Homeland (Season 2)

Starring: Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, Morena Baccarin, David Harewood, Diego Klattenhoff, Jackson Pace, Morgan Saylor, Mandy Patinkin, Jamey Sheridan, David Marciano, Navid Negahban

Creator: Gideon Raff

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Serial Drama

Rating: B+

I'm still a bit undecided on the second season of Homeland, owing largely to the sheer  unbelievability of a lot of it.  It kind of lost me about mid-way through the season, only to bring me right back into it at the end.  While I like being brought back, I don't like being lost in the first place.

The second season of Homeland switches things up a bit from the first.  At first things are all about getting Carrie (Danes) back into the business of the CIA, while Brody (Lewis) struggles with the duality of his life and identity, as he acts as both a patriotic family man and a covert terrorist.  Then the CIA finds his suicide video and discover what he's up to - and use Carrie to manipulate Brody into acting as a agent for the CIA against Abu Nazir (Negahban).  Through it all, there is the underlying theme of the relationship, or possibility thereof, between Brody and Carrie, and the implications that it has for both her job and his family.

I really didn't buy Brody's conversion back to being a patriotic American.  I don't think that you can have feelings as strongly as he had in the first season - he was prepared to blow up himself in order to kill the Vice President of the United States - only to very quickly switch back to being a patriot again.  As such, the whole plot with Brody really bothered me because I never really thought that he was being straight with us.  This is in a huge contrast to season one, when I spent the a huge chunk of the season unsure of Brody's motivations and allegiance and hoping that it was one way, but suspecting that it was another - this season I was told it was one way, then another, all while getting a bit bored with it.  I think I liked Brody more as a terrorist than as a former terrorist.

I liked what they did with Carrie a lot more.  Her mental instability really is key here, and I think in a lot of ways the relationship with Brody - and the things that Brody kind of gets away with - is dependant on her being mentally unstable.  I think Danes' character here is probably one of my favourite characters on TV right now, which kind of says a lot because I love a lot of TV's characters.  Danes does a great job, even when I'm not buying the actual plot of the show.  In a manner, while the character's believably is aided heavily by her mental instability it is Danes' skill as an actress that makes that instability believable in itself.  Kudos!

My favourite part about this season, however, has to be Brody's family, namely his daughter Dana (Saylor).  Her struggles were far more believable and relate-able to me than anything else that was going on here.  There was a point when I almost wished that Homeland was not about the plot to say the USA from a terrorist threat (or multiple terrorist threats) but rather about a family dealing with a father's rise into politics (with or without the whole father-is-a-possible-terrorist aspect of the plot).  There was a lot of greatness and potential for even more greatness within that plot.  Furthermore, I kind of see potential for greatness within Morgan Saylor that I expect to see in her future endeavours.

Homeland (Season 1)

Starring: Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, Morena Baccarin, David Harewood, Diego Klattenhoff, Jackson Pace, Morgan Saylor, Mandy Patinkin

Creator: Gideon Raff

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Serial Drama

Rating: A+

I was really surprised by this TV show.  Going into it I wasn’t really sure what to expect; I figured it would be kind of typical of the cop versus bad guy type show.  Everything that I saw about it really suggested that it was a bit cut and dry, with the suspense being in whether or not the CIA would stop the terrorists.  In that case I was thoroughly surprised by this show, as it’s about so much more.  There is the element of whether or not the CIA is going to stop the terrorists, true, but there’s also the question of who the terrorists are, and in addition to catching them, will the CIA catch Carrie Mathison (Danes) in all of her not exactly appropriate behaviours?

The premise of Homeland appears simple: while on a mission CIA agent Carrie is told that an American prisoner of war is about to be released, but he’s been turned and is now working for Al Quida.  At first Danes thinks this is impossible, as to her knowledge there are no current POWs – then in the middle of an operative Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Lewis) is discovered, having been kept captive for the previous eight years and until now presumed to be dead.  Brody is greeted with a hero’s welcome by everyone, but Carrie believes him to be the turned POW that she had been warned of.  As no one in the CIA believes her, she takes it onto her own hands to deal with the situation, illegally bugging Brody’s home.  Carrie must determine whether or not Brody’s a terrorist, while keeping her actions hidden, and dealing with her own questionable mental health.

The thing that I really liked about the first season of Homeland was that it kept the viewers guessing about whether or not Brody is a terrorist for a long time.  You start off as convinced as Carrie is, certain that he must be a terrorist – after all, that’s what this show is being presented as.  As the season progresses, however, that fact comes into question as you begin to think that maybe he isn’t a terrorist, and then begin to hope that he isn’t one.   Brody’s experiences are fed to you throughout the series as you get to know who he is and what happened to him while he was captured.  You also get to know Carrie as well, and the journey of figuring out what it is that’s wrong with her and what fuels her obsession is just as interesting as the journey of figuring out Brody.  I wasn’t as big of a fan of some of the more secondary characters – especially Brody’s wife – but their stories are divulged into as well.  The show makes extensive use of flashbacks, but in a manner that isn’t as confusing as is seen in other shows.  The only character to experience a visual representation of his history is Brody, and as he’s the most cerebral of the characters I think this is important.  There are a lot of things about Brody that he wouldn’t share with anyone, simply because of the nature of his character, so it’s revealed in pieces to the viewer via flashbacks.  The performances of the two leads, Danes and Lewis, are amazingly well done.  Danes’ portrays the obsessive nature of her character perfectly, and the more unstable she gets the more I enjoyed her performance.  Lewis on the other hand does an amazing job of portraying this elusive character, he totally seemed to embody the character of Brody.  My one big problem with the show is that there is a lot of non-English spoken in it (which in itself I have no problem with), but an inconsistent use of subtitles.  A lot of it is greetings and the like, nothing actually important to the plot, but when it’s done in a manner that it’s obvious all characters present know what’s being said it doesn’t really make sense to not let the audience know what’s being said as well.  It’s just something that’s annoying to experience while you watch.