Showtime’s Homeland returns in its fourth season a show reborn. Gone are the repetitive, overlong opening credits, sullen Dana, and Brody family drama. Risen in its place, at least over the first two episodes, is a taut, focused, and compelling drama series that is reminiscent of the series’ first season.
This is the Homeland we should have known after its first season, second season at the most.
In its first of two episodes, Homeland returns the action to the Middle East where Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), based on information obtained by her station chief Sandy Bachman (the great Corey Stoll), approves the bombing of a farmhouse where a target is known to reside.
Initially, it appears to be an unfortunately standard beginning. The bomb run happens while the crew in operations holds a birthday celebration for their “Drone Queen.” The operation, however, managed to wipe out several members of a wedding party, a tragic event played to the hilt by Pakistan media.
The series wisely introduces Aayan Ibrahim (Suraj Sharma) as a Pakistani medical student, the nephew of the bombing run’s target, as he reacts to the murder of most of his family. He happened to be filming the wedding party when the bombs struck, and his video is leaked to the Internet, inciting mass outrage in Pakistan. His is a well-drawn character that puts a human face on the side effects of warring nations.
The situation escalates, culminating in a shocking scene at the end of the first episode (which I will not spoil) that I honestly never saw coming. And that’s a very good thing for a series in its fourth season to be doing.
The second episode deals with the fallout of those events and features Carrie and Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) back in the United States facing the wrath of Andrew Lockhart (Tracy Letts), the new director of the CIA. You get the feeling, though, that Carrie would much rather be dealing with CIA wrath than face her own daughter, Brody’s daughter, that she has all but given up to her sister to raise.
In a different kind of tension for the show, Carrie spends an afternoon with her daughter, proving to herself just how terrible she would be as a mother. After having barely fed the baby, Carrie straps her into a car seat, puts her in the front of her car, and drives her first to stare at Brody’s former home and then to interrogate a fellow CIA castaway. She also nearly drowns the baby while bathing her.
Naturally, Carrie finds a way to return to Pakistan and rekindles her bond with Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) who is wasting away as a security contractor but sees an opportunity to return to power after Lockhart’s presumed failures as CIA director.
Overall, the fourth season start is a very positive indicator of a return to quality for the series. I doubt we will see the same level of Emmy glory bestowed upon it, though, aside from continued love for Danes or Patinkin. That’s not a comment on the series, per se, but more of a commentary on the fickle nature of the TV Academy. If they love you, then they’re likely to love you forever, but once you fall out of their graces, it’s very difficult to get back in.
Still, after a dreadful third season, it’s a welcome return to form for the series. Just hope that, in whatever direction the series takes, we continue to steer far, far away from the sexting, suicidal Dana Brody.