I think this was an inspired piece of casting, precisely for this reason.
I’ll chime in with everyone else and say Homeland is a really good show, lifted by some simply brilliant performances. The two leads are great but some of the supporting cast are just as good. The writing could have lead this to be a bit hackneyed in the wrong hands but the actors really make this piece stand out.
As to whether it’s better than Breaking Bad, Mad Men or what have you. Who’s to say? They’re all so different that the call on that is pretty much down to the person who’s watching. They’re all great. Is that enough?
My husband and I got so addicted to season 1 that we were staying up til 1 or 2 on work nights simply because we had to see one more episode. It was just like the hilarious Battlestar Galactica skit from Portlandia.
One of the best things about the series, other than the uniformly terrific acting, is the story telling decisions that were made. So no they don’t do is he/isn’t he like most series would - they let you know his allegiance during the first episode. And then they manage to muddy the waters with a cliffhanger a week for most of the series.
I only started to watch it because I had recently seen Claire Danes in Temple Grandin and been very impressed. I was instantly hooked by Homeland.
They do, though. Nothing in the first episode, including the last scene, does anything other than imply that Brody went through some really terrible shit. Like Saul said in one of his first scenes, verbatim: “It’s all open to interpretation.” The writers drop various hints throughout most of the first season, that taken by themselves seem to imply something nefarious about Brody, but when given further context don’t seem to say anything, except that he was changed in some fairly significant ways – not that he’s a terrorist, but he has some serious doubts about the U.S. military and its operations abroad.
To me, it’s more like the writers were asking, “Is he a terrorist? Look at what he’s doing now, that makes him a terrorist, right? No, it doesn’t! Haha! But what about this – how can this mean anything but.. no, aha! Got you again, you xenophobe!” right up until the final handful of episodes.
And that’s really the modus operandi for the entire series, at least the first season. It’s a pretty timeworn concept, the turning of somebody who’s ostensibly in our “tribe” into something foreign and scary. The notion that Brody was seduced by some exotic terrorist, who looks different from us, speaks a different language, worships differently, and has a world-view that’s almost diametrically opposed to ours – that’s really, truly frightening. Brody is a “Constitutive Other,” and his relationship (both personally and in a general way) with Carrie is reflective of our cultural paranoia, and this incredible anxiety we feel when confronted by something radically different.
Watched the whole first season today. Insanely good series. I wish The Newsroom was one-tenth as good.
To keep the writing and the plot twists at such a high level throughout is a major accomplishment. The characters seem rounded and realistic. And the relationship stuff that is so annoying in shows like *Bones *is well-integrated into the whole web of events. Like the problems with Saul and his wife-- that doesn’t feel like a gratuitous detour like Bones’ problems with Seely.
Claire Danes’ character is one loose cannon, eh? I heard the Fresh Air interview with her where she talked about studying the behavior of manic people, mostly in YouTube videos. Even medicated, she’s pretty hyper, but in this second-to-last episode after the thing at the fountain when she’s off her meds… wheee! She nails it.
Carrie would be a seriously annoying character to work with! Always so SURE of herself even when she’s wrong. Reminds me a little of Holly Hunter’s character in Broadcast News.
Even though the plot keeps unfolding, you don’t feel like the writers are just piling one lame complication upon another to keep the engine turning (when it’s really running out of gas). There is a sense that someone knows where this is going and that we keep seeing a bigger and bigger picture.
I’m impressed. This will hold me until Mad Men comes back on.
Amending what I posted earlier: Jessica Brody is a cross between Catherine Bell and Ashley Judd, which may just make her the most beautiful woman in the world.
I’m not sure if this is what shijinn is referring to, but “Mrs. Brody” is played by Morena Baccarin. She is well known to us sci-fi fans for her roles in Firefly, Stargate SG-1, and V. And I agree–she is remarkably beautiful.
It is really that good. I watched the first season this week. The first two eps were great… the next two bogged down a little and then it got great again.
I’m surprised that there aren’t threads for each ep … maybe I’m just searching wrong and not following the title convention like I did with MadMen.
My wife is already mad at me for finishing Season One before she did. I’m not sure if I can hold off on Season Two either. I’ll probably watch and pretend that I didn’t. At least the show has/will inspire my covert activities and less than totally honest conversations with her re the show.
Thread traffic isn’t a good barometer of a show’s quality or popularity. Seems like the longest threads are for shows that lend themselves to nitpicks, like Walking Dead.
