Is Homeland waving or drowning? Or is it simply stretching as it yawns its way out of mid-season torpor? After nine episodes of varying quality, it’s hard to tell if the best of this season is yet to come or the highlights are a wistful distance back down the road.
The jury isn’t just out on his matter; it’s waiting to be persuaded by a Henry Fonda or a Tony Hancock … or possibly a Peter Quinn. The closer to its conclusion the season grows, the more compelling he becomes, and if there’s any character likely to save the show from disappearing into either tedium or absurdity, it’s the analyst-who-never-analysed-and-talked-about-his-dick-a-lot-instead.
Carrie’s myopic devotion to Brody has become dreary; Brody’s dithery bullshitting has reached a point where the only way of him becoming interesting again would be if he revealed that everything was a colossal, octuple bluff and he’s totally al-Qaeda to the max. (As opposed to Max himself, who disappointingly isn’t any kind of traitor – except perhaps to fans of the Smiths for not reforming the band.) It’s clear in the scenes with his onetime spiritual benefactor Abu Nazir that the deep bond between congressman and terrorist is not easily broken; wouldn’t it be an amazing kick in the preconceptions for Brody to be a baddie after all?
Alas, it’s unlikely – and as Saul’s unmasking as the CIA mole is only going to come at the very end of the season (let’s cut to the chase: all the hints last year weren’t a double bluff, it’s going to happen, so we might as well get used to it), the only real hope left is the man who rarely minds his Ps or Qs, has a secret child and estranged cop girlfriend, and is – in the words of Grumpy Dave Estes to Saul – ‘here to kill terrorists, just like all of us.’ But while Carrie, Saul and the gang are all concentrating on rounding up Nazir and Roya Hammad, Quinn is focussing more on a domestic threat to security.
Having already met up with a hardened CIA old-schooler named Dar Abdul on a bus while being stalked by Virgil and Max, Quinn then dresses up a chauffeur and heads to Brody’s house to pick him up and rub him out on the instructions of Grumpy D. It’s only the fact that Nazir isn’t captured by Carrie and her gang that keeps Brody alive, Estes ordering Quinn to stand down at the crucial moment and giving our hero/villain the chance to fight/die/have it off with Carrie another day.
In spite of the implausibility of Quinn’s Parker-from-Thunderbirds-meets-Costner-in-The Bodyguard routine and Brody’s lack of incredulity thereat, it’s another cracking ending from the show that specialises in finishing average episodes with excellent climaxes (watching Homeland can be like finding a £50 note in the remains of a badly-cooked shepherd’s pie) and it comfortably does enough to make watching next week seem like a good idea. Looks like the jury won’t be announcing their verdict yet.
This week’s big Homeland question: Is the plan to do away with Brody one of Estes’s brainwaves, or has it come from higher up the chain of command – from a certain Vice-President, perhaps?
This week’s not-so-big Homeland question: After a whole season of modesty, does Jess Brody stripping off for Mike Faber herald a return to the regular boob-flashing of Season 1? Um … asking for a friend.
Aired at 9pm on Sunday 2 December 2012 on Channel 4.
> Buy the Season 1 boxset on Amazon.
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