Homeland is back for an eighth and final season on Showtime. After seven years with CIA agents Carrie Mathison and Saul Berenson, viewers will finally receive some closure when the finale airs on April 26th. As one among those seven-year-viewers, I’ve come to see Homeland as something of a frustrating contradiction: a show that seems overly dependent on its own repetitive tropes, while paradoxically making some of the boldest and most surprising choices in television history.
The Series in Brief
A (very) quick recap for anyone who hasn’t had time to watch the show’s first seven seasons. The show opened with an introduction to Carrie Mathison, an “all in” CIA intelligence officer fully devoted to her job and to her country, and Saul Berenson, Carrie’s friend and mentor, also a CIA intelligence officer. As the show progresses, we learn that Carrie has been concealing a bipolar disorder in order to hold on to her job. This revelation greatly complicates her standing among intelligence circles, but because of her uncanny analytical abilities, she continues to find herself at the forefront of intelligence operations.
The first episode opened with a fascinating idea: that “an American prisoner of war ha[d] been turned,” and constituted a threat to national security. The American in question turned out to be Nicholas Brody, a newly liberated prisoner of war returning home after several years missing in action.
This trifecta of characters, with performances nothing short of stunning from Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin, and Damien Lewis, respectively, provided the story arch for the first three seasons, before Brody was killed in Iran, in one of the show’s several shocking twists. In the following four seasons, we’ve followed Saul and Carrie around the world as they’ve foiled various plots against the United States.
Episode Summary
Now, we open on episode one of season 8: Deception Indicated. Carrie is recovering in Germany, working hard to prove herself able to return to work, but is unable to fully account for the seven months she spent in Russian containment at the end of season 7. We learn that her medication was withheld during her imprisonment, and she spent most of that time in what she called a “florid psychosis.”
In what will no doubt become a principle plot point throughout the rest of the season, Carrie is indirectly accused of unwittingly leaking information during her imprisonment to her Russian captor: season 7 principle antagonist Yevgeny Gromov, played by Costa Ronin. Carrie insists this could not have happened, but considering her “florid psychosis,” the viewer is left drawing the possible conclusion that Carrie may have been brainwashed into acting as a foreign agent, in a character arch very similar to that of Nicholas Brody way back at the beginning of season 1.
Saul, meanwhile, is desperately trying to negotiate a treaty between the Afghan government and the Taliban, only to see his efforts derailed by an impromptu negative announcement from Afghanistan leadership, specifically Vice President Abdul Qadir G’ulom (Mohammad Bakri). Desperate for help, Saul pulls some strings, insisting that he needs Carrie’s help to secure this peace treaty, despite doubts about her ability to return to work, and her possibly being compromised.
Carrie immediately gets to work in contacting Roshan, a former Afghan contact, only to find that he had recently been murdered. Roshan’s widow insists that her husband’s death was “because of the CIA.” Knowing that she was his only American contact, a shocked Carrie begins to doubt her assertion that she never revealed any assets during her imprisonment. Had she given him up, and not realized it?
During these events, tech guru Max Piotrowski (played by Maury Sterling) has landed in Afghanistan, a man on a mission to install listening equipment in order to allow Saul the ability to eavesdrop on Taliban communications. His dangerous task is a success, and he seems to win the respect of the soldiers assigned to escort him.
Speaking of Max… Wow. What a story. The poor guy who started out as a simple underpaid replacement when Carrie needed to bug Brody’s home back in season one, and has been to hell and back since then thanks to Carrie’s ability to guilt him into helping her with whatever crazy shenanigans she’s concocted. Now, he seems to have accepted his fate working with U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and finds himself in a war zone once again.
In the last few minutes of the episode, Carrie goes to meet Vice President Abdul Qadir G’ulom, who had made the damning announcement threatening to derail Saul’s treaty at the beginning of the episode. As she prepares to enter the meeting room, she’s shocked at who she sees exiting: none other than Yevgeny Gromov, her Russian captor. They lock eyes, he winks, and the episode ends. This final scene is probably the biggest indication we have so far that seasons 7 and 8 will be “closely tied together” into a single story, as showrunner Alex Gansa hinted in a recent interview.
Exploring Homeland‘s Final Season
As we revisit the United States of Homeland each week for the next few months, we’re bound to see some shocking twists, as well as more of the same, as is the show’s signature contradictory style. In the interest of consistency, I’ll be returning to three main ideas in each week’s episode review: longevity, character, and culture.
To longevity: When a show goes on this long, the complication of the plot is compounded. It’s one of many reasons why 99% of shows are better served story-wise by keeping their run limited. For Homeland, this is doubly the case, simply because of the extremely complex political threads woven into a tapestry that since season 1, has only grown more delicate, and more labyrinthine.
This point is often lost on both audiences and critics alike, who seem to focus almost exclusively on the negative in a given show’s later seasons, subconsciously assuming they’ve already covered everything of merit the given show can offer. Therefore, Homeland‘s writers and showrunners deserve enormous respect for continuing to tackle such an immense task. That being said, the problems I have with Homeland are not exclusive to its later seasons, as we’ll explore below.
To character: Unfortunately, this is probably Homeland‘s most glaring problem. While the choice to make Carrie Mathison bipolar may have been beneficial to her character arch, it greatly complicates the believability of the characters around her. For example, how many times is Saul Berenson, who is presented as being a brilliant agent worthy of involvement in the country’s highest intelligence circles (not to mention Carrie herself, who’s medical record is more than enough reason to keep her out of the loop), going to be duped into another one of her ill-conceived plans, the vast majority of which only lead to further problems (often costing lives)?
Of course, it’s storytelling 101 for making the journey compelling: if they solve the given problem before Carrie has a chance to screw it up, there’s no story, and certainly not enough for 12 episodes. While Carrie always finds a way to undo her mistakes and save the day in the end, such excessively recycled methods of extending the story really push at the boundaries of a viewer’s ability to suspend disbelief.
To culture: Homeland seems to try and set itself up as an accurate depiction of the conditions in our country, as well as an artistic social critique on those issues. The problem with trying to strike this balance, however, is that your characters only seem to perpetuate the issue, even as they talk about ways to correct it. A perfect example is President Keane’s speech at the end of season 7 (played by Elizabeth Marvel). She talks very clearly about the nation being divided, and about desperately needing change in order to address that divide.
The problem, she points out, is at least in part because of the country’s dependence on a single individual as a leader figure. So her solution is to resign the presidency and pass it on to… the Vice President, another single individual. Up until that point, her speech is powerfully compelling, and absolutely the truth, both within the show’s world, and without. But once again, we’re asked to settle for more of the same: the same government, the same structure, the same premise, for yet another season. We’re teased with a speech that presents the idea of the show creating a commentary about how we might rise above political partisanship, only to see, in that same speech, the same rehashed ideas being laid out for the next season.
Deception Indicated
As expected, Homeland‘s writers have again struck gold in weaving their complex political threads. As has happened multiple times throughout the show’s season openers, we’re presented with what may be a bait and switch. We’re led to believe that political turmoil is being incited by Afghanistan’s Vice President, whose inflammatory remarks concerning the treaty are televised. At the end of the episode, however, we’re given a potential bombshell in Gromov’s appearance, leaving us to wonder if he and the Russians may be behind everything.
The agent returned after extended torture seems to be a common tactic in political thriller television. It happened with Jack Bauer in Fox’s popular show 24 at the beginning of season 6, a show which, though not as compelling as its successors, Homeland being only one of many, established much of the ground on which future political thriller television would build.
Indeed, even in Homeland itself, it’s already happened multiple times with multiple characters. Nicholas Brody was the central figure of interest in seasons 1 through 3, and the show opened with the idea that he had been tortured into submission and was working undercover for a foreign government. In season 3, he went through another bout of torture involving drugs and then withdrawals, before dying in one of Homeland‘s most shocking moments. Saul himself has been the victim of torture, and returned to service. Now, it’s finally Carrie’s turn.
While revisiting the idea of an American agent being turned may seem like yet another characteristic rehash on the surface, I’m actually very interested to see where this particular thread will lead. On the one hand, they have a powerful bookend idea, having begun the entire show with the premise that “an American prisoner of war has been turned,” the prisoner in question at the time being Brody, and now in season 8 potentially being Carrie herself, unwittingly compromised by her mental illness.
Will they pursue this fascinating idea for concluding the show? Or, will they use her condition as a just a convenient plot point from which to springboard dilemma after dilemma as they have so many times before, obstacles that will provide a story for the rest of the season, only to have Carrie magically come up with a final plan to save everyone from the problem for which she herself, in large part, is responsible? Time will tell.
Racism by Omission?
A final note. Back in 2014, Washington Post reporter Laura Durkay famously accused Homeland of being “the most bigoted show on television,” and for good reason. The writers and showrunners admitted they had a diversity problem from the beginning, and everything came to a head when set artists in charge of using street graffiti to add “authenticity” to a scene wrote in Arabic “Homeland is racist” on one of the set walls, which made it into the final cut of the episode. The writers and showrunners have since been working hard to correct this image, even seeming to take on a more liberal tilt for the show, especially with President Trump in office.
So the question is, have they done enough? It’s a question that will get its final answer as the show comes to a conclusion in April, but until then, as the credits roll on each episode, we’ll be left wondering what might have been had the show continued to look inward, at the American heartland, rather than choosing to once again go abroad, back to the Middle East, a choice which does little to assuage any worry that the show has returned to its racist roots.
Just last week, the FBI announced that local white supremacist terrorism is now considered to have the same threat level as that of the “radical Islamic terrorism” continually alluded to by Trump and his fellow regressives. While I understand that the showrunners and writers couldn’t have predicted the FBI’s decision, the plain fact is that homegrown terrorism in this day and age is just as compelling, if not more so, than terrorism from abroad. Considering the aforementioned diversity problem from which Homeland has always suffered, you’d think those in charge of the show might lean toward continuing the trend of the last few seasons, and keep the bulk of the story right here at home, where there is at least as much material ripe for artistic scrutiny.
The fact is, when given the choice between two story choices, one of which is leans away from insensitivity, and the other toward it, all other things being equal, why not choose the former, especially in the era of Trump, thereby avoiding racism by omission? While the entertainment industry is continuing to make strides in diversity, there’s still an awfully long way to go, and every story decision will either help or hinder that progress. One thing is for sure, Gansa and his team owe us an explanation, and only time will tell if the story they craft for Homeland‘s final season will provide a satisfactory one.
Showrunner Alex Gansa explained that it seemed “natural” to return to the Middle East for the show’s final season. Do you think that’s a good enough reason considering the show’s history? Do you think Homeland deserves the criticism it’s received of being insensitive? Let us know in the comments!
Homeland Season 8 Episode 1: Deception Indicated, was released on February 9, 2020, on Showtime.
https://youtu.be/-eLT82JYsP4
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