It feels as if a long time has elapsed since we left Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) writhing in the grip of an electroconvulsive therapy-induced seizure and war hero-turned-al Qaeda terror bastard Sergeant Nick Brody (Damian Lewis) demonstrating his ongoing loyalty to the cause of jihad by shooting fellow turncoat marine Tom Walker in the head – longer, in fact, than the six months that has passed since the conclusion of Season 1, both in reality and in the internal chronology of the show.
Perhaps that’s because a lot has changed in a short space of time. Brody’s ginger-Jerry-Garcia days are now a distant memory as the former marine is now a Congressman and potential running mate for Veep Walden’s campaign to become president; his onetime squeeze and nemesis Carrie is out of the CIA and teaching England as a foreign language; and the show which brought them both to our attention is now adding awards to the critical acclaim its first series garnered, having swept Mad Men and Breaking Bad aside on its march to winning four Primetime Emmys at the end of last month.
Things are different now for sure, but the big question (apart from all those unanswered ones from last time around, obviously) is: how much is still the same?
Will Season 2 be able to match its predecessor’s heart-stopping dramatic twists and tense personal psychodramas? Can Lewis and Danes keep up the levels of performance that earned the Best Actor and Actress Emmys respectively? And will Morgan Saylor (who plays Brody’s teenage daughter Dana) reprise her spirited dropping of the C-bomb?
Well, the latter has yet to come to pass (something for later in the season), but the signs are definitely present for the rest. ‘The Smile’ starts slowly, taking measured, almost cautious steps as it seeks to regain its rhythm, but it isn’t long before it picks up the beat and dances, growing in confidence and becoming as absorbing as what went before. In spite of the changes in the circumstances of its principal characters, it’s not a new start but a continuation – which means the good stuff heavily outweighs the things that make you go hmmm.
While Carrie potters around her garden, trying to stay unstressed in her new, terrorism-free life, her mentor Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) is out in Lebanon, wearing his Man from Del Monte hat as he makes contact with the wife of a Hezbollah commander eager to volunteer information about a forthcoming attack on America. Unfortunately, the only person she’ll speak to is her former handler – one Carrie Mathison.
Back in the States, Congressman Brody seems to only have one problem (son Chris’s disastrous new, 1980s-electro-band-keyboardist hairstyle) until he learns Dana has inadvertently revealed his Islamic faith during a row at school. Socially-sensitive Jess Brody (Morena Baccarin) is scandalised when she finds out – but not half as much as when she learns it’s actually true.
‘These are the people who, if they found out Dana and Xander were having sex, they would stone her to death in a soccer stadium!’ she roars, chucking her husband’s copy of the Koran on the ground. ‘That’s not supposed to touch the floor,’ Brody remarks quietly, making things worse.
Later, he buries the desecrated book in the garden with Dana’s help. The scenes between father and daughter (a highlight of Season 1) are excellent again here, but Jess’s ranting, particularly about ‘the CIA woman’ are less convincing – and she’s not the only one suffering from a touch of George Lucas Dialogue Syndrome. Abu Nazir’s new middleperson Roya Hammad (Zuleikha Robinson) also comes out with a lot of prosy waffle that would look great written down but sounds deeply pretentious spoken aloud.
Meanwhile Carrie overcomes her resistance to the Agency’s requests for help debriefing the woman in Beirut (‘Tell him to fuck off,’ she snaps upon learning that loathed ex-boss David Estes requires her assistance) and flies out to meet Saul, only to be followed by a suspicious Lebanese cop. She’s twitchy, nervous and utterly unlike the confident agent she was before her fall from grace … until she knees the pursuing policeman in the balls and gives a beaming smile of joyous relief as she flees the scene.
It’s a wonderful moment, an unaffected and unexpected display of genuine joy that contrasts sharply with the following, sombre sequence of Brody burying his holy book. These closing scenes, so different and yet so perfectly juxtaposed, are more than enough to assuage any fears that Homeland might have lost its way between seasons. It’s a case of same old, same old – thank goodness.
This week’s big Homeland question: What information does Fatima Ali (Carrie’s contact in Beirut) have about Abu Nazir’s plans for an attack on the US?
This week’s not-so-big Homeland question: Will Saul Berenson perform a musical number this series? Earlier in his career, Mandy Patinkin appeared in Dick Tracy with Madonna and co-sang the sublime ‘What Can You Lose?’ – what are the chances of him rolling a piano into the CIA offices and bashing out the odd ballad or two?
Aired at 9pm on Sunday 7th October 2012 on Channel 4.
> Buy the Season 1 boxset on Amazon.
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