tv: Homeland really had the perfect set up for the start of it's new season. It was hailed as the best new show on television by a long shot after its first season last fall by fans and critics alike, and the week before it began it's second season it did the unthinkable at the Emmys; taking down Mad Men in the Best Drama category, in which it had never lost, and seeing Damian Lewis win the Best Actor In A Drama award, which Bryan Cranston had never lost during Breaking Bad's run, along with an almost sure thing win for the brilliant Claire Daines. Things could not have lined up better for the premiere of the sophomore season of Showtimes terrorism thriller about a POW turned and returned from Iraq.
The season premiere began, as most season premieres do, with a somewhat slow reintroduction to the world. We comeback to find Brody firmly established as a new Congressman and being encouraged by the Vice President to throw his hat in the ring to be the future VP in the next election. This is followed by a meeting with a member of the D.C. press who brings him a message from Abu Nazir, the Bin Laden style terrorist for whom Brody is working. Due to Israel bombing various nuclear sights in Iran, Brody is supposed to get the list of future targets from the safe of the ultimate man in the grey area and head of the CIA, David Estes's safe.
As that plot is unfolding we find Carrie Mathison, after her electroshock treatment that was supposed to help her deal with the total loss of control of her bipolar disorder, living seemingly happily with her sister and father. She is gardening and teaching classes locally for Arab people to learn English. Then the phone rings. It is Saul, her mentor and father figure from the CIA. Now working in Beirut he has found someone who seems to have vital information about a coming attack on America. This informant however, used to be an asset of Carrie's and refuses to deal with anyone besides her. Despite her misgivings about how humiliated she feels about her being pushed out of the CIA midst her breakdown, Carrie agrees to help. And after a few briefings on her new identity, Carrie heads to Beirut to help Saul get the Intel he needs.
It is really only after all of this (which does take about two thirds of the episode, about the same amount of time it took to read all of that), that Homeland really starts to feel like it is back. Instead of seeing a more predictable and criminal version of Brody, he comes home to family turmoil centered around the fact that his being Muslim is dangerously close to public knowledge. As his wife hears this in truth for the first time and lashes out at him by basically screaming "I love our new life and lifestyle with you in politics! Don't fuck it up by scaring people with a faith that the public fears!"(maybe be the most stunning part of the entire episode was when Brody yelled "Don't let that touch the floor!" while in a domestic dispute in which his wife the Koran to the floor. The sheer honesty of that moment as his wife is talking about honesty in their relationship and he can't hold back his faith is unsettling as much for their marriage as because of what we the viewer knows his Muslim tradition means for his character), his daughter, Dana, stands by his side. Having known his secret already(the Muslim secret not the terrorist secret), she looks upon her father as the man to disprove those who believe that Muslim = Terrorism and while trying to learn about this new side to her father. Little does she know, her father is the exact proof of the rule she is trying to disprove. These conflicts, while domestic and not political, are where we see the Brody we have come to enjoy watching: conflicted, ambiguous and playing all sides of his schemes and emotions at once thus making the viewer unsure which one he really is at any given moment.
Carrie's story gets the same kick start when she arrives in Beirut and begins her re-entry into the world of spy games. She instantly seems at home as she loses tails and slows down an assailant with a move that would have put any man down. And in watching her back in the field we see her become at home in the world in which she truly belongs, culminating in the smile after her escape of a threat that was worth of the episodes title.
By the end of the episode, the two main characters were both at home in their most complex moments. Brody struggling to not only play both sides, but to be both sides, as we see him love his cause, his faith, and his family. Then we see Carrie finally the way we became enlightened about her at the end of last season. We saw that her brilliance as an agent and her fractured self are all part of the same brain where both genius and madness do exist and that they drive each other. Carrie probably would not be as talented a spy were it not for her disability, but her disability is also accentuated by the stress of being in the field. And as these two fantastically complicated people stuck in this violently high stress world continue to make their way through it, the real joy will be watching how the come back to one another. With Carrie tracking down leads and assets in Beirut and Brody scheming from his office in D.C., it seems inevitable that they will once again collide and unlock all of the fun and excitement Homeland can provide. They will be adversaries yet again, and they will have to deal with the chemistry born out of their support group meet-cute that made for some of the best entertainment on TV last year.
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