The second season finale of “Homeland” was so explosive and surprising Sunday night, Showtime felt it needed to run an extra warning before it aired.“In light of the tragedy that has occurred in Connecticut,” a title card said, “the following program contains images that may be disturbing.”
Mass death always may need some warning; that it connects with atrocities in real life shouldn’t really have to be pointed out. Maybe there are people out there for whom murder is a caper to be solved between commercials and that’s it. What’s made “Homeland” compelling from the start is the extent to which it reflects the urgent complexities of the day in a manner that most television drama doesn’t even try. So watch out.
In a way, it’s like a much less watched previous Showtime series, “Sleeper Cell,” which honed in on the War on Terror in a way most other shows avoided. [Spoilers on the jump]
The puzzle for “Homeland” producers in season two was to find a way to allow the drama to go forward despite the fact that they had been moving so fast the initial drama had been solved (the returning prisoner of war was in fact a terrorist operative).
Reacting to fan response that liked it when agent Carrie Mathison hooked up with her prey, Nicholas Brody (though it just caused wincing from me: so unnecessary! so sticky! so unprofessional!), “Homeland” became a story about how they really did love eachother. This made for some remarkable scenes, as in an interrogation scene early in the season. But there was always a question whether Brody, his mind scrambled by one side and then another, really did or was stringing her along for the cause.
Carrie herself was back to doubting it again after the finale’s most shocking moment, a huge truck bomb goes off at CIA headquarters, an unusual site for a memorial service for the Vice President. It happened just after Brody mentioned to Carrie — they had both pranced away to another office just far away from impact — that somebody had moved his SUV. She knew what that meant and boom.
More than 200 dead, loads of ancillary characters wiped out (Finn and family, David Estes
himself) but not Saul, who chose in his first hours of freedom after being detained for three days, to go to the burial at sea of Abu Nazir.
Carrie soon realized nobody would believe Brody’s reasonable story (and one the producers hang their story on) that Nazir would have planned on a funeral bombing at the CIA because he hated the vice president and CIA so much — even if he had to die in the process.
So the two of them are on the lam to Canada and beyond, with cash, new passports, and bug out bags. Because the blast is traced to Brody’s car, the old tape of Brody taking credit for the original, failed blast of season one, is leaked (by the terrorists looking to burn the double-crossing Brody most likely) and it will be a miracle if he escapes without notice.
For reasons never really stated, Carrie decides to get Brody to the border and then turns back – her love is torn between job and man — and though she decided on the latter, the complications must be such that it may be better to turn back for now anyway.
When she returns, Saul is in charge of CIA and she is looking good to be not only reappointed but given a lofty role.
Happy ending? Not at all, especially at the sight of 200 bodies laying in shrouds in a gymnasium — an hour after the real President talked about the pain of mass killings in the real world. But it raises stakes even as it leaves some questions to answer for season three.
Why was Saul let out so easily before the service; was he being set up? Was Brody absolutely unaware of what was going to happen? He had settled his affairs with Mike and family before he was going to disappear. Who released the Brody tape? Was the CIA looking to blame him to cover something else up? And will we (or Carrie) ever see Brody again?
These are all things to ponder as producers begin to think about season three and we return to our own confusing, violent world that has few of its own immediate answers.