Homeland - End of Series

May 8th 2012

Homeland, Channel 4’s award winning US drama import, finished its first series on Sunday night, with its brilliance and popularity marked not by viewing figures, and not by the rave reviews, but by the fact that my housemate and I celebrated watching the last episode with a fry-up, a privilege previously only awarded to The Apprentice final. Nothing spells excitement like a celebratory fry-up.

The finale was as tense and rewarding as could be hoped, with Brody’s plan finally coming to light – kitted out in a bomb vest, he attended an event held by the Vice President, planning to exact revenge for a covered up drone attack the politician authorised that killed 82 children, including Abu Nazir’s son whom Brody befriended whilst held captive. Carrie, meanwhile, was depressed after her manic episode, pining for Brody, and jobless, with only Virgil and his van still willing to go along with her theories.

As rogue Marine Tom Walker unleashed his sniper attack on the event, only Carrie, roaming the area unofficially, understood this as a ploy to get Brody and his unorthodox undergarment into a secure bunker with his targets. Unable to get the CIA to listen, she had to rely on Brody’s suspicious daughter Dana to talk her dad down, in a thrilling race against time as Brody desperately rewired his bomb in the bunker.

Though Dana succeeded in getting the attack aborted, this left Brody still loyal to Nazir whilst appearing completely innocent, which drove Carrie to check herself into hospital to undergo ECT, worn out by her disorder and believing her theory incorrect. The series ended on a harrowing note as Carrie recalled Brody’s dream about Nazir’s son, a crucial indication of his links with Abu Nazir, but succumbed to anaesthetic before she could tell anyone. As she convulsed on the operating table, we were left to wonder whether this memory would survive the procedure.

The episode was a suitably exciting and nail-biting finish to a series that has been consistently superb, maintaining intrigue and intensity throughout. Possibly the best aspect of the series, however, has been Claire Danes’s outstanding portrayal of Carrie, especially in her accurate and powerful  depiction of her breakdown, leaving me genuinely upset to see her heartbroken and having lost the job she lived for at the end.

The character of Brody, meanwhile, was excellently handled, and given believable motives that made him more complex and interesting than a simple war hero gone bad, and was a perfect example of Homeland’s skill in blurring views of good and evil, and complicating the ‘them and us’ rhetoric of the war on terror.

The show is returning for a second series, and although the finale set up further avenues for the show to explore, with unanswered questions about a government mole and Brody’s missing confessional tape, I can’t see them topping the intrigue and originality of the first series now that we have a clearer idea of who Brody is. But while the second series will certainly have a different tone, if it can replicate the quality of the first series and its mature if bleak view on the war on terror, it will continue to be one of the best dramas on television.