I’ve wanted to write about Homeland in-depth since I started watching it. I’ve been waiting, though. While the series has hinted at its overall political leanings and worldview, it’s been holding back until now—the season finale—to lay it all bare. I’m pleased to say that the show (which I’ve worried might fall off the rails at any point so far) is as nuanced—both politically and psychologically—as I hoped that it would be. Tonight’s finale was amazing. Below the cut I’m going to get more into the show’s worldview and explain why it appeals to me so much. Beware of spoilers, including several from tonight’s episode. However, I’ll try to be careful. If you want to know why this is worth checking out despite a few bumps in the road (which I found to pay off), here you go. By the way, I keep trying to figure out how to create a “read more” break but have been unable to. Sorry!
When I first saw promos for Homeland, I dismissed it immediately. It looked to be another version of 24, only now with a female protagonist. The fact that two of the main producers and writers of that series were responsible for developing Homeland for American TV (an Israeli series called P.O.W. provided a tiny bit of inspiration) did not help. On top of this, the central hook—that a rogue CIA agent is the only individual capable of stopping a possible terrorist attack committed by an Iraq War vet who had possibly converted to jihadism during his capture—sounded like a hokey take on The Manchurian Candidate, and I expected the series to follow in 24’s footsteps by implicitly advocating that “dirty” tactics (torture, illegal surveillance, and so on) were a necessity in the War on Terror. On that note, I also expected the series to maintain that the current wars in the Middle East were themselves vital to the security of the U.S.
I was quite wrong about all of this. While Homeland follows 24 in providing a twisting storyline rooted in the War on Terror, its twists build up well and it frequently fakes out the viewer. For example, at the end of the second episode, we discover that Sergeant Nicholas Brody (the P.O.W. that Carrie Mathison—Claire Dane’s CIA agent—believes is a terrorist) is a Muslim. He hides away from his family in the garage while they’re asleep, unfolds a prayer rug, and recites his prayers in Arabic. In 24, this would unequivocally mean that Brody was a terrorist; that’s how cartoonish the show’s worldview was (no wonder it was Dick Cheney’s favorite TV series). In Homeland, however, it’s just another piece of the puzzle. Is Brody a terrorist? Or is he a victim of torture who turned to religion for solace? Like Brody himself tells Carrie at one point, “it’s not like there were any King James Bibles lying around over in Iraq.” This hasn’t stopped people from missing the point, though. One person commented on The New Yorker’s episode recap saying how offended they were that the show revealed that Brody was a terrorist by having him convert to Islam. They fell for the writer’s trap, hook, line, and sinker.
The show also subtly rejects the claim that Carrie’s rogue spying tactics have efficacy. During the first seven episodes, she goes all out against Brody. For instance, she illegally wiretaps his house, literally watching him while he sleeps (these sequences pleasantly reminded me of the phenomenal film, The Lives of Others). When these wiretaps are rescinded, she goes even further beyond the line, developing a personal and sexual relationship with Brody. On the other hand, there’s Saul (Mandy Patinkin), Carrie’s mentor and fellow CIA agent. In contrast to the fast-and-loose style of Carrie, Saul plays the long game. He follows his leads all the way, talking to his suspects and getting to know them, eventually coming to a stronger conclusion than Carrie about the plot that Al Qaeda mastermind Abu Nazir has hatched. Eventually, the two come to work together, but their divergent paths are very telling.
On torture, the series is even more frank. When the CIA brings in Brody to talk one of the guards who tortured him in Iraq, he asks Carrie, “will you torture him?” She smiles and says, “we don’t do that here.” I half-expected her to add, “anymore.” (More on that later). Even Brody’s torture in Iraq is ended by Nazir, who is able to win him over with kindness and food. Homeland consistently teaches the viewer that harsh treatment of detainees is bad policy, not to mention immoral. Brody bears the scars of torture, both psychologically and physically.
Tonight’s episode brought to light the core conspiracy that the series has danced around until now. A few years earlier in the show’s timeline, there was a drone strike in northern Iraq, where Nazir was thought to be. The target was a school. The warmongering Vice President—who ordered the strike—has no compunctions about this. “If Nazir is hiding there, he made that school a target.” Collateral damage is of no importance to either the Vice President or his security cabinet. Naturally, Nazir got away, but his youngest son was killed in the blast. This strike not further enrages Nazir but is also what makes Brody turn over. The deaths of eighty-four children—the show doesn’t mince words by calling it a war crime—made no difference in the Vice President’s righteousness, but they definitely created at least one more potential terrorist. One could argue that Nazir (who has presumably killed hundreds if not thousands of people himself) would have been worth it, but it opens up the debate as to whether or not there is a such thing as a just asymmetrical war.
The drone strike prompted a cover-up within the highest reaches of the U.S. government. All evidence of the attack is destroyed; in a press conference, the Vice President declares that the “enemy’s” claim that a school was destroyed is pure propaganda; and it was never mentioned again. Until Saul stumbles upon the answer. He approaches David Estes, his and Carrie’s boss (as well as one of the officials who approved the strike), about the attack. He calls Saul’s bluff and sasy that the leaking of this information would be the biggest propaganda coup for terrorist organizations since Abu Ghraib. It would also put Saul’s agents all in jeopardy. Saul ditches him and goes directly to the Vice President, blackmailing him for more evidence of the strike by presenting him with video evidence that the U.S. tortured detainees—footage that Saul was supposed to have destroyed. (This actually happened within the CIA, by the way).
Brody’s attempted terrorist attack—which he aborted in tonight’s finale—was not just some cartoonish jihadist stunt, then. The show makes clear that Brody views himself as a patriot fighting internal enemies of the U.S. Of course, the show also presents him as an utterly brutalized human being who is unable to make decisions from a rational point-of-view. What I’m saying is this: Homeland tries to understand why a Marine would defect and blow up the Vice President. If that doesn’t provide a stark contrast to 24’s rah-rah patriotism, I don’t know what does. Don’t get the wrong idea, though. Homeland doesn’t put current U.S. foreign policy on the same level of morality as Al Qaeda or anything like that. Rather, it reveals the ethical ambiguities at the heart of our country’s policy, as well as the blow-back that it is capable of unleashing.
And there is so much more that I haven’t mentioned in this blog post. Claire Danes was born to play Carrie Mathison, and brings the character’s bipolar disorder to life with a realistic frankness. She deserves every bit of praise she gets. Patinkin’s Saul is just as compelling, an old spymaster stuck in a ruthless post-9/11 world, now required to contend with men like Estes and the Vice President.
Caught in-between is Carrie, who appears to represent America is several ways. Her paranoia and sense of burnout reflect our country, ten years after the Twin Towers fell. When she opts to finally receive electric shock therapy, Saul initially objects. “They still attach electrodes to your brain and fuck it up, right?” “No,” she replies. “My brain is already fucked up.” With the reality of an eternal War on Terror and an forever-open Guantanamo Bay weighing down upon us all, I have to ask: are our brains already fucked up, too?
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