In 1967, a US radio newscaster named Victor Lundberg recorded one of the most unlikely top ten hit of the Sixties: ‘An Open Letter to my Teenage Son’. Backed by the stirring strains of patriotic American staple the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’, Lundberg expressed his bewilderment and disappointment in his eldest child (who had become involved with hippy counterculture and the peace movement) – and in a vaguely similar vein, we’d like to address a public missive to Homeland’s anti-heroic hero, former marine sergeant and now congressman Nicholas Brody.
Dear Nick,
Something’s changed and we don’t know if it’s you or us. It seems like only a few weeks since we were hanging on your every word and action, and on those of your CIA chum Carrie Mathison, just as we always did. Yet now things are different. Instead of being enthralled by your emotional struggle to do the right thing by your family, by your country, by the dead boy whom you swore to avenge, we’re rapidly losing interest. Each week, the sheer craziness of what happens drags us further from our involvement in your adventures. Our willing suspension of disbelief is hanging by a thread thinner than one of your excuses for copping off with Carrie.
Let’s start with you, man. You’ve always been a compelling character, but at the beginning, you were likeable as well. There was something raggedly noble about the way you tried to balance caring for Jess and the kids with the horrific terrorist act you had sworn to commit; even when you had a dirty weekend with Carrie at her old man’s woodland retreat, we could pretty much forgive your betrayal of Mrs B in the name of PTSD and the pressure you were under – and, some may argue, it would only be tit for tat (no reference to Jess’s unfortunate habit of disrobing for no other reason that doling out a few cheap thrills intended), given that she’d already cracked on with Mike Faber. It all seemed to work, and the way the show was shaping you as a hero in spite of everything made perfect sense.
Now, Homeland’s sense has all but drowned in an ocean of implausibility. As much as we were hoping that underneath the shame and shagging shenanigans, you were playing the deepest of games and avenging Issa’s death really was your top priority – and we do love the way you can still bullshit with the best of them; asking for a double scotch from the Vice-President’s security staff was the apex of icy cool – we couldn’t buy your grim delight in Walden’s heart attack any more than we could the remote-controlled craziness of the way it was provoked.
‘I’m killing you,’ you told the swishy-haired git, like it was the culmination of your mission – and if it had been, we’d have still liked you, because we believed in you and the drama that has unfolded around you. But it wasn’t, because you’ve thrown all that aside in the name of Carrie and forgiveness, right? Or have you? It’s impossible to say because the story’s now bonkers beyond reason – and worse, you simply aren’t likeable anymore.
The latter may be our problem – even though you’ve been deliberately set up as a good guy in spite of your myriad faults, your behaviour has made you impossible to truly care about – but the former certainly isn’t. Homeland was never a documentary, but it certainly smacked of realism, even when you looked like a ginger Jerry Garcia. Now, it’s gone full-on 24: characters reappear from nowhere (Galvez is back from being nearly dead without a scratch on him), characters get assigned jobs by agencies they didn’t actually work for (Virgil’s now a full-time CIA operative, it seems) and characters behave unbelievably for no other reason than to ramp up some dramatic tension. (Honestly, what is David Estes doing? Why is he trying to have you killed? Is it at Walden’s request, because of the drone strike that did for Issa, or is he simply trying to cover up his own involvement? Either way, it has the believability of George Osborne telling the nation we’re all in this together.)
So, tell us, Nicholas: what do we do? Do we split up now and remember the good times, or do we stick together in the hope that we can resolve this, that things will get better and by the end of the season, we’ll be looking back at this as a blip in something beautiful that we worked our way through? Right now, we simply don’t know.
Love from CultBox
This week’s big Homeland question: With his revenge mission to kill off Walden now completed, what other dastardly scheme does Abu Nazir still have up his sleeve?
This week’s not-so-big Homeland question: ‘Christ, I miss the Cold War.’ Is Dar Adal a fan of Judi Dench’s portrayal of M, or was this word-perfect quoting Casino Royale merely a coincidence?
Aired at 9pm on Sunday 9 December 2012 on Channel 4.
> Buy the Season 1 boxset on Amazon.
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