The best dramatic shows paint themselves into a corner each week, leaving the writers a task to get themselves out of it and onto the next dilemma the next week.
It happened on “Breaking Bad,” it happened like clockwork on “24,” and because a lot of the”24″ writers went to “Homeland,” it happened there too.
Their special challenge was built into the premise of the show: An obsessive, bipolar CIA agent who falls in love with the Marine turned terrorist she is surveilling in season one. At some point they had to figure out whether he was a terrorist or not. Turns out he was a reluctant one. (Procrastinating potential binge watchers: spoiler alert!).
Season two had its own lofty mysteries. The Marine, Nicholas Brody, was now a Congressman (just as the candidate in season one of “24” was president by season two). And that season ended with a harrowing near-9/11 explosion.
So most of season three of “Homeland” has been a way of trying to navigate forward as Brody, all but framed for the blast and in exile, had to find his way back to the agent, Carrie Mathison, who started the season all manic and hospitalized, but who ended up submitting to all of that in part to set up the next plan: using Brody to get into Iran and complete a mission.
When Brody and Carrie finally met in the finale Sunday, it was less tender than some might have expected. Both might have been exhausted by what happened: Another cold-blooded hand to hand murder in the highest office — just as Brody had killed the Vice President the season before.
Awaiting a CIA rescue that never came, Brody was instead captured by Iranian officials (it was better this way, the awful new director decided) and given a public hanging – certainly one of the most shocking demises of a major character in TV history. That Carrie would attend the hanging and yell out his name seems a little hard to believe, but it made for a compelling TV moment.
That nobody’s mad at Carrie when she returns is something new for “Homeland.” She’s given a promotion (we think) by being shipped to take over the Istanbul office. But there’s that baby she has (is she sure it’s Brody’s and not any of the random guys she was picking up at one point?).
She’s considering giving up for adoption, though she wants to keep “a part of Brody.” (This opens the door for stunt casting in the future, as Lil’ Brody grows up, displaying behavior tactics of mom and dad alternately. Surely Damian Lewis, with a little CGA help, can play the brooding toddler).
Mostly, she wants Brody to be remembered for what he sacrificed – killing the Iranian official that led to the rise in power of the CIA puppet, only to lead to a deal that would ease sanctions as it would stop the nuclear program. Hey, when did they write this? Since that actual deal was proposed only a few weeks ago? Or are they so perceptive to have seen this coming and have seen to write this into the script? (Or, I hate to even think about it, “Homeland” is actual truth of how it happened, being leaked to us like some Edward Snowden document).
And though the series could well end nicely with Carrie writing in Brody’s star on the wall of fallen agents, I’m looking forward to the retooling of “Homeland” as a single mom adventure in Turkey. And -ding, dong! – who shows up one day to visit her half-bro? Dana!