| Max Piotrowski | |
|---|---|
| |
| Status: | Deceased |
| Cause of death: | Shot by Taliban leader Jalal Haqqani |
| Nationality: |  American
|
| Profession: | Technician |
| Sibling(s): | Virgil Piotrowski (brother) |
| Significant other(s): | Carrie Mathison (friend) |
| Played by: | Maury Sterling |
| Season(s): | 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 |
| First episode: | "Pilot" |
| Last episode: | "Threnody(s)" |
Max Piotrowski was a technician who worked with his brother Virgil Piotrowski. They were paid by Carrie Mathison to conduct surveillance, before the former branched out on his own.
Biography
Max assists Virgil in bugging Nick Brody's home. When Carrie observes that he isn't Virgil's usual partner, Virgil says that he has to use him because Carrie is paying less than the usual fee. Max finds large, blue pills concealed in an aspirin bottle in Carrie's bathroom and shows them to Virgil. (Unknown to Max, they're an antipsychotic medication.) He later assists in eavesdropping on the meeting between Nick and Helen Walker.
Max was later assigned to the CIA station in Islamabad, where he served under Sandy Bachman and Carrie Mathison.
After Carrie returned to Brooklyn and brought Quinn home to live in the apartment below hers following his near death experience after the sarin gas attack in Berlin, she asked Max to keep an eye on him while she went to work. When Quinn left his apartment to go shopping, he suffered a seizure and having asked not to be taken to hospital, he asked Max not to tell Carrie what happened but he did so as he was worried.
He later managed to gain access to Brett O'Keefe's business by posing as an applicant only to discover that he had hackers working for him. He also discovered that Dar Adal was connected to O'Keefe which led to his phone being confiscated and Dar questioning him. After this, he showed up drunk at Carrie's house and passed out on the bed that Quinn had occupied. When he later awoke he found Carrie looking at photos of Quinn's son as well as one he had of her. He comforted her as she broke down crying.
Following the attempted assassination on Elizabeth Keane, a number of government officials, including Saul Berenson, were arrested. Believing David Wellington to be hiding something, Carrie asked Max to plant cameras in Wellington's house. Carrie also came under attack from a hacker who demanded ransom money in exchange for unlocking her laptop. Max tried but failed to unlock it.
He joined Carrie, Dante and her friend Thomas Anson on a mission to discover what sort of information Wellington and Simone Martin had about McClendon's death.
Following Carrie's discovery that Simone Martin lived a few miles from the prison where Jamie McClendon was murdered, she wanted to contact Dante Allen, but Max warned her against it since it could lead to Wellington discovering that his house was wiretapped.
He was later stationed in Kabul and refused to get on the presidential helicopter before it was shot down. After retrieving the black box from the crash site, he was captured by the Taliban and shot before being held prisoner. Even though Haissam Haqqani got a stay of execution, Max was shot dead by his captors.
Personal life and relationships
Max was the younger brother of Virgil Piotrowski, but unlike him he does not inherently trust Carrie. During Season 6 his last name is revealed to be Piotrowski and he admits that he was in a relationship with a woman, which broke up due to his drug habit.
Appearances
| Season 1 | ||||
| Pilot | Grace | Clean Skin | Semper I | Blind Spot |
| "The Good Soldier" | "The Weekend" | "Achilles Heel" | "Crossfire" | "Representative Brody" |
| "The Vest" | "Marine One" | |||
| Season 2 | ||||
| "The Smile" | "Beirut is Back" | "State of Independence" | New Car Smell | "Q&A" |
| A Gettysburg Address | The Clearing | I'll Fly Away | Two Hats | "Broken Hearts" |
| "In Memoriam" | "The Choice" | |||
| Season 3 | ||||
| "Tin Man Is Down" | "Uh... Oh... Ah..." | "Tower of David" | "Game On" | The Yoga Play |
| Still Positive | "Gerontion" | "A Red Wheelbarrow" | One Last Thing | "Good Night" |
| "Big Man in Tehran" | "The Star" | |||
| Season 4 | ||||
| "The Drone Queen" | "Trylon and Perisphere" | Shalwar Kameez | Iron in the Fire | "About a Boy" |
| From A to B and Back Again | Redux | "Halfway to a Donut" | "There's Something Else Going On" | 13 Hours in Islamabad |
| Krieg Nicht Lieb | "Long Time Coming" | |||
| Season 6 | ||||
| "Fair Game" | The Man in the Basement | "The Covenant" | "A Flash of Light" | "Casus Belli" |
| The Return | Imminent Risk | Alt. Truth | Sock Puppets | The Flag House |
| R Is for Romeo | America First | |||
| Season 7 | ||||
| Enemy of the State | Rebel Rebel | Standoff | Like Bad at Things | Active Measures |
| Species Jump | Andante | Lies, Amplifiers, F**king Twitter | Useful Idiot | "Clarity" |
| "All In" | "Paean to the People" | |||
| Season 8 | ||||
| Deception Indicated | Catch and Release | False Friends | Chalk One Up | Chalk Two Down |
| Two Minutes | F**ker Shot Me | Threnody(s) | "In Full Flight" | "Designated Driver" |
| "The English Teacher" | "Prisoners of War" | |||