid, however, threatens Laura as she leaves that she should not publish any more documents, otherwise she will be sent back to the USA on the next plane, where the FBI will take her.
When Laura comes to work one morning, she is observed by whistleblower Numan and some CIA employees. When a fire alarm goes off, she reluctantly leaves the building. In the crowd, she then gets an inconspicuous signal from Numan and follows him, making sure that the CIA people don't notice anything, to an S-Bahn station, where they talk for the first time. She tells him that she didn't tell the CIA about him since she didn't know anything about him either. This is how she finds out his name and he gives her a USB stick with the other documents. Back in the office, Laura takes a laptop from her safe and opens the files on the USB stick, which only transfers a virus to her computer and contains no documents. At the same time, she tries to reach Jonas, who, like Carrie, has disappeared.
When Jonas is back in the office, Laura demands that he establish contact with one of his clients; a well-known hacker who aims to gain Numan's trust. Jonas initially refuses, but is then asked by Otto Düring to help Laura. The next day, Laura visits the hacker named Sabine, who is under house arrest, and asks her to get in touch with Numan, who goes online as Gabehcoud - Douchebag in reverse. However, Sabine's friend warns her that if she helps Laura she will put herself in danger and may go to jail. However, Sabine agrees and they manage to contact Gabehcoud through a chat room, who didn't know that his partner had manipulated the USB stick.
When it comes out that an employee of the Russian embassy has been linked to the murder of a young German woman and that there is also a connection to the leaked CIA documents, Laura and a camera team report on a demonstration in front of the embassy. After bumping into a masked person, she finds a cell phone in her pocket, which Carrie uses to call her and warn that the police are about to arrive. She wants to meet her, which they end up doing on a train platform. Carrie explains to Laura that she needs the other CIA documents, but Laura can't get them for her anymore because all copies have been destroyed. Only the CIA still has them.
Shortly afterwards, when a group of convicted jihadists was released from a German prison because the chain of evidence from the CIA documents that had surfaced was no longer clean, Laura was there to report on it. She asks a Hajik Zayd if he will now return to Syria, but he does not give her any information.
When Carrie got the secret documents from Saul, she needed Laura's help again and this time Numan's help to follow the leads. When Carrie explains what's going on, Laura wants to see the documents, but Carrie objects. She is later supported by Otto in her desire to release the documents, but the argument is cut short when Numan leads Carrie on a hot lead.
A few days later, Laura is very excited when one of the released prisoners, Faisal Marwan, contacts her for an interview. She hopes to work with Jonas to persuade him to file a lawsuit against the German government for falsely imprisoning him for illegal CIA spying. During the subsequent questioning, everything seems to be going well until Jonas Faisal points out that the German government's lawyers also want to question him. He shows what contacts Faisal has with well-known Islamists and jihadists, including Hajik Zayd. Laura and Jonas learn that an attack could be planned in Berlin. When their client is gone, Laura and Jonas argue about what to do with the information about a possible attack. They decide to let Otto decide the next day. When it comes to the discussion, Laura is still against involving the police, although a threatening video has since surfaced. Laura recalls the terrorist attacks in the USA and the resulting wars that have not brought the world any further. She doesn't want this cycle to continue, so she secretly brought Faisal Marwan into the foundation's building so that he wouldn't be visited by the police like many other Muslims in the city. When Otto makes a deal with the CIA, Laura is skeptical and is confirmed when the BND shows up and takes her client away. Later, Otto informs her that he spoke to Saul about it. They hope that Jonas will be allowed to see Faisal. Otto then tells her to hold back on releasing information as it could aggravate the situation with the possible impending terrorist attack. Laura is angry that Otto wants to silence her, but then agrees to be careful not to endanger her and the foundation's reputation. When Otto leaves the office, however, she immediately calls Numan and asks him if he managed to steal the documents from Carrie's laptop. She wants him to publish them if something happens to her - for example, if she is arrested. When Numan wants to know what's going on, she tries to calm him down and wants to make sure he sticks to the deal.
Laura later appears again in a television program and reports on the incident with her client and the illegal machinations of the BND. She then threatens to release the secret CIA documents if she is not allowed to speak to Faisal. Then she also emphasizes that the Düring Foundation has nothing to do with the matter. It wasn't long before Astrid showed up at the Düring Foundation with a couple of men from the BND with an arrest warrant. Laura assures that the documents are not in her office, but Astrid doesn't care. She has Laura expelled from the country and handed over to the FBI.
Four days later, Astrid visits Laura in her cell. There, she informs them of what has happened, including Faisal's death, although Laura initially doesn't want to believe he committed suicide. Numan is in the cell next door and the hacked documents have never been made public. His asylum status has been revoked and if he returns to Turkey he will probably be executed there. Laura doesn't want to allow that and agrees to give another TV interview, in which she tells that Faisal wasn't as innocent as she thought and that she belonged to the terror group from Berlin. Thus she helps the BND to explain his death and to get Numan his asylum. When he calls her later, she tells him she can't speak to him anymore, it's part of their deal, and hangs up.
Fitting Ending[]
Sutton has strong political convictions, especially concerning information privacy. Via various confidential sources and back channels, she works to expose illegal German surveillance through the CIA. She tells Numan to release all the documents if anything happens to her, and not to worry about vetting them this time.
Laura gets her comeuppance, after Astrid forces her to recant her story to save Numan from being deported back to Turkey for his likely execution.
Trivia[]
"Homeland" this season has a whole arc that instead of starring a replacement for Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, it features a Hollywood version of Laura Poitras, the journalist who filmed and released "CitizenFour." (She is conveniently called Laura Sutton.)
Quotes[]
- "You can take the girl out of the CIA, but you can’t take the CIA out of the girl.” - Laura talking about Carrie
Behind the Scenes[]
Appearances[]
| Season 5 | ||||
| Separation Anxiety | The Tradition of Hospitality | Super Powers | Why Is This Night Different? | Better Call Saul |
| Parabiosis | Oriole | "All About Allison" | "The Litvinov Ruse" | New Normal |
| Our Man in Damascus | A False Glimmer | |||