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Erik's Weekly Watch – Anxiety And Paranoia Return – Homeland Season 4

By Erik Grove

It's time for another edition of Erik's Weekly Watch! This week I'm going to check in with Showtime's critically-acclaimed drama Homeland as it kicks off season 4.

I caught up with Homeland about halfway through the first season and I've remained with it since. That first season was smart, tense, and full of twists and turns. It managed to tap directly into a zeitgeist of anxiety and fear after a decade of the War on Terror. It put viewers in uncomfortable, complicated places, forcing us to find sympathy in our perceived enemy and guilt within ourselves. It doesn't hurt that it also featured spectacular and justly lauded performances by Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, and Mandy Patinkin. It was addictive, awesome television.

Seasons 2 and 3 had a hard to act to follow and to be sure, they faltered. There were groan-inducing subplots and increasingly outlandish plot developments. The show seemed to become a victim of its own success. Lewis and Danes had such fantastic chemistry and were winning so many awards that they became the center of the show to its detriment. There were times in the 3^rd season where it was hard to keep watching as it twisted and contorted itself into a character arc endgame that there seemed to be little enthusiasm for. To save the show, the creative team needed to eat their vegetables and resolve the conflicted love story that had made it so successful in the first place. The finale of season 3 was subdued, somber, and necessary. With Brody's story finished, the creators had a clean slate going into season 4.

So how are the first two hours of Homeland (now available, though slightly edited, on Showtime's website without a subscription)? It may be too soon to call it a complete return to form but it's certainly going in very much the right direction. The action picks up with Carrie Mathison (Danes), the anointed "drone queen" of Kabul. Intelligence from a mysterious source places a high-value target at a farm in the Afghan countryside. Mathison, as she has presumably done many times, orders an air strike to kill the target. This order is so seemingly routine for her that she doesn't want to bother waiting for it to be completed before leaving for the night. The airstrike killed the target but there's significant "Collateral Damage" – civilian lives. This airstrike, which happens to have targeted a wedding, ignites simmering tensions on the ethics and politics of remote war fair and once again returns Homeland viewers to a very unsettling place with no easy answers. The events that follow the airstrike come like falling dominos, taking the action right back to the heart of Washington D.C.

Corey Stoll has a small but very important role as the station chief of Islamabad. While his screen time is limited, his character's choices look to be the catalyst for the entire season. Also new to the show this season is Suraj Sharma, a survivor of the airstrike whose life is turned upside down and who, the show implies, might have a few secrets of his own. Sharma, best known for his portrayal of the title role in Life of Pie, is incredible. His emotional range is immediately believable and is so far the most sympathetic character in the show this season. Patinkin is back as Saul Berenson, now employed in the private sector as a security consultant. He remains, steady, and quietly brilliant, evoking gravitas in all of his scenes in a way that only he can. Rupert Friend also returns as Peter Quinn and he has a lot to do. Quinn is given more screen time and a stronger storyline than in previous seasons. His out of control PTSD response to the events that open the show nicely contrast Mathison's cool, ambivalence.

The main attraction of Homeland remains Danes. She plays a Carrie that is so in control that she's palpably on the edge of completely losing control in these first two hours. Her character work remains incredibly complicated. There are two phenomenal scenes with her daughter in the second hour. In the first she talks about Brody and seems most sad and vulnerable. In the second she has a moment of incredible, abhorrent darkness where she contemplates doing something truly awful and demonstrates how broken and potentially irredeemable she is. There is tremendous dramatic dissonance in seeing Danes interacting with a baby (who looks shockingly like Lewis) separated by only a few scenes of the "collateral damage" she is responsible for in Pakistan.

After this opening salvo I'm excited for the season ahead. There's depth and discomfort in Homeland again and, at least for me, that's a very good thing.

Erik Grove is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. You can read his work at www.erikgrove.com and follow him on Twitter @erikgrove

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